Tumgik
#it was also pretty short. older albums have lots of songs this one felt like it ended pretty quickly
andy-wm · 6 days
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What we know now, after they have started MS
This is a short post, because life is a lot right now and i have very little emotional energy. But this felt important, so here I am.
Tonight I revisited an older post and realised I'd never completed the thought process i began there...
When Jimin released his solo album, FACE, I wrote this analysis post.
Part of that analysis talked about my impression of JK's backing vocals on Letter.
We had seen Jimin's Production Diary, and based on the clip of JK in the recording studio I thought he didn't know he would be asked to sing backing vocals.
Here's a screen grab of that post:
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After watching the docuseries, BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star, we know that was correct...
It was a surprise to him when Jimin asked him.
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In fact both aspects of that prediction were right, he didn't know about the song at all.
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I have two questions:
Why would Jimin have kept the song a secret from JK?
And
Why wouldn't Jimin himself ask Jungkook to sing it? Why get PDogg to ask him? Jimin was RIGHT THERE.
Actually, make that three questions.
Why did Jimin scurry away as soon as JK asked to listen to the song?
Jimin earnestly said, "I made a fan song", while holding Jungkook's face in his hands.
That's such an intimate gesture, by the way. If my Best Friend held my face that way while they told me they'd done something, I'd take it to mean that the something was significant for/about me.
Jungkook asked to listen to the song, and Jimin... vanished. He retreated to the sofa to sit out of Jungkook's line of sight.
He's suddenly shy? Shy of Jungkook's reaction?? Wierd, but ok...
Unless the song is REALLY significant to JK....
In short, yes, it is REALLY significant. We already kinda guessed that right? But now, in light of their situation, it's more significant...
So, Jungkook recorded his part of the song.
Lets think about the lyrics...
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Bear in mind this was written and recorded long before they had confirmation that their application for companion enlistment was successful...
These lyrics are even more significant in that context.
Plus
This is the part of the song that's in banmal. The switch from polite to familiar signals a change in the relationship, (I wrote about that in a previous post) and since Jimin always talks to ARMY politely, we can asume this part of the the song (at least) is directed at... someone else 👀
"We dont know what the future holds, don't worry I'll stay by your side."
Now consider that Jimin has written these words for not only himself to sing. He's asking Jungkook to sing them with him.
He's asking Jungkook to sing this love song with him.
With no hesitation, Jungkook says yes. He does the recording there and then.
And when JK is finished recording...
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He tells Jimin that the song is really nice. Immediately, Jimin is a limpet. He's all over Junkgook like he's made of Velcro. A stark contrast to his earier behaviour when his vulnerability made him scurry away.
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Jimin jokes that Junkgook should record a message for ARMY and Pdogg calls him out on that lie. Of course JK refuses. "It's your song." he tells Jimin.
Jimin is pushing his luck here, first asking JK to record a message, and then asking him to claim ownership (or share responsibility) for the song.
Jk has no trouble saying no to that.
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It seems like more than a meaningless joke to me. One of those suggestions alone might be, but both? It left me wondering if Jimin suddenly felt scared that he was revealing too much with the song?
I'm kinda impressed that JK, for all his love and support, wasn't prepared to rescue Jimin from his choices. He simply, but gently, said no. It tells me a lot about their relationship.
It also tells me a lot about both JK's honestly and his belief in Jimin.
eta, I was tired and once my thought bubble popped i just hit 'post' and fell asleep. But it's exactly a year since Jimin released FACE and i think it's a pretty cool coincidence that i came back to this randomly on this day.
Happy FACE day, ARMYs. 💛💜
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lithopsy · 1 year
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Controlling the Narrative: Analysis of Taylor Swift's "...Ready For It?"
I wrote a short personal essay about my time in the closet, the inherent queerness of Taylor Swift's Reputation, why I will defend the album to my last breath, and why I think that track one could be about bearding. (2,186 words)
Personal note: Throughout this essay and analysis, I use the word “queer” to describe members of the LGBT+ community for ease of language. While I, personally, am not entirely comfortable with the reclamation of this slur in all contexts, especially by people who are not members of the LGBT+ community, I have found no better alternative for this purpose. This serves as a disclaimer and a warning for those who are also uncomfortable with its use.
When Taylor Swift dropped her sixth studio album Reputation in 2017, I was a nineteen year old Baptist seminary student coming to terms with my identity as a lesbian. I made a lot of strong choices that year; I went no-contact with my childhood best friend, I secretly dated a woman who was five years older than me and lived in a different state, and I ultimately dropped out of seminary college over a winter break. I felt like an outcast and I had trouble relating to straight Christian girls while I was actively losing my religion.
After Taylor dropped Reputation, I felt less alone. All of the gossip and personal drama that surrounded this tumultuous time in my life started to feel much less like a personal failing and a lot more like a Reputation Era.
I leaned into it. I blasted I Did Something Bad in my car after arguing with a conservative professor, posted lyrics from Look What You Made Me Do to my Snapchat story where I knew my ex-friends would see it, and — though I wasn’t able to swing body guards carrying me out of my apartment in a suitcase — I became elusive on campus. Hiding in my dorm room, leaving home, and losing friends all while listening to Reputation, I was able to come to terms with the idea that being my most authentic self might cause some people to dislike me.
Because of this, Reputation has always been a queer album to me. It’s always been about building a life that you’re proud of despite hatred and judgement from people on the outside. It’s always been about telling lies and crafting narrative for the sake of one’s personal safety. It’s always been about secret, and often forbidden, love. Whether or not Taylor herself is queer (and I personally believe that she could be), she understands the experience of hiding her ‘true’ self and she understands the danger of being authentic in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I’m turning twenty-four this week and I am out to my friends and family. I am happy and surrounded by a bright community of people who I don’t have to lie to. Being that I am no longer Baptist and quite comfortable in my lesbian identity, one of the few things that connects twenty-four-year-old me to nineteen-year-old me (and thirteen-year-old me and sixteen-year-old me, etc. I am a life-long swiftie) is my love for Taylor Swift's music.
Out of excitement for Taylor’s tenth(!!) studio album Midnights, I’ve been listening to her music pretty constantly over the past month. And, due to a rise in #gaylor-ism online, I have been revisiting her old lyrics with a fine-toothed comb and a queer perspective.
To be fair, I did a bit of this when Reputation came out. Posting something to the effect of “dress is the gayest song on rep” to my close friends Snapchat story during release week. But my current life experience and knowledge of LGBT history and culture deepens my readings much further now.
To start, many of her love songs — even songs from her country eras, though these are sometimes overlooked by queer fans who prefer her pop — are gender-neutral. She uses the pronoun “you”, speaking directly to her love interest, more than any other pronoun. While this stands as evidence of queerness alone to some gaylors, it is, at the very least, a happy coincidence for swifties who don’t date men.
What I’ve become most obsessed with, though, lately, are the songs in which she switches between “you” and “he” or “him” throughout. I wondered if, as an experiment in lyrical-analysis, I could extrapolate some deeper meaning by imagining that these two sets of pronouns delineate between two muses. Track one on my beloved Reputation, “…Ready For It?” is a perfect specimen for this and is the subject of my experiment for the end of this essay.
Before I begin the analysis, a disclaimer. LGBT people who read their own experiences into Taylor’s work get a lot of guff online for doing so. Often, gaylors are criticized for “outing her” or “speculating about her sexuality” or “assigning labels to her”. So, before anyone gets mad, I am not doing that. At the end of the day, I don’t think Taylor Swift’s real life sexuality has anything to do with the experiment I’m about to do. You don’t have to know who any of her songs are about to relate to them. It is also my personal belief that alternate readings of texts are valuable, even if there is no objective truth to them.
For my purposes, though, I’m not going to name names or speculate about who I think these disparate muses are, and I am not going to tie anything to specific events in Taylor’s life. I don’t know her like that and I think it only complicates analysis here.
(However, in this vein, Taylor Swift is a multi-million dollar brand and I am not not doing these things out of some desire to protect her honor or maintain any parasocial relationship with her. Most of the time, speculation about her on the internet is harmless and serves as free publicity to her. People who shame gaylors for “speculating about her sexuality” are usually doing so because of an internal homophobic rejection to the idea of her being queer. I’m neutral to a little harmless speculation, when it comes to Taylor Swift.)
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[Verse 1]
Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted But if he’s a ghost, then I can be a phantom Holdin’ him for ransom Some, some boys are tryin’ too hard He don’t try at all, though Younger than my exes but he act like such a man, so I see nothing better, I keep him forever Like a vendetta-ta
What’s interesting to me about this description of The Man (capitalized because I’m using The Man in place of a name, not to be confused with “The Man”, track 4 on Taylor’s album “Lover”) in this song is that it has nothing to with him on a personal level or how he treats her as a partner. It lacks the intimate descriptions of the relationship or individual’s characteristics that are present in most of her earlier love songs. She’s singing in a fast-paced lower register (we’ll come back to this) about how this man appears to other people. He’s a heartbreaker, he’s effortlessly cool, he’s independent and ideal.
Showing my hand, I want to analyze this song as if the relationship with The Man is a fake, public relationship formulated in order to hide some part(s) of Taylor’s true self and the relationship with The Listener (“you”) is a real, yet secret relationship. I think that this is, at least in some form, an intentional choice made in the song. Whether the listener and the man are the same person is up to interpretation, though. While I personally am going to be making the argument for the song being about bearding, I think it’s possible that the same separation could exist within a relationship between Taylor and one man with whom she has a clearly delineated private and public relationship with. (I’m not going to pander to this point because it’s probably been done, but I think that this is a valid reading.)
[Pre-chorus]
I-I-I see how this is gonna go Touch me and you’ll never be alone I-Island breeze and lights down low No one has to know
I think the pre-chorus reads as a general statement and could be said to both The Man and The Listener interchangeably.
The line, “Touch me and you’ll never be alone” could speak either to her own loyalty in a private relationship or a material benefit of being publicly affiliated with a woman as powerful as her. 
“No one has to know” speaks to the private nature of either relationship, that there is some planned duality or arrangement with The Man or a secret relationship with the listener.
[Chorus]
In the middle of the night, in my dreams You should see the things we do, baby In the middle of the night, in my dreams I know I’m gonna be with you So I’ll take my time Are you ready for it?
The chorus is the first full pronoun switch, Taylor begins speaking directly to The Listener while singing at a higher register than the rest of the song. The delineation between each set of pronouns is accented by the production as well as the architecture of the song itself. The chorus is the most important part of any pop song, it’s also where she’s carefully placed her secret love.
The lines, “In the middle of the night, in my dreams/You should see the things we do, baby” speak to a private relationship that, for whatever reason, isn’t possible within her current circumstances.
In footage of the songwriting process, Taylor sings the original lyric, “In the middle of the night, in my dreams/That’s when I get to be with you, it’s so sweet”, which isn’t entirely relevant to analysis about the finished song but, I think, lends credence to the idea that this muse is an unattainable other relationship, different from the one referenced in the verses.
“I know I’m gonna be with you/So I’ll take my time” reads, to me, like Taylor is reminiscing on a past relationship with The Listener that was tumultuous and full of uncertainty. When she fantasizes about being with this person, she fantasizes about stability and asks them at the end, “Are you ready for it?”
Are you ready to commit to this, should I change my plans?
[Verse 2]
Knew I was a robber first time that he saw me Stealing hearts and running off and never saying sorry But if I’m a thief, then he can join the heist And we’ll move to an island, and And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor Every lover known in comparison is a failure I forget their names now, I’m so very tame now Never be the same now, now
This verse, in comparison with verse 1 places Taylor and The Man on equal footing, positions them both as killers and thieves, pulling something over on everyone else. I personally think that this is euphemistic language to describe that there is something fundamental about Taylor that she shares with The Man, she recognizes him as like her and he recognizes the same in her. Possibly, they are both gay, possibly they have some similar experience in the industry or shared feelings about fame.
With all of Taylor’s references in this era to her fame and success being a gilded cage, “And he can be my jailer” raises red flags to me. The Man being someone who keeps her inside the cage aligns very well with the narrative of a fake public relationship that hides her sexuality and keeps the status quo.
“Burton to this Taylor” references the volatile public relationship between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who met on set of the film Cleopatra in 1963. The couple was married and divorced in 1964 before getting back together for just ten months in 1975. The relationship was a messy public spectacle and the reference in this song alludes to all of it: the acting, infidelity, and public drama included. The imagery is incongruent with the tender love song to The Listener of the chorus, but, in my opinion, this line is the most damning evidence of the idea of bearding in this song. Paired with the “jailer” comment, it fits perfectly the narrative of the spectacular public relationship between two actors. The relationship isn’t successful or ideal, it’s a distraction.
I think “I forget their names now, I’m so very tame now” references another frequent theme in Taylor’s work: a rejection of her ‘crazy’, ‘promiscuous’ image. She’s forgotten the names of all of her exes and we should, too. And while the Reputation era is anything but “tame”, she’s going to change the narrative that surrounds her dating life.
[Refrain]
Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin (now) Baby, let the games begin Let the games begin Let the games begin … Are you ready for it?
It’s the opening song of an album that is about her Reputation in the media. She is playing with the media, controlling her own narrative. “Let the games begin” walked so that “Every bait and switch was a work of art” (willow, evermore) could run.
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tobthoughts · 5 months
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london, fidget, fall out boy
saturday, november 4th, 21:38pm
i’m on the train back from london now! going back home to brighton. i’m currently delayed because of congestion at the next station ahead so that’s really fun and not annoying at all. anyway i thought i would take the time to write my little blog about what i’ve been up to!
i met my friend jen in london waterloo yesterday (like two hours late… standard tobi fashion) and then we went on a little trip to the big selfridges! i also got mcdonald’s because i didn’t eat in the morning. selfridges is basically just a big shop full of designer clothes for tories, but the top floor is a big toy shop. we went to look for the jellycats, jen wanted the cloud and i wanted the skeleton, but they actually didn’t have either. i ended up getting a bat and jen got a burger and a snowman. this is them!!!
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i decided to name my bat fidget! i think that it’s pretty cute. i’ve also started an instagram account for him (i’m that guy) it’s @fidget.adventures if anyone wants to follow his journey! so far he’s come everywhere with me!
after we went to selfridges we went to our hotel which was actually super fancy and i just had no idea??? jen was in charge of booking and organising, i just paid however much she told me to. i paid back in january so i guess i forgot that it was right next to the O2 arena. like RIGHT next to. and so posh. insanely posh, we both felt so out of place. it was fun though. we put all our stuff in the room and just chilled out for a bit, then we went to get something to eat but it was a nightmare. jen’s a really picky eater so she didn’t want wagamamas, she wasn’t in the mood for pizza, blah blah blah we went to costa. i know what you’re thinking… “costa? before a concert? when you hadn’t eaten since lunch?” i know. but we did that. i had a brie and cranberry toastie and oh my goooodddd it was so good i loved every single bite. nom.
once we’d eaten we headed over to the merch store where we had to queue for like .. half an hour? 45 minutes maybe? it wasn’t that bad but it was raining and we were queuing outside so it could’ve been better. i ended up getting a fall out boy tshirt, and maybe surprisingly i got merch from one of the opening bands. honestly i’d never heard of them and they weren’t the best but i thought their merch was cool so i bought it! i also put the fall out boy tshirt on over my jumper so i was #prepared for the actual concert.
the queue to get in was short but we were like two hours early because jen tends to freak herself out if she’s not early to stuff, basically the complete opposite of me. i left my passport in the hotel so i couldn’t even get a pint (DEVASTATING). i did get a pepsi max though! we headed into the actual arena as soon as doors opened at 6:30 to find our seats. the opening bands were okay! the first people, nothing,nowhere , are the people who’s merch i got. they did a lot of shouting and “get the fuck up!”s but you could tell the crowd were NOT feeling it. it was also relatively quiet still. the second opening act was PVRIS. she was alright! maybe not my type of music but i can definitely see the appeal. her talking voice is so different to her singing voice too, so it caught me off guard a little bit. but the people seemed to like her more. maybe she’s a little more well known, i have no idea.
then fall out boy came on.
oh my god.
i’ve seen them before, for the MANIA tour in like… 2018 i think? and i loved it then, but i definitely enjoyed last nights show more. i don’t really know anything from the new album, so much for stardust, but imagine my delight when they play their old music. i’m not talking american beauty/american psycho old, or even folie a deux old, but they did play some folie. i’m talking TAKE THIS TO YOUR GRAVE. the debut album. 2003. music older than i am. they played saturday, where is your boy, calm before the storm… ohhhhhg my god i was living my absolute best life. there were songs that jen didn’t even know and i was screaming my little emo heart out.
here’s a lil video of sugar we’re goin down:
it was incredible. i’ve missed concerts so much. and jen. i haven’t seen her since summer ended :(
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i’m home safe now and feel so weird. my “old” life feels like so long ago… but it’s really a few months. uni is weird like that. i feel like i’ve known some of my uni friends for years.
tyler i don’t even know if you read these, but i saw akira in a book shop and it made me think of u. i’m sorry i fell asleep, i won’t next time i promise<3
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kariohki · 9 months
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Trip report of the six lives I went to on my last trip to Japan - more condensed than I kind of want because it's approaching 5 weeks since and my memory is awful, and I also am bad with words and describing things.
BUSHIROAD ROCK FESTIVAL 2023 (5/27, Fuji-Q Highland) Acts: Lyrical Lily (OA), Fantôme Iris, Morfonica, Peaky P-key, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club (three members), RONDO, Liella!, Gyroaxia, RAISE A SUILEN My seat partner lucksacked the ticket roll so I was sitting in the second row in a near-middle section. This was my first time seeing any of the groups except for RAS of course. Lyrical Lily's opening act was three of their higher energy songs (two being covers), and also the required Maihime. Nothing amazing but a good taste of the group. Fantôme Iris was fine. I have no interest in the From Argonavis franchise. Morfonica I had a perfect view of Ayasa so kept my eyes on her bow twirling most of the time. Song choices were relatively standard with both Daylight and flame of hope. They had a one song collab with Liella!'s song WE WILL!! at the end that was good. Peaky P-key was the first actually hype portion for me, even if their setlist skewed very old with their first two songs, Gonna be right, and CYBER CYBER as the one cover. OVERWHELM! from D4DJ All Mix was their only recent song performed. Felt good to do the furicopy as part of a large group. Peaky P-key rolled into the NijiGaku section with a special version of Ryouran Victory Road with extended unique lyrics for all the other main singers (and one DJ) from Bandori and D4DJ groups which was unexpected that they'd go that far with the song as the collab wasn't previewed as such. NijiGaku's three members in attendance were Tanaka Chiemi (Rina), Sagara Mayu (Kasumi), and Hayashi Coco (Setsuna). So… my least two favorite characters and my former oshi character's new seiyuu. The group songs were very standard hitting the usual Tokimeki Runners and anime songs, and they stuck to their original solo songs, which honestly was fine because I know the calls and I got to hear CHASE!. RONDO was next with a killer set leading with ARCANA into KiLLiNG ME and a short version of Calendula. BLACK LOTUS was also played hitting my top two favorite originals from them. This was also the first performance that Momo Haruna (Hiiro) attended in almost a year, having been on a semi-hiatus due to health issues. Lots of screaming "OKAERI!" to her from the crowd, myself included. Liella! performed exactly 0 songs that I recognized, which is understandable as I only listened to 5-member Liella and dropped off before 9-member Liella was a thing. It was nostalgic to do idol-style calls though. Kumachan is pretty and I kept following her around instead of my actual oshi Paychan. Gyroaxia was fine, but it was my "sit down and rest" time. RAISE A SUILEN was the final act and had a good mix of older and newer songs, all high energy to keep the crowd going as it got dark. Got to learn the Shakunetsu Bonfire! furicopy and headbang a lot. The final song was RAS's R•I•O•T but with the full cast. Yes, including the boy groups. Full cast covers are always amazing and chaotic, even if this is one of the more "basic" RAS songs to do it on. Highlights are Moepii abandoning Peaky P-key to go hang out with her NijiGaku buddies and the final spoken line being done by Mayuchi and Kumachan. Also I think it was at the end here that I greased fingerhearts from Cocochan so that was a thing.
RAISE A SUILEN LIVE 2023: EXCLAMATION HIGHLAND (5/28, Fuji-Q Highland) Guest Act: Roselia Sitting in a more middle section, five rows from the front gave good views of basically everyone but especially Raychell. Roselia was billed as the guest act but was more like an opening act really, since no collabs happened. Roselia skewed quite old for their setlist (Nesshoku Starmine, Dear Gleam, PASSIONATE ANTHEM, BLACK SHOUT, FIRE BIRD), with only one song being after the release of the Wahl album in Dear Gleam. Solid overall for a guest/opening act of course, and it was nice to see them again after three and a half years. RAS opening with Invincible Fighter gave me good memories to the other major RAS live I attended back in 2019, Heaven and Earth, where it was the Day 2 opener. The most surprising part of the setlist was a Goka! Gokai!? Phantom Thief cover out of nowhere, and I was also the only one jumping during it in my row :P The back-to-back-to-back attack of Rettou Joutou, Keep the Heat and Fire Yourself Up, and Repaint was also very strong. They debuted one previously unperformed cover with Kyouran Hey Kids!! and one brand new song, -N-E-M-E-S-I-S-, which was still a month away from CD release at the time. Overall a very good live from the group but it still didn't beat out how magical Heaven and Earth was (and at this point I don't think anything ever will…)
tipToe. 3rd ONEMAN "My Long Prologue" (5/29, Ebisu LIQUIDROOM) I was shilled into this by someone I know who is a big fan of the group, so I decided to pull a "sure I'll go to lives three days in a row, I won't be that dead I swear". This is the first time I'd attended a live for an actual idol group and not a group of seiyuu playing idols. This was also the smallest venue I'd ever been in, until later in this same trip. tipToe. is billed a "concept idol group", where the members are required to graduate after three years of activity. It's hard for me to describe their music. There's some very emotional songs, there's some more standard pop-like fun idol songs, there's some in the middle. There's apparently a story that weaves everything together as well, if you understand the lyrics. Also, since these are actual idols, penlight waving and calls are different - raise your penlight for your oshi and no one else, and mixing is fair game. Well, I liked the group enough to get a twoshot cheki (my first one ever) with one member, Yuzuki Rin, who was very happy to talk to a new overseas fan. I recommend reading this more indepth trip report: https://ramen.events/tiptoe-3rd-oneman/
エクストロメ!! (6/1, Shinjuku Loft) Acts: airattic, われらがプワプワプーワプワ, Finger Runs, tipToe. This was the unplanned event I ended up at because I got enabled into going after enjoying tipToe.'s oneman live earlier in the week. Loft is the smallest venue I've ever been in. This was also the cheapest live out of all I attended at only 2100 yen for the ticket + drink fee. All four groups were good, though the most I remember about Finger Runs and われらがプワプワプーワプワ were their outfits. airattic is a "sister group" to tipToe. but I didn't like their music as much. I did another twoshot cheki afterwards with Rinchan. She remembered me, noticed I'd followed her on Twitter, and talked to me about going to Shibuya and seeing Hachiko. That's how real idols get you…
Raychell Live Tour "Sing Alone" Aichi Performance (6/2, Nagoya ell.FITS ALL) Another first for me, seeing a seiyuu artist's solo performance. I don't heavily follow Raychell's solo career so didn't recognize most of the songs until Are You Ready To FIGHT near the end. If you haven't listened to it and are a RAS fan, I highly recommend checking her songs out as they're a much more varied style. She gave a lot of fanservice to the people standing up front, including fist bumps and a few jokes with people she recognized as regulars. I do not recommend attending a live in wet shoes and socks, though.
Ave Mujica 0th LIVE "Primo die in scaena" (6/4, Nakano Sunplaza) The final live of the trip and, because something has to be at the bottom, my least favorite one. Ave Mujica is the newest band in the Bandori franchise, and this was their debut live. I'd been following their music releases and teaser videos since they started and was already a fan of the general style being a harder rock. Of course they played all of their existing originals, plus debuted a new self-titled one. The surprises were the covers, consisting of songs originally by angela, Creepy Nuts, Ali Project, and…Roselia! Determination Symphony was an odd choice I think since that song is so heavily tied to Sayo, but PASSIONATE ANTHEM was good and also meant I heard the song twice in the span of a week The live length was very short at only 70 minutes, sort of expected due to the lack of content but would've thought they'd pad it out to at least 90. Also they only revealed character names (stage names probably since they're Latin words) and not the seiyuu - hopefully it's not a MyGO situation where it takes a full year for an official reveal (though after seeing the first bits of the MyGO anime, I don't think they'll be going that long before official reveal…)
Next trip is in November for a stupid YOLO weekender for Bandori 12th!
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cosettepontmercys · 5 months
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Hi!!! I'm so sorry I didn't reply until now. This week has been blah and I've felt more tired than usual. I love it all too and I loved seeing Long Live live so much, but I mostly understand why they were cut. I like everything how it is, but I would probably change the Evermore and Red songs the most. I would get rid of We are Never and I guess 22 for State of Grace and Red, which is an awesome opener and title track that sets up the whole album. I would not get rid of ATW 10 at all omg!!! For Evermore, I would probably get rid of Tis the Damn Season and Tolerate it, even though I like the table setup. I would probably put Gold Rush instead or maybe Long Story Short and would hypothetically want Evermore since it's another title track and my fav. I still liked her solo version of it too. I think I would try to add Our Song somewhere but it's a good thing its in the movie! I definitely love Look What You Made Me do with the other Taylors and the Don't Blame Me transition. The thing about rep to me..is I like every song but I don't really have specific favorites in the album as much. I feel the same way about 1989 sort of but Iove the singles, so I don't know if I would change anything on tour.
I am excited to hear it later tonight though omg!!! I forgot which song you said you were the most interested in or the most excited to hear. For me, I think it's still Slut and between Suburban Legends or Is it Over Now. Did you see the lyric snippets she posted and which songs do you think they were a part of? The first one reminded me of Holy Ground cuz of the coffee lyric mixed with a little bit of I Wish You Would but then someone said it was more chasing shadows in the grocery line lyric and I might prefer it if the song did have more longing actually so I guess we will see. That might also change what song I'll think it's from. When she did these for Midnights, I was pretty good at guessing a few of them. I am more interested in the pool lyric cuz of aquamarine for now but we will see if she shares another one later today too! Do you listen in order or vault first? I'm still gonna try shuffle for this one and see how it goes. If you have any other predictions for the songs, you can put them here. I am very curious on the sound, though I have no idea what it could be. I think there could be another slowish dreamy song and maybe it will be the new closer. Even though most of the songs are pretty short, I'm hoping they are still amazing and I'm sure they will be! Also, I wanted to ask you if you plan to listen to The Good Witch too cuz I really don't know if I should listen to Maisie or Taylor first. Like I feel like I wanna save Taylor for last but then I will be too excited..and maybe it depends on how long the album will be, but I also wanna hear Maisie's songs too, and I don't know what to do.
For Midnights, I honestly just consider the 3AM version the main version. I think when we heard it, it was all together cuz it was almost midnight and we were barely still getting thru the main album. I remember being the most excited for Midnight Rain, and Lavender Haze, and Antihero. I did not really like Midnight Rain on the first listen and my prediction of the song was wrong. I thought Lavender Haze might be an old fashioned 50s Broadway style love song from the way she talked about it and that was wrong lol. Antihero has become one of my favorites and I liked it when I first heard it but it wasn't an instant love either. The album grew on me a lot but my favorites have stayed mostly the same, and we have some of the same favorites! I think I'm going to listen to it later to get in a 1989 pop mood and I haven't heard it in a while.
Anyway I listened to Hollys album again and I think my favorites are Into Your Room, Ghost Me, Antichrist Lauren and Elvis Impersonators. Some of the songs blended and I think I need more time but I really enjoy the whole album. I think some of her older songs stand out to me more though at this point, like Scarlet and Walls are Way too thin.
Ya stunt casts are always sort of mixed for me, but if it works and gets more people to see shows, then I guess it's a good thing. Ya I was wondering how you felt about Jordan Fisher in the role. I knew it was rumored but didn't know it was confirmed, and I would be interested to see him in the role. I hope you have fun at the tour and I think seeing someone else might make a difference in a good way, even though I like Reeve. The only thing about the Waitress proshot is I'm not used to Sara in the role haha but I'm sure she's still good. Idk if I will see it yet but I do want to at some point and hope I don't forget about it. I realized I never got around to watching the Heather's proshot either, except it wasn't one of my favorite musicals. I seriously meant to watch Daddy Long Legs and Allegiance at some point..like I had both on my old computer, but never got around to it! I have listened to the cast recording of Daddy Long Legs though and know the basic plot and meant to watch the old movie version from the 50s. I remember one of the things my sister said was she has such an interesting voice too and thats why some songs would always get stuck in my head. I love She Loves Me and have seen a non pro shot version of First Date before. I've never had Broadwayhd but always wanted to check it out. I try to watch as many proshots as I can. I've never heard of Snapshots but it sounds interesting mixing Stephen Schwartz shows. Haha yes, we have actually already discussed Smash more than once in your asks but I do love it. I wonder what happened to the Smash musical. By the way, I heard Gatsby got mixed reviews but at least I think the costumes I saw made it look better and the sets were gorgeous!
Les Mis was great but now I can barely remember it! I can't believe I went but it almost doesn't feel like it. I loved him as Marius! He has a good voice and I always love Empty Chairs. My sister said she actually didn't care for Enjolras on tour and preferred Aaron in the movie and also that Jean Valjean sounded like Hugh Jackman from the movie, but it could be that we are too used to it even if I do love it..but seeing it on stage obviously just feels different and it's better. Just remember that reading or annotating is supposed to be a hobby so just take your time if you want, since it's so long. Eventually you will make some progress. Honestly I haven't had a lot of time for reading either if it makes you feel better. I did make time to start our buddy read which I wanted to do before I replied to you cuz I read that you said you didn't like it as much, and wanted to see how I felt about it. only read 2 chapters so far. I thought it was okay, but I think the thing that threw me off was that I never read third person so I would have to get used to that. If you don't want to read it anymore for now though, I can also start the Night Circus..even if it's not October anymore lol. Also I realized that I might have been confusing the Starless Sea with the book that you said you hated..the house in the cerulean sea lol. I realized I don't even know what that book is about but maybe I will try to find it if I like the Night Circus. But another person I follow said they loved the Starless Sea too and it's definitely one of their favorites so I might have to check it out. Oh I did not know that about Only Murders but I know the newest season revolves around a theater show and does have music or singing in it so thats awesome. Also..I actually know nothing about hockey at all! I remember it was a category on connections at one point and I was so clueless, but I hope you had an awesome time at the game! Anyway have a blast listening to the album tonight and I will reply with my reactions and opinions so we can talk about it!!!!
i was just thinking about you, friend! i've been looking forward to hearing from you, but no pressure on when you pop into my askbox 🤍 i hope your week gets better soon, and you get to rest this weekend!! do you have anything fun planned?
ugh i love state of grace — i do prefer the acoustic but it's such a good song. "mosaic broken hearts" is one of my favorite phrases that taylor's ever written. and i was lowkey always surprised gold rush never made it on the eras setlist, but then also a lot of things about the eras setlist surprised me (like no mashups). her solo version of evermore is so good; i really hope there's a live album of the surprise songs!
and i did! i think the 300 coffees one is from is it over now, but i'm not sure what the aquamarine one is from! othe chasing shadows line is so good too, i love cardigan. i'm still upset it was cut from the movie (despite understanding why she did that). i'm really bad at guessing things so we'll see! i would love a slowish dreamy song, but i feel like 1989 will be more pop upbeat stuff this time. i'm going to listen in order, but i might actually listen to maisie's good witch deluxe first and then 1989!
i'm still holding out hope for a 3 am vinyl. i love the way midnight rain is done on tour (i think a lot of midnights is perfect for touring, actually). i do think that 1989 and midnights seem more like sisters, than midnights/anything else — including lover; what do you think?
and yay!! i'm so happy to see that you listened to holly again! i do think some of them sound a bit similar, and i think that my favorites from her ep (scarlett, the walls are way too thin, deep end, etc) still outrank how i feel about my favorites on PMBB, but am curious to see how that'll change with more listens/over time!
i think jordan fisher will be great, vocally! there's been a lot of jokes about if he shows up to work (from when they were in deh) but i think jordan's always been a very strong vocalist and i'm really interested in his interpretation! i've never seen sara in waitress, but i have some friends who REALLY love her, so i'm excited to one day see the proshot! i am so bad at watching things — it's been years and i still haven't watched the come from away proshot either, and i love that show. i loveeee megan mcginnis' voice, it's so pretty! i also really like how she sings in some things are meant to be (little women)! i remember that now 😭 sorry! i haven't looked into the gatsby musical too much after we talked about it!! i'll look at some reviews and then we can chat about it next time :")
i'm so glad you got to see gregory as marius before he left!! i just love his marius! and yes — i am so excited to buddy read! are we still buddy reading both books? which book did you get two chapters into? happy to match your pace, obviously! i am finishing up an audiobook (hopefully tonight) and then am good to start something else! i love the starless sea! but i do hate the house in the cerulean sea!! the house in the cerulean sea is probably up there for my least favorite books of all time (for many reasons). if you want i'll also buddy read starless sea with you! a quick note for night circus — pay attention to the dates! i didn't realize it wasn't chronological the first time i read it and had to restart after a friend pointed it out to me.
wait do you play connections daily!! i play connections religiously; i love it. i had a blast at that game, and i feel like every time i go see a game in person i get more into the sport — i've been watching the last two kraken games online, which has been really fun (i used to lowkey just follow updates but now i'm watching from home and learning a lot more)!
by the time you read + reply, you'll probably have listened to the vault tracks + good witch deluxe so i'll leave you with some questions! what were your favorites, and initial thoughts? least favorites? how accurate were your predictions?
hope you're having a good weekend + have some time to rest!! xx
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therecordchanger62279 · 10 months
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ME AND DIME
On February 12, 1999, Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward played The Nutter Center in Fairborn, Ohio. This was one of many "reunion tours" for the band, and since I had never seen them (though I'd been a fan for nearly 30 years) I decided this might be my last chance to see the original lineup in concert. A friend of mine scored front row tickets, and I was in seat 7 - just about center row. The Deftones opened, followed by Pantera. I hadn't heard either band, nor did I care that they were on the bill. I was there to see Sabbath.
I got a lot of ribbing that week from the other greybeards, and young turks who worked with me at the record store because Black Sabbath was never hip enough for any of them. Also, I was 42 years old. What the hell was I doing at a heavy metal concert at my age? I didn't care. I was going anyway.
Time has robbed me completely of any memory (but not my hearing - I wore earplugs) of The Deftones set. But my buddy promised me I would like Pantera. They came out, and kicked into their set, and I have to admit I thought they were pretty good. After a few numbers, the houselights came up, and they paused to take a look at the audience. The rest of the crowd was on its feet, but not me. I was slumped in my seat. And that's when it happened.
Lead guitarist Darrell Abbott - known to all as Dimebag Darrell, looked directly at me, and started laughing, and pointing at me. He called lead singer Phil Anselmo over and pointed at me again, and now both were laughing. At first I thought it must have been because I was sitting while everyone around me was standing. Then I realized they were having some fun at my expense because I was clearly much older than the rest of the crowd. If nothing else, my hairline betrayed me.
I just thought, fine, have your little joke. I'm here to see Sabbath, not you guys. Just before the band kicked into their next song, Dimebag tossed a guitar pick he'd been using directly at me, and it landed on my chest. I picked it off, and looked at it, and it bore the scratches on both sides that proved it was, in fact, the pick he'd been using through the first several numbers. Realizing there might be riches in my future if these guys ever got really big, I stashed the pick in my pocket.
When the song ended, Dimebag once again tossed - this time - a few picks at me. And he kept tossing them directly at me until their short set ended. There were picks everywhere, and everyone around me was scrambling to the floor to get the overflow, and those who couldn't snare one for themselves began begging me, "Hey, man! Set me up? I gotta have one. How about it?" I figured this was a good way to make a new bunch of friends, and guarantee they wouldn't beat me up in the parking lot after the show. So, I spread the wealth around. I wound up with 11 of Dimebag's guitar picks - custom made with his signature on one side, and his face the on the other - in both black and white (8 black, 3 white). I only got one with the scratches on it. The rest came from his pocket. But I was happy with them. I felt like he'd gone from laughing at me to appreciating that this old man was front row for an ear-splitting heavy metal concert.
Now, if I could just score one from Tony Iommi. Long story short, I did. Tony's signature on one side, and Gibson USA with an M beneath it on the flip. Tony's is at the bottom right corner of the ticket stub in the photo, and the used pick from Dimebag is upper left of the stub. You can see the scratch marks.
I came away loving the Sabbath set, but Pantera impressed me as well. In fact, I bought their live album. Over the next few years, I always read the interviews "Dime" would give to Guitar World, and I discovered what a nice, fun-loving, all around great guy he was, and how much he was loved by fans, and fellow musicians. Of course, on December 8, 2004 on a concert stage in Columbus in my home state of Ohio, Dimebag Darrell Abbott was shot to death by a crazed fan. And that made me cherish the memory of my encounter with him so much more. Any notion I ever had about selling that used pick went out the window, too. Not now, not ever.
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mrpsychokiller · 3 years
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I just finished it. I'm ok I'm ok I'm normal
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songbirdstyles · 4 years
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when i kissed the teacher.
summary: the one man you want more than anything is the one man you can’t have - your english professor.
warnings: teacher/student relationship, age gap (implied), f receiving oral, whole lotta smut, whole lotta feelings, whole lotta angst
word count: 14.7k (strap in)
song inspo.: when i kissed the teacher - abba
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There was something special about Professor Styles.
You knew it, and so did every other girl who took his class. Your less-than-appropriate feelings about him were shared and that should’ve made you feel better about having them - at least you weren’t as obvious as some of the other girls who obviously took a fancy to your English professor. You applauded their efforts, showing up to classes in short skirts and low cut tops in the hopes that they’d catch his eyes drifting down to their chests while he passed out your essays -
But they hadn’t had any luck yet. He was a very respectable man, and more than his looks, that was what you appreciated about him. He was passionate about English, with a curriculum that appealed to you from the very first day and essay topics that forced you to look deeper into every book that the class read. He was one of the youngest professors on campus and you could tell something about that seemed to motivate him - to not be seen as a joke by the older professors, to be taken seriously by the students, some of which weren't much younger than him.
You decided, after your very first class with him, that, in any other universe, you’d have fallen in love with him. Or perhaps tried to jump his bones immediately.
Something of that sort.
As classes progressed you found yourself only liking him more. His classes were as difficult as you’d anticipated and you should have hated it, hated how much work and effort you had to put into every assignment but you absolutely adored it. You loved doing his essays, loved the novels he picked, loved the look on his face when he handed back your assignments with a 100% scribbled on top.
Most of your assignments, at least.
It didn’t really make sense to you, why your 1984 analysis should have gotten a 71%. Truthfully, you’d felt confident while writing it - it was such an easy analysis that you’d decided to go a little deeper, spending more time on it than was necessary, because you were sure he’d be tired of reading the same essay from everybody over and over again. So you gave him something different and maybe you should have stuck to analyzing the same themes that everyone else did.
“If any of you are confused about your grade,” Professor Styles announces to the class when everyone has gotten their essays back, time left in class slowly ticking down, “please feel free to see me after class. M’happy to discuss any concerns with you.”
Perhaps you’re being paranoid, but you could’ve sworn you felt his eyes land on you.
Class ends within a few minutes and you take your time packing your things back into your bag, waiting until the last kid has trickled from the lecture hall before swinging your bag over your shoulder and making your way down to his office. The door is cracked open and he’s barely sat down at his desk when you knock, flashing him a smile before pushing the door open a bit more.
You clear your throat before saying, “Hey, um, sorry to bother you - ” he interrupts you, telling you that it’s no bother at all “ - I’m just kind of confused on why I did badly on this essay.”
He nods, motioning for you to come in, and you step inside before shutting the door behind you. His office is small and cramped, with bookshelves lining the walls and a couch pressed into the corner. It’s a good vibe, you have to admit, although slightly messy. Perhaps you’d describe it as cozy, and it seems to fit him well. 
There’s an empty seat in front of his desk and you sit down in it awkwardly, placing your essay in front of him. His eyes skim the first page before he tells you, “You usually do really well on essays, and this was … a really easy one.”
“I know,” you tell him, leaning forward to try and read what he’s reading. “I just thought you might be looking for something more complex. It seemed too simple.” When you look up, he’s staring at you, and you feel heat flood to your cheeks. “I don’t - I don’t know.”
“It really is that simple, I promise,” Professor Styles informs you, and he pushes your essay back to you. “But you’re one of my best students, and I don’t want to let this bring down your grade. So, I have an idea for how you can make it up.”
Your mind runs through all the ways you’d want to make it up to him - most of them involve you being on your knees, and you cough into your elbow. He doesn’t know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling embarrassed about it. Fantasizing about your professor from across the lecture hall is one thing, but you’re barely a foot apart from him now and you’re almost nervous he can hear your thoughts.
“I’ll do anything.” And you don’t care about the ways he could interpret it. He drums his fingers on his desk, and when you look down at his hand, you notice with a start that his nails are painted - you’d never seen that before, but you’d also never been this close to him, you suppose. You wonder if he gets them done or if he does them himself - you can’t picture him going to a salon, and the thought of him painting his own nails could make you cum on its own.
You don’t realize he’s been speaking until you zone back in, and when you look back up at him, he furrows his brows at you. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.” You shake your head. “Just - um - could you repeat that?” His eyes linger on you for just a beat too long, and your face flushes again. “So distracted,” he murmurs in a faux chastising tone, and your stomach flips. “What I said was that I’m willing to put this essay in as a 97 - your average for the class - if you would help me with grading some things. Not too heavy, maybe an hour or two after class. I’ve been falling behind with a lot of my classes and I’ve been looking for help, anyway, so it works out for both of us.”
Jesus Christ. Spending an extra hour every day with Professor Styles sounds like a recipe for disaster, and yet it also sounds completely perfect at the same time, and you’re nodding before you can fully process the pros and cons of the situation. “That sounds great. I mean, really - thank you so much.”
“S’my pleasure,” he informs you, giving you a large, dimpled smile. “So, after class, tomorrow - when I’m caught up and don’t need your help anymore, you’re off the hook.” 
“Got it.” you stand, grabbing your essay and your bag and making your way towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” he echoes, and the last thing you see before you shut the door is him, bringing his hand up to wave you off.
 ---
 When class concludes the next day you maintain the same habit as you did the day prior - watching every student trickle out the door before swinging your bag over your shoulders, grabbing the two cups of tea that you’d made before class and making your way down to the front of the lecture hall.
Professor Styles stands in the doorway of his office, holding the door open for you - you make your way inside with a tight, only slightly awkward smile. His eyes roll over the two cups that you’re holding and he asks, with a mildly amused inflection in his voice, “I guess you like tea quite a bit, then?”
You smile, looking down at your cups, and when he shuts the door you hold one out to him. “I do like it a lot, but this one’s for you. You know, to say thank you for giving me a freebie, and also because you look like the kind of guy who loves tea.”
He laughs and your grin widens at the noise - god, it’s like music to your ears, and you would do anything to keep hearing it from him. He reaches out to take the cup from you and brings it up to his mouth, taking a small sip - when he’s done his tongue pokes out to lap up a bit of tea from his lip, and you try to ignore how much the minuscule motion affects you. “This is perfect, Y/N. Just the way I like it. You’re an angel.” Your cheeks heat up, and then he says, “But you don’t need to thank me. I’m probably gaining more from this arrangement than you are, truthfully. People are starting to get annoyed with how I’ve been falling behind grading, which is where you come in.”
Yes, you’d heard the girls next to you whispering about how bothersome it was that they’d submitted three essays in the past month and had only gotten one back. Why does he give out so much work if he’s never gonna hand it back? 
It didn’t bother you too much.
“Well - alright, then. You’re welcome for helping you grade,” you tell him, pulling out the chair in front of his desk and settling in, dropping your bag beside you. You take another brief moment to glance around his office, as though expecting something to change, but it’s the same distinctly messy, cramped office that it had been yesterday. At some point, you should tell him that he ought to clean out his space, but that’s not what you’re here for - yet.
Professor Styles nods, making his way to the other side of his desk and plopping down in his spinning chair - it was quite nice, and made you wonder why the one you sat in seemed to be falling apart at the seams. But, then, you supposed teacher salary didn’t leave room for spectacular seating. “See, that’s the spirit.” All at once, the casual discussion between the pair of you died as he dug in the drawers of his desk for something - and then he plopped a large stack of papers on the table between you both. “This isn’t all of them - not even close. You’re very smart, so this should be pretty easy for you. Just read through them, add any notes, things they need to work on, and look at the rubric for a final grade.”
You nod, picking the first essay off the top of the pile and reaching for a pen from the cup on his desk - it’s a coffee mug with the Rumours by Fleetwood Mac album cover on it, and you take a moment to marvel at it briefly. “You like Fleetwood?” you question, voice seeming unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet of his office. “Didn’t strike me as that kind of guy.”
He looks up, then, from where he’d already begun scribbling bright red notes into the margin of someone’s essay. His eyes trail down to the mug full of pens, and then back up to meet yours. “You seem to make a lot of assumptions about the kind of guy I am. What’s that all about?”
“Nothing,” you assure him, your voice faux sweet and innocent, and he smiles slightly. “But I’m glad you have an appreciation for really good music. I was worried your music taste would be terrible, and then I’d have to live with the knowledge that Professor Styles exclusively listens to Justin Bieber.”
Your professor rolls his eyes, smile tugging at his lips. “You know,” he begins, “you don’t have to call me Professor Styles. Not outside of class, at least. It sounds weird when it’s just the pair of us here.”
“Oh.” You pause. “What should I call you, then?”
“Harry’s fine.”
Harry Styles. The name flows easily off the tongue as you test it out in a teasing tone, your eyes meeting his as you do, and your cheeks flush. You don’t know if it's commonplace for professors to allow random students to drop formalities and call them by their first names but you’ll accept it anyway - all you know is that, when you go home tonight, the thought of calling him Harry will fill your mind until you can’t stand it anymore. 
Harry as he buries his face between your thighs.
Harry as he pounds you into the mattress.
Harry as he bends you over his desk - this desk - the one you’re sitting at right now.
You cough into your arm and pick up your pen, pressing your thighs together to try and alleviate the throbbing that’s now affecting your body. You should’ve known not to let your mind wander because you’ve barely been here for 15 minutes and you already feel like you need to go rub one out in the bathroom. But you pause - take a sip of your tea, though it’s nearly gone from drinking it so much in class - and get to work grading Brianna Valeria’s essay on Death Comes to the Archbishop. The rubric sits on the desk next to you and you bury yourself in your work - if Harry notices the sudden silence that’s overtaken you, he doesn’t mention it.
For the rest of the hour, the pair of you work in silence. It’s comforting and surprisingly not awkward, and occasionally you ask his opinion on something one of his students wrote in their essays, but the playful banter you’d had before has dissipated. You’ve finished your tea and you suspect he has, as well, with the way he’s been feverishly drinking it.
“Oh,” he says, suddenly, and you glance up from where you’re in the middle of scribbling red notes into the margins of Alexander Simmons’ essay. “You should probably get going.”
One quick glance down at your phone proves that he’s right, and you rise from the extremely uncomfortable seat you’ve been perched in for the hour - you can practically hear your butt crying in relief. “Thank you so much for the tea,” Harry tells you, handing back his cup, and it’s empty, like you expected. “And - um. You don’t have to call me Harry if it makes you uncomfortable. Just thought it would be less formal, but if you don’t want to, it’s fine.”
Ah. He took your silence as you being uncomfortable calling him Harry. Well, it’s better than him knowing just how wet the sentiment made you, but you shake your head immediately. “No. No, I prefer calling you Harry. You’re right - it’s weird when it’s just us.”
He grins at you, then, standing up from his seat and stretching his arms over his head. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Ms. Y/L/N.”
“You know, if I’m calling you Harry now, I think you should drop formalities too. Make it equal.”
“Okay … Y/N. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Harry,” you tell him, turning and walking out of his office with your phone in your pocket and two cups in your hands, blissfully unaware of your abandoned bag still sitting next to the terribly uncomfortable chair you’d been all too quick to leave.
 --
 It’s only when you’ve finished the trek back to your dorm, the sun beginning to lower down into the horizon, that the absence of your bag on your shoulder becomes prominent.
You can’t get into your building without your key and your key is in your bag and your bag is … back in Harry’s office, where you nearly made yourself cum just thinking about him. And the thought of having to go back across campus, back to his office, when he might not even be there, is not favorable, but you need your key and you need to bang out homework tonight, so with a soft groan you spin on your heel, walking away from the warm comfort of your building and making your way back to his.
As summer bled into fall and fall begins to bleed into winter, the weather has changed so drastically in just the past week or so that you tug your cardigan closer to your body, but the air that seeps through the holes in the crocheted sweater send goosebumps trailing up and down your body. The wind whips your face and brings tears to your eyes that run down your cheeks, and when you’re finally at the door of Harry’s building it’s a welcome surprise to walk inside, allowing the warmth to embrace you - even if the shock of the changing temperatures causes your eyes to water again.
His office is on the 2nd floor, so you pull open the door to the staircase and make your way up the two flights. Most professors have gone home for the day, classrooms dark as you speed past them to where you know his office is. 
His office is dark and your heart sinks at the sight - there are a few posters pinned to the small window, but you can see the lack of light clear as day. Your hand grasps the doorknob anyway, turning it without any hope that it would open - but then it was, giving you access to his dark office, and by the seat you’d occupied later you can make out your bag.
A breath of relief escapes your throat as you take a step inside, reaching down to swing it over your shoulder before turning to leave. And then you hear it - a small breath, an indicator of someone else in the room, and you whip around to look back around at the office.
Oh.
Harry sits in his chair, face buried in his arms, fast asleep. His hair is messy and in front of him sits the stack of essays you’d been working at early, hardly any smaller than when you’d left. It would nearly be an adorable sight - your professor, passed out at his desk - but it just seems concerning, and without thinking you’ve leaned over the desk, placing your hand on his shoulder and shaking him slightly.
“Professor?” your voice is soft, barely audible, and you speak louder when you say, “Harry?”
He doesn’t respond, so you say, louder still, “Harry?”
Then he stirs slightly under your touch, and you drop your hand from his shoulder as he lifts his head from where it had been resting on his arms, looking up at you with messy eyebrows and a thoroughly confused expression on his face. “What - what are you doing here?” Jesus. His voice is deep and raspy, sounding as though he’d been sleeping for ages instead of merely less than an hour, and if his present state wasn’t slightly concerning to you, you know that you’d feel the effects of his words between your thighs. But you pause, staring down at him, before asking, “What are you still doing here?”
“Just working on some grading.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking around the darkened office with an air of distinct confusion.
“With all due respect, Harry,” you tell him, adjusting your bag on your shoulder. “I think you’re burning yourself out. You should go home.”
He hesitates, and then questions, “Why are you here? I thought you left -”
“I forgot my bag,” and you hold it up to demonstrate it to him. “Are you going to go home? I’m serious - you need a break. And to sleep on a bed.”
“I’m fine,” Harry says, and he stands up from his chair. It moves back and hits the wall with a soft thud that goes unnoticed by both of you. “You should go home, too. I need to finish some stuff up. I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N.”
To neither of your surprise, you don’t move from your spot standing before his desk. You cross your arms over your chest, digging your sneakered toe into the plush rug on the floor of his office - you hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s pale blue and bright against the mahogany floors. The brief silence between you two, daring either of you to speak, fills the confined space and all you can hear is the ticking of the clock behind you, and finally you say, “You’re not going to get anything done when you’re exhausted. I mean, you fell asleep on the essays. How are you going to explain why there’s drool on their assignments?”
He gives you a tight lipped smile in response, looking down at the essay he’d been working on as if to check that no saliva had landed on the words. “You caught me at a bad time. I don’t usually fall asleep on top of student essays, I promise - but you should be heading out now. It’s getting dark.”
It is getting dark, he’s right - the window behind his desk shows the darkness that newly falls over the campus. And the thought of walking home in the dark scares you just a bit, but you’ll suck it up if it gets him to go home too. “Harry.”
“Y/N.”
“I’ll help you grade tomorrow. But you’re fucking yourself here -”
(Harry laughs at your choice of words internally, but it comes out as a small release of air and a soft grin.)
“ - so come on. Walk out with me so I can make sure you’re actually going home.”
Perhaps he’s realized he’s fighting a losing battle here, because finally he looks back down at the stack of ungraded essays with a small sigh and then says, “Fine.”
“Great.” Your grin widens across your face, and for a moment you make to hold out your hand to him, to drag him along like you would to any of your friends - but the second your hand raises you drop it down to your side, and heat burns your cheeks. He’s not one of your other friends, you tell yourself, stepping out of his office, hearing him walk behind you. And you can’t hold his hand, even as a joke.
“Where’s your dorm?” Harry asks you as he locks the door to his office and jiggles the handle to check it, and you jump at the chance to forget about what happened - you don’t want to dwell on it. “Is it far?”
“Across campus.” You raise your arm and point in the distinct direction of where your building is. “Closer to the cafeteria, I guess.”
“Christ, you have a trek, then, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” The pair of you make your way to the staircase, and from the corner of the eye you can see his head turning left and right down the hallway, as if scanning to see if there’s anyone coming - you can imagine it wouldn’t be great for him to be seen with a student long after classes ended. “I had to haul ass there and back to get my bag.”
He doesn’t respond for a moment, not until you’ve left the warm building and made your way into the cold air, the sun now having retreated for the night, and immediately you wrap your sweater tighter around yourself to try and provide some semblance of warmth. Harry glances down at you with a bemused smile, and you hoist your bag further up your shoulder.
“Well,” you sigh, breath coming out in white puffs. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Don’t burn yourself out, professor. And get a good night’s rest.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Shouldn’t I be telling you that?”
“Maybe.” You grin, feeling goosebumps sprout on your skin, and you shiver before turning in the direction of your dorm - the thought of walking home in the dark and cold doesn’t sound too great, but you’ve become good at dealing with it. “Goodnight, Harry.”
He doesn’t respond, and you’ve taken a few steps away when he calls out, “D’you want a ride?”
What?
“Y’know, like a ride back to your dorm. I can drop you off in the back - it’s just really cold and I’m sure you don’t want to walk so far in the dark.”
You turn back around to look at him, his cheeks a light shade of pink - whether from the cold or his offer, you can’t tell. And you’d love to jump in his car, accept his offer without a shadow of hesitation, but - “Is that allowed?”
Harry shrugs, and you know that’s code for absolutely not. “No one has to find out.”
(Your stomach drops, then.)
“Sure.” You take a few steps back towards him, and he spins on his heel, leading you to his car, and you walk in silence until you reach it. By the time you’re both safely in his car - his head turning every so often to check if there was anyone watching the pair of you - you’re shivering desperately, and you know you would have been positively miserable walking back to your dorm in these temperatures. “Thank you so much, Harry.”
“S’no problem, really.” His hand goes behind your seat as he turns to look behind him, and you hate the way the simple action makes you feel. “I’d rather know you get home safe than have you walk so far in the dark. Pretty girl like you, can never be too careful.”
You pause, cheek pressed against the cold window, and turn to look at him with a small smile. “Ooh, I’m a pretty girl now?”
“Wasn’t the point, Y/N,” Harry mutters, dropping his hand onto the center console, and if it were anyone else driving you like this, you’d rest your hand on top of his, intertwining your fingers and pressing your palms together. But he’s your professor, as much as you’re beginning to wish he weren’t, so you slide your hands beneath your thighs. “Which building, again?”
“McKinley,” you respond, voice barely louder than the sound of the heat blasting into his car. 
His car smells like eucalyptus and mint, and it’s surprisingly clean compared to his office - you wonder if his house is messy or clean, or a balanced mix, because you can’t quite catch a vibe for whether he’s organized or not. But, no - you’ll never see his house, surely. You can’t. 
“I used to date a girl who lived at McKinley,” he tells you, and you exhale slowly. You can tell he’s merely trying to make conversation but the sentiment isn’t making your internal conflicts any easier to manage. “Real nice dorms.”
“They’re alright.” In fact, you’ve been at university for 3 years and resided in 3 different dormitories and they’re your least favourite, with furniture that’s too big for rooms that are too small and bathrooms that can hardly fit more than 5 people, but you don’t tell him that. “Not the greatest.”
“S’what she told me, too,” Harry says, and you smile down at your lap, but you can’t find anything else to respond to that, so you take to gazing out the window.
Within a few seconds he’s slowing down, and you can recognize the back entrance to your building. You reach down and pick your bag off the ground, digging through it to find your key.
When you have it clutched in your hand, you unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to look at him - to your surprise his eyes are already on you, and you swallow thickly. “Um - thanks for driving me.”
“Don’t worry about it.” 
You hesitate a moment before turning and swinging open the car door. You hop out and, just before you can shut it, he says, “Y/N.” And when you duck your head back into his car, raising your eyebrows, he adds, “Please don’t tell anyone I drove you home. You’re right - s’not allowed.”
“Alright.” Then, before you can help yourself, you flash him a wide grin and say, “Thanks for letting me be the exception, then.”
With that, you shut the door of his car, bounding up to the door of your building, and you swear you can feel his gaze remaining on you before his car drives off, and when you turn back around, it’s gone.
(In the back of your mind, you’re entirely too aware of the fact that merely sitting in his car crossed some sort of line that you didn’t know existed until now, but you don’t really know how far past it you are - not yet.)
 --
 “I have a question.”
You look up from the rubric you’d been working at - the student whose essay you’re grading hadn’t done too well on it, but you were trying to give them the most points you could, anyway. Harry’s looking down at his essay like he hadn’t spoken, but when he feels your gaze on him, he continues. “Why did you care so much? Yesterday. Me grading more s’less work for you to do. I feel like you should be loving that shit.”
It’s a reasonable question but, for a moment, you struggle thinking of how to answer it without exposing yourself to him. Finally, you give him a grin and say, “Well, if you were sleep deprived, it would make you mean.” He chuckles softly, and you can tell that’s not the answer he wanted, and it couldn’t have been further from the truth. So you add, “I guess I’m used to being the mom friend. Making sure all of my friends get a good night’s sleep and whatever.”
Harry pauses. “So we’re friends, then.”
You shrug, trying to stop the smile from peeking through onto your face. Being friends with Harry sounds positively dreamy and if it could segue into something else - whichitcan’t - you’d be the happiest girl alive.
You nod. “Yeah, aren’t we.” But it isn’t a question, and you can see the way his eyes twinkle at your response.
After a moment, you shift in your entirely entirely entirely too bloody uncomfortable chair, the wood making your butt ache. “I have a question, now.”
“Yeah?”
“Why’d you pick the most uncomfortable chair you possibly could for your guests to sit in?”
“Gets ‘em out of my office quicker.” Harry glances up and meets your glare with a laugh. “But I don’t want you to leave, so you can move to the couch, if you’d like.”
You hop out of the chair without a second’s hesitation, clutching your essay and your pen, flopping down on the couch and feeling your body weight sink into it. God, it’s so soft and your body relaxes into it, the relief of not being confined to the small, wooden chair so magnificent you could scream. Harry watches you with an amused grin, and says, “I feel like you’re being just a bit dramatic here.”
“Me? Dramatic? Never.” You sprawl yourself across the couch, head atop of the armrest, staring up at the white ceiling tiles above you. “I’m telling you, Harry, that chair is terrible. You should burn it.”
“So dramatic.”
You roll your eyes, sitting up slightly so you can rest your paper on your lap and still manage to scrawl semi-legible notes on this person’s piss poor essay. You wonder, briefly, if this is how Harry felt when he’d graded your 1984 essay, but - well - doesn’t matter now. And you’d fail that essay a thousand times over to get to this point, a point of companionship with your professor that you’re not sure any other student has felt with him before. At least, none that he’s told you about. It makes you feel special, and spectacular, and also the tiniest bit confused.
Why are you so special?
Maybe he’s lonely, or he’s merely entertaining your presence because you’re helping him grade, but you swear you can feel something more hidden within the lines of your relationship.
It doesn’t really matter, though, even if it is just a tad confusing.
“You should get going,” Harry tells you after another 15 minutes of you working at grading the essay. “You’ve been here for nearly two hours, bloody hell, wasn’t watching the time at all.”
“I don’t mind,” you say, though, in truth, you do have quite a bit of homework to work on later. “Don’t really have anything else to do.”
You sit up anyway, swinging your legs over the edge of the couch and stretching your arms above your head. Tiredness is beginning to affect you but you try not to let it.
“Well, in any case, you should be heading out now.” Harry nods his head towards the window behind him, the blinds pulled up so you can see the sun, nearly completely sunk below the horizon, the sky fading from reds and oranges to a dark shade of blue.
“What about you, professor?”
“What about me?” “You’re going home now too - right?”
He looks at you with a faux annoyed glare, but he can’t help the amusement from seeping through his features, and finally he breaks your stare with an exhale of breath. “I don’t think I’ll ever win this against you, will I?”
And you shake your head in response. “Never. So let’s go. Get your things.”
You take the next five minutes to gather all your stuff - resting the essay on top of his desk, sliding your phone and water bottle into your backpack, and zipping your bag shut - as Harry grabs his computer bag and his key. The two of you move surprisingly in sync with each other, sorting all of your stuff from around his small office, before making your way outside with him locking the door behind him.
It’s nearly completely dark, even colder than it had been the day prior. You reach behind you and pull the hood of your sweatshirt over your hair, protecting your ears, at least, from the chill.
You turn and face him, giving him a wide smile. The air is silent around you, surprisingly empty though the bitterness of the cold must be a contributing factor to that. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Professor. Make sure you get a good night’s rest -”
“Don’t want a ride?”
Your grin widens, and his eyes sparkle, even in the darkness, at your expression. “Well, of course I do, but it’s rude to invite myself into your car.”
“You’re not inviting yourself - I’m inviting you. Or, rather, demanding you. C’mon.”
Harry walks fast and you have to speed up your pace to keep up with him, though you suspect that has something to do with wanting to be free of any wandering eyes as quickly as possible. You recognize his car in the parking lot and bound ahead of him, standing by the passenger side door and wrapping your arms around yourself to try and warm yourself up, and for a moment his pace slows as he stares and looks at you. Standing by his car, holding an incredibly oversized hoodie tight to your body, a wide smile gracing your face.
“Staring is rude, professor,” you inform him as he shakes his head, unlocking his car and climbing into the driver’s seat. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”
Your lilt is teasing but you can tell it makes him slightly defensive either way.
“S’hard not to sometimes,” Harry tells you, and you giggle softly.
“So first, I’m a pretty girl, and now I’m hard not to stare at?” You drop your head back against the headrest, blowing air softly out of your mouth as you reach to buckle your seatbelt. “Keep this up, Harry, and my ego’s gonna be too big to even fit in your car.”
Harry laughs at that, resting his hand on your seat to back out of his parking spot. The radio softly plays some pop song that had been overtaking the charts recently, and you hum softly to it before turning your head to look at him. You examine his side profile - perfect, like every other angle of him - as he pulls out of the parking lot, making a left out of it.
He turns to see you watching him, and you watch redness bloom over his cheeks. “Staring is rude, Y/N.”
You smile, about to parrot his previous words back at him - it’s hard not to - but you bite your tongue, gazing at the road in front of you. A light drizzle is beginning to fall, a barely audible pitterpatter on the windshield, and that’s the only noise, for a moment - that and the radio playing, like a thought in the back of your mind.
The drive to your dorm seems to be taking longer than it had been yesterday and you can’t imagine why, but you appreciate just sitting in the car with him. Even if you’re not saying much, listening to his even breathing calms you.
You want to break the silence, though it’s comfortable rather than awkward. You like talking to him, like hearing everything he has to say, but you have no idea what you can possibly tell him that wouldn’t seem forced and awkward. So you sit, curling your legs up to your chest as you stare at the streets, and entirely too soon, the back of the McKinley building becomes apparent.
You want to stay in his car forever. Want to stay with him forever.
“Thanks for the ride,” you tell him, your voice sounding uncomfortably loud in the soft car. He nods in response, but for a moment neither of you move. You can’t bring yourself to leave yet, even if you know you have to, that he might have someone waiting for him at home.
“Y/N.” You turn and look at him, your eyes meeting his with your brows furrowed. “Uh - if you ever want a ride home, or to class, you can just let me know. Text me.”
“I don’t have your number.”
Harry’s cheeks are bright pink and there’s too much tension in the car, so thick you feel like you could cut it with a knife, and you lean down, unzipping your bag and pulling your phone out.
He takes it from you once you unlock it, going into your contacts and you watch as he types his phone number in, adding the contact name as Harry S. and you think you’ll be changing that later. He leaves the contact photo blank, which you expected - if anyone saw the name Harry S. in your phone, the contact photo would give it away.
He hands your phone back to you when he’s done, and your fingers graze his when you take it. “Just text me, then. If you need a ride.”
“Alright.” you give him a smile, unbuckling your seatbelt and pushing open the car door. “Thank you, Harry. Really.”
“My pleasure,” he says, and you grab your bag, hooking your arm underneath the strap and racing up to the back entrance of your building. It’s only when you get inside, the door firmly shut behind you, that you turn around again, and his car is gone.
 --
 10:52 PM
Y/N: hey professor...it’s y/n. just wanna make sure u have my number saved in case of emergencies
Harry S.: How is it you can have the highest grade of any student in my class and use improper grammar while texting?
Y/N: it’s a talent i guess
Y/N: texting like you’re writing an essay makes ppl v uncomfortable, and i speak from personal experience
Harry S.: So you’re uncomfortable right now, then?
Y/N: nooo, ur different
Harry S.: To quote this girl I know, ‘thanks for letting me be the exception, then.’
Y/N: how did u remember that? that makes me uncomfortable
Harry S.: Haha.
Harry S.: You should be sleeping right now. Students need their full 8 hours, don’t they?
Y/N: so do professors, as i keep telling u, but…
Y/N: i had hw to do, also had to make mac n cheese for dinner
Harry S.: You can do your homework in my office, you know. And then you can probably make it to the refectory for dinner.
Y/N: the food at the refectory sucks
Harry S.: Yeah, you’re right.
Harry S.: But I do feel bad that staying to help me grade made you have to stay up until 11 doing homework.
Y/N: well honestly i’d rather be sitting in ur office talking to u than in my dorm doing american lit work
Harry S.: Why’s that?
Y/N: ig i like hanging out with u
Y/N: u should feel honored btw
Harry S.: Believe me, I do. And now you should get to bed so you’re not grumpy tomorrow morning.
Y/N: ig i deserved that… and i’ll only go to bed if u do too
Harry S.: I will.
Y/N: promise??
Harry S.: I promise.
Harry S.: Goodnight.
Y/N: goodnight, professor
 --
 After a week, your arrangement has changed slightly.
Every day, you spend just a bit more time in his office. Then he drives you home, in comfortable silence, and from the minute you step into your dorm, you’re fishing your phone out of your bag to text him. Every night that you lie awake, texting him until you physically can’t keep your eyes open, the line that you’ve been dipping your toe across falls back even more.
The stack of assignments that need to be graded are beginning to dwindle, and you hate it. Hate to see the pile of ungraded work getting smaller and smaller, because when it’s gone, you probably won’t step foot in his office again.
Truthfully, and as embarrassing as it may be, Harry has become one of your closest friends at school. He’s funny and nice, and he brought you hot chocolate with powder left unmixed at the bottom after you mentioned that’s how you used to like it when you were younger, and he plays music on his phone at a low volume while you work on grading. 
Of course, as your friendship with Harry grows, so does the burning feelings for him that reside in the pit of your stomach day after day. And you know he doesn’t feel the same - he can’t - and maybe that’s painful for you, only slightly, but you’ve become rather talented at hiding those emotions. He can’t know that, everytime he laughs at one of your jokes, your heart swells - and everytime he reads a sentence from one of the essays out loud, using a mocking, deep voice, it makes your stomach flip.
You don’t know if you’ve ever felt so passionately about anyone, and that’s scary. Scary to think that the one man you want more than anyone else is the only person you can’t have.
“Y/N,” he says, and when you look up at him from your spot sprawled on the couch, he’s nibbling at the tip of his pen. “D’you think this makes sense?”
And he reads you a few lines written by one of his students - a name you recognize from being in your class, you think, but you’ve been paying attention less and less to other students during lectures. All you focus on is Harry, his booming voice projecting through the hall as he talks about the stories you’re reading, and every so often his eyes meet yours and the smile that spreads across his face could bring tears to your eyes, if you let it.
“Um - I guess. It’s worded kind of strangely, don’t you think? But I’d cut them some slack on it.” Harry nods and scribbles something in the margins of Nathalie Carron’s essay before flipping the page. “Can I put in a song request?”
He nods, then, picking up his phone from where it sits on his desk. The Chain plays softly, not too loud to interrupt your train of thought, but not too soft that you can’t hear it. “‘Course.”
“Heroes by David Bowie.” You glance back up at him, dropping Hannah Joseph’s essay on your stomach. “You like Bowie, right?”
“Who doesn’t, is the real question.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” You grin, glancing up at the white tiled ceiling as the song fills the hair, replacing Fleetwood. “You know, we should make a playlist for grading.”
Harry laughs. “A playlist of just Fleetwood and a dash of Bowie?”
“No, no. It can have other stuff, too. I mean, we know what we like.”
“Alright, alright.” He picks up his phone again, and you see his thumbs moving feverishly on the screen. “Y’know what, I’ll make it right now and show it to you for approval.”
“Make it good.” You pause, picking your essay up again. “No Justin Bieber.”
He snorts, and you relish in the noise.
The next ten minutes passes in mainly silence - when Heroes ends, Fleetwood continues, playing Secondhand News, and you hum to the tune. Harry’s ringer is on and you can hear it, the sound of the keyboard on his phone as he searches up song titles, and you rest the essay back on your stomach, writing messy notes with the pen you snatched from the mug on his desk again.
You sit up, suddenly, leaning over to rest Hannah’s fully graded essay on his desk, and instead of reaching for a new one to work on, you push yourself to your knees, resting your palms on his desk and attempting to lean over and peek at the playlist. But he anticipates that - he knows you’re nosy - and tilts his phone towards him, intercepting your attempts to eavesdrop.
“Don’t be impatient,” he murmurs, a smile tugging across his lips as he scrolls through something. “I’m almost done.”
You hum in response, dropping back down onto the couch, stretching your entire body across it, head resting on the armrest. The two of you settle back into a comfortable silence - he’s paused the music, by now - lasting only a moment or two before he stands up from his insanely comfortable chair, maneuvering his way around to the couch where you’re lying. He crouches down next to you, handing you his phone, opened to a Spotify playlist, and you greedily snatch the device from him, flicking through the songs.
Your eyes scan every song, absorbing every song title.
I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash - My Eyes Adored You by the Four Seasons - Your Song by Elton John?
Love songs. Every single one of them.
You push yourself up, sitting leaning against the armrest, as your eyes fall on the last song of the playlist - When I Kissed The Teacher by Abba. You lower his phone to your lap, looking at him with a slightly confused smile adorning your face.
He watches you intently, your heads a mere few inches apart, then reaches down to grab his phone off your lap, and you laugh lightly before saying, “it’s a lot of love songs.”
“They reminded me of you,” he tells you, voice quiet, testing the waters.
“They - they did?” It doesn’t make sense to you - doesn’t make sense that 45 love songs should bring you to the forefront of his mind, that every single time he hears Fooled Around And Fell In Love he should think of you. 
They make you think of him, though. 
And without thinking - of what you’re doing or of the consequences - you lean in, closing the short distance between your faces, pressing your lips against his so softly that it feels like it’s a mere breath on your mouth.
Harry pulls back, lips barely a centimeter from yours, exhaling softly. “We shouldn’t.”
You hum in agreement, already leaning back in. “No, we really shouldn’t.”
Your lips meet again and his hand goes to your face, cupping your jaw, and when he deepens the kiss you whimper into his mouth, bringing both of your hands to the back of his head. Your fingers bury themselves in his curls, tugging on the chocolate brown strands, and he groans softly into your mouth.
It’s everything you’d imagined and more, as the hand not on your cheek drops down to your waist, pulling your body closer to his. The angle is awkward - you sitting on the couch and him kneeling before it - so you unattach your lips, much to your dismay, and swing your legs around the edge of the couch so he’s situated between them. Harry’s eyes are wide, his hair mussed up, and you lean back in without a moment’s hesitation to resume the kiss. His tongue brushes against yours, and he tastes like mint tea and fucking heaven.
Both of his hands go down to your waist, tugging you to the very edge of the couch so your bodies are as close as they can be, and yours go to the back of his neck, dipping underneath the collar of his button down shirt to scratch at his back. It feels muscular, more toned than you were expecting, and feeling the skin underneath your nails makes you moan into his mouth.
“Fuck -” you groan softly as he moves his lips down your chin and to your jaw, nibbling softly at your skin, as if experimenting to see what you like - your reaction prompts him to move further down, licking a stripe down your neck and to the base of your collarbone. One of his hands - very large hands - slide up to cup one of your breasts, squeezing the mound of flesh through your tight shirt. “Fuck, that feels good.”
Harry hums against your collarbone, pressing open mouthed kisses across your skin. Your nails dragging down his back causes him to bite down gently to stifle the moan rising from his throat, but you hear it and Goditspursyouonsofuckingmuch. “God, Y/N -”
His praise is cut short by the sound of three swift knocks on the door - he pulls back from you, nearly falling back on his ass with the speed at which he stands, and your eyes flash to the door. Your heart is pounding desperately in your chest - are the doors soundproof? Did someone outside hear you? The thought makes you sick to your stomach, and your eyes meet Harry’s to find the same worry in his orbs.
Within moments he’s back behind his desk, running a hand through his hair to try and smooth it out, and you’ve reached to grab Hannah Joseph’s essay off his desk just as he calls, “come in!” in a voice that’s far too cheery for the panic that had just overtaken the both of you.
The door opens and from the corner of your eye you can recognize the girl who walks in - she lives across the hall from you, and her name is … Anna or Emma or something similar. She’s nice, and you should remember her name, but your brain is so scrambled that you can’t think of it.
Harry kissing you. Harry making you a playlist. Harry’s hands on your waist, pulling your body into his.
It’s everything you’ve dreamt of since the beginning of the semester, feeling his touch on you. And when you close your eyes, you try to imagine what would have happened if nobody knocked on the door, and it sends a shiver down your spine that doesn’t go unnoticed by Harry, sitting at his desk as he looks over Anna-or-Emma’s essay.
You can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. The girl (who, now that you think of it, may be named Alana) is asking Harry a million bogus questions about the essay requirements he’d just given out and her shirt is so low cut that you’re surprised her boobs haven’t fallen out. Whether that was intentional or not isn’t something you dwell on, but something about sitting on the couch, trying to steady your breathing while your clit throbs violently feels wrong.
“I’m gonna go, professor,” you say, interrupting her question, and she looks at you like you just told her you’re going to give her a million dollars. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Y/N,” Harry calls as you grab your bag and shut the door behind you. His voice sounds pained, almost, as though he doesn’t want you to leave him alone with a girl whose only goal is clearly to fuck his brains out. You practically run down the hall, which isn’t close to being as empty as it usually is when you and Harry leave at the end of the day. 
Your shirt is tight and short sleeved and you can picture your jacket, up in his office, thrown over the back of the couch. You’d been in such a rush to leave that you’d left it, and you’re beginning to truly feel the consequences of it as the cold corners you, attacking your skin, and you could go back up to his office and get it but you just want to go home. The sun is setting, and it’s earlier than when you usually leave.
The walk home is decidedly miserable, the wind sending tears streaking down your cheeks, and your mind is practically going into overdrive. Jesus Christ. You kissed your professor, and he kissed you back. And then you left, like a fucking idiot. He probably feels terrible - feels like he violated you, or ruined his career. But he hadn’t done anything wrong, not really. If you were more respectable you’d go back to his building and apologize for running out, wrap your arms around him and kiss him like you fucking mean it, but all you do is scan your card to get into McKinley and walk down the hall to your dorm.
Your roommate is out - at her boyfriend’s, as per usual, but you appreciate it. Truth be told, you haven’t seen her much since the first few weeks of the semester, but she seemed nice enough. You drop your bag onto your bed and collapse on top of the covers, gazing up at the ceiling.
You bring your hand up to your mouth, brushing your fingertips over your lips with the same feather light touch that the first press of Harry���s lips to yours had felt like. You can still feel it - feel him - if you close your eyes, his hands grasping your hips and his lips trailing down your collarbone.
Slowly, you press your palm to your stomach, trailing it down your torso until you reach the button of your jeans. You undo it with shaky fingers and push them lower down, beneath the hem of your cotton thong, and the first brush of your fingertips against your clit sends a shiver down your spine and a whine falling off your lips.
Harry’s hand on your chest, squeezing your breast through your shirt as he kisses down your neck - oh my god, licking down your neck, biting your skin, his eyes are so wide, his hair is messy from where you grabbed it, and you hadn’t been interrupted he would’ve climbed on top of you, pressing you into the couch, tugging your jeans down your thighs and -
Maybe he would’ve done what you’re doing now, sliding his digits into your heat, fingers longer than yours, hitting every spot that you need him to. Or maybe he would’ve slid down your body, lifting your shirt to suck a deep purple mark into your chest, before burying his face in your cunt -
A very loud moan falls from your lips as you push a finger inside of yourself, curling them immediately to hit the spot inside of you that makes your tummy flip.
But maybe - just maybe - Harry wouldn’t have bothered with that. Would’ve watched, breathing so heavy as you unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his nice dress pants to wrap your hand around his cock, throwing his head back and moaning as you swiped your thumb over the tip of him.
You’re so close so fast you can practically taste the orgasm creeping up on you, your hips bucking up to meet where your fingers are feverishly rubbing circles on your clit.
And he would’ve slid into you, and he’s so big that he’s stretching you out more than any of your fingers or the guy you’ve been with, and he’d grab your chin and force your head up and kiss you so fucking hard, his hips flush against yours -
With a strangled cry, you curl your fingers once more and then you’re cumming, release coating your fingers as your hips roll into your hand. All you can think about is him and what could have happened, and the fact that you may have ruined the start of something magnificent, but God if the orgasm wasn’t good.
You pull your hand out of your panties, wiping your dripping fingers on the denim of your jeans. For a moment, you merely stare back up at the ceiling, focusing on steadying your breathing, and then you stand up, kicking your jeans off your legs and tossing them onto your dresser. You have a pair of plaid pajama pants crumbled in a pile at the bottom of your bed from the morning, and you pull them over your legs with a sigh. Perhaps it’s not the height of cleanliness, but they’re soft and comfortable, and you lie back down on your bed once they’re on.
After nearly an hour, you still haven’t done anything but sit and do nothing, occasionally flicking through your phone. You wish you could fall asleep but your brain is working far too fast to even think about resting, and -
The sound of your phone getting a notification startles you, and you groan, grabbing your phone to look at whoever disturbed your panic.
Harry S.: I’m behind your building. I have your jacket.
He’s here? Jesus Christ, you just came over him and damn near cried over him and now you have to see him.
Perfect.
Your heart skips a beat, and you jump up without a second thought. You look an absolute fool, stuffing your feet into the first pair of shoes you can find - a pair of slip on Vans that are so dirty they can barely constitute as white - before you’re running out the door, your phone tucked in the waistband of your pants, heading down the hall and out the back entrance where Harry’s black car sits, waiting.
You walk up to his car, pathetically out of breath, and lower your head so you can see him through the window as he rolls it down.
“Hi.” Your tone is quiet, and you clear your throat. “Um, I’m sorry about running off like that. I just got overwhelmed and that girl showing up made me - um - nervous.”
“It’s fine,” Harry says, though he’s very pointedly not making eye contact. “M’sorry if I crossed a line. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that, or -”
“No, I kissed you first -”
“But I’m your professor.” He says the word with an odd inflection, nearly pained. “I shouldn’t have let it escalate. I’m sorry.”
You dig the toe of your shoe into the road, looking down at the passenger seat where your jacket sits, waiting. The tension is palpable and you swallow thickly, then grab the car handle, forcing the door open so you can grab your jacket. You wrap the fabric around your shoulders - the seat heaters made it warm and you could nearly cry at the way it embraces you.
Harry watches you - you can see him from the corner of your eye - and then he looks down at your body, your shirt and your pajama pants with no pockets, and asks, “D’you have your key to go back in your dorm? S’just, you don’t have any pockets … I can’t see it.”
Shit. No, you don’t. You hadn’t thought about that when you were running out to see him. Perhaps he can decide the answer from the way your face drops, because he exhales with a small smile, barely perceptible, and nods his head. “Get in.”
You grab the door handle again, pulling the door open and climbing inside. The seat is toasty and warm and the car is toasty and warm and altogether you feel like both of those adjectives combined. The radio plays softly - or maybe it’s his phone, hooked up to the aux cord, because Maybe I’m Amazed by Paul McCartney is a song you recognize reading on the playlist he’d made.  You slam the door shut and wrap your arms around yourself, holding your jacket closer to your body, before turning your head to glance at him. He still hasn’t started driving, merely gazing at you, and you feel your skin heat under his eyes. “Where are we going, professor?” It’s a stupid question, because you aren’t going anywhere yet, and he doesn’t look like he plans to start driving anytime soon.
“I’ll take you back to my apartment.” HIs eyes haven’t left yours, and your stomach turns. “How does that sound?”
You exhale softly. “Sounds perfect,” and then you’re leaning in, pressing your cold palms to the side of his cheeks and bringing his face into yours.
Your lips meet and it’s more desperate than it was in his office - teeth clashing and your tongues brushing against each other, as if he’s trying to devour you. His hand rests atop of yours, dwarfing you pathetically, before dragging his fingertips down your arm and up to your shoulder, fingers dipping beneath the sleeve of your shirt.
Where you’re cold from the air outside, Harry is so warm and toasty, his breath hot against your face when you pull away briefly. He presses his forehead to yours and then leans up, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose and smirking at the whimper you let out.
“Wait,” he tells you, voice low and quiet, and you nod slowly. “When we get to my apartment - but not now.”
You nod feverishly and sit back in your seat obediently, desperate for him to finally start driving. His hand rests on top of the center console and you stare at it for a moment - you can do it, do what you’ve wanted to do every single time he’s driven you home - and you place your palm overtop of his. He turns it over so your palms are pressed together, fingers intertwining, and you’re sure he can hear your heartbeat with how loudly it’s beating in your chest.
The line that you’ve crossed is so far behind you that it’s a mere dot in the distance. 
The car ride to his apartment is short - only 2 full songs play during it, and you recognize My Girl and I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight from the playlist. Truth be told, it feels as though you’d been in the car for hours and hours, his thumb rubbing circles into the back of your hand. You want nothing more than to crawl across the center console and straddle him, kiss him until you’re both breathless and go as far as you’d fantasized about but you have to wait.
 --
 Harry’s unlocking the door of his apartment entirely too slow for your liking. It’s as though he’s trying to tease you, make you antsy, when all you want is for him to press you against the wall and kiss you silly. 
He lives in a large brick apartment building - one of the newer ones, you know - in an apartment on the third floor. You’ve passed his building so many times driving through town and you never even knew it - didn’t know the man who lived there was someone you’d be so desperate for.
“Come on,” he whispers, though there’s no real reason for the two of you to be quiet - perhaps it just fits the mood. Harry’s hand wraps around your wrist as he tugs you into the now-open door of his apartment, flicking on the light switch residing beside the door. 
As light floods the apartment you’re somehow both surprised and also not at all. It’s surprisingly tidy, resembling more of his car than his office, and - to your relief - it’s quite obvious he’s the only one who lives here. You slip out of your Vans and take a moment to look around. A cat sits on top of the couch (her name is Marie, named after Aristocats, you learned from class) and you can’t stop yourself from gravitating towards her, using two fingers to stroke down her back as you peek around the apartment.
Yes, it is quite clean, and surprisingly colorful - there’s a striped rug and red couches and your eyes fly a bookshelf filled with picture frames against the wall. One is him with four other guys, arms wrapped around each other - one of him and Marie - one of him, significantly younger, hugging a girl who looks extremely similar to him.
“Is this your sister?” you ask, unaware of where he is in the apartment but trusting he hasn’t strayed too far from you.
“Yeah,” he responds, and you jump slightly. Harry stands just behind you, and when you turn to face him he’s fighting back a grin. “So nosy, aren’t you?”
You raise your arms to wrap around his neck, pulling his head down to yours as his hands gravitate down towards your lower back where your shirt rises just a couple inches from your pants, exposing a strip of skin, and his touch sends a shiver down your spine. “I guess I am nosy. Can’t help it.”
Harry leans down, then, pressing a kiss to your forehead and down the bridge of your nose before landing on your lips - you whine into his mouth, pushing yourself onto your toes to try and deepen it, swiping your tongue into his mouth. It’s so different than before - heavier, deeper, and you can’t get enough of it.
“Please,” you whimper against his lips as his hands creep farther down your back, landing on the globes of your ass through your soft pajama pants. “I need you.”
“Oh, yeah?” You can hear a sense of cockiness working its way into his voice and you groan softly as he pulls away from you, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “What do you need, baby? Tell me.”
You need everything. You need everything he can possibly give you and more - you need wish fulfillment of everything you’ve dreamt of since the start of the semester and that includes every single goddamn appendage on his body put to use somehow.
But you can’t possibly begin to tell him that, not yet. His fingers are already trailing down to the waistband of your pants, tugging at the tie that holds them up when you breathe, “Your mouth. Please, I need - I need your mouth.”
It’s not enough for him, you can tell, as he leans down to press a kiss to the side of your throat, sucking softly. “M’using my mouth.”
“H - Harry …”
“Where d’you want my mouth?”
You curse beneath your breath, and he pulls his head back to raise his eyebrows at the sound. You bury your hand in his hair, tugging lightly on his curls, before squeezing your eyes shut and muttering, “Want your mouth … down there.”
As much as you want it - and Godyouwantitsofuckingmuch - it makes it no less awkward to say it out loud.
“Down where, baby?” Harry asks, voice teasing and so fucking smug. “Down here?” His hand sprawls across your stomach, pressing down on your abdomen and you moan softly. “No … down here, s’that right?”
His hand slides down to your cunt, pressing his palm overtop of you through your pajama pants and you’re so wet you’re sure he can feel it even through two layers of fabric. Your throaty cry in response and the feverish nod of your head confirms what he’d been teasing you about, and Harry delivers one last soft kiss to your lips before dropping to his knees before you.
Fuck. You never thought you’d see Professor Harry Styles, the man of your dreams and the one person you considered to be entirely unattainable, kneeling in front of you with his nice dress pants on and a crisp button up shirt. He looks entirely normal, save for his messy hair and lust blown pupils, and you’re sure you look a bloody mess but his eyes still devour you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
You drop your shaky hands down to the tie of your pants, undoing it at record speed, and he hooks his fingers in your waistband. Slowly - so slowly - Harry tugs them down and his eyes remain on you as though expecting you to stop him, but you can’t. Finally they pool by your feet and you lift your legs to kick them off, sending them flying near the couch where Marie resides.
Had you known this would be happening perhaps you would have opted for racier panties - your cotton thong isn’t terrible but it certainly isn’t doing you any favours, and you have so many lace ones at home that would have been perfect for the opportunity - but Harry still looks at you like you created the world. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your inner thigh and then the other, leaning in to suck a dark purple hickey into your skin.
You suppose he has a thing for hickeys.
Your fingers twist in his curls, trying to direct his head up to where you truly need him, and he chuckles softly - the soft exhalation of air makes you whine as it hits your cunt, even through your panties. A soft kiss is what he lands on your clothed clit, and your hips buck up into his mouth. You’d forgotten, perhaps, that you’d had an orgasm less than an hour prior but you’re very swiftly reminded, and he looks up at you with a smirk.
“So reactive,” he murmurs, wrapping his lips around your clit through your underwear and sucking softly. “Just the way I like.”
A shaky breath escapes your mouth as you toss your head back, legs shaking and you can’t expect them to hold you up much longer. One of his hands moves to the back of your thigh, kneading your skin softly, and the other dips into the hem of your panties and slowly tugs them down. You’re so wet that the fabric is desperate to stick to your dripping cunt but he manages to roll them down your legs, face to face with your pussy and -
Heat floods through your body and up to your face as you look down and make eye contact with Harry. Now that he’s down there, gazing at your bare pussy, you feel oddly compelled to protect whatever modesty you have left and shut your legs but then he grabs one of your legs and throws it over his shoulder, pushing you back just a bit until your back smacks into the wall, and leans in.
The first stripe he licks up your core sends a choked cry from the back of your throat and then a long whine as Harry focuses his attention on your clit. His tongue flicks the swollen bud, still rubbing circles into the back of your thigh. Your heel digs into his back as he moves one hand up to your cunt, running his finger through your soaked folds before pushing it inside of you.
He curls his finger, mimicking a come hither motion until he brushes against the spot that makes your hips jerk against his face. Harry’s lips wrap around your clit and when your eyes roll back into your head, he takes his hand off your thigh and snaps his fingers.
“Look at me,” he demands, voice muffled against your cunt, and the vibrations roll through your body like an earthquake. “I wanna watch you fall apart. Look at me.”
Slowly you lower your eyes back down to him, meeting his gaze as he pulls his mouth away briefly - smacks his lips - and pushes a second finger into your dripping heat. As he thrusts them in and out, hitting that sweet spot in your velvet walls, you can feel your orgasm building in the pit of your tummy embarrassingly fast, but you want to hold out for him. Want to prolong this as long as you can.
Harry’s teeth brush against your clit and you cry out, barely hearing the way he groans, “So fucking reactive for me, yeah?” but you can hear it and it only makes you moan louder. His tongue draws patterns over your clit and he’s so determined to maintain eye contact but you can tell it’s a struggle for both of you.
He pulls his fingers out of you, licking a thin stripe up one of them as if he can’t get enough of your taste before reaching his arm up so his fingers rest on your bottom lip. Obediently you open your mouth, accepting his digits and swirling your tongue around them, tasting yourself on his skin, as he leans back, glancing up at you with heat blazing in his eyes.
“You’re close,” he tells you, his voice deep and throaty. “Can feel it - feel how you’re clenching around my fingers, baby. D’you wanna cum? Tell me how fucking bad you want it.”
Harry pulls his fingers from your mouth and presses them to your clit, rubbing a slow circle as you struggle to find your voice before gasping, “Fuck - need to cum so fucking bad Harry - Harry, oh my god -”
“Yeah? Gonna cum for me?”
“Yes! Oh my god, H - Harry -”
“Cum for me, baby.”
He leans in, wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking and that’s all you need to topple over the edge, the orgasm that had been building in the pit of your tummy finally exploding. Your head falls back against the wall with a thud that’s hardly audible over your loud shrieks and moans, your leg finally giving out and you damn near slide to the ground before Harry hooks an arm around your thigh to keep you upright.
His tongue flicks at your clit gently, riding you through your orgasm, and when you’re coming down from your high it’s all you can focus on. There’s a high pitched ringing in your ears and you don’t think you’ve ever - ever - cum that hard in your life. You’d only been with one guy before who didn’t even know women could orgasm and your fingers never gave you anything so earth shattering.
Your breathing comes out in desperate pants as Harry rises from his knees, moving both hands to your hips as your legs nearly collapse again. Your clit is throbbing and when you press your body to his, leaning up to kiss him so desperately, you can feel his boner, hard against your thigh.
“Holy shit, professor.” It’s all you can manage, pulling away to drop your head against his chest, using the moment to try and steady your breaths. “W - who knew you were so good at that.”
His fingers brush through the ends of your hair, a gesture so sweet and innocent that it could make you forget what just occurred. “A hidden talent, I guess,” he mutters, gripping your chin to kiss you again.
You drop your hands to his waist, gripping his nice button down shirt in your tight grasp, surely wrinkling the fabric as you roll your hips against his. Even through his pants his hard on feels fucking huge and you’ve only been with one guy before and suddenly you’re wondering if he’ll even fit inside of you.
But you’ll try. By god, you’ll try. And you press your head to the wall, looking up at him with lust dilated pupils. “Harry.”
“Tell me what you need, baby.” But he already knows, and you can tell he needs the same thing.
You swallow, bucking your hips forward against his boner, and he groans. “I want you to fuck me. Please. I - I need you to fuck me, professor.”
The word makes him moan aloud, and within barely a second he’s grabbing your wrist, tugging you away from the wall and across the apartment until he’s swinging open a door and pulling you inside.
Something about being in his bedroom is entirely different than being in his living room, the carpet beneath your bare feet plush and soft. There’s a large television in front of his bed and the bed is made beautifully, a flannel blanket tossed over the end, and you can’t fucking wait to mess it up.
Harry spins you around to face him, attaching your lips once more as he shuts the door. You whimper into his mouth as his hand drops down to your bare bum, squeezing the flesh in his large palm. “Sorry,” you murmur, voice high pitched and breathy, “was nosing again -”
He groans as you drop your hand to the front of his fancy dress pants, trying desperately to undo the button with one shaking hand. It’s a struggle and finally he chuckles breathlessly, dropping both hands down to help you with the task, and finally you reach your hand into his trousers and press your palm against his cock, hot and heavy even through his boxers.
“Bed,” he grunts, backing you up until the back of your knees hit a hard edge and you fall backwards onto his plush duvet. He stands above you, breathing heavily, and for a moment you stare at each other, as though processing that this is happening - and the moment picks up again. Harry reaches down and tugs at the bottom hem of your shirt, pulling it up and off your body and sending it into the corner of the room. Your bra is lace, at least, and decidedly prettier than your panties, and for a moment he stares down at your chest with a look of pure lust adorning his face.
“You look a bit flushed, professor,” you tell him, voice faux innocent and sounding entirely more confident than you feel. “Are you feeling okay?”
Harry chuckles through gritted teeth, and you push yourself onto your elbows so you can work at the buttons of his shirt as he tugs his pants down his legs. “I’ve never been better, in fact.” His boxers are flannel and you can see the bulge in his boxers, and it’s even bigger than what you’d expected.
Your work at undoing his buttons slows down as your mind suddenly flips into overdrive - you must wear the worry that suddenly overtakes you because Harry leans down, pressing a kiss to your lips.
“When’s the last time you’ve done this?” he questions, voice soft and spun sugar sweet.
“Um -” you try and think. The last time you’d done this you’d lost your virginity and that was - “A year ago. Maybe longer.”
Harry nods, nudging your nose with his and giving you one final kiss before rising back up. His hands replace yours as he works on unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m going to go slow, baby. I promise.”
In every fantasy you’ve had about him, he’s not slow - he’s fast, pounding you so hard the bed is nearly louder than the noises you make - but now that you’re here with him? Maybe you need slow.
You nod, and he smiles down at you. He presses his hands onto the mattress and then snakes them beneath you, fingers working at the clasp of your bra, and you lift yourself up slightly so he can undo it and slide your last piece of clothing off of you. He sends it into another part of the room and you can’t be bothered to focus on it because - Christ! - all of a sudden Harry lowers his mouth to your breast, wrapping his lips around one of your nipples and sucking.
“Fuck!” you gasp, fingers working themselves into his curls. Your fingernails scratch at his scalp and he moans lowly against your skin. Harry lifts his head off of you, pinching one of your nipples so you cry out.
He lifts one leg to rest on the bed and then grips your hips, pulling you closer to the edge. Your legs instinctively spread and he watches you, breathing heavily. “Baby,” he mutters, hands slipping his boxers down his thighs. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
Heat burns your cheeks and you shut your eyes.
“Look at me,” Harry tells you, and it’s all you can do to obey. “Want you looking at me while I fuck you. Can you do that?”
You nod, swallowing as he grips one of your calves and hikes it onto the bed, exposing your sensitive, dripping cunt to him. You look down your body, where he’s grasping his achingly fucking hard cock in his hand, and then he drags the tip down your slit with a low hiss.
“Are you ready, baby?” he asks, voice soft and strained, as if he’s holding back and you know he is. But he needs this to be a good experience for you so it can be good for him and that’s what you appreciate.
“Y - yeah.” you push yourself onto your elbows and your eyes meet, maintaining perfect eye contact as he pushes himself inside of you. He’s going achingly slow and -
The stretch aches and you drop your head onto the mattress with a groan, Harry’s hand immediately finding your hand where you’re grasping the duvet feverishly. He bottoms out, fully sheathed in your warm cunt, a low groan piercing the air at the feeling of your walls, tight around him. It hurts - not as much as you’d expected, and the pain that quite literally fills you overtakes the burn.
You squeeze his hand, feeling his other run up and down the inside of your thigh as you adjust to him. “Oh - my god - wait - just - just one second wait one second -”
“Of course,” he breathes, and his voice is shaky with an emotion you can’t quite decipher. “T - take your time, babygirl.”
After a few seconds you push your head up to look at him, nodding slightly. “Okay. I need more, p - professor.”
You can tell he likes when you call him that and in some weird way you love it too - love knowing that the professor everyone lusts for is fucking you, slowly pulling out before thrusting back in, squeezing your hand when you cry out at the feeling. Maybe you’re not the first student to experience him like this but based on his demeanor you think you are - there’s something about him in this moment that feels like a secret you’ve discovered.
“Oh - fuck -” Harry grunts as he moves his hand from your thigh to your hip, pressing your body down with just enough force to limit your movements. It’s paining him, going so slow, you can tell - and you’re already starting to need more from him. You need him to go faster, and with a breathy moan you tell him.
Slowly his pace picks up, his grip on your hip tightening until you’re sure there’ll be fingerprint shaped bruises on your skin by tomorrow morning. With every thrust he fills you up so completely that every perfect spot inside of you is hit just right, and you never knew it could feel this good.
Every noise of his that tears through the bedroom spurs you on, pushing your hips into his to deepen every thrust. And every time you whine or whimper or cry or anything Harry delivers a harder thrust, fucking you so deep that you can feel it in the pit of your tummy.
“God, p - professor,” you moan, the word falling entirely too naturally off your lips even in your heightened state. Harry throws his head back with a high pitched whine, speeding up his pace until the loudest noise in the room is skin hitting skin. “Holy shit - fuck - I’m gonna - gonna -”
“Gonna cum around my cock, baby?” He hisses, pressing the hand that had once resided on your hip into the mattress, gripping the covers tighter so he can rail his hips into yours desperately. “So fucking tight around me, can’t even fucking stand it -”
Your hand, shaking beyond belief, slides down to rub hard circles into your clit. The sensations on your clit and his cock, rutting against your G spot with every thrust, sends you over the edge again - already so overstimulated from the rather intense orgasm you’d had before - and with a loud cry-bordering-on-scream you’re cumming again.
“Fuck!” you moan, hips bucking up against his as you ride out the waves of your orgasm. “Fuck, Harry, oh my god -”
He’s not far behind you, hips stuttering ever so slightly but he wants to bring you to one more orgasm, securing this day as the best fuck of your (admittedly limited) sex life and he can’t cum yet. Your hand falls back onto the mattress and Harry pulls his clammy hand from yours, bringing it down to replace your fingers on your clit, and immediately you clench around his cock, begging incoherently for something - you’re not sure what - as he presses down on your clit hard.
Your eyes roll back into your head as his cock twitches inside of you, and grunts and moans are flying from Harry’s mouth faster than he can control it. Your walls flutter around his dick, his thrusts slowing to lazy pumps in and out. He’s so fucking close, he just needs one more push and then -
Your fingers wrap around his wrist and he looks down at you, your eyes nearly black with desire, tears streaking down your cheeks. “C - cum in me, professor.”
It’s the final straw for Harry, and with a nearly animalistic cry he sheathes himself fully inside of you and cums so hard so fast, it’s nearly violent, and the feeling of warmth that explodes in your cunt sends you into your fourth orgasm of the night -
It’s less intense than the others but still entirely too prominent and when you’ve finally rode out the last wave you collapse against the bed, your head spinning and your legs aching as Harry presses it back down from where it had been perched up.
Harry collapses on top of you, his body suffocating and hot and sweaty and you wrap your arms around him, your desperate attempts at steadying your breathing filling the room. You’ve never cum so hard and so much and you’re fucking exhausted, truthfully.
He lifts his head, gazing down at you as you run your fingers through his tangled, sweat soaked curls. “How was that?”
You exhale with a smile upturning your lips, beginning to feel his cum dripping out of your pussy and down your thighs. “Jesus Christ,” you murmur, and a grin breaks onto his face as he drops his forehead against your shoulder.
The two of you lie in silence for a moment - no words need to be spoken. Harry shifts the pair of you further up the bed, your head crashing onto one of his pillows as he remains, firmly on top of you, like he never wants to leave.
But you can’t stop yourself from asking the question burning through your mind, and you swallow thickly before mumbling, “Harry -”
He hums softly.
“Is this like - a one time thing?”
His head lifts again, chin pressed to your shoulder blade, eyebrows furrowed. Harry takes a moment to respond, though, lifting his hand to trace a line across your jawline to your lips, and you press a soft kiss to the tips of his fingers when he arrives at his destination. “I don’t think so,” he tells you, and his voice is quiet and vulnerable, as if waiting for you to deny him. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
You smile softly, leaning in to press a kiss against his soft lips. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“‘Course, baby.”
The name makes your tummy flutter, and you think you could listen to him call you baby for the rest of your life. “I’ve dreamt of this,” you tell him, lips merely a centimeter from his. “Since the beginning of the semester, every night.”
Harry raises his eyebrows at you, and you giggle at his expression. “Glad to know I’m not the only one.”
You shut your eyes, then. Rest your head on his pillow, feeling warm with the man you adore pressed on top of you, his arms firmly and protectively wrapped around you. Nothing has ever felt more right to you, and you drift off to sleep with a soft smile still gracing your lips.
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buckys-black-dress · 3 years
Text
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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infinisonicosm · 3 years
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Billboard Interview: 20 Questions With Luke Hemmings: Why the 5 Seconds of Summer Leader ‘Needed To Make’ His Solo Debut
The past 10 years have been a whirlwind for Luke Hemmings, to say the least.
At 16, the frontman of 5 Seconds of Summer left Sydney to move to London with his bandmates Ashton Irwin, Calum Hood and Michael Clifford. The quartet played small gigs and studied the art of pop songwriting as their musical vision came to fruition. In the following years, the band found itself whisked away on endless tours in support of its first three albums -- 2014’s 5 Seconds of Summer, 2015’s Sounds Good Feels Good and 2018’s Youngblood -- all of which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. 
When the pandemic brought the world to a stop, the band’s promotional cycle for its fourth studio album, last year’s CALM, was cut short, and the band’s touring plans pushed to 2022. For the first time in nearly a decade, Hemmings was indefinitely still. Settled at home in Los Angeles with his now-fiancée, singer-songwriter Sierra Deaton, the 25-year-old found himself obsessing over the uncertainty of time and dissecting the blur of the years he spent growing up on the road. 
Adopting songwriting into his daily routine, Hemmings untangled his thoughts and repurposed them as When Facing The Things We Turn Away From, his debut solo album out Friday (Aug. 13). Used to sharing the songwriting stage with three other people, the album offered Hemmings an opportunity to craft a musical identity outside of 5SOS through a fully introspective project with his own influences. It also put all of the surrounding pressures on him, even if the scrutiny was coming from his own self. 
Ahead of the release of When Facing The Things We Turn Away From, Hemmings answered Billboard’s 20 questions about his relationship with songwriting, overcoming self-imposed pressures and creating an ethereal, over-emotional album as a bookmark in this chapter of his life.
1. What’s the first piece of music that you bought and what was the format? 
I bought a CD of Good Charlotte’s The Young and the Hopeless, I believe.
2. How did your parents shape your music taste?
I grew up with a lot of Australian rock music. My dad loves AC/DC and INXS was a big one. My mom was more on the softer musical end of the spectrum, so Crowded House and stuff like that. Definitely all of my rock influences are very Australian typical. I listened to so much Pink Floyd the last couple of years, especially [during lockdown], and was very influenced by them, particularly Dark Side of the Moon. I remember when I was a kid, I [asked my dad], “Did you listen to Pink Floyd as a kid?” and he was like, “Oh no, they’re too psychedelic.” I think it’s so funny because this album is super influenced by them but he was never into them. 
3. What was the first concert that you saw that made you want to be on stage, too?
We didn’t get that many shows in Sydney. I saw AC/DC with my dad and I also saw Good Charlotte –– you know, pop-punk will never die. It sounds so lame, but Good Charlotte was the first band I came across as a kid where I was like, “Oh, there’s people with guitars on stage, I could give that a go.”
4. How did moving away from home as a teenager shape who you are?
When you start a band like we did — we started with pretty pop-punk roots –– the whole plan is to get out of the whole town and to make something of yourself. I think as I’ve gotten older, especially since I haven’t seen my family in a long time now, I think I appreciate them more and more. I was very lucky to be a part of going to so many different countries and cities and seeing so many different cultures and people, living that lifestyle at such a young age. I feel like it's becoming more of a cliche thing now, but I can just encourage anyone who has the means to do any sort of travel. It made me much more compassionate and [informed] about other people’s cultures. Everything is so different everywhere, but everyone is kind of the same in such a weird, balanced way. 
5. What’s at the top of your professional bucket list? 
I mean, I’d take anything right now. I’d play a show. I’d want to play the Sydney Opera House. 
6. Which albums or artists do you find yourself unexpectedly revisiting?
It’s not even a guilty pleasure, but I definitely listen to a lot of Bee Gees. I think they’re rad. 
7. What was the last song you listened to, and what’s a song that always makes you cry?
Is it bad if I say myself? I was listening to a demo from this album, “A Beautiful Dream.” One that always makes me cry is “Pain” by The War on Drugs. 
8. Which artists, dead or alive, would you love to see live?
I want to see The War on Drugs. Wait, I can use dead, can’t I? Maybe David Bowie. 
9. What do you miss most about performing in front of an audience? 
I am just dying to play shows again now. Everything. I’d love to be in a standing floor place right now just playing a gig. The feeling of it, I know more than ever I won’t ever take it for granted or not understand the place that it holds in my life, how much I need it and how much I love it. Not that I ever did, but I definitely even more so won’t. 
10. How did the pandemic change your creative process? 
I wouldn’t have made this album without it. The whole album is literally called When Facing The Things You Turn Away From –– it made me look back at a lot of stuff that I hadn’t dealt with. It changed my songwriting style slightly to somewhat become more of a daily [practice.] It always was, but that was kind of all I did for a long time at home.
There was no moving around. There were no shows. The band wasn’t doing anything for a lot of it. It was literally just me writing songs. I think it changed my songwriting style to letting it happen and stuff coming out of me when it’s supposed to come out and then trying to figure out what it means subconsciously and understand or catch up with it, as opposed to trying to force a song or whatever. 
11. When did When Facing The Things We Turn Away From go from a collection of songs to a fully realized album? 
I don’t know when it was an album, because I was apprehensive and tinkering up until the final hour. It was gonna be exactly how I wrote it in my head. I knew I wanted to do a body of work when I had a couple of songs like “Mum” and “Saigon” and “Comedown” and “Place In Me.” Songs like that –– even “Starting Line” –– are exactly the type of emotion I wanted to provoke for myself and for other people to listen to. I was tinkering until the end, so it’s difficult to say when exactly it was an album. But there was a moment when I was like, yeah, this is a different thing to what I’ve been doing. 
12. What were you setting out to create?
The main thing I wanted to get across, lyrically, I had a lot to uncover and a lot to figure out within myself and portray that in a thought-provoking way. I basically wanted to evoke the emotion that I was feeling at the time through music and through lyric. 
Some of the artists that do it great are Bon Iver and Pink Floyd. They evoke such an emotion in me. They resonate on such a deep level. I really want to get that across. Apart from the songwriting itself, I want to say certain things even just for cathartic reasons to understand myself more and understand what happened and where I’m going. I really wanted it to be paired with this tangible, emotional feeling. 
13. How has your relationship with songwriting changed over the course of your career? 
Right at the very beginning [of 5SOS], I started writing a few songs at home, but Calum, when we were in school, was the one that could create full songs and full bodies of work which I always thought was so cool. I was always getting it almost to the finish line –– this is back when I was 14 or 15 –– and then not being confident enough or not having the skill set. He just seemed to have this thing. Honestly, he was the first in-person inspiration that inspired songwriting for me. 
Then, as we moved forward, we were writing songs more as a band. We did a crash course in songwriting when we lived in England and [were] writing a lot in proper songwriting sessions. It was quick-paced and very fun, for lack of a better word, and through the albums it changed. I really, really want to be a great pop songwriter. We as a band work really hard working with a lot of different people, a lot of Swedish people and people like Andrew Watt and Rami Yacoub, trying to understand pop music and what it takes to make pop music. 
A lot of those skills are sort of like second nature. Then, on this album, they’re always there as thoughts in my understanding of how to make a song and I’ve been writing for so long, but this one was very much exploring. There were no preconceived notions. Even at the start, it wasn’t like, “I’m going to do a solo album, let's write the songs.” I just wrote for fun. Let’s see what happens, and then it snowballs into this huge thing. I just wanted to write full songs of my own at the beginning of this. It’s become more of a part of my daily routine now. It’s my favorite thing to do, and also the most frustrating thing in the world. 
14. How do you think about the passing of time and how has your perception of it changed?
I have a fear of time that’s a slight fascination with things that are out of your control. For me, the last 10 years of my life felt like 30 years, but also felt like it went by in the blink of an eye. Actually stopping and getting to take stock of that was terrifying. You live one way for so long and it’s such a beautiful, incredible, up-and-down, chaotic thing. Now, it’s just still and you’re trying to figure that out. There is a fear of that. It’s terrifying, we’re all gonna get old and we’re all gonna die. That’s so dark, but it’s so true and I think that humanizes us. 
I was 24 when I made the album, and I felt like I'd done so much but also not done enough. Having that time at home and making this album, I got to figure all of that out and sort of slow down and think about what makes me happy and what I want to do. 
15. How would you describe the feeling of sharing your own story with your audience without the shield of your bandmates? 
That fell into every aspect of it, even doing this. It’s my name behind this interview, it’s not the band. It’s a scary thing –– doing videos on my own, doing photoshoots –– they’re all part of a thing that is very much outside of the safe space that I am used to. I think I put myself under a lot of pressure, anyway, so me taking on this and it being just me has put more pressure and more scrutiny. On a personal level, it almost felt like I needed to make this. I needed to say these things and I needed it to feel like this and be packaged in a way that had this hyper-emotional feeling to it.
When I was writing this, I wasn’t thinking, “Oh no, what are people going to think of this lyric?” Up until it was released, I didn’t really think about it like that. It’s all quite nerve-wracking to put out songs after doing it a different way for so long, but lyrically, there was no fear about saying too much. 
16. How did you want listeners to approach the album knowing that it wasn’t created with the intention of being performed for a live audience? 
With the band, when we make albums we think about the live space pretty heavily. With this, there’s no thought of that. I’m not going to play any shows for the foreseeable future. I don’t know if it fully played into the writing style. At the time, there was no big management company, there was no label, there’s no live shows. “Is this even gonna come out? Am I gonna be able to make a full album?” Everything else besides writing the songs, including the live aspect, was not thought about. It was very much, how do I make these songs sound the best on the album, and how do I get across exactly what I want to say exactly the way I want to say it and have those two worlds meet each other? There was no infrastructure at all, just me and [producer Sammy Witte] and Sierra making an album and just making music. 
17. What’s one thing that even devoted fans are going to learn about your musical influences that they wouldn’t hear in your work with 5SOS?
They’ll definitely pick up that I like the big, grandiose, ethereal vibe. The whole album is very Pink Floyd, M83, Arcade Fire, The War on Drugs –– big, ethereal, Bon Iver-type feelings that are juxtaposed with very much classic songwriting. I love Neil Young and Bob Dylan, all of these people who have very classic songwriting. That is the balance I was trying to strike of introspective and personal lyrics, but sometimes taking it very grandiose. 
18. How do you approach your creative process when you don’t have any time constraints? 
It’s not even like we as a band compromise a crazy amount, anyway. We make whatever we want and we make s--t we love. I love making music with the band, but there’s no getting around that the band has made four albums. There’s already something that’s been said before. For this, it’s starting again at square one. I had what felt like all the time in the world to figure out what I wanted to make. There was no first album before this, there’s no label deadline, no one waiting on it. It felt really good, to be honest. The only person that could figure out when it was done was me which was really hard, because usually, I have the rest of the band. It was freeing.
19. What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
Maybe don’t wear the same pair of Vans, because there’s lots of eyes on you. Switch up the shoes and wear some socks.
20. When you look back on When Facing The Things We Turn Away From in the future, what do you hope for it to encapsulate for you? 
When I understood that this would be a seperate project, I knew it was going to be really difficult to get it over the line because of the kind of person I am and the kind of pressure I put myself under for no reason. It was really hard, and really challenging. I think on a personal level when I look back, whether a couple of people like it or it does whatever, it doesn’t really matter. I got it over the line and I finished it. I’ll always be proud of that. 
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A Creep? (Sapnap)
MASTERLIST 
pairing : sapnap x reader 
summary : in the world of flashing cameras and big stages, love lives don’t exist, and there’s no such thing as personal space. 
a/n : a sapnap story for y’all, muah. also, thank you so so much for 175 followers, holy crap.
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your backstory is quite simple. a texan girl who had a dream of singing, but was limited since the main genre of your state was country. 
you appreciated the genre, but you have never been interested in making country music, the song choices never fit your voice. you didn’t even think you had a texan accent, at least that was what people told you. 
your parents have always been super supportive of what you do, constantly posting your covers on youtube, hoping that people out there enjoy to listen to you as much as they did. 
your dad had been the one to encourage you to do busking. he says it’ll be a great opportunity for you to learn what it’s like to sing in front of people, and a chance for you to get rid of your stage fright. 
so you did that. you started busking when you were about fourteen and stopped when you turned sixteen.
no, you didn’t stop because you were quitting, or that you were tired of it. instead, you were really lucky, and got recognised pretty early on your busking days. 
your dad decided that it was best to move to the US, where it’s closer to the record company that you were tied to. hence, that was what you all did. 
well, that was what you and your dad did. your mum decided to stay in houston to take care of your younger sibling. she felt that it was best they all stayed. 
that didn’t mean you guys were distancing from each other. instead, it felt like you were closer, calling everyday, making sure she knew what you and your dad were up to, and making sure that they were okay back in texas. 
you would consider yourself extremely lucky, for getting to experience what it’s like to be in the industry from young, for being able to produce music really quickly, for being able to attract people so quickly, those who liked your music. 
in your prime age of eighteen, you decided it was best to move back and forth from texas and california, from where you live. since things are going smoothly and you weren’t really needed in the US all the time, you thought it was best to move to texas again for the time being. 
you could say your music career was going pretty well. you found a loyal fanbase who enjoyed listening to your music as much as you enjoyed producing them. you were glad to have listened to your dad from such an early age. 
you were happy doing what you’re doing. but you were losing things to write about. 
being young, you didn’t have experiences in anything. sure, you excelled in school well and continued to attend online courses but you never really had friends, you never had a love life. 
a lot of people would say you’re too young, that it shouldn’t irk you this much, not being in a relationship but you thought the opposite. 
granted, you are happy with the close relationship you and your family have but you wanted to know what it would be like to be loved by someone else, to feel what it’s like to be held. 
you craved it. you’ve heard all about it, the pain, or the happiness it comes with. but you wanted to experience it for yourself.
so your dad and you move back to houston to your old house, not letting go of the house in california since you knew you’d come back once in a while. 
something that you hated telling people was what you did for a living. most traditional families would think that music can never bring food to the table, but times have change and music have changed a lot of people’s lives. 
another thing you hated explaining was why people took photos of you everywhere. with certain popularity, in comes curiousity. people want to know what you’re up to. 
and as weird as that sounds, you needed to get used to it. even though it was obvious that paparazzi’s jobs are basically an invasion of privacy. 
although you thought you could never be important enough for someone to document every step you take, paparazzi’s thought differently. but you understood it to a certain extent. it was their job, after all. 
as much as your job is important, so is theirs. 
sometimes it does get annoying though. you could be just in a grocery store, shopping for ingredients alone and there would be a swarm of paparazzi’s waiting outside to catch you and ask some questions. 
and everyday, a different question arrives. 
you never held back in telling them what they wanted answers to, you never had to hide anything. so what was the point of hiding. they never asked anything of importance, anyway. 
although the number of paparazzi’s lessened as you moved back to houston, the numbers weren’t small enough for you not to get overwhelmed. 
it really shocked you the extent they would go to write something vaguely interesting in an article. you didn’t even know how they knew you were moving back, but you never questioned it. 
as long as they don’t invade your privacy at home, all is good. 
about a couple months ago, you decide that your house was getting too boring and cramped with the cries of your little sister to really write anything good for your new album, so you found yourself sitting in a starbucks about less than an hour away from your house. 
you thought it was best to find somewhere further away from where you lived just in case someone spots you. you hoped for the opposite, though. 
you found yourself sitting in a secluded spot at the side, next to a window, facing the parking spots. you knew you’d stay for a while, so you tried to find a spot where people wouldn’t really see you. 
of course, with the way starbucks is set up, everyone can see everyone and but you can’t complain. the place had good drinks and pastry, and had pretty good wifi in case you needed to use your laptop at some point. 
you texted your manager from time to time, earphones in both your ears, listening to the newest sza single. this was the best time to finally catch up on some new music you missed out on. 
often times than not, you’d be typing away in your computer, stopping to grab your iced drink in your right hand to sip it, putting it down after a couple seconds. 
but you hated not knowing your surroundings, it has been what your mum taught you since young, to never be vulnerable, especially in public. with that lesson etched in your brain, you’d look up and around the cafe to see the changed of people once in a while. 
about an hour or two after you seated, you noticed a man walking in, wearing a simple, t-shirt and jeans outfit, carrying a backpack seating on the spot opposite you, but more on your left. 
he sat facing you so you quickly knew what he looked like the moment he sat down. 
for some reason, he caught you eye. 
he was fairly tall, taller than you at least, but wasn’t above six foot, not that it mattered. his hair was long, noticeably not been cut for a while, and had a short stubble, which suited his face so well. 
upon others, he seemed like the normal looking texan, white male. but to you, he was attractive. everything with him seemed to fit so well. he looked about your age, though you’re terrible at telling ages. 
you looked older than eighteen sometimes, yourself. you blamed it on the identity crisis you once had in california when you turned seventeen. 
you watched him silently as he stood up to the counter to order something. you snapped out of your thoughts, thinking if you got caught, he’d surely call you a creep. 
it had been pretty quiet actually. a couple came up to you when you walked in, asking for a photo but that was it. 
it seemed like it was going to be a relaxed writing day for you. 
your eyes glanced once more to the texan male as he settled down, typing away on his laptop. perhaps he’s writing an essay for school. maybe he’s still in college. 
but who were you judging, you, who was seated typing away probably looked like a college student, too. well, you are, just that you didn’t attend physical school. not that you were doing school work at that point, anyways. 
that day had been reserved for writing. and it seemed like you’d be coming to this starbucks more often.
no, it’s not to check on that man, obviously. 
even i can sense the sarcasm in my own tone. what the hell is wrong with me? i see one attractive male around me and i don’t know how to act? that’s so unlike me. 
you sat at the same spot for another three hours, eventually getting another drink when your first one ran out. you felt relaxed, thinking about your life, about what you wanted your new song to sound like. 
you and your producer texted back and forth, sending each other files of different guitar and piano notes you both liked to be into your song. 
you were so focused that you hadn’t looked up for a while. so you did that, you glanced up to check your surroundings, to see what had changed from the past couple hours.
looks like that guy is still there. it’s been so long. must’ve been a long essay. 
your eyes looked back on your laptop, clicking on a short snippet of a music file to listen to on your earphones that haven’t left your ears for about four hours. 
you listened to the file, eyes glued to your notepad in your laptop, trying to decipher if the beat went along with your lyrics. you picked up your cold drink with your right hand, putting it up to your lips as your eyes never moved from your laptop. 
while you gulped a couple sips, you decide to look out the window.
your heart skipped a couple beats as you surprised yourself, seeing a row of people with cameras flashing and recording you in your seat. 
damn, has it been that long since i looked up from my laptop? 
you slowly put down your iced drink, pulling your long sleeved sweater to cover your hands, covering your face for a couple seconds to calm yourself down before you looked up again. 
you were pretty acquaintanced with some of them outside, so they offered you a big smile, some of them laughing at the shock on your face when you spotted them. 
you were embarrassed, to say the least. people here weren’t used to you and didn’t know who you were, aside from the few who asked for your autograph from earlier. you didn’t want to make them uncomfortable. 
with your covered hands, you waved at them but told them to go home, mouthing the words to them, hoping they caught on with what you were trying to tell them. 
you made a ‘shoo’ motion with your hands, signaling them to leave, that you didn’t want the company today.
since they all couldn’t hear you anyways, they soon left one by one, thinking they got enough footage of you for the day, to save their films for another day. 
you knew that you couldn’t go to that starbucks as often as you wanted anymore, you didn’t want the same paparazzi’s to swarm the whole cafe.
so you didn’t end up coming back to the same starbucks location for a while. specifically, for about three weeks. 
for the time being, you went to several small cafe’s, where no one knew you, aside from strangers who called themselves your supporters who spotted you drinking your coffee. 
you were sad when you had to leave the starbucks that day. you knew that if he were to indeed come the next day, the same time, you wouldn’t be able to see him for a long time. 
you weren’t even sure if you’ll see him again after that. houston is huge, after all. 
when you walked into the same starbucks from three weeks ago, the barista greeted you, practically shouting your name out, telling you how much he misses you, since you came only once before this. 
you went to him first, ordered a drink and spoke to him for a couple minutes before telling him that you needed to start writing things before you lose your motivation. 
you sat in a different seat this time, a little scared of sitting next to the window. 
you found yourself sitting in a further in spot, furthest away from the door and windows, unlike last time. hopefully this time, no one can spot you from outside. 
but you were sure that the paparazzi’s were tired of waiting on your never arrival there that they’ve probably given up. 
there was a reason you came again, though. and you’re sure you made it obvious. you just wanted to see him again. 
-
SAPNAP POV 
there was not a day i don’t stop by that starbucks. but that was the first time i had ever seen you in there. you seemed to like your own space, away from people. 
it sure did look like you were so focused in getting your essay done. you barely looked up from your laptop.
i just couldn’t look away from where you seated. you just looked so beautiful, but so mysterious. being since i’ve never seen you before. but for some reason, i felt like i’ve seen you somewhere. i just didn’t know where. 
but it shocked me even more when i saw the sea of people waiting outside, pointing huge cameras on you. 
when i first spotted a couple people standing outside, i assumed that some celebrity was going to walk in soon, or that they were already sitting, just in some sort of disguise, or that i didn’t know who they were. 
i didn’t really care, and continued typing in my laptop, wanting to quickly finish work before i could relax and finish drinking my cup of coffee sitting right in front of me. 
but then i started noticing that they kept on getting closer to the window that you were seated next to. so i stopped what i was doing, and curiously looked, as some of the customers in there stared as well. 
i did see someone coming up to you, talking, but i assumed that you knew them. maybe they were your family and they came to say hi before needing to urgently go. 
but i can see that i was wrong. 
every single camera was pointed your way. there was like ten people standing outside of the cafe, some cameras flashing, others recording you. 
you hadn’t noticed yet at that point, still very much focused in whatever you were doing on your laptop. 
you finally picked up your drink, eyes finally leaving your work to look around you. you almost choked on your drink, seeing the cameras. 
you put your drink down, pulling your sleeves to cover your hands and covered your face with them, clearly caught off guard and embarrassed. 
you smiled at them, waving a little before politely telling them to leave, that you had to finish doing something, as you pointed to your laptop to them. 
you seemed to know them. you didn’t really look uncomfortable, but more of cautious of what people in the cafe would think of the commotion. 
soon, they left anyways, seeing as there was nothing they could really document from you sitting inside, and they couldn’t really ask any questions. 
about an hour later, you left, the barista greeting you, saying that he hoped to see you again soon.
now i’m more intrigued. who could you be? 
how did so many people know you? 
soon after her, i got into my car and drove home, exhausted from doing school work all day. the coffee helped for a couple hours and now clearly wearing off. 
george and dream texted me, telling me to join their discord call, saying that george was streaming and they wanted to talk about some weird shit. 
well, there goes my extra sleep for the day. 
soon, he ended his stream and the three of us were left talking about how our days went. 
“dude, mine was so confusing.” i stated last, after hearing what dream had to say about patches shitting everywhere on his carpet due to diarrhoea. 
“what do you mean?” dream asked me. 
“there was this girl, she came in before me into the same starbucks i go really often, right?” i stopped to make sure they were listening. they hummed to let me know they were.
“ten paparazzi’s swarmed the starbucks. they just pointed their cameras at her while she sat on a table at the side.” i said. 
“she was so shocked to see them at first, but she quickly told them to leave. she looked not comfortable with the stares after that she had to leave like an hour later. i don’t even know if she finished her work.” i finished. 
“wait really? what did she look like?” george asked. 
“my age, hair pretty long. she looked shorter than me and she was wearing flared jeans with a graphic tee.” i described her the best that i could.
“wait. you said starbucks in houston, right?” dream cut in. 
“yeah, why?” i asked, hoping for some answers. 
“i just saw the photos. i know her. she’s a singer, moved back to texas from california recently.” dream told me. 
“she’s like extremely known dude, how did you not know?” george said after dream told me who she was.
“i don’t know artists besides 21 savage, i’m sorry.” they laughed.
dream sent in her instagram in discord for me to see. 
i searched her name on instagram and scrolled through her photos and highlights, switching to youtube to listen to her music after that. 
i quickly clicked follow, wanting to be updated whenever she posted. i didn’t care if we met in real life anymore, i’m just intrigued at this point.
but it’s not like she’ll see my username following her. she has people following her everyday, she must not check it, right?
you had over a hunder million followers on instagram. i’m just shocked i hadn’t heard of her. maybe that’s where she was familiar.
i came back to the same place the following da, the week after. i came everyday and couldn’t find you anywhere. 
well, not that i could blame you, you were swarmed the first time you came, anyways. 
i saw the paparazzi’s waiting every single day, hoping to get a glimpse of you to ask questions but soon gave up and ended up not returning after a week seeing as you stopped coming. 
but you didn’t stop coming. you ended up coming three weeks after your first time. 
the barista practically jumped on the spot and screamed your name, i was sure everyone in the cafe knew you came in after that. 
you didn’t check the entirety of your surroundings so i was sure didn’t know who was seating where. i wasn’t even sure if you knew me, or remembered me from last time. did you even notice me?
this time, instead of sitting next to the window, she sat on the table to my right, we were both facing the direction of the barista. you sat where you could rest on the wall like i did, so we were basically in the same position, just next to each other. 
you settled into your seat, putting your drink down, turning on your laptop and got ready a little notebook that you had from inside your bag. 
while you sipped on your drink, you looked around to finally see what was around you. my eyes and yours locked at the same time, being i didn’t look away from my stare from when you came in. 
you smiled at me, acknowledging me. i gave her a smile back before turning back to my laptop to make myself busy. 
you had your hair different today. last time, it was down, and showed your natural looking hair but this time you had it pulled up into a ponytail. i guess you meant business today. 
i don’t know if that means you didn’t want people talking to you, or. 
oh, you put on your earphones. i guess you didn’t want to be disturbed, then. 
i kept staring at every part of you. okay, that sounded wrong and makes me sound like a pervert. 
you looked perfect. every single ring you wore on your fingers fit perfectly. your hair pulled back gave me the chance to see your side profile. your outfit casual, straight jeans with a sweatshirt on. 
god, you are beautiful. 
-
you felt his stares. he stared for a good couple minutes before he went back to his laptop to finish whatever he came here for. 
so he did remember me from last time. or he just noticed me today. or did he know who i was? 
“god i hope he’s not one of those creeps.” you thought. finally i find a guy attractive and he’s a creep? i hope not.
at some point in the couple of hours you’ve seated there, you had to take out your earphones to focus even more on writing something, instead of getting distracted with listening to something. 
you really wanted to come out with a new album in a couple months, and to do that, you needed to write something. urgently. 
you sipped your drink from time to time. you even had to facetime your producer for a while to ask on his take for the path you’re going with your new songs. 
he was really supportive and heard what you wanted and didn’t dump all his opinion and tried to call it a day. that was what you liked about him. he seemed to always take your thoughts into consideration.
playing with the rings on your finger, you looked up to look around to think of a word that seems to be at the back of your head, just you couldn’t seem to put your finger on it. 
there was no paparazzi’s today, thankfully. you were able to just keep your thoughts at bay and not have to be worried about the swarm of people waiting for you to answer their questions. 
you glanced at the man seated next to you just for him to notice your stare and look up from his work and matched your gaze. 
you hadn’t expected him to notice so you gave him a small, shy smile. to which he gave you back one. 
“do you mind if i, uh. sit with you?” he asked, pointing at the seat next to you. 
your heart jumped. holy crap this was happening. 
“i don’t mind, here.” you moved to your left to give him space to slide in next to you. he took that seat, moving his stuff from his table to yours, now laptops next to each other, your elbows touching. 
-
you two laughed at a dumb joke he said. 
to you, his name was nick but had apparently been sapnap to his online friends and fans. 
you were amazed at what he did as a hobby. sure, your job was a close second, but not close enough. you found it fascinating and promised him that you would check his channel out someday. 
that, to which he told you that he was embarrassed now and regretted telling you about what he does in his spare time. but you told him that he had nothing to worry about and that nothing could creep you out. 
you two spent a while talking to each other, even getting each other’s numbers at some point and promised to come here more often to meet other and do work together more often. 
“i actually had noticed you from the first time you came. it’s hard not to when there was a sea of people outside for you a couple hours later.” he told you. you covered your face with your hands, embarrassed that his first impression of you was that crazy. 
“i noticed you from the moment you walked in a few weeks ago too, i was a little sad when i had to leave.” you told him. 
“but please, no more speaking about the swarm of men waiting outside to talk to me. i am still as embarrassed to this day.” you started another sentence. 
“it was shocking, but i think i needed the experience, you know?” he laughed. 
you two sat there, next to each other until the sun sets, till the there was no sign of the sun at all, till the moon was high in the sky. 
you two didn’t realise how long you’ve sat there until his parents called him, asking where he was. and when your dad texted you. 
you two promised each other to come again the next day to meet and do work. actually do work this time, not just talk. although you both knew that you two would end up talking instead. 
with the promise to text you when he reaches home, he left the place and got in his car to drive home. 
that was nice. well, now you had something to write. 
with a smile etched on your face, you stayed in the cafe for about another two hours writing about the happiness you felt in your heart until you decide to leave. 
oh and yeah, he definitely texted you when he reached home. and fulfilled his promise to meet you again the next day, and the next, and more after that. 
you never ran out of ideas of things to write after that. it seemed that you had finally found someone who you could share new experiences with. 
and even after years of dating, he still teases you about writing multiple songs about him even before you started dating. 
god, he’s adorable. 
well, you could say that he wasn’t a creep after all.
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aurora-daily · 3 years
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AURORA’s Reddit Q&A (July 13th 2021)
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Kmilalv: Hello aurora we love you, I'm @ aurora.s_love on instagram ✨✨🥰🥰🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️ Aurora: oh hellooo!!!! Exportmusic: Meep Aurora: meep < 3 Lisxnne: WELL HELLO AND THANKS FOR YOUR NEW SONG! 🙏🌟💕 Aurora: HELLO!! and thank you for being open to it 24681357900: Thank u for making music Aurora: thank you for inviting it into your heart Emergency-Club-7529: This is have some upper case , it's the real Aurora Aurora: yes!!! Helloooooo brunamombach: hello ✨🃏🧚🏻‍♂️🤘🍇🍄🧚🏻‍♀️ when are you coming do Brazil? so glad to see you here!!! Aurora: I think I will be coming to Brazil next year  I love being in Brazil because I feel like it awakens my heart and soul to be there !! Brunamombach: if you were going to an souless island, what book would you bring with you? 🧚🏻‍♂️🍇🍄🧚🏻‍♀️🤘🃏 kisses from Brazil Aurora: I would either take: "The name of the wind" and "a Wise mans fear" or the LOTR trilogy. Or the "Mistborn" trilogy. or "warbreaker" or "the good omens" or "the ocean at the end of the lane" or "Anne of Green gables" or "The alchemist" or just all the books in the world oh no I cant decide
all DanParis: Hey have some karma you cool bean 🤌🏼 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Aurora: thank you < 3 Ok-Estimate8468: Tell us something you can tell us about the second track on the Cure For Me vinyl, “Potion For Love”. I'm very curious...
Aurora: its the song I decided for the B-side of the vinyl, and I will probably release it digitally one day too. Its the sister song to "exist for love" but from the other perspective. where love does not fill you up, but love has left a big hole within you < / 3 Ok-Estimate8468: Did you get a lot of unfollows and hate from bad people due to Cure For Me? Aurora: I got a little hate from homophobes, and also abelist, and racist comments from people claiming there was nothing wrong with their mindset. BUT it does not bother me. and I will never stop speaking up about the things I find important. because.. what else would our meaning on this earth be? if that makes sense. Some people have attacked me personally, but sadly mostly its people defending their own hateful ways of being. I cant even imagine how it really is to be a victim of racism or violent homophobia, so I feel like the least I can do is to try the best I can to show support. and speak up. and be an ally.
So a bit more short - yes, and I really dont mind!!!! unfollow me if you find speaking about equality and the right to live, and love and be loved unsettling <3 thank you for this question! Ok-Estimate8468: How was the process of creating the studio version of Cure For Me? I heard your first acoustic performance and saw that it's much smoother than the studio, so I was curious to see how you managed to create another even more amazing version. Aurora: Me and Magnus just played around, and we really tried to go with our emotions, and to be playful and to not think too much about what was "AURORA" or what was even...pretty! we just laughed! and danced! and did what felt lovely to us.
I think this is why the making of this song is one of my favourite memories, and also I think that is why it sounds so playful! because it is!! it was like playing a game. and I did also play alot around with symbolics in both the lyrics and the way this song is produced. it all has a meaning you see... but of course I will let you figure that out yourself!!
Pingouiin_: What's your favourite mountain around bergen ? Aurora: mine is Løvstakken!! and Magnus loves Ullrikken!! but important to NEVER stop a Norwegian person walking on the mountain. just say. a quick hello and wander off your own mind. become at one with nature Whoamiandallthat: Thank you for existing, I love your art and you inspire me so much 💙 You are one of my favorite artists 😊 And just the other day I found out that you are just two years older than me, and so successful... I'm wondering how it was for you to become so popular, did you feel like people thought you needed a cure? I'm also in the sphere of arts - filmmaking; but I feel like my films are not good enough... I have a YouTube channel with some videos - if you ever see this comment I would like for you to check it out 😊 Aurora: Ive felt through my life like something was a little off, ive never resonated that much with the people or the "system" around me! it didn't bother me so much even though I. was teased a lot for it ( so again I was very lucky) but I never felt like I understood the world and my place in it. or how I. could fit in, in this worlds society and with other people ! and becoming "famous" which I dont really feel that I am, but I guess that I am a little "known" (meep) was very strange, and very hard to handle at first. as impressions affect me a lot, and noises and people etc. but with time I got better at handling all these impressions, and avoid getting a.. sensory overload! and I am so happy now, that I can look directly at strangers and actually listen to them, and understand them, and even love them I guess what I am trying to say, that ive now understood that this is the very thing that connected me to all of you. and now I see my place here on this earth. and I see all of you, and you give my life so much meaning!! Lets_Fight_Dragons: Firstly I wanted to say I recently discovered your music and I love everything about it. I have two questions, I hope that’s ok 1. How do you start writing songs because I’m trying to get into songwriting and I’m not sure how you write such amazing songs 2. What’s your favourite song you’ve released? Aurora: 1. well I dont really know. ( I am sorry!!) but I feel like it started really natural for me.. I. kind of just sat down with my piano.. and then I started playing around with the Keyes, and I figured out I could make an endless amount of melodies by simply pressing the keys in a different order!! remember finding this extremely magical (I was around 6 years old then) and after a while I started adding lyrics, and I just spent time looking into myself, trying to figure out. - what do I want to say? what do. I need to hear in a song? what do the world need to hear in a song? and etc. I always think about songwriting as storytelling. and I always start out by figuring out what story I want to tell, what matter I want to dress, or what pleases me, or annoys me with the world, or what emotion I need help dealing with!! and then I write a song!!! and if you feel like its difficult to come up with melodies, I would recommend finding a song you like, and learn the chords of it (or find an instrumental version. online) and then you make your own melodies on top of that! many of the songs of the world share the same chords, and often the melodies on top is the thing separating them. music belongs to all of us, and its clear that every song in the world comes from the same magical source. 2. I think its the seed. or couples creatures!! or infections of a different kind!! tiffnoir: Our dear AURORA, your b-side A Potion For Love is helping me a lot (broken heart since a few days ago). I wanted to ask (if I can haha) if would it be included at the upcoming album, or maybe a relaxing, vintage video for it? Thanks for helping all of us with your music ^_^ Aurora: thank you som much for letting this song into your heart  after writing exist for love, I figured that I should also make a sister-song that could belong for the ones with a broken heart as well  it will not be on the album, but for you I will try to put it on the deluxe version FedahpWithThisWurld: Hello, Aurora! I'm a neurodivergent person and I have always felt a lot of shame over being the way I am, like I'm not good enough. Your music makes me feel better and it makes me feel that being me is okay. Thank you for that.  I want to know how you manage to be so confident? Do you ever get nervous before a show? Aurora: hello!!!! I have had a lot of similar experiences with myself in this world too.. so I am very sad to hear you've lived your life with this feeling I think after a while I understood what makes me different also makes me special. and special is good. and if you think about it, special isn't even that different, because in one way or another we are all... unique. but of course, some people have had to fight their. way through life more than others.. making it less easy to learn how to love yourself. and accept yourself. I guess, now I've surrounded myself with good people who understand my quirks and sensitivities, people who give me time. and space to be me. I have also been lucky, because I have a family that have always encouraged me to be myself. and to love myself. and I guess that is why I am trying to convey to all of you now, because now we are like al little family. where being who you are - is cool. and you're cool. and were all cool. and I get nervous all the time, of all sorts of things! but I just accept that feeling as a part of being human. its uncomfortable yes, but I know at least it won't kill me! 3charmplease: What was it like recording for Frozen? Aurora: it was magical  and also slightly scary. but it felt safe and good calling at the mountains. and I feel warm thinking about it. especially now. cause my father just walked over to me with five little strawberries in his hand. he gave them all to me. and they were so small, and sweet. im currently sitting in my childhood home, right next to the very piano where I wrote "runaway" and so many other songs. Tiny-Sink-2397: Boom shake shake shake the room Aurora: that was actually during the recording process of Cure For Me! Tiny-Sink-2397: I thought it was!! Seemed like an epic party Aurora: YES Joelynxyzs: what's your favorite movie ? Aurora: Practical magic BUT ALSO THESE: The LOTR triology ALL GHIBLI MOVIES avatar once upon a time in Hollywood Hannah the perfume fantastic MR. fox Star Wars: a new hope rouge one isle of dogs the hunchback of Notre dame! the arrival stypop: If you were to get the chance to work on a sequel to another Disney movie, which one would you want it to be? Aurora: since Disney owns Lucas films I would love to be a part of the Star Wars universe  or to play either a magical fairy, witch mermaid, forest nymph, or a scary beast!! WE WO brisot: The masks in CFM remind me of theater plays, do you ever watch any and how much of an influence for you is the art of acting? Aurora: this era of my life is very influenced by the ancient times where theatre was all they had. no CGI or special effects etc. and I really wanted all these videos to feel very authentic, and down to earth! The shell in "exist for love" was handmade by someone, and I painted all the masks in "cure for me" myself! so I like it when it feels... human Clear-Champion-1833: i love you Aurora:
<3
Jicuhrabbitkim: How do you like your fried eggs cook!! I like it when its very crispy!! Aurora: as long as its from a local farm that has free healthy chickens that walk about freely and eat good food I like my eggs crispy too. GhostReaper3: Hi I have a question as well: How do you keep positive? Many people including myself find this difficult sometimes so it would be good to hear your technique or way of keeping upbeat and positive! Also, thank you for sharing your music with us! Aurora: I know what you mean, i've struggled with it myself at times. but I guess I tried separating in my mind what I can do something about, and what I cant? if that makes sense?? we are all just here on this planet. and though we all seem to be going though the same things we still feel so alone, in our thoughts and in our minds. And I've been very aware that with music, and with this fandom we can all finally connect, and see each other, and know that we are not alone! and if there is one thing I love, it is to dance a little after I've cried. I think its important to. shake these emotions out of our body. like animals do! and then I made CURE FOR ME. because I thought about all the warriors out there feeling. a little crazy... after isolation! or after being depressed! and being l rocked in with their families that might not accept them for who they are.. and I thought I needed to make a song for us all, that felt a little uplifting. and uniting. just so we know where not alone, and just so we know that we are worthy.. of everything! and that we are worthy of celebrating ourselves!! ALWAYS! aniri003: Were the dancers freestyling in the last part of the video Aurora: YES! I told them to put their freak game on. And they were amazing. L_pls_use_revive: Hei Aurora! Apart from inspiring me with your music for emotional people, I also dicovered my love for Norway and the Norwegian language through you - now studying it in my second year at university. Tusen, tusen takk! I want to visit soon when traveling is safe - So which place should I not miss out on? Have a great life! Aurora: I think the whole of Norway is worth visiting! there are so many beautiful places. and beautiful people! I would ofc. recommend Bergen! (haha!) but also places like Tromsø, Trondheim, Stavanger, lofted and The Geirangerfjord and the Northwest!!! HAHA KakSetoKaiba: How's the progress of the album that you've been preparing which will be released after your death? Aurora: its going well, I take one song for every chapter and I put it on my death album instead of the album I'm making  its going well. and im excited about it! maria_fernandez_: This is not a question but I just wanted to tell you that discovering you and your music has been the best thing that ever happened to me. What your music makes me feel cannot be described in words. I love you so much. Greetings from Spain!! Aurora: thank you!!! applepieaurora: Whats your favorite pie? 🐉 Aurora: apple pie  and blueberry pie!! Ok-Potato7244: Thanks for sharing your time ... a warrior here to welcome you...Have some tea...And i don't need a cure for disliking keeping animals in cages...Especially birds...💚... Aurora: thank you pekaraseva: what do you feel when you perform Ioadk or Adkoh for people? Aurora: I feel so full of emotion and love and despair I could almost explode  and its wonderful. I also feel insanely connected to the audience when I sing these songs.. I. think. its because they are such important pieces of my soul targaryenblood02: omg what do you think cure for me would smell like? 🐛 Aurora: like something Brazilian! like Asai! or caipirinha! or Brigadeiro!
sproutingephemeral: Hello Aurora, Thanks for your new song, I've gotten quite addicted to it😊 I have a question that might be a bit difficult to answer. I am a Warrior from the U.S. currently without a clue of where I should be and what I should be doing. I'm done with school, and in the process of moving to a new town with my parents. I'm applying for jobs, but I feel like I can't find my reason for being in a smaller area with not many people my age. I feel like my parents are trying to mold me into a certain person, which doesn't feel authentic to me. I probably should be making more of my own decisions at my age, but I'm a bit scared and confused, if what I think is deemed too unrealistic or out of line with their expectations for me (like a childhood dream?). I tried talking to them about it, to little success. Is there something inherently wrong with me? Or am I just being spoiled or lazy? I read about how you were initially opposed to starting your career until your mother convinced you to change your mind. How do you know whether or not to trust in your parents' plans for you? On a lighter note, do you prefer cookies that are more soft (chewy) or hard (crumbly)? I don't need a cure for...my autism, and tendency to talk regularly to my deceased cat at his grave (??)😿👼 Looking forward to seeing you in New York! Take care❤❤ Aurora: you should ALWAYS. only do what feels right for you. this world is very absurd, and people tend to think they know what is meaningful and what is important. but we all know, money and success isn't important beyond what you need to simply survive. this one life is yours. and you should be just who you want. and do what feels right for you. because its yours. its only yours. drink tea. work hard. be lazy. dance. be shy. laugh, cry. drink wine and eat good bread. be good. fight for something you care about. and either live for your work, or work a little and then just... live. get a garden, grow tomatoes, get a cat. or a dog. or a parrot. life can be so random, and it can be both so little, and so large at the same time. some days were meant to TAKE chances, and live. and sometimes were just meant to exist. and do nothing. you should never feel guilty for not "being enough" because you are enough. just who you are. just how you are. is enough. good luck on your strange journey my warrior, maybe our paths crosses and maybe they dont. but know, when you walk out of your door, that anything can happen! and the whole world is yours. Hippolyte_gray: is the name of the next album hidden in your previous songs ? Aurora: mayyyyyybeeeeeeeee rashadalt: what do you think about your fans who are racist/homophobic etc.? Aurora: I feel sorry for them. because I know I cant be easy l living a life so full of hate. and even spending your precious. time on this world bringing other people down. and I know how easy it is for people to be driven by fear, and how difficult. it can be to have an original meaning and stand up for what you really mean. so I dont judge them, or hate them,
but I do feel sorry for them. and I am also very disappointed in them. because its such a. waste of human potential to live your life in the paths of hatred.
but as long as we face hate with love, we will eventually win. when we show them. we are not the enemy, just people trying to make a better world, I think, and I hope that eventually we can all agree that being able to live, and being able to love is a human right. Brivera726: I noticed you said you would bring LOTR trilogy with you to an island- I’m reading them for the fourth time right now  I feel like if Galadriel sing songs it would sound like you! Anyway I really like your art so yah just keep doing u- love from PFC Rivera, USMC Aurora: this is then est thing ive ever read thank you Aurora: I am. sorry people, but my time here (for tonight) is up </3 but I will probably be back looking at your questions and thoughts because I did really. enjoy this. and I. love you all so. much.
[link]
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sprainedwriting · 3 years
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why can't you see me (4)
chapter one
I deleted chapter 4&5 because I thought they were trash 😔
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it all started with vocaloid covers. yes, you're also cringing right now. you were how old? 12? 13? it doesn't really matter, to make it short: a few years ago you posted a shitty cover, of an edgy song.
you went viral. thousands of likes and comments were made on your YouTube video, which was recorded with your laptop microphone.
not going to lie, you were shocked. holy fuck? people liked you? your content? that's new.
well, not really. your best friend at the time told you to upload it. he supported you! how nice of him.
one cover caused 2 to be made, then 3, then 4 and after 10 covers you posted your first original song. you didn't actually think that your fans would support it, but they did.
that all happend in the span of a year, or two.
you weren't so sure, you lost your feeling for time a while ago.
after that original song record labels wanted you (you were easy to take advantage of after all). problem was, or still is, you're a minor.
you can't sign anything, you don't have an accutal agent, or manager, you don't have shit. to be honest, you also aren't sure how you're doing it. well, it's easier now because of streaming platforms and your best friend likes to play manager.
it's less stressful at least, you publish whatever you want, when you want it. nobody controls your social media account.
you accutally make money, a lot of it. but to keep yourself humble you donate a huge part, and put the other one in a savings account.
you're so smart! so mature! an old soul! not like the others! a delight to have in class!
you're absolutely burned out.
companies constantly messaging you for you to promote this! newest product! so good! the best thing on the market! when it's trash, a way to get money.
but everything is like that, isn't it? you're also selling trash. making trash music and poetry. wow, you're so special. an artist! royalty, you drew all the album covers yourself? no wonder they look like that.
your age is a mystery, so is your face and real name. people were able to figure out your height by a simple picture of you besides a dresser.
they know you live in japan, you were forced to publish that as you got nearly cancelled for wearing a kimono. life is great!
constant comments and messages of "you changed" were flooding you. of course you changed? bro? you were only 13?
it's called character development.
your fame is basically a secret, besides your best friend and school nobody knows.
you didn't bother telling your father because he didn't want to listen, pretty sad. you tried, you really did but he was busy, as always.
now it's too awkward to tell him.
"hey, papa, by the way im like a prodigy in the music business and i have more instagram followers then you."
yeah, as if (even tho you have to check if you accutally finally got more followers then him).
the older you get, the more followers you get, the less you post.
you're arrogant, they scream.
you're so so tired. constant spotlight. constant critism and people who think you're god. it's so much.
sometimes you're thinking about deleting it all, but you like the attention.
but if you see one more newspaper saying you died or that you're accutally a villain, on god you're going to go crazy.
"Top 10 face claims for faceless celebrities!"
murder on your mind.
______________
toshinori is embarrassed. as he's sitting with his co workers, he feels just straight up bad that he accutally has to think hard about his kid hobby.
"well.. they like cats? and.. ah! they play the guitar."
"acoustic or electric?"
"...there is more then one guitar type?"
his three coworker sighed. well, earserhead would, if he wasn't asleep.
midnight looked at the clock and quickly stood up, "well, i have to go! the kids don't teach themselves."
the two others also quickly realised the time, toshinori stood up, while present mic woke earserhead up.
god, he has to think of a bonding activity. concerts? no, it wouldn't work out for different reasons.
what did you talk about last time he saw you?
when was the last time he saw you?
shacking his head, he quickly remembered an email from your school.
your school was hosting an internship! that's the solution! you work here for a few weeks, he works here! perfect! what could go wrong?
__________
"no."
"why not?"
"because i said no?" with that you turned back to your computer.
"well, i think it would be a great learning experience!"
"and i think it would be very useless for me. i'm not interested in hero's. besides that, i already got a place at a company which I'm accutally interested in." you don't.
"it's not about hero's, it's about teaching."
"I hate children."
"you are also a child?"
"yes, and have you ever seen me get along with somebody my age?"
silence. he feels defeated. maybe he needs to put his foot down?
"you're going to work at UA during your internship, this is finally." thinking about it, he wasn't even sure if UA does internships.
"no, nice try though! appricate the effort. now get out, it's not halloween yet so i don't need any skeletons in my room."
toshinori has to take a deep breath to remind himself that you're just a kid. he can fight you physically once you're 18.
using your full name to get your attention, he used his last card, "please do the internship with me. see it as an bonding experience."
"..okay whatever, but if it sucks i can get another cat."
toshinori felt like a winner, but he needs to ask nezu first. the internship is still a few months away, who knows what will happen during these months.
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joheun-saram · 3 years
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otsukare sama deshita (sope)
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Summary- Hoseok knows the perfect partner for his new song, but will Yoongi agree?
word count- 1.6k
pairing- Hoseok x Yoongi (platonic)
rating- G
genre- friendship, fluff, slight angst (not really)
warnings- none
a.n- HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAN!!! 🥳 I wrote this as a birthday present for @eternalseokjin but in typical mars fashion, i was late. I hope you enjoy my first mxm fic. this is my take on how hobi convinced yoongi to perform with him. when i floated this idea on the net people thought it was gonna be a crack fic, but honestly i think yoongi respects hobi too much to protest a lot lol
A huge shoutout to @hoebii​ and @hobisbeautifulass​ for beta reading this! 💕
As always feedback appreciated, a reblog and a like goes a far way. Send me an ask! 💌
perm taglist- @cheesecakes-randomshitz, @aroseforyoongi
-
Hoseok was excited. In fact, he was beyond excited. He had spent the Japanese tour leg writing a song that he felt was the perfect mix of goofy and talent, if he could say so himself. A cheerful, optimistic song that portrayed his J-Hope persona to a T. He knew it wasn’t going to go in any of the albums; he had told his fellow co-writers in Japan as much, but he just knew that ARMY would love it as soon as he unveiled it. The only thing that would make it better would be if he could get a certain friend of his to join in on the antics. A certain grumpy friend that sat across from him zoning out as he sipped his iced Americano, even though it was close to 10pm.
“Hyung, can I run something by you?” Hosoek asked, feigning an air of nonchalance, as he rolled his chair closer to the couch Yoongi was sprawled on. He rested his feet against the cushions, leaning back against the chair, his fingers drumming against the arm rests. He didn’t want to admit it but he was a little nervous. Chances were that Yoongi would agree to his proposition; he was usually very easy going and enjoyed the fanservice that they partook in. However, lately Yoongi had been pretty stressed, short tempered and tired, snapping at everyone. He hadn’t shared why, but Hoseok felt it was something personal that he didn’t want to pry on. 
Hoseok’s voice broke Yoongi out of his thoughts as he looked up to the brightly dressed man in front of him. He mirrored the frown on Hoseok’s face as he hummed for him to continue. Yoongi would never admit it, but he was in no mood for a conversation; his head running through the overwhelmingly long to-do list he had to accomplish before the end of tomorrow. The longer he looked at Hoseok sitting in silence, the deeper his frown got. What was he so fidgety for? It was putting him on edge, not to mention adding to his stress.
“Spit it out, Hobah,” he snapped, sighing a little in frustration as Hoseok cleared his throat tentatively. 
“Well… I wrote this song. I was wondering if you wanted to perform together.” That’s it? Hoseok just wanted to perform a song together? What was the big deal about that?
“Yeah okay. Sure,” Yoongi acquiesced easily, much to Hoseok’s surprise. Hoseok’s face broke into a large grin, one that brought a small smile on the older rapper’s face. 
“Promise?” Hoseok asked, almost bouncing excitedly. Yoongi furrowed his brows suspiciously, knowing that there was no way he was this giddy about a simple duet. Something had to be up.
“You’re making me rethink this…” Yoongi said as he looked over the rim of the plastic coffee cup in his hand, missing his mouth with the straw before capturing it with his lips with a huff and an eye roll. Hoseok chuckled at the action before continuing.
“Oh come on! It’ll be fun! I can just imagine ARMY’s excitement! A Sope unit song!” Hoseok radiated enthusiasm, lifting Yoongi’s spirits as well as the corners of his mouth. He really was a ball of energy sometimes, his excitement almost contagious as he never failed to energize Yoongi, even when all he wanted to do was crawl in bed and sleep his life away.
“Fine. Let me hear it first,” Yoongi said with a snicker, eager to hear the masterpiece his friend had created. He couldn’t help shaking his head with a smile as Hoseok excitedly stood up, almost hopping to the computer to play the track. Yoongi smiled as the track played, habitually fidgeting with his lip in concentration.
To say it was different than any of the songs Hoseok had penned before was an understatement. Yoongi expected vibrant beats and spunky lyrics like the tracks Hoseok had consulted with him on for his future mixtape but this song was a rollercoaster, a tongue-in-cheek trot song of optimism. He smiled as the track played on, Hoseok’s cheerful vocals a perfect fit for the atmosphere it created. As the chorus played again, Yoongi couldn’t help but sing along to the catchy words under his breath. An action not missed by Hoseok, whose smile only got wider.
As the song came to an end, Yoongi felt his mood lightened, the song already stuck in his head. Hoseok hadn’t written many songs alone before and he felt proud of his friend’s accomplishment. “It’s good. Good job, Hoseok!” Yoongi complimented, a gummy smile on his face.
“Thanks!” Hoseok sang out, his smile quickly replaced by his professional straight face as he continued on with the details of the collaboration, which part Yoongi would sing and the vibe he would add. Yoongi found himself easily agreeing with him. He could do with a fun project, and to be completely honest he was ready to record it as soon as the month was over. However, this thought was brought to a screeching halt as the next words left Hoseok’s lips. 
“So I was thinking we reveal it at the Japan fan meeting.” Yoongi’s eyes widened at the comment. *Was he serious?
“The one in two weeks?” Yoongi’s momentarily forgotten stress was back with full force, and he bit his nail. He had so many things on his plate that adding a song that he would not only have to record, but learn the dance and words to *within the next fortnight made his chest clench uneasily. He always had a hard time saying no to Hoseok but the more he thought about the endless things he had to work through, the easier it became. “Absolutely not.”
“Hyungnim!” Hoseok stretched the syllables cutely in a whine to appeal to his older member. He knew behind all the apathy Yoongi had a soft spot for him and it was not beyond him to use it to his advantage. He jumped from his chair next to Yoongi, an arm around the smaller man’s shoulders as he tried to get him as excited as he was. “The theme to Hwagae Market! We’ll wear cheesy suits and goof around! Come on! It’d be fun!”
Yoongi knew Hoseok was just being his usual self, but he felt slightly suffocated. Shrugging his arm off, Yoongi leaned forward, elbows on knees as he rubbed his face with a groan. He missed the way Hoseok frowned, certain now that something was bothering his friend. Before he could prod for details, Yoongi let out an exasperated sigh.
“I don’t know, Hoseok. Fuck. I’m just so stressed. I don’t know if I can take something else on right now.” Yoongi looked at him, a silent plea hidden in his eyes that made Hoseok’s heart tighten in empathy. He knew all about being overly stressed. It would be a lie to say the life they had chosen was easy and smooth sailing. 
Hoseok always tried to keep a professional distance between his members, not wanting to overwhelm them when they had to spend so much time together by obligation. He always felt he was prying if he asked about their personal lives or struggles, but he also knew that Yoongi never brought up something unless he wanted to share. He just needed a push.
“You wanna talk about it?” Hoseok asked, placing his hand on Yoongi’s knee, trying to coax the rapper into conversation.
“I don’t know…” Yoongi began, but it didn’t take him long to delve into his problems. There was something about Hoseok that always led him to open up without feeling the guilt he sometimes did when sharing his feelings. Although Hoseok was usually loud and energetic, when prompted he was quiet and a great listener. Just looking at his face stoic in concentration made Yoongi feel as if what he was saying truly mattered, regardless if it was a useless rant about work stress that Hoseok himself had. 
It was close to midnight by the time the two had wrapped up their heart to heart, empty beer bottles and half eaten dishes of sundae and tteokbokki cluttering the coffee table in front of them. Hoseok hadn’t expected Yoongi to open up to him the way he did, but he was glad to shoulder his burden with him. There was a reason he was closest with the introverted producer in the group; he seemed to make everything Hoseok said seem important, like it had substance, be it a stupid joke that Yoongi laughed at the loudest, or advice that he could’ve gotten off an Instagram inspiration page. 
By the time they packed to make their way to the dorms, Hoseok felt almost bad for adding to Yoongi’s work load, but the dark haired man would have none of it.
“Nah, Hobi. We’re doing it,” Yoongi said, his voice stern and determined.
“Are you sure?” Hoseok asked, as he climbed into the passenger seat of Yoongi’s car, stuffing his backpack between his legs before strapping on his seatbelt. “It was a random idea. We don’t have to. I can table this song for next year.”
“No. It will be fun. ARMY will love it,” Yoongi replied, placing an arm on the back of Hoseok’s headrest as he turned to reverse out of the parking space, before driving out of the underground lot. “It’s a really good song, Hobi. Proud of you, man.”
Hoseok couldn’t help but chuckle at the earnest praise, feeling instantly shy. He was right though, he realized as he walked off the stage two weeks later, high on adrenaline with a huge grin on his face. His expression was mirrored on Yoongi’s face who clapped him on the back, panting hard.
“Sope des!” Yoongi joked, still laughing at how great the performance went, taking off the shiny sequined coat.
“Sope des!” echoed the rest of the boys cheerfully before rushing towards the stage, as Hoseok laughed putting on the jacket for the next performance.
-
Like this? Check out my other works.
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btsvsmysanity · 3 years
Text
OK so I've seen a lot of people talking about how "BTS isn't the same" after Permission to Dance got released yesterday. Now, I wasn't going to open my proverbial mouth about this but I write fanfic and readers have gotten friendly with me on twitter so I'm waiting for someone to ask me at some point. What I'm going to say here, I won’t be able to say to them because it's an account for my writing and there's a level of pseudo-professionalism I keep up. So basically this is me getting it all out so I can be like "Oh yeah, I love it" when it eventually gets brought up (honestly, I hate twitter so much, I just wanted to write my angsty fanfic in peace without people wanting Namjin smut and not taking no for an answer)
Okay, I'm just going to say it, I don't really like Permission to Dance and you know what, I'm okay with that. I also don't like BTS Cypher 1 (from 2013), I don't like Where You From (2014) or Moving On (2015). Plus a couple of others. That's fine because I don't expect myself to like all of their songs, it's just not going to happen.
In terms of an apparent decline in quality for BTS;
I haven’t been so excited for an album to come out that I barely sleep and then listened to it non-stop for the whole of the first day since Map of the Soul: 7. Don’t get me wrong, there are songs I adore on BE (Looking at you, Blue & Grey) but unfortunately neither Dynamite or Life Goes On was among them. I also struggled with BE because it tended towards the mellow side and while BTS' slower and ballad-type songs end up being among my favourites, they take me longer to get into, especially without some up-tempo songs to carry me through the album on my first run through.
However, I don’t blame that on the quality of the music. Aside from the things I've explained above, the thing that really hooked me on BTS at the start was getting into the theories so obviously the albums with an overarching "plot" pull me in more. And some of it is just down to personal preference. I mean, of all of BTS albums, there are 2 albums where I never skip any song (for those interested, they are: HYYH 2 and MoS: Persona) because some songs I just don't like, and some songs it just depends on my mood and sometimes I'm just stuck in my ways (Sorry, Kookie but 2! 3! will always be the fansong for me as much as I enjoy Magic Shop). And you know which albums I always say are my favourites? Dark and Wild and LY: Tear. Because I know I won't ever like every song they put out but I love 90%+ of it so BTS still own my soul.
Now, on the topic of them releasing English language songs.
I mean, they can say what they want- they're doing it to get better sales in America which is a whole other issue that I'm not qualified to dissect.
Do I like them? As I've already said, I'm not keen on Dynamite or Permission to Dance. But that’s because (and Butter is included in this), they just don't feel like BTS songs.
When Dynamite came out, I felt bad about that and so I had an idea and looked up the people credited with writing/producing the song. You know who wasn’t on there? The in-house BigHit production team (other than pdogg for "recording engineering") or a single BTS member. It's 1am so I'm not checking now but I'm sad and I've read a lot of the production credits for BTS songs and you know who's always on there? The rapline. Because they write their own verses, at the very least. That's why they don't feel like BTS to me, because BTS just singing the song isn't enough. And speaking of the rapline writing their lyrics, that brings me very nicely to my second point...
The lyrics aren't great. I mean, compared to other English language pop songs, they're amazing but compared to BTS' Korean lyrics? They don't hold a candle to the poetry and the word play they achieve in their Korean lyrics. People that I know have heard these English language songs and said to me something along the lines of "Why do you rave about their lyrics? They're pretty basic" and it makes me want to scream because they're not wrong but also, I wrote a mini-essay once on the lyrics of Spring Day because they're so beautiful and meaningful. I feel like it's almost dumbing down BTS and I'm there, trying to explain to non-ARMY about all these nuances and messages in their music. And it's not like you can't be poetic in English, I have awful memories of doing my English lit GCSE that say otherwise, the writers just need to try harder.
I know what some people might say, they're releasing these upbeat songs to break into the market better then they might release something more meaningful. To that I say: you can do both and BTS have before. The song that comes into my mind is Baepsae. That song slaps (THEY CALL ME (CALL ME) BAEPSAE... sorry) but they still managed to talk about the unfair expectations on younger generations who don't have the advantages of the older ones. And to me, that's BTS, music with a message. I know so many ARMY love BTS for that. We've all seen stories of how BTS have saved people's lives. I've been in some very dark places mentally and it was BTS that pulled me out of it by telling me the dawn right before the sun rises is the darkest and that loving myself is harder than loving others. That's the BTS I fell in love with. Not meaningless pop that, while I enjoy it because I am a basic bitch who loves a good beat, I can get from a hundred other artists.
I don't really know where I was going with this but to wrap up:
If you like Permission to Dance, all power to you, my friend. Life is short so go enjoy the song, sing it in the shower, whatever, be free.
If you don’t like it, that's also fine. And if you're like I was with Dynamite, wondering why you're not feeling it because this is BTS, you're supposed to love it, maybe some of what I've said will resonate with you and you can figure out your own reasons why.
I look forward to BTS' next Korean album but until then, I'm going to keep enjoying the hundreds of songs I love by them
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k-hiphop-trash · 3 years
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GROOVL1n PROFILES AND FACTS
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It was founded on June 26th 2019.
RAVI
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Real name: Kim WonSik (김원식).
Nicknames: Ambidextrous Rapper, Lava, Lucky Boy.
His stage name Ravi means “charming”.
His favoucolours are black and white.
His hobby is body training.
Among the members of VIXX he sleeps the most.
His most valuable belonging is his lyrics notebook.
He is allergic to dust.
He enjoys drinking coffee at night.
Heloves doing graffiti.
Hehas several tattoos including: “YOLO, You Only Live Once” on his chest; an angel on his left side; “Love attracts love to the wearer”.
He was born on February 15th 1993.
He was born on Jamsil Dong.
He is 183 cm.
His bloodtype is O.
Hehas a younger sister.
He founded his own hiphop label GROOVL1n on June 2019.
He won the 2020Brand of the Year Awards: Idol Variety Star.
He is part of the k-pop group VIXX and part of the sub-unit VIXX LR, were he is a rapper and dancer.
He went to Seoul Jamdomg Elementary School, Jamsil Middle School, Jamsil High School and Howon University with a master in Musicology.
He is a very good MC and is a fairly good freestyler.
Ravi’s ideal type is a pretty and self-conscious woman.
His motto is “You Only Live Once”.
His favourite artists are Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, Chris Brown, Drake, Big Sean and August Alsina. He is also a fan of G-Dragon.
He became part of VIXX because he was one of the winners of the show “Mydol”.
He features on Chad Future’s new music video “Rock the World”.
He wrote the song “What U Waiting For” thinking of the members.
Park MyungSoo offered him to work together when he was impressed after his cover of the song “Fire” on his show “Park Myun Soo’s moving TV”.
He participated in SMTM4 but was eliminated.
He wrote VIXX LR’s “Beautiful Liar”.
In June 2018 he produced a song for the girl group ELRIS.
To promote one of his albums he held a guerrilla concert at Gangnam station.
On April 2nd 2017 he uploaded a picture of a French Bulldog to his Instagram officially introducing “Buttie”, VIXX’s new member. His nickname is “BADA$$”.
He debuted as a soloist on 2017 with his mini album “R.EAL1ZE”.
He is part of the group “Parka Friendship”, including Taemin (SHINee), Kai (EXO) and Timoteo and SungWoon (HOTSHOT). His song “Ravi Da Loca” mentions their name to express his gratitude towards them. He says his best friends are Taemin and Kai.
He appears in Brian Joo’s MV “Let This Die”.
If he were a girl he would go out with N among the VIXX members because he is really nice and reliable and he would probably not be a cheater.
He is the 3rd idol with more songs registered to his name.
He won the golden medal in bowling with Ken on the Idol Star Athletic Championship 2018.
Jellyfish anounced on May 24th that he would be leaving the company but will still promote with VIXX.
He cares a lot for the members of GROOVL1n.
He has a YouTube channel with a mini series were he interviews different artists.
CHILLIN HOMIE
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His real name is Jeon WooSung (전우성).
He was born on September 3rd 1999.
He is 178 cm.
He was born in Seoul but lived in Pohang for a long time, which is why he considers Pohang his hometowm.
He started rapping at 18.
He debuted in 2018 with his single “Gang Move”.
He joined GROOVL1n on 19th September 2019.
He is part of NFL crew.
On Februa 1st 2020, he released his first EP album “Saviour from the Hell pt1” with a music video for his title song “WASSUP”.
He rapped for 2 years before applying for SMTM at 20.
He was a contestant on SMTM777, SMTM8 and SMTM9.
He used to play piano when he was young but his fingers didn’t straighten well so he learned to play the piano and the flute.
He got his first tattoo at age 20 on his face which says in kanji “better safe than sorry”; meaning you have nothing to worry about if you are prepared. He also has a chain tattoo on his left arm that has the birthdates of the members if NFL Crew.
In SMTM9 he was a member of team Giriboy&Zion.T with Wonstein, Lilboy and Skyminhyuk.
He made it to the mic slection stage on SMTM9, but decided to drop out due to his panic disorder. Due to this, rapper Skyminhyuk performed a solo stage on his place.
He appeared talking to Ravi, the CEO of his label, about his mental health and Ravi showed lots of interest and preocupationfor his well being.
His career role model is JTONG.
He uses English on his songs because it sounds nice and looks good.
He used to go everywhere, including SMTM recordings using public transportation, but since signing with GROOVL1n he goes on the label’s car. He says this is one of the many benefites of having a label to back you up.
He also said that during the two first times he participated in SMTM he looked rough and grubby, nothing like in SMTM9. He also said that he once asked for new music equipment and the company bought it for him in a short time.
He likes clear weather and dislikes rain and snow.
He loves football and his favouclib is Pohang Steelers from K league and Arsenal from Premier league. He has a friend that play on Pohang FC and his favourite Arsenal player is Hector Bellerin.
In order to learn and understand English he uses the translator and watches translated songs.
He featured on Ravi’s single “ASURA” along with other GROOVL1n members that was released on December 7th 2019.
He’s worked with artists like Mckdaddy, DSEL, Eptend, Wonstein, LilBoi and others.
With his upcoming album he wants to break the strong image that a lot of people get from his rapping.
COLD BAY
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His real name is Oh InSeob (오인섭).
Nicknames: Cold Valley, Coldy.
He was born on July 7th 1993.
He was born on Iksan, North Jeolla.
He is 182 cm.
He has 2 older sisters.
His bloodtype is O.
He went to Korea University.
His first music tour was with Ravi.
He debuted on July 22nd 2019 with his single “Ruined”.
He collaborated with Ravi and Xudo on the track “Fashionable (prod. gXXD)”.
XYDO
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His real name is Park ChiWoong (박치웅).
Hewas born on January 29th 1994.
He debuted on August 14th 2019.
He is from Seoul.
He collaborated with Ravi and Cold Bay onthe track “Fashionable (prod. GXXD)”.
He was an underground R&B artist.
He collaborated with Ravi on his song “Hoodie”.
He says his name is hard to pronounce in English so you can just call him C.W.Park.
He already completed his military service.
His stage name, Xydo, comes from: “Try” in English is “시도하다” in Korean. The pronunciation “Shido” is similar to Xydo and he wanted a name without preconceptions, so he chose Xydo.
He says music is his best friend and that he can share it wether he is happy or sad.
He isn’t sure of how long he’s been pursuing music.
He likes songs made to express himself.
About his music: he does want his music to be tied up in one place and doesn’t want to categorize it into any genre. However, if he were to do this, he would say R&B and Pop.
He says he wants to be different from other artists and says that he wants to show his own colours.
He likes Jamie Foxx, Miguel, Nao and wants to work with Ruel.
He likes watching movies, specially ScyFy, and if the weather is good he likes to play basketball.
To people that wants to pursue music: finding your true self is the most important and he is still doing that himself.
He says having international fans is awesome and that it suddenly feels like his world is wider and brings a new perspective. He also wants to visit any place were there is a fan of his no matter how far.
One song he recommends: “I like many genres rather than just one thing. From what I’ve listened to lately, I would like to recommend “Remember Me” by Umi.
A song of his that he recommends: “Lee Sang”, because everyone tries to do something they want. I think there were times when it felt like something was getting farther and farther away.
When he feels down and feels about to guve up, he tells himself: “Believe in myself”.
A song he’s proud of is: “Drawing”, because there were a lot of difficulties in making the song but he overcame them.
NAFLA
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His real name is Nicholas Choi and his Korean name is Choi SeokBae (최석배).
He was born on February 28th 1992.
He is from Pasadena, California.
He went to University of Southern California.
He was a member of MKIT Rain.
He is a member of 42 crew.
He is 162 cm - 169 cm.
He has an eyebrow piercing.
He likes to die his hair red.
The name Nafla means”Natural Flavour”. A friend of his thouht of this name after drinking something that said “100% Natural Flavor”.
He joined Groovl1n on December 22nd 2020.
He has a tattoo on his left arm.
He has collaborated with artists like Babylon, Dumbfoundead, Dynamic Duo and Woo Taewoon.
He would like to collaborate with Frank Ocean.
He went to Universit with Killagramz. They used to exchange messages through Facebook.
If he wasn’t in MAKIT Rain, he would like to be signed in 1llionaire.
As of 2016 he lived on his studio.
He has been friends with Ravi for a while.
After Show Me The Money he remained good friends with Kid Milli and often jokes around that he is a member of Mkit Rain.
He founded MKIT Rain with Loopy.
Some Mkit Rain members were involved in a marihuana scandal when they were caught smoking it, Nafla was one of them. He later made an Instagram post apologising for his behaviour. However, his charges were dropped since it was the first time he committed an upinfraction regarding this matter.
During his 60 second evalua in SMTM, The Quiett said it was the first time such a good quality rap and performance was shown on national tv.
When he gets dresses, he chooses his hat first and coordinates the outfit to compliment it.
His top favourite rappers (2016) are: #1 Gaeko, #2 Beenzino, #3 E-sens, #4 Lobsta, #5 G-Dragon.
He and Loopy met in a bathroom during a concert in the USA.
The car he won in SMTM777 was given to Loppy as a present to thank him for everything he had done for him.
He won SMTM777 with team Giriboy&Swings.
According to Loopy, Nafla was thinking about leaving MKIT Rain for a while and his leave was officially confirmed through Instagram on early December 2020.
He won Best Mixtape of the Year 2015 with “This & That”.
Nafla has a lot of respect for Just Music, specially Swings and Vasco.
Nafla was involved in a diss with CJamm. Neil, who was in the same crew as him, Young Creation, dissed CJamm and somehow Nafla got involved. It was nothing serious and there weren’t any bad feelings afterwards.
During SMTM777 he was selected as the leader on the group battle and every of his team members said he was really nice and helpful. Regarding this, he said he was happy to have Loopy by his side because he has a lot of experience and helped him a lot.
Source: https://kprofiles.com/chillin-homie-profile-and-facts/; https://kprofiles.com/ravi-vixx-profile-facts/; https://kprofiles.com/cold-bay-profile-facts/; https://kprofiles.com/xydo-profile-facts/; https://kprofiles.com/nafla-profile-facts/
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