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princessofprocrastination · 3 years

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Not The Same (GeorgeNotFound)

summary : you put out a song, but it attracted the wrong type of crowd and caused too many misunderstandings.

trigger warnings : threats (including death and doxing), panic attacks, taking of meds.

"you're THOSE type of fans, huh?" you read the comments on your newest song release.

and that was the start of your downfall.

you and your dad really enjoyed singing. at any opportunity you two got, you would be doing a duet.

whether that would be at at a close relative's wedding or your at home karaoke set up, you two knew how to entertain people.

though singing was your passion, you ended up being too busy with school and trying to graduate with a diploma to even think about singing again.

but you swore to make a career of your singing after high school. you just loved it too much.

but then, you didn't go to college for music, which pretty much shocked your parents and your friends since they knew your only passion in life was singing.

but you took a different direction. you still wanted to sing and you were trying your hardest to find a way to make that your career.

someday, anyway. but you needed to have a plan to fall back into in case anything goes wrong.

you were a realist, after all.

so off to college you went.

you spent long hours studying for tests after tests, sat through hours of lectures, did endless amounts of projects.

in the end, it was all worth the wait and fatigue. you graduated top of your class.

you went off to be an intern, clocked in more hours before you could fully go into the next phase of your life.

and after those long hours, you finally made the decision (with the support of your parents) to take a gap year.

but before anyone panics. your gap year was not all fun in games where you took to rest and lay in bed all day.

you took the gap year to see if the music industry fits you. to see if you even had the chance to succeed.

and if it did, you could finally have your dream job. but even if it didn't you were not going to be upset if you needed to fall back onto your backup plan.

in the duration of the gap year, you took voice lessons, and poetry classes for song writing.

and with whatever you have learnt, you took that into writing songs that you felt really relate to your life experiences.

so you spend at least a couple months writing multiple songs.

after almost 2 years, you finally came out with your first song. and it definitely got recognition. more than you thought you'd get, if you were being completely honest.

and that was what pushed you to sit your ass back on your desk to write more, and go into your makeshift studio and make the words into songs.

your parents were ecstatic to hear that you were finally doing the things you loved. and you knew you'd never get this far if it weren't for your family's support.

and so your music journey began.

it was going well for years. you were finally happy doing the one thing you enjoyed doing.

and you definitely think you were good at it. seeing and hearing the positive feedbacks from your family, friends and listeners.

you felt good.

but you lost that feeling when you came out with a new single, called ‘fan of you’.

you spent a while working hard on that song and you felt relieved when it was finally released. it was like a weight was lifted off your shoulders.

and you weren’t sure how one thing led to another, if you were being honest. at first, you received good feedback for your new songs. you even gained new listeners and your spotify rank rised.

but then it didn’t anymore.

your twitter flooded with mentions and your instagram full of tagged pictures and dms by accounts you’ve never heard of.

but you noticed a similarity with all of the spam. a guy name george. georgenotfound for short.

you being you, you looked into it. and that was when all of the information hit you. and all you had to look up was your name on twitter, and there it was, the longest thread of tweets you have ever seen in your life.

you took time to read it all, trying to make sure you didn’t miss anything crucial.

there must be an understanding. you didn’t know this guy name george. you’ve seen his face on pinterest once a while when you scrolled, yes. but you never looked into him.

this amazing person took their time to gather every bit of information there was about the scandal, which you were grateful for, or else you’d be scouring the internet for hours.

to summarise what you read, there was this artist by the name of tia jade who came out with a song a few months prior to yours called ‘just a fan.’

it was a good song, some say, and you could agree. it was professionally written and produced. but many fans of george found out that the song was about him.

not just about him, but about her falling in love with him, when she has never met him. and when his fans started to really listen and analyse the song, it got creepier.

basically, the song was about a fan falling in love with a celebrity/content creator and that they want to know them beyond their persona online.

but tia had apologised a little after the song came out, saying that she made that song based on a fan liking a content creator, and not about her falling for george.

but when you read enough of the issue, it definitely did seem like she was making that song to tell her story about falling for george. but she obviously needed an excuse to cover it up.

hence the apology.

and then you read about how they analysed your song, too.

they compared your song to tia’s and found it to have similar stories. stories about how a normal girl is falling in love with the man by the name of george, who had millions of followers on all social medias.

and if you admitted it to yourself, your song did seem to come out that way. especially if your mentality had been there. clearly your song could have been interpreted in many different ways.

you scrolled to the very bottom of the thread where there was a video of the man himself, george. he was addressing the issue.

“i don’t know how this happened twice. i thought once was weird enough, but.” he paused, focusing on building something on his screen.

“having heard of a song being about me again now makes my skin crawl.” he finished. it was short but enough to make his fans understand where he was coming from.

you scrolled further to see the replies of the thread. you wanted to know what were people saying about it.

and you definitely regretted your decision to do that.

threats everywhere. death threats, threats of beating you up, threats of doxing you. god the negative comments were drowned by the one’s that genuinely thought nothing wrong of your song.

you called you mom. this was the time you needed her advice. you needed to be told what to do. you didn’t want to accidentally trigger people.

you and her were on the phone for hours. she listened to you cried to her. she heard the painful sobs that came out of your mouth whenever you reminded yourself of what people were calling you on the internet.

she heard you cry silently on call when you saw your address and phone number being leaked on twitter.

but even through all of that, you joked around with your mom. “well, this was a hell of a way to be trending.”

you did what she told you to do. get a new phone number, stay in a hotel for a couple days while you try to settle the raging crowd of georgenotfound fans down.

in the span of a couple weeks, you got yourself a new number, a new house and a new car. you weren’t taking any chances.

you told no one besides your mom of the new changes, just to be safe.

and no, the threats did not cease. at all. these people did not have a life, constantly up in your dms, telling you to jump off a cliff or them hoping that a robber stabs you and leaves you dying.

you took your time trying to figure out a way to talk to george. or a way to speak out about this.

you didn’t want to write a half-assed notes app paragraph apologising when- first of all, you had nothing to apologise for and second, you had too much to say to fit it all in a notes app.

lucky for you, you didn’t need to start your own channel or make a sit down video on your own.

your recording label had brought up the idea of a documented series about you and how you became a singer about a year ago, and only started filming and posting the episodes a couple months prior on youtube.

so you took the series to your advantage. you pitched in the idea to your manager, to which she agreed to immediately, knowing that it was best you talked about it now.

this was how it played out on the perspective of viewers who watched that episode.

“bless you.” your producer says after you paused your singing in the mic as you stopped to sneeze.

you gave him a smile and a thumbs up from inside the booth.

the camera cuts to another clip.

the cameraman pans as they captured movers coming in and out of your old house, picking up your heavy furniture and boxes into large trucks to move into the new place.

it cuts again. this time it shows you scrolling on your phone with a focused face while your manager types something vigorously on her computer.

the camera tries to focus on your phone, and sees that you were on twitter, reading a lot of tweets under your name.

you exited the app and slide it away, going into youtube next, reading the comments on your song ‘fan of you’.

you scrolled far, clicking on some of the comments, trying to read the replies to certain comments you saw.

the camera cuts into a black screen. which then cuts again into a new scene, where you sat on your new kitchen counter talking to your mother, who sat on the chair in front of you.

your hair was up in a ponytail. a messy one. you were wearing sweatpants and a hoodie that seemed far too big on you, and your feet covered with fluffy socks.

you were nodding to whatever she was saying to you. it was clear your mind was elsewhere as your eyes were unfocused.

the scene cuts again.

you were seen on the couch, your legs were tucked into your arms and your head down, body shaking. it was obvious you were crying.

you were alone, your mother no where to be seen.

that was the first time the camera caught you crying.

the scene cuts as you were going to get up from the couch.

now, you were in the kitchen again, opening the refrigerator to take a water bottle, then walking to your room upstairs.

the camera follows behind you slowly into your room.

it hadn’t been the cleanest. there were a couple shirts on the floor, your bed undone, cups on your side table, your laptop open on your desk.

you were seen opening a drawer, taking out a small white bottle. you unscrewed the bottle and took out 2 pills, popping them in your mouth, drinking water straight away after that to swallow.

the scene cuts again.

this time, you were seated on the couch in the studio, the atmosphere dark and quiet.

your hair was more kept this time, being help up in a clip.

you were wearing straight jeans and a slightly oversized sweatshirt. you looked more refreshed this time. but it was obvious you hadn’t slept in a while because of your eyes.

your eyes that usually held a lot of happiness and joy turned dull.

“it’s been a while since i’ve spoken to a camera.” you offered a small smile. your song ‘just a fan’ was playing in the background of the clip.

the scene cuts again.

“when i released that song, i was genuinely proud of the work i had done.” you paused for a while. besides the song playing in the background, it was silent.

“but i guess the joy didn’t last very long.” the scene cuts there.

it transitioned to a collage of what people were saying about you. it showed clips of people talking about it on youtube. they even showed george talking about it.

and it cuts again.

it showed a different clip this time. a clip of your ex boyfriend and you at the beach on a picnic, that was taken by a close friend of yours.

this was when you were still in college.

it showed all the fun memories you two made while you were still together.

it showed a video of him studying in the library, flipping through his papers and scrolling through his laptop. it was clear he was hard at work, not noticing you filming him.

but then the scene cuts again. and the music turned somber.

your ex boyfriend’s grave.

it was the day you were visiting him. you sat down next to his stone, a blanket under you.

you were just staring at his stone, not moving.

and it cuts again.

“he was one of the most driven person i have ever met.” you told the camera.

“he knew when to be serious and when to have fun.” you looked down in your hands and played with your rings.

“all he ever talked about was becoming a surgeon. he worked hard in his intern years and continued being passionate through his residency.” you spoke up.

“people had only nice things to say about him. the only bad thing they would say about him is that he can be pretty uptight sometimes, especially when he was stressed about something.” you laughed a little.

“i was a huge fan of him, even when we just saw each other in the hallways. he’s just amazing. i’ve always wanted to be just like him.”

“i wanted to write a song about him but i didn’t the song to be sad.” you said.

“and that was when the song ‘fan of you’ was created.

the scene cuts there and goes into another.

you were in the recording booth again, this time, you were singing into the mic.

the camera pans to your producer and manager dancing and bobbing their heads to the beat.

the scene cuts, officially ending it with a black screen with ‘the end’ in a fancy white font.

you busied yourself with writing new songs as your name got trended again on twitter.

and george has never felt worse about himself ever in his entire life.

he watched the episode as soon as dream sent it to him.

“you’re an asshole, george.” dream sends to him, along with the link of the video on youtube.

as the video ends, he decides to read the comments, wondering what it was like down there.

it was the worse mistake he had ever made in a while.

but he knew he deserved it. he did assumed it was about him, just like the last song made with a drawing of his glasses as their cover photo on spotify.

this time, there was genuinely no reason to think that this song was about him, or anyone with a following whatsoever. he just believed what his chat told him.

sure, there were some familiarity of the character in your song and him, but the world did have 7.6 billion people living on it.

“so, here i am apologising.” george says to his camera, live. his tone was very sincere and apologetic.

“this shouldn’t have gotten this far. they shouldn’t have gotten threats at all, let alone death threats. they shouldn’t have woken up to the world knowing where they live and what their phone number is.”

“and if you’re watching. i sincerely apologise. i clearly was full of myself.” george finishes. ending the live with a small wave.

and were you watching? hell yes.

and that was the day the two of you followed each other on instagram.

he used your songs as his intros of his live, (with your permission, of course.) you showed in your documentary that you were watching whenever he was live or watching his youtube videos.

and that was the start to a beautiful relationship.

you sat on the chair, going live. you waved as people started joining. it went from hundreds, to thousands in seconds.

as you were talking and clicking on your keyboard and mouse, playing a game, you felt arms around your shoulders.

you smiled, yet continued playing.

“why are you live on my account?” he laughs.

you disconnected the headphones so that he could hear what you were hearing.

“george, you’re being replaced.” dream said on discord.

george smiles, giving you a kiss on the top of your head. “that was well deserved.”

#georgenotfound imagines #georgenotfound imagine #georgenotfound fanfic #georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound

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aspecpplarebeautiful · 3 years

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Ever since I started identifying as aro and also found out I might be on an asexual spectrum too, my other labels become less important. I always knew I wasn't straight but never paid much attention to it. At the end of high school I started calling myself bi, but I wasn't very attached to that label and didn't necessarily feel like a part of the community, because while I found people of different genders attractive I didn't want to date nor have sex with them. Then I realised pan label fits me better, I met more LGBTQIAP+ folks and become more engaged and active in the community. I truly felt like I belong and was "GAY AND PROUD" but nowadays... even though I know aro and ace people ARE part of the community, I personally feel like I'm drifting away. I'm still kinda attracted to people, but I don't act on it in any way and can't relate to many "gay" things, like jokes, posts about yearning or whatever. Maybe it's because I'm getting older too. But e.g. I'm active on Twitter in a few kpop and anime fandoms, and fans constantly yell about things being "gay" - I used to act in a similar way, but now I'm just indifferent and even a bit tired of them making everything seem sexual or romantic... maybe it's a generation gap too since most of those people are much younger than me. Like, I'm a bit disconnected I guess? And for some reason it doesn't feel right to call myself gay or queer like I used to do...

I'm not sure why I feel like this and I'm not sure if I'm sad about it or not, but yeah I just wanted to get it off my chest. Sorry for the long rant and sorry if it doesn't make sense...

This is something I've definitely seen happen with other aces and aros. Sometimes the more we get used to being ace/aro, the more other attraction starts to fade or starts to be less important.

And there's a few reasons this could happen, sometimes these shifts just happen naturally as we get older. When we're younger we have a lot more hormones shifting or sometimes we have an orientation that's fluid.

Sometimes the attraction we were feeling was a bit forced, or created a bit from the pressure to experience, and as that pressure eases we just experience it less (or sometimes it disappears entirely).

So I can't tell you where you might fit here, though it may not even matter really which it is. But definitely you're not the only one to be experience, and it's definitely normal. Definitely not something you need to be sad about either, you can feel however you want about it.

All the best, Anon!

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layzeal · 2 years

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mdzs for the fandom ask!

hehehehehohohoho ty friend!!! LET'S GO

Send me a fandom and I’ll tell you my:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

there's no question, if you've followed for even a little bit you know i'm a WWX lover, that man and his crazy scientist hubris and his big, beautiful, annoying heart lives rent free in my brain. his husband LWJ comes close second, but WWX is just unmatched

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

SIZHUI!! i mean come ON, both baby and teenager forms are the sweetest thing, but i especially love how he's not a 100% pute sweet little guy. he WILL start throwing punches in in a cave and he WILL say that the annoying guy they've been helping save from a walking corpse deserved more than a punch to the face from being so awful to his old friend

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

A-Qing!!! THE bravest character in modao, especially considering her backstory and circumstances. She's funny and cute and feral and one of the best people in the story but in a way that still feels like a real person. my god i need to re-read Yi City, but A-Qing really deserves soooo much more love than she gets

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

MO!!!! XUANYU!!!! MY GOD I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT MO XUANYU I'M OBSESSED WITH HIM!!!!! i love how he haunts the narative from beginning to end and we never even meet him, i love how his anger burned so sooo bright that it unintentionally turned a tragedy into a queer love story. i LOVE that the flesh and bones of a supposedly queer man was the vehicle for it, considering how our own happy endings now are the result of the blood and tragedy of so many gay people that came before us. i LOVE the bits and pieces we learn about him and how almost none of it is certain or confirmed. seriously, i could talk about MXY until i pass out

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

in a story with many, MANY problematic characters, there is only One that truly fits the poor little meow meow label, and that is jin guangyao. everytime he cries about having had no choice in doing what he did, everytime he pleads with those big doe eyes... both him and NHS learned to weaponize the meowmeowfication, but while NHS still comes off as more pathetic, JGY found the perfect balance that just makes it impossible to look away. i adore him

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

ahhh jiang cheng, a character that i adore dearly but in that specific way in which i love watching him have his pathetic male hysteria moments. you know that part in guanyin temple when he walked in through rain all badass, but then during the fight he (unnecessarily) tries to save wangxian by jumping in front of jgy's sword and ends up sitting down on the floor looking like an angry, sad, wet dog? that scene summarizes perfectly what i love about his character. i wanna put him in a pretty glass jar and shake it, i wanna poke him with a stick and see how much trauma oozes out, i wanna lie him on a pan and flatten him like a pancake. he was immaculately written but i cannot relate to any of my mutuals cause they either love or hate him unironically, so i'm sitting by myself in my little corner tormenting him like a bored cat playing with a bug

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

if jin guangshan had dropped dead before the war.... it wouldn't have fixed Everything BUT IT WOULD HAVE FIXED SO MUUUCH. he's just an evil creep with no depth to him, nothing really to discuss, he just sucks, to superhell you goooooo

#THANK YOU SOOO MCUH FRIEND THIS WAS FUN!!#i'm afraid this might show up in the tag but hopefully its long enough so that no one other than my followers will wnat to read it #modao #ask

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mysticsapphicsblog · 3 years

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How long did it sink in for to when you realised you were a lesbian? Or did you just kinda know from the first moment? (Not the first moment but like when you started questioning or was like “I might be a lesbian” or whatever)

Okay I'm not sure I've ever written my full coming out story down on here but you, lucky anon, are now going to graced with my story:

I did not know gay people existed until I was 12, I accepted their existence but didn't think it should be in public. I had had crushes on men before so I would never have considered the possibility of me being gay.

I was 14, I was in my emo phase and my best friend sent me a picture of Lyn-z Way and basically said she's really hot. It was at this point I started question, but I didn't think about it again for months.

I was almost 15 when I had my first crush on someone (I later found out he was a ftm trans boy but at the time I only knew him to be a girl with short hair). It was at this point I decided pansexual was a label that fit me and I came out to some friends as pan.

I'd say a year went by, and I decided that pan didn't feel right for some reason so I started telling people I was bisexual, but that didn't feel right either. I wished so badly that I could just tell people I was gay but the fact I had been attracted to men, made me think I couldn't be gay. (the effects of comphet)

I started using sapphic as a label when I was 16 because, to me, it felt more closely associated with wlw specifically, but I loved that it was still flexible.

I turned 17 and had a crush on a girl (who would eventually become my first girlfriend). It was at this point I decided that lesbian, as a label, fit me. I could only imagine my future with a woman, and I could only see myself marrying a woman. I came out soon after I turned 17, just over two years ago now.

It took me three years to finally figure out I was gay, and come to terms with it. I think my comphet was partially to blame, but also for the lack of representation of masculine, androgynous and butch women in media - because when I was first questioning myself, I couldn't understand why I didn't feel attracted to feminine presenting women - because I'm solely attracted to masculine women and butches, which I know now.

I still question myself sometimes, but lesbian is a label I am finally comfortable with. Thank you for this ask anon, I hope you all enjoyed my essay :')

#sorry for writing so much #i didn't go into me being demisexual because i haven't fully figured that out yet #this is the whole story #it's something #erin's anons #erin's post

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sapnxps · 3 years

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(WTL) Chapter One: Greg the Neighbor- Georgenotfound x Reader

If I knew that when I moved to London, I'd have two weird neighbors, I'd laugh in your face. Now I'm friends with an old cat lady. Now I'm enemies with my cute neighbor that's definitely not single, who also screams too much.

Even though he's a dick, why can't I stop thinking about him?

My parents told me I’d regret moving to London from the state before I left because I’d miss them and the US too much.

They were half right.

I’m sitting on a box messily labeled ‘kitchen’ in the hallway of my new apartment complex. I huff, wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead. The moving bill is almost 4 thousand dollars. If I knew moving would be this expensive, I wouldn’t have moved out from my parent’s house until I was 40. Sure, I moved a lot of my belongings across the Atlantic ocean, but 4 thousand dollars? Who do I look like, Jeff Bezos?

Today has been hectic, to say the least. Three of my boxes somehow drifted away to Spain. Don’t ask me how that happened, I don’t even know. I’ve been unpacking by myself all day. A box of my kitchenware got shattered upon arrival. I should’ve listened to my Mom on that one, she told me to just buy plates and glasses here instead of shipping them here. Big mistake I’m never making again. Finally, the biggest chunk of my problems: My apartment is full of boxes and I don’t feel like unpacking. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for two days, maybe not, but I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. If one more thing goes wrong, I think I might lose it.

Begrudgingly, I lift myself up from the box I was sitting on. It’s a bit dented now, but the way it felt on my ass, it’s just pots and pans. I open the door, pulling this box into my apartment. I weakly push it into the kitchen. It collides with one of the boxes filled with shattered plates. The sound of the broken glass sliding across the box sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I need to make a note to properly dispose of that. Turning my head to look around my new home, I feel my brain's short circuit. All these boxes unpacked, I’ve barely made a dent. This is going to take for-fucking-ever. Moving is modern-day torture. Oh, that’s funny. Remember to tweet that later.

The next three hours of my life are taken up by filling up my kitchen cabinets and drawers with cutlery and various kitchen utensils. The counter was now less bare, housing my toaster and breadbox. My Tupperware containers sat in a special place in the far-right cabinet by the sink. It looked like this home was lived in, as long as you didn’t glance anywhere else besides the kitchen.

I soon after tackled the bathroom, which was the less intimidating room compared to the living room and bedroom. I got the shower curtain hung up, which made it look nice. The rug found its way to the floor, protecting my feet from the cold, cream tile. The shelves were now stocked with a few fluffy peach towels and soaps. Underneath the sink had cleaning supplies as well as spare toilet paper. Living alone meant having nobody to give you another roll if you finish the other one. Kinda sucks. I had a boyfriend during high school, and two years into college. I dreamed of living with him, we planned it all out. I’d finish college, we’d move to a city and rent out the tiniest apartment we could find. We’d live it out until eventually we made ends meet and the rest would be. Dreams cut short though, he cheated. It’s part of why I left in the first place. Needed a change of scenery, new people.

That’s where I am now. New people. Stuck on that part. Haven’t gotten a chance to meet any, which is oh so tragic. I can’t decide if I want to introduce myself to the neighbors or let them come to me? I’m stuck pondering on the thought until I hear a knock at the door. I wonder if my lost boxes have mysteriously arrived.

Opening the door, I’m greeted with an older woman, holding out a small cake into my space.

“Hi dear, I’m your neighbor to the right. Heard all the commotion, saw all the boxes. I had to see for myself the fresh meat in the complex,” She paused before lightly tapping my arm with her free hand. “Just teasing! It’s great to have another lady on this level. The young man to your left, handsome fella, never comes out much though. Hopefully, we can have a girl posse or something,” Her posh accent made her much different than me. Is it wrong to already feel isolated?

I grin at her, moving out of the way to invite her in. “Nice to meet you, feel free to come in. I apologize for all the boxes scattered around, moving has been proven to not be quite my talent,”

The woman smiles brightly at me, shock plastered on her face. “You’re American!”

“That I am,” I chuckle. She hands me the cake, which I gladly accept. My diet has consisted of soggy hash browns from the complex lobby. She makes her way to what is settled in the living room, politely setting herself on my suede blue couch across from the large wall in the room. I place the cake on my counter by the stove, making a mental note to grab a slice once the woman leaves.

The shock never leaves her aged face, “Oh goodness! How amazing. I have a foreigner as my neighbor. You’ll find London quite lovely. I know how it feels to be isolated and removed from what you’re used to, but I promise you’ll fit right in,” She says as I settle myself on the loveseat a bit away from the couch.

“Where are you from?” I ask. She obviously isn’t American.

She smiles, “Just a bit east of Surrey. South of London. Beautiful area, grew up on a small cottage,” The woman was glowing as she spoke of her hometown. She was obviously proud of where she grew up. Compared to my southern Arizona town, this place seemed like heaven. A cottage? Sign me up.

“Sounds lovely,” I speak truthfully.

“Welp,” The woman slaps her laps, a way of signaling it’s time to end the conversation. Despite only speaking for a small amount of time, she seems like someone I can come to if I ever have questions about London or the terminology that I hear around the city. I’ll need to remember that she’s the neighbor to the right. As she began to see herself out, I remembered the other neighbor she mentioned. The young man to the left. I believe she used the term ‘handsome fella’ to describe him. Once she was out in the hall, I felt the need to find out more information.

“Oh!” I shout, hanging myself out into the hallway. She pauses her steps, turning back to me. “By the way, who’s my other neighbor? The guy you were telling me about. Does he have a name?” I ask.

“Greg,” She nods, resuming her short walk back to her apartment.

Greg. Ugly name.

I completely forgot about the conversation by dinner time. As I was munching down on my cake, delicious by the way, I heard loud yelling from my right side. I wouldn’t even call it yelling, more like high-pitched screaming. Who was my neighbor over there again? Greg? Greg. He was causing a ruckus and a mere heart attack at that. He was screaming so loud I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time I heard it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s facing a very, very gruesome murder right now. Well, I guess I don’t know any better. I’m just wishing for the very best.

Another hour passes. The yelling never stops. It’s only 8, but my body is as awake as ever. I still have yet to get used to the new time zone. At times it was difficult, but I’m using it to my advantage now. I have some extra time to unpack and get my actual bed ready. My bed frame was put together professionally during lunch, so that was one thing checked off my list. The mattress I ordered was delivered yesterday. Now it was just the matter of putting the sheets on and preparing my duvet.

Fitted sheets fucking suck to put on a bed. I was currently struggling to put it on my nice mattress. It was edging close to 10 pm. The sky was dark, and I was stuck in some odd mixture of a starfish and the downward dog position. If this moment was a picture, it could be used for blackmail. The closer I got to finally getting the top right corner on my bed, the more stretched out I became. I was like one of those sticky hands you’d get in those toy dispensers at the grocery store. I was just about to get it, when another loud shriek could be heard. In shock, I slammed my head on the bed frame and lost grip of all four corners of the sheet.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled underneath my breath.

Whatever. He probably has a greater reason to be screaming like this, right? Justified shouting, whatever you want to call it. My bedroom is closer to his apartment than the kitchen was. Is it nosey to try to figure out what he’s saying? I don’t want to be that type of neighbor. I’ll continue minding my business because I don’t want to find out some weird shit about Greg that I don’t want to know.

The screaming never stopped.

In fact, if anything, it got louder. And louder. And louder. Is it okay to call the cops here?

It’s midnight now. The next fucking day. And Greg is still screaming at the top of his lungs as if everyone else isn’t asleep. If I saw some normal citizen just trying to get some rest, I’d be fed up. Well, I’m still fed up. I’m also running on a messed-up sleep schedule, so it’s not like I was trying to sleep anyways. My bed is made now, and comfy as hell. I built a shelf to house some of my small decorations, with the entertainment of my noisy neighbor’s yells to accompany me. For some odd reason, it made me feel less lonely.

At about 2, I began to reject the company. I felt irritation grow in my chest as I heard the same high-pitched shrieks that I heard at 8. The annoyance that bubbled in me overtook my politeness. Before I knew it, I was up and in the hallway banging on his door. I didn’t have the time to care about my Daffy Duck pajamas sticking to my legs due to the heatwave hitting England right now. Before I even realize it, my fist is slamming on his door. I never knew I had the power to knock that hard, but my anger and blossoming resentment overpowered me. I continued banging until the door pulled away from its frame. Now I’m face to face with Greg.

Boy was he handsome.

I was met with a man, about 5 foot 9. His dark brown hair was disheveled. Strands of hair laid across his forehead messily. If he wasn’t screaming, I would’ve thought he was sleeping. He was wearing a fluorescent green hoodie with an odd smile plastered on the front. It was a bit large for his skinny frame, that’s unimportant though. His grey sweatpants were twisted on his legs. What the fuck was he doing? His face was delicately shaped. This jawline looks sharp yet fragile like it was constructed of the most fragile rose crystal I’d ever seen. His brown eyes reminded me of caramel, thick and way too easy to get lost in.

“Hi, uh Greg-” I start. I’m just realizing now how close I am to him. The scent of his spearmint gum floods my nostrils. It’s a bit powerful, crinkling my nose at the smell. It wasn’t gross, just very shocking.

“George,” He spat. That’s fucking embarrassing. I’m meeting him for the first time and I got his name wrong. I’m not taken aback for long though, because his attitude oozing from his simple correction was enough to disgust me. I’ve done nothing wrong to him, except maybe get his name wrong. Was my moving too much of a nuisance to him? Poor little British thing, he can deal with it.

I cringe, “Oh, um, sorry.”

He leans into the door frame, sweatshirt adjusting to the movement. Forget a tiny bit large, he was swimming in this thing. “Yeah, no problem. Can I help you or are you selling girl scout cookies at,” George checks his watch. “2 in the morning. If you are, I’m not interested, sorry ‘bout that,” His outfit makes me feel a lot less aware of mine. Despite his face being rather attractive, the outfit makes him look like he just rolled out of bed.

“Oh, yeah. I was wondering if you could lower the volume a bit, please. Or just stop screaming entirely, if possible. I don’t know if you have some weird shouting fetish, but I certainly don’t,” I chuckle. George, however, doesn’t chuckle. Actually, he looks rather unamused. If a human was an art museum, it would be George. Curling into a ball and falling into an endless void doesn’t sound too awful right now. I think I’ll add that to my itinerary. I’ll do it in my bed so I’m at least comfortable while I’m drowning in my own self-pity.

He grimaces, “Yeah. Sure.”

He’s blunt. Got it.

The second I turn my back to the door, it slams. Wow. What a cunt. Shaking the interaction off, I begin to feel the wear and tear of the day beginning to hit me. Moving all those boxes made my muscles ache. The solution to all my problems today seems to be going to bed. Not that I’m not okay with that, just funny. The day before I left for London, you’d think I was shocked by lightning. The electricity that was running through my veins was no match for any ADHD medicine the FDA had ever approved. Now, my body is beginning to fall victim to the earlier time zone. Not that it was a big deal, it was going to happen eventually. These next few days would just entail a difficult sleeping schedule. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.

I quickly find my way back to my own bedroom. The yelling was quieter, but I could still hear George through the thin walls. He was murmuring to someone softly. This apartment complex was all 1 bedroom apartments. He didn’t live alone. How lovely! I made a fool of myself to him, and he was most definitely telling his partner right now. Talk about dignity, am I right?

I scrolled through my phone for an hour, before the screaming returned to its original volume. Would it be overdramatic to say I felt my face go red with anger? I don’t think so. I think I handled the situation as politely as I could. Hell, I even cracked a joke so he could know I wasn’t that upset over the situation! If I knew he was going to resume his disruptive noises, I wouldn’t have been so nice or absolutely hilarious. Nobody that douchey gets my amazing humor. He didn’t even laugh! I hear another shout followed by a slam to a desk. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Welp. Welcome to London!

#georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound #gnf x reader #dream smp #fanfiction #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends to lovers #mcyt #mcyt fanfic #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #minecraft #smp #minecraft fanfiction

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slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years

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When We Went From Friends to This - a. beauvillier

One day late, but here it is! I’ve been studying for the LSAT, but finally took it today, so I’ll have some more time to be writing more regularly now. Title is from Taylor Swift’s Paper Rings. I loved getting to write this, so please please let me know what you think, my inbox is always open! Reading the tags is one of my favorite things to do, and reblogs help me know people are liking my work.

word count: 7.7k+

September 18 (sat)

Astride Leclair was the kind of person you always wanted on your side. She’d drop anything for a friend, always be the first to reach out, and would never give up on something — or someone — without a fight. She was also incredibly stubborn. Astride had also always had a penchant for adventure, which is how she found herself in a new job 600 miles and one international border from her hometown. And she hated asking for help, it really didn’t matter the circumstance. Which is how she found herself alone, trying to heft an armchair up the stairs of her new apartment building after being very rudely informed by the width of the elevator door that it wasn’t going to fit.

The lump sum her firm gave her for relocation was enough to cover a fair amount of the furniture for her new place and she tried to bring as much as she could on the drive down, but it wasn’t like she was about to rent a U-Haul and there was only so much a Honda Civic could hold. And Astride was still her father’s daughter, still would rather step on a rusty nail than pay Ikea for assembly, so by God she was going to do it herself. And “doing it herself” apparently meant dragging an 80 pound box up three flights of stairs in 90º heat in September, when New York City seemed to have not quite yet gotten the memo that the rest of the Northern Hemisphere was now in fall.

Astride finally managed to get the chair in the door, propping the door open with one of her moving boxes, unceremoniously pulling the box through the entryway as she scooted backwards into the living room. The 600 square foot expanse of her apartment was covered in boxes, more boxes, and for good measure, extra boxes. There were moving boxes, furniture boxes, shoeboxes filled with anything except for actual shoes. There was her guitar leaning against the microwave, three suitcases worth of clothes in the barely-assembled bedroom, and her dog in a crate in the corner, who had started to whine.

“I know, baby, I’ll get you out soon,” Astride said, shooting a sympathetic glance towards the beagle mix. She had adopted Poutine a little over a year ago, soon after starting her first job out of university. It was never a question whether or not she would make the trip with Astride, and thankfully it was much easier than she anticipated to find a dog-friendly apartment in Brooklyn. It wasn’t too long a walk to Prospect Park, a little under a mile, and she was looking forward to getting out with Poutine later in the day. If, that was, she actually finished unpacking enough boxes to function like a normal human being. She had picked up her mattress-in-a-box earlier in the day, but it was still sitting in the corner of her bedroom and she wasn’t particularly looking forward to a night on the hardwood floor.

---

Three hours later, Astride had finally gotten all of the boxes out of her car and began to make decent headway on assembling the chair, finally having let Poutine out of her crate. The beagle trotted around the apartment, sniffing the baseboards, boxes, and single bag of groceries Astride had picked up from Whole Foods earlier in the day. The rest of her Ikea order was coming the next day, the actual bedframe and couch along with a couple of other larger furniture pieces that she had had to leave in Montréal. Whatever she couldn’t order online she’d find at a thrift store.

Astride looked tiredly over at the kitchen. She really wasn’t in the mood to cook, and was in even less of a mood to dig through all the boxes until she finally found her set of pots and pans. She really should have taken her mom’s advice and labeled everything, but Astride was stubborn as a mule, and once she was stuck in her ways, there was precious little anyone could do to convince her otherwise. Pulling out her phone, she navigated to her Uber Eats, feeling a tiny pang in her heart as she switched her location to New York. Not the language, though. Astride was so hungry that she literally clicked on whatever place could get there the fastest, which ended up being a Chinese place a mile or so away. After placing her order — she got an extra box of chow mein so she wouldn’t have to deal with breakfast the next day — she settled back into the hair, the only fully-assembled piece of furniture in the whole apartment. Her finger hovered over her Instagram for a moment before she clicked on it, liking a few photos before going to post one of her own. It was a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge as she crossed it that morning, Poutine’s head lolling out the front window. One tap and one caption later, it was posted.

---

Anthony flopped onto his bed, his duffel landing with a satisfying thump on the floor beside him. Training camp had just ended, and while he’d certainly been keeping up on his workouts over the summer, the hours upon hours of skating had nevertheless made him more than a little sore. He grabbed his phone, opening up Instagram and scrolling through the new posts, only half paying attention. Astride’s new photo caught his eye.

Sometimes, needing a change means a new haircut. Sometimes, it means a new country. Very excited to start this next chapter in my life. Salut, New York! Anthony quickly clicked onto her profile page and read her bio. International economics analyst. Eating my way through the world one pancake at a time. BCom McGill. MTL-NYC. He read the last line over and over again. MTL-NYC. He swiped back to the photo; she had tagged herself in Brooklyn. Brooklyn. She was less than an hour away, not even thirty if the traffic wasn’t bad. But she hadn’t told him, she hadn’t said anything. Anthony felt a pang in his heart. Astride knew who he played for — obviously — and she knew that of course he’d want to see her any time they were even remotely in the same place. She knew that. Right?

He spent the next twenty minutes typing out a message to her. Then deleting it. Then retyping it. Then continuing the type-delete-retype cycle until his head was spinning. This was his best friend. Why was he so nervous to talk to her? Because she was his best friend, and as much as he hated to admit it, he really wasn’t sure where they stood. He hadn’t been sure for a long time. Hey Asty! He internally cringed at himself at the use of her old nickname. I saw you moved to New York, that’s amazing! I’m over on Long Island, so I’d love to catch up with you for coffee or something when you get a chance. It’s been too long :)

It might have been a little petty — scratch that, it definitely was petty — but Astride didn’t respond to his text that night. She didn’t have read receipts on, thank God, but it sat in her messages, without response, like something she was too scared to confront. And she didn’t even know why. Okay, fine, she knew exactly why. She had moved and suddenly they were in the same city for the first time since they were kids and he was, had been, her best friend, but why now of all times? It’s not like he was never in Montréal during the year, or like they couldn’t have committed to a weekly FaceTime or something, or at least texted more than once a month. He could have done something. And that something, that lack of a something, was what kept her from responding until the next morning, tapping out a text as she halfheartedly made her way through a bowl of oatmeal. Hi, Tito, just saw your text! Lie. I did, an opportunity for a transfer came up and I decided to take it. I figured you were pretty close by, so it would be great to catch up. I don’t start at the office for a week, if you’re free any time between now and then. That much was true. She wasn’t stupid, she knew the Islanders played on, well, Long Island, and as much as she wanted to still hold a grudge against him, her heart ached at the prospect of finally being able to see him again.

Anthony responded almost instantly, Astride having just closed the door to the dishwasher — a luxury in New York, she was told — before seeing her phone light up with the telltale bubble. I’d love to, we just finished up training camp so I’m more or less free aside from practices. A second later. Is brunch still your favorite meal?

Astride laughed. It didn’t surprise her that he remembered, but it was still touching to see him say something about it. It is.

How about Tuesday? I’ll send you the directions. It’s this little café in Flatbush, I think you’ll love it.

I’m counting on it.

September 26 (sun)

Brunch had turned into dinner, which had turned into going to a Broadway show — Anthony had insisted the moment she told him she’d never been — which had turned into him coming over for Saturday night movies, an old habit of the pair’s from their days back in Québec. Which had turned into two movies and two bottles of wine, which had turned into Tito sleeping over on the couch instead of driving the thirty-odd minutes back to his apartment. Poutine sniffed him curiously, nudging one hand with her head. Astride stifled a giggle, opening the door to the balcony. “He’s very sleepy, Poutine. It’s not good manners to wake up your guests.”

“Even when they fall asleep on your couch and steal all your blankets?” Anthony said sleepily from behind.

Astride wheeled around, greeted by a half-awake Anthony Beauvillier, who was indeed bundled in all of the blankets she owned that weren’t actively on her bed. “Tito! Oh my God, you scared me. How’d you sleep?”

He shrugged. “Not bad, about as well as can be expected.” He tapped his phone, cursing when he realized it was dead. “Do you know what time it is?”

She glanced down at her watch. “8:52, why?”

Anthony jumped up, throwing his shirt back on and grabbing his still-dead phone. “I’m supposed to meet Mat for breakfast at 9:30, and the place is,” he paused for a moment, running through the grid system in his head, “probably half an hour away? I’m never the late one, can’t break that streak now.”

“Gotcha.”

He grabbed his keys, looking back at her. “Why don’t you come? You’re already dressed, and you remember Mat, right?”

She wiggled her hand. “Kind of?” She crossed the room, letting Poutine back in. “You only want me for my charged phone and navigation system.”

“You got me,” he said, laughing.

---

“You named your dog Poutine?” Mat snickered, taking a bite of his eggs.

“Would you rather I named him Tim Horton?” Astride deadpanned. “He’s a good Canadian boy with a good Canadian mom. He needed a good Canadian name.”

Mat raised his coffee mug, tilting it over towards her. “Touché.”

Anthony waved his hand in front of Mat’s face, trying to catch his attention from where he was utterly preoccupied with destroying his sourdough toast. “Hey, Mat.”

“Mmm?” He glanced up.

“Did you know that Astride lives right by Barclays? Like, right by Barclays?”

His eyebrows rose. “No way?” Astride nodded. “That’s a great area, would have been awesome if you were here a couple of years ago. Short walk to the games.”

“That’s what I told her yesterday,” Tito responded.

---

“You’re kidding,” Anthony said, looking up at her building, then across the street to Barclays, then back to Astride, one hand tangling through his hair. “We used to play right across from here.”

Astride laughed. “I thought about that,” she said. “You know I still watched your games, right? Even after we fell out of touch?” Anthony shook his head. “You were still someone I cared about, are still someone I care about, even when we only talked a few times a year.”

Beau stood there, unable to formulate a complete sentence. As far as he knew, the last Islanders game she watched had been the 2016 opener, his NHL debut and her first year at McGill. Why did he assume that? Why did he assume the worst? You can care about people even when they’re not in your life anymore. And sometimes, if you get really, really lucky, they come back.

October 9 (sat)

“Ebs is having a barbeque thing over at his house this weekend, just stuff to celebrate the beginning of the season if you wanted to come. No pressure if you’ve got plans already, though,” Anthony said over the FaceTime.

Astride nodded enthusiastically. “That sounds great, I’d love to come! Just let me know when to show up and what to bring, and I’ll be there.”

It was almost a fifty-minute drive for Astride from her apartment in Prospect Heights to the house in Garden City, but there wasn’t too much traffic and besides, she had always liked driving. So she set off in her Civic, plugged her music in, and headed down 495. Anthony met her outside of the house, greeting her with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek as he cocked his head towards the backyard. “Party’s this way. Come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

Astride dutifully followed, trying not to let her nerves take hold of her. Everyone might have already been Beau’s friends, but she didn’t know them, or the dynamic of everyone’s relationships, or really, what to expect at all.

He noticed her apprehension, stopping her with a feather-light touch on her arm just before walking through the back gate. “Hey, Asty. What is it?”

She let out a little huff, still upset that he could read her like a book even after all this time. “I’m just worried that I’ll feel like I’m intruding on everything, like everyone already has their friends and a group and everything, and here comes some random Québécoise who’s a friend of Tito’s—”

He laughed, turning her around to face him. “Astride, they’re going to love you. As long as you’re the hilarious, witty, caring person I know you are, they’re going to love you as much as I do, and you’re going to fit in just fine. Do you trust me?”

She gave a tiny nod. “Yeah.”

He smiled, squeezing her hand. “Good, now come back, everyone’s waiting.”

They walked through the gate, greeted by a crowd of smiling faces as Anthony brought her around to everyone to make their rounds. There was Anders, he was the captain, and his wife. There was Jordan and Lauren, and she already knew Mat, and JGP — who was excited to have another person to speak French to — and a dozen or so others, along with their respective partners and children. Anthony had gone over to talk to Mat and some of the other players, while Astride had wandered over to the drinks table. Some of the other women were chatting nearby; one of them caught Astride’s eye and waved her over to join them.

“Beau didn’t tell us he was bringing anyone!” one of the women said, pulling her over to the group with a bright smile and handing her a glass of sangria.

“Mhm,” she replied, taking a sip of the drink. “I’m new to the city, obviously, so I think he wanted me to have some people I know outside of just work.”

They all nodded. “How long have you two been together, though?” another asked. “I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone, did you?” She looked around at the others, who shook their heads as Astride’s eyes bulged.

“Together? No, no, we’re not together. We’ve been best friends for ages, but,” she shook her head.

“Could have fooled me,” Lauren said with the smallest of winks.

Astride suddenly became very interested in the floating berries in her sangria. She looked over at Anthony, who was throwing his head back, laughing at something one of the rookies had said, and smiled. But Lauren’s words kept lingering in the back of her mind. Could have fooled me. Okay, it wasn’t like it was the first time they had been mistaken for a couple; whenever she’d make the trip up to Shawingan to visit him when he was in the QMJHL, more than once she’d have to explain to his teammates that no, she wasn’t Beau’s girlfriend, they were just best friends who had known each other forever. Just best friends.

Astride had always equated her lingering feelings for Anthony to the nostalgia of a childhood crush, the safety and security that came with remembering something from a time that seemed so simple and so easy. But childhood crushes didn’t last for ten years. And that wasn’t something she hadn’t wanted to come to terms with, something she’d been putting off for years if she was being honest with herself.

“You didn’t tell me Astride was coming,” Mat commented, seeing her mid-laugh in conversation with the other girls.

Anthony nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t have any plans for the weekend and I thought it would be nice to introduce her to everyone. I remember how shitty it felt to be in a new city away from your family, don’t want her to be lonely. Plus, I genuinely think she’ll fit in great with everyone.”

Mat hummed his agreement. “She’s changed since Switzerland, don’t you think?” he asked appreciatively, referring to over five years ago, the last time he had seen her in person.

“Don’t even think about it,” Beau mumbled to Mat, seeing his eyebrows go so far up they were hidden in his hairline.

“I see a hot girl, I appreciate a hot girl,” Mat shrugged. “But don’t worry, I won’t try anything. I know she’s off-limits.”

The rest of the afternoon passed quicker than she would have thought, and after a few hours and more good conversations, it was time for Astride to leave. “Have a safe drive back,” Anthony said, giving her a hug.

“I will,” she responded.

He opened the driver’s side door for her. “I’m really glad you came, you know. Everyone liked you, you fit in great.”

“It wasn’t all me,” she said, sliding into the seat, turning her head to Anthony to continue the conversation. “Everyone really did seem to go out of their way to make me feel included, I think they understood the feeling of moving to a whole new place without a big support system and wanted to do what they could to help mitigate that for me.” Astride consciously left out Lauren’s little comment, four words that had been bouncing around in her head for hours since they had been said. He didn’t need to know. She didn’t need him to know, it could confuse him and complicate things when they were just getting back into the rhythm of friendship, of being each other’s person.

Anthony tapped his fingers on the car door. “I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

Beau went to sleep that night, Mat’s words bouncing around in his head. “I know she’s off-limits.” It’s not like Cass was his sister or something, someone who would inherently be barred from his best friend’s dating pool. But Mat seemed to know right away, without having ever been told, that she wasn’t someone he could ever even consider pursuing. Why? And what did Mat seem to know that he didn’t?

November 12 (fri)

It was early November, and Anthony and Astride had just settled down at a table in Prospect Park, coffee cups warming their hands through the late fall chill. “How do you feel about last night?” Astride asked teasingly. He had a three point game, two goals and an assist in a 4-1 win over the Canes, so there really wasn’t any question that he was still riding on the high.

Beau rolled his eyes. “Good, obviously. It would have been nice to get a hat trick, but I know that’s asking for a lot and I didn’t want to tempt fate too much. They made a really good push late in the second.”

“But you won,” she said, poking his shoulder with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her mocha.

“But we won,” he agreed. He suddenly got quiet, the kind of quiet where, if you know the person well enough, you can tell that something’s up. That they’re thinking of something. And Astride was right. “Do you ever think about Switzerland?” he asked.

Astride looked at him from the side, knowing right away that he wasn’t asking about the country. “All the time,” she admitted.

---

It was the spring of 2015, and they were in Lucerne. By they, Astride meant her, Tito, and the rest of the 2015 Canadian U18 World Cup team. And by in Lucerne, she meant crowded into someone’s hotel room with no adult supervision. Anthony wasn’t sure where any of the coaching staff had gone, but if he was being honest, he was riding on way too big of a high to even care. They had clinched the bronze medal earlier that day, celebrating with the family and friends who had made the trip out, gotten dinner, and then packed into the first team room they came to. Well, technically, Astride, Tito, and Mat had made a stop at the grocery store before meeting everyone else back in the room. The drinking age in Switzerland was 16 for everything but spirits, and everyone was planning on taking full advantage of that. The cashier gave them a look as she took her and Anthony’s French licenses and Mat’s English one, but the charge went through just fine, and fifteen minutes later they were walking back through the doorway with three cases of beer and a few bottles of sparkling wine for good measure. Astride had never been so grateful to have her own checking account.

“You ever drink before?” Mat asked her as they opened the cases.

Astride shrugged. “Not really. A glass of wine every now and again back home with my parents, but nothing too crazy.”

He held out a bottle for her, fishing around in his pocket for the bottle opener they had picked up at the store. “Have fun.”

And have fun Astride did. She had finished off two of the beers, and one of the younger teammates — she didn’t remember who — had popped open the wine. In his slightly inebriated state, it took longer than it should have to twist off the muselet, which then led to foam all over the floor and fifteen sixteen and seventeen-year-olds running to the bathroom to grab towels to try and mop it up with. And then running back to the bathroom to get the water glasses because they needed something to drink it out of, right? And then to everyone else’s rooms because they quickly realized that two cups definitely wasn’t enough to go around, and then everyone was back in the room, on the beds and around the beds, finally letting themselves celebrate. Astride was just finishing her glass when Mat spoke. “Anyone up for never have I ever?” Nobody said otherwise, so two minutes later, they were all arranged in what could very generously be called a circle, fresh drinks in hand. After a solid five minutes of repeating the rules — there was always at least one person who seemed to genuinely struggle with the idea that you drank if you had done the thing, not if you hadn’t — they were slowly but surely making their way around the circle.

Questions ranged from the mundane — “Never have I ever gotten detention” — to the raunchy — “Never have I ever had my parents walk in on me” — neither of which Astride or Tito drank to.

By the time it was Mat’s turn, he had had plenty of time to think, looking around the group with a conspiratorial grin. “What is it?” Tito asked skeptically.

He shrugged. “Never have I ever...kissed anyone in the circle.” As expected, nobody drank, but apparently that wasn’t expected, not for Mat, at least. He looked between Anthony and Astride incredulously. “Seriously? You two have never kissed?”

Anthony shook his head. “Nope.”

“How? You’ve been friends for, like, a million years, not even when you were little or anything?” he asked.

“Never,” Astride said. “Kind of hard to kiss your best friend when you haven’t kissed anyone before.” She barely even realized that everyone was still listening in.

“You’ve never kissed anyone?” Anthony asked, surprised.

Astride looked down at her hands, sipping her beer. “Nope.” She gave him a brief smile. “I know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but no. Just hasn’t happened yet.”

Maybe it was the alcohol talking, or maybe it was feelings buried so deeply in Anthony’s mind that he didn’t think would ever see the light of day, let alone have to be confronted, that made him say what he did next. “I could—if you wanted—you don’t have to, but—” he stammered.

Astride laughed, looking at him curiously. “What is it, Tito? You’re not normally one to stumble over your words like that.”

He picked at his fingernails, an old nervous tick from his childhood that his mother was never quite able to get him to break, keenly aware that the whole room had decided to listen into their conversation. “I was just trying to say...I could do it, if you want. Kiss you, I mean. If you just wanted to get it over with, or whatever. I just figured. You know me, you trust me, you’re comfortable with me. Better that than some idiot at school who doesn’t care about you.”

Her cheeks burned as she looked over at him, but even though it took her nearly a minute to respond, she had her answer after five seconds. “Why not?” Astride flashed him the purest, gentlest smile, the kind that let him know just how much she cared about him and how deeply she trusted him. And the look on her face meant the world to him.

Anthony leaned in, his hand coming up to rest on her shoulder, his fingertips just barely touching her cheek as their foreheads leant together. “You sure about this?” He needed her to be sure.

She nodded. “I’ve had a couple of drinks, and I never imagined my first kiss would be in front of an audience,” she paused to giggle at the rest of the team, who were giving the scene their full attention in a way that somehow wasn’t uncomfortable at all, just wholesome and supportive, “but yeah. I’m sure.”

That was all the permission Anthony needed to lean forward, pressing his lips against hers, in a kiss that was soft and sweet and somehow everything Astride needed all in one. He pulled back after a moment, a goofy smile on his face. “How was it?”

Astride couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Good, it was really good, Tito. Thank you for that.”

“What are friends for?”

---

“Friends are for kissing each other, apparently,” Astride giggled, leaning into Anthony on his couch.

He laughed, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over her arm. “Did you ever think something was going to happen between us?” Anthony asked curiously.

Astride shrugged. “At some point, yeah. I think it was kind of hard not to, with our parents and literally everyone we spent time with saying we were destined to fall in love.” She looked down at her hands, trying not to give away the fact that at one point, she had believed them.

November 30 (tues)

“Do you want to come over Friday?” Anthony asked, sprawled out across her couch on one of his rare nights off. He had made the drive over to Astride’s apartment, cooking salmon and roasting vegetables while she took the much more daunting task of picking what to watch on Netflix. She settled on Back to the Future. “I can order in Thai, I know we’re trying to work our way through the Mission Impossibles.”

Astride grimaced. “I actually...kind of have a date Friday night,” she admitted.

Anthony made a hum of surprise. “You do?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act so shocked, Tito. There are men in this city of nine million who want to take me out.”

He sputtered. “It’s not that that shocks me, Asty. You’d have men lining up around the block for you if you’d give any of them a second glance. It’s just that. You never seem to bother actually going after any of them. What made this one different?”

“I mean, honestly hour?” Astride said, shrugging.

“Honestly hour.”

“I haven’t been on a date since I left Montréal, you know that. It had been a few months there too. And I’ve loved hanging out with you more, getting to know Mat and the team and everyone’s partners, but...I needed something different, too. Something that felt like a part of my life that wasn’t directly connected to the team. Which, don’t get me wrong,” she added hastily, “I love them, and it’s been so nice to be a part of that group, I just…” Astride trailed off.

“You can’t let that be the only part of your life. I get it,” Anthony added helpfully.

“Yeah,” Astride agreed. “So enter Cole. He works in a different division of the IE department, I’m obviously Europe and he’s Asia, mostly does work with Taiwan and Singapore. Um,” she said, her eyes turning towards the ceiling, “he seems really nice, did international business at UPenn, which is a great program. Speaks fluent Mandarin, uh, I think he mentioned he’s got a few fish at home.”

Anthony snorted. “What’s wrong with fish?” Astride asked defensively.

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong with fish,” he said. “Just seems like an odd choice. Maybe his building doesn’t allow pets or something.”

“Maybe,” Astride responded. “I wouldn’t know, he lives in Manhattan, over in Tribeca. Bikes to work.”

Tito laughed again. “I don’t trust people who bike to work in New York City, Asty. They have zero regard for their own lives or safety.”

She giggled. “That might be true. But I’m looking forward to it, the date, I mean. I really am. It’s been a while since I’ve really put myself back out there, and I’m ready for something good. Something real.”

He gave a half-smile from his side of the couch. “I’m happy for you, Astride. I hope you have a great time, and I hope he treats you right. If he doesn’t, just let him know that you can sic an entire professional hockey team on him with a single phone call.”

“I will,” she said. “I’ll call you when it’s over, tell you how it went.” “

I’ll be waiting,” he said.

Anthony thought back on the conversation as he sat on the corner of his bed that night, about to go to sleep. He turned his phone over and over in his hands, his eyes fixating on the chip in the crown molding that he hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet. He wasn’t lying to Astride when he said he was happy for her. He was, of course he was, who wouldn’t want their best friend to be happy? But while he wanted nothing more, nothing more, than to be able to give his full-throated support for her date, and the potential the future held for her and this Cole guy, he couldn’t do it. There was something stopping him. And the worst part of it all was that Anthony was starting to realize what it was.

---

Astride had said that their dinner reservation was at 7, some brasserie in the West Village. “That’s a French thing, right?” Cole had asked.

“It is,” Astride responded, gearing up for her translation skills to be used for the first time in months. She spoke almost exclusively French around Tito, and with JGP and Brassard, but the majority of her day was spent in English. Cole said that the restaurant had come highly recommended from one of his Wall Street friends, something that should have been the first red flag.

“Never trust the finance bros,” Reese, a German specialist and one of her friends at the office, had said. “They all think they’re God’s gift to mankind when I can guarantee you they ain’t shit.”

She had said it was at 7, so Anthony wasn’t expecting to hear from her until much later; honestly, he would have been surprised if she had called before 10. He tried not to think about what it could mean if she didn’t call at all that night. She had said it was at 7, so when he heard a knock at his door at half past nine, he practically jumped out of his skin before scrambling to open the door. His eyebrows rose when he saw Astride on the other side of the door, then his face contorted into a look of sympathy as he saw the sad smile on her lips, her jacket slung over one arm.

“Can I come in?” she asked. He nodded without question, holding the door while stepping out of the way. He padded to the kitchen, bringing out a bottle of Moscato and two glasses. Astride smiled gratefully at him as he uncorked the bottle and poured. He knew that she couldn’t do red wine when she was upset, and she was upset.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked tentatively.

Astride shrugged, sipping the wine. “Not much to tell other than it was probably the worst first date I’ve ever been on.”

That piqued Anthony’s interest. He’d never be happy that she was upset, but something told him the story wasn’t quite that simple. “What about it was so bad?”

“Where do I begin?” she sighed. “He was on time, but that’s pretty much the only thing Cole did right the entire night. He was rude to the waitress when we had to wait all of ten minutes until our reservation was ready, because the couple ahead had gone long. Then he ordered the most expensive bottle of red wine they had, without even asking me to see what I wanted. He really just was trying to show off that he could afford it. And it was a Sangiovese, and you know I hate dry wines, so I was just trying to choke the whole thing down. And then he insisted on ordering for me, which is probably the most chauvinistic thing I could think of, I mean, who does that anymore?” she asked incredulously.

Tito shrugged. It was disrespectful, absolutely, but more than that, it was just weird. If women have mouths that work, then they’re more than capable of doing something as simple as ordering their own food.

“And he kept trying to pour me more wine after the first glass, even when I told him a million times I was good.” Anthony’s grip on his glass tightened. Astride rubbed her temples with her free hand. “He just kept going on and on about work, and this big promotion he’s insisting he’s going to get even though I know for a fact that they want Maria for it. I could barely get a word in edgewise. That’s when I just decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I faked that Jean-Claude was calling, grabbed my jacket, and caught a cab over here.” She looked up at him, the same disappointed expression she had worn when he opened the door. “I was really hoping this one would pan out, Tito.”

He felt an ache in his heart. He may have been less than thrilled about the prospect of Astride going out on a date, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less to see her so despondent. He leaned over, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear that had fallen loose. “I know, Asty. And I’m sorry it didn’t.”

December 13 (mon)

Anthony and Mat were the last ones in the locker room after a morning practice. “I found this new place nearby last week that’s got great smoothie bowls, want to get one after you finish packing your stuff?” Anthony asked, looking over at Mat.

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, Sounds good,” Mat nodded, half-listening.

Anthony glanced over at him, a weird look on his face. “You good, dude? You sound distracted.”

Mat spoke abruptly, looking over at Tito with a laser-focused expression. “How long have you been in love with Astride?”

Anthony’s eyebrows jumped a foot. “In love with Astride? Why would you think that?”

Mat gave him a look, the kind of look that let Anthony know he was dead serious about what he was saying, and more than that, that he believed it. “Tito, I’m dumb, but I’m not stupid.”

Anthony leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “It’s that obvious?”

“Yep,” Mat said, popping the p.

“Do you think she knows?” His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Mat said, shrugging. “I don’t think so, she doesn’t seem like the type of person to really be able to know about something as big as that and not address it. Doesn’t like to keep things bottled up, it’s not really her style.”

Anthony nodded. “It’s not.” He raked one hand through his haid, his head still leaning on the other one. “God. How do you tell your best friend you’re in love with her?”

Mat put one hand on Beau’s back, comforting him as best he could. “I don’t know, Tito. I wish I could help. What I do know,” he said, “is that you’re going to have to eventually. Because it’s going to tear you up if you don’t.”

December 18 (sat)

Astride tossed one final empty can into the garbage bag. “I think that’s it,” she said, giving his living room a cursory look. What had looked like a warzone only less than an hour before now more closely resembled the somewhat-messy but perfectly respectable bachelor pad of a man in his 20s, like it should have. With the holidays approaching, Anthony had decided to take it into his own hands to host a party — alongside Astride, who he had practically begged for help — intent on showcasing his newly-acquired skills by playing bartender the whole night. He was surprisingly capable, Astride had thought, if her Sazerac was anything to go by.

He smiled at her. “Thanks, Asty. And thanks for staying and helping clean everything up, you really didn’t have to.”

She tied the bag off and set it by the door with the other one. “I wanted to. And besides, I’m staying over,” she said, looking over at Anthony, “so what did you think I was going to do? Lock myself in the guest room while you cleaned up the whole apartment by yourself? What kind of a woman do you take me for?” she asked in mock offense.

Anthony laughed, sitting down on the couch with a satisfying thump, pulling Astride into his side when she settled next to him.

“I’m so glad we got back in contact,” she said, muffled against the fabric of his hoodie. “I’m so glad we’re friends again.”

He felt guilty; more than that, he knew that the guilt, at least some of it, was deserved. “I should have done more,” he lamented. “I should have done more to keep in contact, more to show you I cared, more so you’d know that your friendship is one of the things I value most in my life.”

Astride gave a small smile. “It’s a two-way street, Tito. Sure, I won’t lie and say that you really put all that much effort into keeping in contact. You didn’t.” He winced, she shot him a sympathetic look. “I love you, but you know me. I don’t mince my words. But I definitely could have done more than text you congratulations or leave a thirty-second voicemail on your birthday. We both could have done more. We both should have done more,” she said, correcting herself. “What do you think happened, though? Where did we go wrong?” As much as she might have hated it, Astride was that kind of person. She went through every bad decision in her life with a fine-toothed comb, needing to know what went wrong, needing to know what she could have done differently.

“I think,” he began, “that it was just so easy to get distracted from ‘back home’ things. From our friendship, from my relationships with my family. From the important things, the things that I should have made an effort to prioritize even when the season got hectic and games got hard. And I’m not trying to make excuses,” he added quickly, “but there was just something about where I was, physically and mentally. I was 19, a rookie in one of the biggest cities in the world, and I think I just lost sight of things. Between the practices and games and going out and community events and trying to get in more than five hours of sleep a night, it was a lot,” he admitted. “It was stressful, probably weighed on me more than I wanted to admit. And I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I’m well aware I was — and am — living a life thousands of kids would kill for, but there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that you don’t really understand unless you’ve been through it. I don’t have many regrets from my rookie season, or really many in my career so far. Don’t regret moving for minors, don’t regret going to the Isles, don’t regret any of the contracts I’ve signed or plays I’ve made. Well,” he smirked, “maybe a few. But the one big one? The only real regret I’ve had? Letting you go.”

Astride swallowed hard, choosing her next words carefully. “What do you mean, letting me go?”

Anthony let out a hard sigh. He’d put it off for long enough. He couldn’t do it any longer. “Never telling you how I feel.”

“How you feel?” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, her fingers tangling in the fringe of the fleece blanket that was slung over the couch cushions.

“Like I love you so much my heart could burst.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “How long have you known?”

He looked at her with a soft smile. “Ever since Switzerland.”

“Six years?”

“Six years.” He reached out slowly, so slowly, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear when she didn’t move back. They sat in silence for a moment, and when Anthony spoke again, his voice wavered. “Asty? Say something.”

Astride’s lifted her head, finally meeting his eyes. “I knew since I was 15.”

His face split into a grin, wider and wider until she was sure she’d never seen a bigger smile. “You did? You do?”

She nodded, leaning forward so their foreheads were touching. She put her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat fluttering butterfly-fast underneath her fingertips. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since I knew what love was, Tito.”

He pushed forward, pressing his lips against hers for the first time since 2015, the first time since Switzerland. It was gentle and meaningful and somehow communicated all of the love and emotion that had been built up between the two of them in the past six years. Anthony pulled back after a minute, his lips pink and slightly puffy. “Tell me where your head’s at, Astride.”

“Is it too cliché to just say that this might be the happiest I’ve been in years?”

He shook his head, smiling. “Not at all.” But there was something that she wasn’t quite letting go of. “What is it, Astride?”

Astride sniffed. “I want this. You and I, I want it so mad it hurts. I just hate the idea that we’d turn into some sort of cliché. Childhood friends who grow up and fall in love, but something goes wrong and they split up and suddenly the dynamic of everything is messed up and I don’t want that, Tito. I don’t know if I could deal with you hating me because of how things ended.”

“But things don’t have to end, Asty. Every broken heart, every date where some asshole has stood you up has led you to know that you deserve more. You deserve so much more, Astride, you deserve the sun and the moon and someone who would hang them in the sky for you. It doesn’t have to end in heartbreak. It doesn’t have to end at all.”

Astride had always been someone who was cautious, someone who thought before she acted and never spoke without thinking through every possible outcome. But this was one of the times that she couldn’t do that, one of the times when, as much as she may have hated it, she needed to take a leap of faith. And so she did. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Anthony asked, his voice lifting.

She nodded, the happiness on her face unmistakable. “Okay.”

And as Astride and Anthony FaceTimed her parents to break the news, her mom slapping her dad’s shoulder, claiming that she had “called it” back in 2014, Astride was filled with a sense of undeniable, irreplaceable joy. The kind of joy that the poets write about and artists put brush to canvas trying to depict, the kind that most people go their whole lives only hoping to get a glimpse of. The kind that made Astride more certain of one thing than she had perhaps been in her entire life. It didn’t have to end in heartbreak. And this one didn’t have to end at all.

And as they stood two years later in a little church in their hometown, promising in front of their family and friends and the entire New York Islanders to love each other for the rest of their lives, Astride finally believed it.

#anthony beauvillier #hockey smut #hockey writing #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #nhl imagines #nhl imagine #nhl smut #nhl writing #new york islanders

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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Cause Though the Truth May Vary, This Ship Will Carry (Gigi/Nicky) - Campvanjie

AN: Based on the prompt: “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” - “Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.” A slight AU Gigi/Nicky, little bit of unrequited crushing and a lot of fate, originally posted to my old AO3 account on May 24th, 2020. Edited as well to add non-binary pronouns for Gigi out of drag, as the original used male pronouns. Don’t worry, I’m the original author and only want all of my stories collected under one pen name.

Summary: Nicky and Gigi strike up a friendship online, but just can’t meet until the time’s exactly right.

CW: slight mentions of homophobia.

The sun’s almost setting on an August day when Gigi flicks through the games in their library, bored of sniping enemies from rooftops, set on finding something else that has a competitive mode, kicking underneath the bed to find their headset. It would probably be best to at least try to talk to other people, and maybe even count up all the times people call each other gay without even realizing they’re talking to someone, who’s made sixteen dollars an hour dressing up as a girl and working at the rock climbing wall for all of high school.

There’s gay, and then there’s Gigi Goode; with a closet hanging full of custom couture, not that they’d ever admit to their mom that her work isn’t the worst.

There’s only one player in the team’s group chat, as Gigi adjusts their headset so they can talk into the mic.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

“Hi!”, laughs the voice in his headphones; crackling as Gigi shoots and blows apart a box in the game’s lobby. There’s an accent there he can’t quite place, not that it matters so much, since the guy on the other end easily guides him through the map and even cracks a couple of jokes as one of the other team’s players is booted off a cliff. Maybe he’s Spanish, or Russian, since there are lot of Russian people on the server at this time of almost- night.

They queue for another round, his player’s character stopping next to a poster of one of the girls in the game.

“I like her, do you?”, he asks, and Gigi cringes a little. Straight guys were fucking exhausting, but this was just embarrassing-

“Like, this coat, with the belt like this, makes her waist look like she is a wasp. The insect, not the white people.”, he keeps talking, and Gigi’s eyes widen a little.

“Yeah, I’d buy those boots.”, they joke, hoping that whoever it is, will take it in stride, and he won’t have to listen to someone who’d been cool for the past half an hour, suddenly start losing their mind over how gay that was to say out loud.

“The boots? I want this hair- I want just Mortal Kombat hair but like this color, and maybe instead of a gun I want the scepter, like Sailor Jupiter. You’ve seen that, yes?”

Gigi blinks a couple of times. He’s serious?

“Like, of course. Yeah.”

“She’s a Mugler bitch. Hm, aren’t you?”, the voice teases on the other end; kicking at one of the boxes in the game.

Gigi is silent, as their queue timer runs out, and their team join another game which is already active when they’re dropped in.

“It’s the Hermes winter collection.”

“What?”

“That jacket is a dupe from the Hermes winter collection. You said Mugler-”, Gigi repeats, blasting through a wall in the game.

“Oh- oh you’re saying- this past winter! Of course! Maybe someone on the design team is also a fan?”

“Maybe.”

The two of them finish the round, and Gigi eagerly hits yes; when a little box pops up to add TheNickyDoll to their friends list.

(Gigi adds him back on Discord, too- because they’re probably not taking the Xbox to college, and then, they can send pictures right away.

He’s not a serial killer, and he’s cute.

Gigi can’t help but wonder if Nicky thinks the same of them.)

They slowly knit together in between Gigi’s first semester, and when Nicky moves into a new apartment in the eleventh arrondissement in Paris, and pops a bottle of champagne against his camera on his phone, propped up in his new kitchen. He plays with the zipper on his hoodie, and Gigi still can’t help but be surprised with how simple his wardrobe is.

Gigi spends hours carefully curating their wardrobe, though they supposed in Europe, there were just better pickings.

“Don’t you have friends?”, Gigi jokes, shirtless against the white brick walls of their dorm.

“Everyone will be over later, but I just wanted to do a toast for your timezone. It will be like three am for you when everyone else gets off work.”

“So this is a private party? Well… okay let me get my card.”

“Seriously? Not that kind of party!”

“Didn’t say it was. Congratulations, by the way. I got you something! Well like, I found it, and it’s so you-“

Gigi flicks the camera to face forwards, swinging to a painting hanging in the closet.

“Aw, well you didn’t have to- what the fuck is that?”

“Putin! I painted him in like the eighth grade. My mom was dropping off some stuff last weekend and I can mail him-“

Nicky’s eyebrows shoot up, pots and pans clattering on the other end of the line.

“Bitch, I am trying to not be the victim of a hate crime.”

Gigi laughs a little bit, flipping the camera back to focus on their face.

“I never asked, what do you even do?”

“What?”

“Like you- you have a job right? What’s your job?”

“Ah, I’m working, well I worked at a makeup store, but now I have some contracts, and maybe, you know- this neighborhood is where all the bars and the clubs are. If there’s no work on the runways maybe some will be looking for new girls.”

Gigi’s cheeks run hot for a moment.

“Wait, you- you’re a girl?”, they ask weakly, hoping it won’t absolutely ruin their entire… whatever it is, when you’d rather have a private housewarming alone in bed, than pretend to enjoy the beers that are flowing through the rest of the hall downstairs.

“Only when I’m being paid. Do you know- well, you have to in America you have RuPaul’s show- it’s like that-“

“You do drag? Wait, really?”

“Shhhh.”, he stops them, pressing a finger between his lips. “It’s like, I haven’t got any bookings yet but some of the clubs are interested- some of the parties, too. I can be a bottle girl.”

Gigi simply blinks repeatedly in the screen.

“What- is that too gay? I thought we were both pretty gay.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Hey-“, Gigi keeps the camera on their face, their eyes flicking up towards the naked mannequin resting against the closet door. Most of Gigi’s things were still at home, but there was a black feathered swimsuit they’d been working on- if they took out the waist just a bit-

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Wow, we are getting deep in, Dr Phil.”

“Seriously, what is it?”

“I’m feeling pink recently. Usually just- something simple. Blue. Black. It’s soothing.”

“Black is not a color.”

“Then it’s my favorite not-color.” Nicky pours from the bottle into a flute on her counter. “Get something to drink, come on.”

“Uh-“

“Doesn’t matter what. Come on!”

Gigi reaches for Red Bull, yesterday’s alcohol mixed into it, tangy and stale in the metal can.

“Okay.”

“Pace a Salute!”, Nicky cheers, and they clink their drinks against the camera.

Two months later, there’s a wrapped package on his stoop, covered in foreign postage, wet at the edges like it’s been through- what Americans would call the ringer, the labels so scratched over he can barely make out the return address, when he cuts the cardboard open on his kitchen counter.

If this was that stupid Putin painting, he was deleting Gigi from his entire life-

Inside, is fabric folded in paper, a little cloth ribbon tied around where a card is tucked in.

“I dont know what your actual skin tone is because you need better lights but merry Christmas if it doesn’t fit or doesn’t match sell it on eBay and get better lights”,

Gigi has written, in neat, large letters.

Nicky carefully unfurls the rest of it, and there’s a blue and pink bodysuit inside, accented with green and yellow panels that glitter like the facets of a diamond, and a yellow jacket, the bottom cut off just below the ribs, hemmed in thick stitches so the fabric won’t roll up.

Had Gigi gone and had this made? Or was it off the rack?, he wondered, digging for price tags and labels in the fabric.

Nothing.

Shit.

He fires off a message to Gigi, who is still showing as offline, given it’s probably six in the morning where he is.

14:17

How much is this “gift” you got me? Wtf…

FaceTime me later.

There’s predictably no response, and that night; he paints carefully in the mirror in his bedroom, laying out the little black dress he had chosen for the performance on his bed.

At the very last minute though, it’s that little suit from Gigi that wins out, nude panels sliding over his tights as he shimmies in front of the mirror.

It’s not perfect, but it all looks very nice.

When later comes, Gigi is wearing a red wig with blonde streaks that she runs her long fingers through, winking at the camera.

“My mom’s actually a professional seamstress. It didn’t cost anything, babe.”, she says with a little shrug, a tight yellow dress barely moving around his shoulders. There’s always a party here; and Gigi can’t imagine hating it more, the little college town bigger than he was used to, and yet still- too small for what she really wanted.

“If you want other stuff, I’ll send it. There’s lots of stuff that I don’t really wear anymore and we kind of have the same style. It’s not like anyone can say anything, then they’d have to admit they’ve seen me out in public. Or I could even make you something, I’m bored all the time.”

“Why are you doing this?”, Nicky asks.

“I dunno. It’s not like you’re my competition. You’re my friend.”

19:41

Anyway, I’m dropping out of school, getting a nose job and moving out to LA.

Gigi types out on their phone, underneath the table at their family’s annual thanksgiving dinner.

19:41

Maybe not all at once.

Nicky’s reply comes lightning fast- making Gigi grin.

“Are you seriously getting nudes right now?”, one of their brothers asks, and their mother glares at the both of them over the table.

“I’m getting some new sketches from my atlier in Paris.”, they seethe, glancing back down at the floor. Nicky’s been trying to teach him French, like it’s something that occupies them so that Gigi doesn’t implode; in between sending him links to his favorite shows to watch, and YouTube links to makeup tutorials.

(He still hasn’t figured out if Nicky means it; or if he’s trying to be shady, and just doesn’t know how.)

“Atlier is where you get the clothes made, dumbass. Mom’s sewing room isn’t Paris.”

“Shut up!”

“All of you just stop-”

19:43

It’s a hard time in life in general.

Try not to listen so much to those voices in your head.

Nicky’s text pops up with a loud, mechanical pinging noise, three dots still hovering under the message as Gigi forces looks up from the screen and glowers across the table as they reach for more baby carrots.

19:43

Make mistakes, but not too many, haha. You’ll figure it out.

If it makes you feel a little bit better, I’m moving to San Fran

19:43

What? For real?

Gigi’s nails frantically tap over the screen.

19:45

Yes! I bought a ticket.

And my husband called an immigration lawyer, we’re going to get my green card situation set.

“Lawyer-”, Gigi gasps; and their entire family pauses, glancing over the table at them.

“Jesus Christ. You did it, didn’t you? You got arrested your first semester, and you weren’t even gonna tell us-”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”, they snap, flipping the bird at their oldest brother.

“Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then.”

Their whole table erupts in a discussion Gigi can’t pay any attention to.

19:50

Cool.

That means I get to see you soon.

It’s gonna be great.

They taps ou, and close the app with a smile.

They hadn’t known if Nicky even had a boyfriend, not that it mattered; until it did.

Apparently; he had been married, for almost the whole time they had known each other- a blow Gigi hadn’t quite expected, to leave them as breathless as landing in Los Angeles; the shock not setting in, not in full, anyway- until they are standing in a new apartment, looking down at a menu of instructions on how to set up the wifi in the unit, fingers hovering over everyone in contacts.

They can’t call their mom; not this soon, and their brothers would tell her, and the whole plan would crumble; just like everything had with Nicky; whose calls Gigi had declined for the past solid month; the nights they had spent with their phones propped up behind desks and dressing room mirrors fading into something beyond memory; that they refused to think about any more than they had to, the messages asking if they’re alright answered in curt, short replies.

How could they have been so stupid, thinking that they were talking-talking, teasing that Nicky and they were friends; when Gigi didn’t even know what his real name was.

(Unless it was Nicky?)

Shit.

Gigi waits for their phone to load into the app, and refreshes the friends list a couple of times, until they can see Nicky’s icon at the top, the side of the circle cut through with a little green dot, and taps twice to start a call.

“Hi?”

Nicky’s greeting floats in the air, between a breath and utter silence before Gigi swallows their pride, pressing the phone to the side of their face.

“What do you know about connecting a router to a tower if I live on the…um third floor?”

The line crackles, but soon there’s a tiny, familiar chuckle. “First of all, that is not how you do any of that-”

They talk a little more, every day; in between, Nicky moves to New York and Gigi cuts a tape that they put in the mail with a wink. They’re due for a visit home soon, and carefully proposes- maybe it’s time they meet Nicky. New York isn’t far at all, and a layover would make for a cheaper flight, anyway.

Their plans stack up in hours of calls; and Gigi think they’re almost back to normal. Until, three days before the flight is supposed to leave, there’s a call they had forgotten to wait for, and their fingers hover over the message box below Nicky’s name, vibrating with anxiety and excitement all at once.

09:22

Hey. I had a family thing come up.

Gigi types, and then erases the text, steeling themselves as they taps out another one that makes a little more sense, and doesn’t seem like such a lie.

09:30

I’m so so so so sorry about this

I had some things come up and my trip fell through.

They send this instead, surprised to see Nicky start typing back immediately.

09:35

You’re not going to believe this

I have some work things that started recently and so it would have been really shitty to have a guest over now.

09:35

No way!

09:37

Yeah. :(( But we’re gonna hang out someday, I swear!

09:37

Dont worry! You’re definitely gonna see me.

Real real real soon!

“-Where do I go?”, Gigi asks, pulling at the bottom hem of the ornate jacket she wore, fiddling with the gold telescope in her hands. The lights behind the set burned brightly, making the thicker bottoms of the outfit feel much warmer than he had remembered them being.

“Go to that green square on the ground, and wait there, when you see the little arrow light up, you can enter the Werk Room and then we’ll have you stop inside, get your opening line, and let you see the other girls.”

“Okay.”

He does as he’s told, prancing in and kicking his boots in front of him as the lights move to capture Gigi’s entrance, his head only snapping to the side when given the signal, so he can see the others who are already crowded around the pink tables he’s only dreamed of seeing for so long.

“Holy Shit…Nicky?!”

In reality; Gigi can see far more of the detail of Nicky’s face; of her eyebrows and carefully painted cheeks and lashes, of all the effort that they had only really talked about, his eternal summer tan and the long fringe of black hair that he’s always nudging across his forehead, or slicked against a beanie, gone behind a platinum blonde veneer that’s so much brighter than Gigi has ever seen. She’s thinner, and taller, careful breaths underneath sequinned shoulder pads, knees knocking together as she gasps.

“Gigi!”

Widow and Crystal glance at each other over the pink table.

“Hold up, you guys know each other?”

In the flesh; Gigi is impossibly small, the sharp angles of her face, and the dark brown hair that sticks up in angles which Nicky traces against the white of his pillows in his bedroom on the screen of his phone in the morning, taped underneath a gold-tipped pirate hat, and lush, wavy curls. She looks like a model on the runways where Nicky used to work; so close to him that he can feel Gigi’s breath on the back of his hand, as he tightens his grip around the epaulets on her shoulder.

“Gigi Goode.”, she repeats, and Gigi giggles a little at that.

“The Nicky Doll.”, she laughs, and her voice sounds so much more solid, than it ever has over every crossed wire.

Gigi’s hand swings, squeezing Nicky’s tightly as they swing around the table; like the others who are there don’t matter at all. She rests her head on Nicky’s padded shoulder, cocking it just slightly, waiting there, as Crystal’s eyes flash at the scene before them.

“…and may the best woman win.”, Gigi whispers, only for Nicky to hear.

#rpdr fanfiction #nicky doll #gigi goode #gigi x nicky #pre-ship #fluff #online friends au #s12 #on set fic #queen au #campvanjie #concrit welcome

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fieldsofplay · 3 years

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Favorite Albums of 2020

25. Dehd – Flower of Devotion

Rather than look back on the shit year that was 2020, lets keep our eye on the hope of the horizon. Speaking of which, Dehd herald much of what’s to come on this here list. While as previously mentioned a shit year for most everything besides presidential politics, 2020 proved to be a great year for good old fashioned guitar music. Could I be accused of curling up with my version of musical comfort food? Perhaps. But starting off with Dehd, we have a type of band that used to be everywhere and now seems to be almost nowhere. Jangly lo-fi guitars, perky drums, and straightforward unadorned singing. About five years ago you couldn’t throw a rock in Brooklyn without hitting a band like this, but now that that fad is long gone. I’m glad that Chicago’s Dehd are still carrying the torch.

24. Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

I’ve always liked Perfume Genius, but for whatever reason Set My Heart on Fire Immediately is the album that took him out of the realm of casual background musical encounter to something I sought out. Chamber pop has never really been my thing (except for those couple summers where Grizzly Bear was totally my jam), but here the torch songs catch fire by the compressed force of Michael Hadreas’ longing. This record also pulls off the impressive feat of each song gradually morphing just a bit from what proceeds it, so that the whole record sounds similar and yet each song carves out its own little generic niche, the whole thing united by the quivering power of that pleading voice.

23. 2nd Grade – Hit to Hit

If you ever found yourself wondering what Guided by Voices would sound like if they wanted to be Big Star instead of punk rock Kinks, we now have the answer, and it’s Phily’s 2nd Grade. In the noble tradition of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, Hit to Hit’s 24 tracks breeze by in a mere 41 minutes and 8 seconds. An earworm sunny melody, a quick guitar hook, a second verse (maybe), and poof, each song is gone before you could ever miss it. You would think variation would be difficult working within such tight musical corners, but while each song clearly shares common DNA, there is actually a lot of variance here, from weepy country ditties (“Bye Bye Texas”) to overdriven stompers (“Baby’s First Word”) though they all tend to orbit the same (big) star.

22. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush

I’ll be the first to admit that The Slow Rush isn’t my favorite Tame Impala record, not by a long shot. Having said that, this album still feels like it got short shrift this year (not that anyone can really complain about that in these here times). If we never knew that Lonerism or Innerspeaker or Currents existed, I wonder how much people would be head over heels for this album. “One More Year” “Is It True” and “Posthumous Forgiveness” are all top notch Impala jams. Seems like this album is the soundtrack for the chilled out summer hangs that we never got to have, and thus it’s fitting that it seems condemned for the ash-heap of history rather than the late-night come downs we never got up to.

21. Against All Logic – 2017 – 2019

Ah, speaking of complicated musical relationships, I can never seem to chart a clear course with Nicolas Jaar. The music he puts out under his own name never seems to do much for me, but I dug his collaboration with Dave Harrington as Darkside, and I really love most everything he’s put out as Against All Logic. While admittedly not a great year for house music—normally a liberating genre of communal interconnectivity, now a cruel reminder that we all live in Footloose—a banger remains a banger, and 2017-2019 is full to the brim with them. While I honestly can’t remember the last time I went dancing, I’ll still crank up “Fantasy” and bop around my living room, literally dancing by myself (lets be honest, something I would have done pandemic or no).

20. Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fetch the Bolt Cutters has had a lot of great things said about it this year, so I don’t really have to add that much. What I will say is this is perhaps the most interesting percussion I’ve ever heard on a record. There is percussion all over the place, but almost none of it in the form of full-kit drumming. Fiona always used the left hand on the piano as the rhythmic center of her songs, but here there is drilling, tapping, rapping, patting. The phrase DIY gets tossed around all the time (and almost never applied to big money, big label Fiona) but to me the most impressive thing about this record is how it always sounds like she is sitting at a rickety upright piano in the corner of a living room, while everyone congregating around keeps the beat by tapping on pots and pans, the walls, whatever is at hand. I’ve truly never heard anything like it.

19. Advertisement – American Advertisement

Godbless Seattle’s Advertisement. So long as there is cheap beer, old shitty cars driving with the windows down, and the U-SofA, there’ll be bands like Advertisement. Straight out of the vein of Cheap Trick and the more recent White Reaper, Advertisement play power pop with the emphasis on the power. Sometimes this type of music gets called sleazy, but honestly I don’t get it. I think its probably because you can imagine it playing while Wooderson drives around Austin looking for redheads. While we rightfully cancelled the song of summer this year, “Upstream Boogie” would have gotten my vote, perfect for backyard bbqs and cannonballing into creeks.

18. Nation of Language – Introduction, Presence

I didn’t set it up this way, but if Advertisement has a diametric opposite, its probably Nation of Language. Where Advertisement is all frayed edges and foam, Nation of Language is as buttoned up as those terrible sports jackets people wore in the early ‘90s. While its not as good as my beloved Black Marble, those bands share enough DNA to make me a big fan of this synth pop gem. It’s not as dark as the cold-wave Black Marble, but it does share that bands fondness for stark baselines and crisp arpeggios. If you’ve ever envisioned your life as a scene from a John Hughes movie, Nation of Language could easily be playing in the background.

17. The Soft Pink Truth – Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?

Indulge me in a moment of naval gazing. Every year as I put these things together I reach a point where I’m lack “damn, this album is this low on the list?” And the point at which that thought enters my head is usually indicative of how good a year for music it was. Now 2020 wasn’t a good year for anything, and I probably spent the least time of any year listening to music, new, old, whatever. For the most part I just listened to the Grateful Dead and ambient albums. However, for my idiosyncratic tastes, 2020 was actually a pretty fucking incredible year for new music, as evinced by the fact that this album is all the way down at 17.

Earlier on in 2020 as I was bombarding my poor local music text thread with yet more of my inane musings, I think I declared this a top 3 album of the year. And I wasn’t lying! “Pretty” is often a dirty word in aesthetic appreciation, but this is certainly the “prettiest” album of the year in the best sense of the word. From the Drew Daniel half of Matmos comes Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase? A record that is somehow simultaneously deep house and feather light, so much so that it needs its own dumb internet music writing moniker—shallow house? wide house? vacation house? (actually kinda like that last one). With vocals from Jana Hunter, Angel Deradoorian, and Colin Self (with whom I wasn’t previously familiar) this thing will simultaneously make you want to tap your foot and drift off into the clouds. This is album is like the prayer Madonna sang about all those years ago.

16. Kurt Vile – Speed, Sound, Lonely KV

It’s not at all surprising that if Kurt Vile decided he wanted to go country western he’d be really fucking good at it. First of all, he’s an exceptional acoustic guitar picker. Secondly, his voice, while always befitting his hazed out urban rockers, has just enough twang to it that in retrospect it always sounded a little bit country. This record also gives me room to offer up an homage to the late great John Prine, for whom the EP is essentially a tribute. Vile covers two Prine songs, dueting with the man himself on “How Lucky.” Saying goodbye is never easy, but on Speed, Sound, Lonely (both the album, and the song more or less by that name) Vile manages a fitting tribute to a lost legend.

15. Lomelda – Hannah

The reviews of Hannah really did Lomelda a disservice. Sure, they were glowing, but they made it sound like this was some weepy milquetoast singer songwriter affair, when it’s actually a knotty album full off elliptical piano and fuzzed out electric guitar. Its 14 tracks hurtle by, largely due to the fact that almost all of them are under 3 and a ½ minutes. Things really get going with the second track, “Hannah Sun” with is squiggly synth effects and driving acoustic strums carrying on Hannah Read’s musings. It’s an album of relentless forward musical movement even if the vibe feels like it’s always looking back over its shoulder. Basically this album is what emo would sound like if it wasn’t made by the worst people in the universe.

14. Shabaka and the Ancestors – We are Sent here by History

Jazz! Another great year for jazz (Asher Gamedze’s Dialectic Soul and Keefe Jackson, Jim Baker, & Julian Kirshner’s So Glossy and So Thin are with a strong group that just missed the cut). In the midst of an excellent jazz renaissance (you gotta use super annoying words like “renaissance” when talking about jazz) Shebaka Hutchins remains my absolute fave of the bunch, and We are Sent here by History is probably my favorite thing he has put out so far.

13. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

While I really liked Waxahatchee’s low-fi emoish debut—American Weekend—I’ll readily admit I wasn’t much about the popier albums that followed, frequently jesting, honestly, that Allison was my preferred musical Crutchfield sister. All that changed for me with Saint Cloud. I’ve certainly drifted far off into country and Americana as I’ve aged, and it appears the same came be said for Katie Crutchfield. These songs have a giddyup to them but they never break out into a gallop, allowing the strength of the melodies to carry them along across the plains, with just the right hint of twilight. Saint Cloud is the sound of Patsy Cline if she played to roadside inns rather than the Grand Ol’ Opry.

12. Neil Young – Homegrown

This was the hardest album to place on the list this year. For starters, should it even count? Clearly I say yes. While some of these songs have been available for over 30 years, as an album, Homegrown was a “new” release here in 2020, even though it was originally slated to come out in ’75 between On the Beach (my personal fave Neil record) and Zuma. As a pure piece of music, is it better than most, if not all, of the records that follow? Of course yes. But what does a new Neil Young record mean in 2020? As a thought experiment its fascinating. Do we value this album within the musical context of 2020 or 1975? Fortunately, it’s an even more enjoyable listen than it is a thought experiment. From the first strums of “Separate Ways” you’re like “oh shit, this is the vintage stuff.” Gentle amber acoustic numbers (“Try”) share space with electric stompers (“Vacancy”). The best thing you can say about Homegrown is that if Neil had originally decided to release this instead of Tonight’s The Night, it would have fit right in amongst his unimpeachable run from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere up through Zuma. A classic is still a classic, no matter what year it finally sees the light of day.

11. Destroyer – Have we Met

Ah Dan Bejar, boy was I wrong about you. I kinda got into Destroyer’s Rubies, I loved his contributions to Swan Lake and The New Pornographers, but yet when Chinatown started really making waves, I just couldn’t do it. It was soft rock! I hate soft rock! I hate everything about it! This preconceived notion wasn’t helped by the fact that I saw him open for the War on Drugs in Pontiac once and he was so drunk he could barely stand up and had to read his own lyrics from a sheet. And yet, for some reason I never really gave up on it. I can’t tell you why exactly, but two summers ago Chinatown just slowly became my go-to for early morning / late afternoon strolls. I found comfort in giving myself over to its pillowy soft embrace / cheating on my own aesthetic judgments. Now that I’m card-carrying Bejarhead, I greeted Have we Met with open arms, and I was not disappointed. The synths glimmer, the guitars add just enough punch, and his lyrics remain sharp as ever. Its fitting that this was the last concert I saw before the iron curtain fell. The one thing I had always turned my back on ended up being the last memory of dionysian group enthrallment I had to carry with me out into the desert of social isolation. Come back soon Destroyer, come back soon, everyone.

10. Deeper – Auto-Pain

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready, because post punk is back! I always say my favorite genre is ‘sad songs you can dance to’ but post punk is a close second. When I was in college post punk underwent a bit of a renaissance in the form of Interpol (back when they were still good), Bloc Party (ditto), Franz Ferdinand, and a whole slew of British one hit wonders (Maximo Park, Futureheads, Art Brut, the Bravery). Fortunately, as is always the case, what’s old is new again, and stark melodic bass lines, angular guitars, and moody introspective speak-singing are back in full force. Of the three post punk bands gracing this here top ten (Deeper, Fontaines DC, and Crack Cloud) each has its own little slice of the generic pie. Fontaines have the deep gloom of Interpol/Joy Division, Crack Cloud ripple with the staccato energy of Gang of Four, and Deeper have the wiry dancieness of, well, Wire. So long as leather jackets and black and white photography remain cool, there’ll always be bands like this, and thank god for that. In a true sign o’ the times, I learned about this band from some random girl’s Tik Tok in my for-you feed. She repped five bands, two of which are in my top three, so I was like, sure I’ll give this band Deeper a go. God bless the internet. Finally, Deeper get bonus points for naming a song “This Heat,” who I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting this year, and whose spikey guitars are all over this record.

9. The Flaming Lips – American Head

There are few things as satisfying in art as being genuinely surprised by a beloved artist you had given up as culturally dead. Since putting out their last masterpiece (2009’s Embryonic) the Lips have put out a string of good, if inconsequential, albums that befitting the ethos of the band could best be described as half baked (The Terror, Oczy Moldy, and a series of collaborative experiments). Basically, they had reached that dreaded nadir where I was no longer interested in listening to their new output (cough The National, cough cough Arcade Fire). So what made me give American Head a chance? That reader, is the point of art criticism! I can’t remember how the blurb on pitchfork read exactly, but I knew it referenced Tom Petty and a return to a preoccupation with more Earthly concerns—namely ‘70s heartland rock. Well, this sounded intriguing, and boy was I not disappointed. Sure, the Flaming Lips have already reached their sell-by date twice over (first in 1992, immediately followed by their MTV reinvention on 1993’s Transmissions from the Satellite Heart; and then again in the late ‘90s with the departure of guitarist Ronald Jones, followed by their creative pinnacle, ‘99’s symphonic masterpiece The Soft Bulletin), so it shouldn’t be all that surprising that this band could rise from the dead a third time. Only, for the most part, they didn’t. I guess I’m not surprised that American Head failed to reach a broader audience. Most people probably aren’t even aware that they are still a going concern, and after the failures of the last decade it makes sense that most weren’t interested in more tunes from the Oklahoma freaknicks. But for those willing to give the band another chance, American Head easily delivers their best album since Embryonic, if not all the way back to Yoshimi. Mixing ‘70s Americana with the star gazing of Soft Bulletin’s “Sleeping on the Roof,” the Lips deliver their best album in decades by foregoing the parlor tricks and returning to what they do best, taking trips to distant galaxies while keeping their feet firmly planted in the soil and songcraft of Oklahoma.

8. Cut Worms – Nobody Lives Here Anymore

This one is pretty easy. Do you like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass? If yes, listen to Nobody Lives Here Anymore and revel in this double album’s upbeat acoustic rock mediations. If no, well there’s plenty of other good stuff out there. Not quite as metaphysical or orchestral as All Things Must Pass, Nobody Lives Here Anymore still manages to hit that rockabiliy-pop sweet spot that Harrison used to mine. I’m not quite sure what the definition of “troubadour” is, but it feels safe to call Cut Worms a troubadour, which is certainly better than his terrible stage name.

7. Cigarettes for Breakfast – Aphantasia

Similar to Cut Worms, Cigarettes for Breakfast also involves a simple influence equation. Do you pray at the altar of Loveless? If so, Aphantasia is just the record for you. Sure, it’s a bit of My Bloody Valentine paint by numbers (“Breathe” even features the same squally guitar noise [it’s really hard to try and describe My Bloody Valentine effects ha] as “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)”) but when you’re as into shoegaze as I am, that’s never really a bad thing. Plus, I’m being a bit unfair. Everyone with textured tremolo heavy wall-of-sound guitars and cooed vocals is going to inevitably be compared to MBV, and Cigarettes for Breakfast do enough to chart their own course. Perhaps most interesting is the musical journey this record charts. Its loudest moment is its opening, where pummeling guitars more reminiscent of Sonic Youth with a touch of Dinosaur Jr. rip across hardcore style drumming. From there each song becomes a little more ambient, until closer “If Someone Could Help Me, Please” more or less floats away on its shimmering sheets of beautiful noise clouds. In this sense, it bears a resemblance in structure, if not in sound, to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms, another album I spent a lot of time revisiting this year. A shutout here is owed to the fine folks at Radio K, who had me diving for my shazam as this thing ripped across their airwaves. So long as there is college radio, there’ll be a new crop of kids discovering via Kevin Shields that the electric guitar contains endless sonic possibilities.

6. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death

The second entry in our top-ten post punk trio is A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C. I’ll admit, on first blush it’s kind of a dumb band name (I just assumed they were some hardcore band from Washington DC chasing those Dischord Records glory days), but when you learn that the “DC” stands for Dublin City, it all clicks, as this band is sorta inescapably Irish in the way that James Joyce is. Now this fact at first was also off-putting—if I went the rest of my life without ever hearing the Dropkick Murphy’s again I’d be quite content—but eventually it becomes integral to their sound, and not just because of the brogue in Garin Chatten’s vocals. “Love is the Main Thing” is an incredible song in many ways, most notably because of the hypnotic quality of the drumming with its counterpoint between riding cymbal and staccato toms, but perhaps in the main (*wink*) for the way it manages to connote the weariness of a grey urban environment without ever being explicitly about it. Just as Turn on the Bright Lights managed to perfectly capture New York in 2001, A Hero’s Death to me is the aural equivalent of a dense urban center like Dublin, especially after nightfall.

5. Imaginary Softwoods – Annual Flowers in Color

It should come as no surprise that I listened to A LOT of ambient this year, and to me there was no better electronic record to chill the fuck out to during this insane year than Annual Flowers in Color. I absolutely loved Emeralds’ Does it Look Like I’m Here? and was devastated they never followed that gem (*wink*) up. In the immediate aftermath of the demise of Emeralds Mark McGuire’s solo albums got a lot of attention, but apparently the person I really loved in Emeralds was Imaginary Softwoods’ John Elliot. Annual Flowers in Color is like if Dead City’s, Red Seas, Lost Ghosts were waiting in the departure’s lounge of Eno’s airport. At the heart of the album lies the 10 plus minutes of “Another First/Sea Machine.” I could listen to this song forever, and on some particularly WTF 2020 lakewalks I more or less have. Chunky synths, arpeggios that drift off to infinity, ‘80s soundtrack nostalgia. I could live in these Softwoods for the rest of my sonic days.

4. Pottery – Welcome to Bobby’s Motel

In another moment of nostalgia for my college years, Pottery are a welcome return to weird ass experimental Canadian bands. They don’t sound anything like the Unicorns, but in spirit Pottery kind of remind me of them. I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink here and elsewhere bemoaning the fact that Pitchfork (or perhaps, me) isn’t cool anymore, and to me no band embodies this more than Pottery. They take a bunch of fun disparate elements—Talking Heads dance art rock, periodic weird pitch shifted vocal effects, hazy deep purple style guitars, and Queen style machismo disco—throw them into a witch’s cauldron, and come up with something off the wall that sounds like nothing else but is also instantly familiar. This is the type of thing Pitchfork would have been all over in 2007, but instead now they’re too busy chasing conde nast clout clicks. Oh well, nothing gold can last. But enough negativity, this here is a celebration of the joy of new music, and no new band embodies that unbridled joy like Pottery. Along with Fontaines DC, this is the band I wish I most could have bopped around to with a bunch of sweaty strangers in the 7th St. Entry or Turf Club. You can just imagine the call and response vocals and funky grooves getting the people moving. Oh well, hopefully we’ll soon all be rocking the vaccine, they can breeze through town, and I’ll be the first person on the dance floor embarrassingly pumping my fist a half beat behind the rhythm.

3. Pure X – Pure X

To paraphrase Same Elliott in the Big Lebowski, sometimes there’s a band, and well, sometimes there’s a band. For me this year, that band was Pure X. I absolutely loved their debut Pleasure way back in 2011, when lo-fi reverb heavy slow guitar music (ie, Galaxie 500) was all the rage. Their follow up Crawling up the Stairs was so bad I didn’t even bother listening to Angel, though perhaps that also owed a decent amount to just how terrible the art on that record is. (I’ve since remedied this mistake; turns out that record rules). Being that as it may, I can’t particularly tell you what drew me in to this year’s self-titled album, a full nine years after Pleasure first graced the stage. In one sense it’s probably because Pleasure is one those albums that just never went out of my rotation. Whenever the fahrenheit tips past 90 and the walk to the bodega is a few blocks longer than you’d like, that record always hits the spot. Maybe I just knew this was the record I needed this year. Either way, from the first bars of “Middle America” I was hooked. The guitars crash over you, but never in a threatening way. Rather, they envelop you like a weighted blanket, comforting you in their sonic embrace. Nowhere is this more true than on “Fantasy,” easily my favorite song of 2020 (especially since this was a year entirely devoid of dance floor bangers). If this album came out in 1999 rather than 2020 I would have hit the repeat button on my discman and listened to this song forever.

2. Crack Cloud – Pain Olympics

Pain Olympics is the answer to the question that no one asked: what if Arcade Fire’s (back when they were good) communal uplift was paired with Gang of Four’s stark anthem’s of industrialism’s collapse? While on first blush this might sound like your standard album of punkish fist pumping angst, from when the female vocals (sorry there are too many people in this band for me to be able to figure out whose who) come in on opener “Post Truth (Birth of a Nation)” Pain Olympics reveals itself to be a very strange animal (likely a unicorn of some sort), especially as little orchestral swirls creep into the mix, giving it an almost Judy Garland (in hell) quality. This subtle genre pastiche is given its best effect on stunner “The Next Fix.” That song starts out as an elastic spoken-word call and response addiction rumination, at the minute mark it starts to segue into a vocoded chill raver, then some horns crop up out of nowhere, then a spoken word passage, then at the two minute mark a chorus of voices come in, doing their best Broken Social Scene in the truest sense of the phrase. This is perhaps one of the strangest records I’ve ever heard, but what is strangest of all is just how beautiful it is. Crack Cloud are not for everyone, but if you really give it a chance, the returns are limitless.

1. SAULT – Untitled (Rise) / Untitled (Black Is)

You cannot tell the story of 2020 without SAULT, which is why this pair of records is here at the top, even if under the influence of sodium pentothal (lets be honest, veritaserum) I might lean more towards Pain Olympics. In June, the “anonymous” London project put out Untitled (Black Is), and then quickly followed that gem up with September’s Untitled (Rise). Perhaps more amazing still is that these two albums, released so close together, have unique personalities. Black Is is more pop/R&B whereas Rise has a dancy, electr(on)ic feel. I lean more towards the latter, but honestly, both albums are so overstuffed with amazing moments that it’s borderline unbelievable that one outfit could put out so much amazing music in such a short span. While these records would chart high even if sung in Hopelandic, there’s no escaping the social import of the lyrics. One need look no further than Black Is’s “Don’t Shoot Guns Down” for the 2020 dance party at the end of the world. As if that weren’t more than enough, it finds its analogue on Rise’s “Street Fighter,” and that’s SAULT in a nutshell: two albums in constant communication with one another, and more importantly, with the state of the world. Guns down. Don’t Shoot. Let’s dance.

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eugenesmorphine · 4 years

Note

Loving all your imagines . Can you possibly do a request?? Eugene Roe please. !! Prompt: “Please talk to me about it,”

Distanced // Eugene Roe Imagine

Prompt: “Please talk to me about it.”

Taglist: @alienoresimagines @hihosilvers @floydtab @punkgeekchic

Words: 2,590

Eugene sat on the Jeep as it drove back into Bastogne. Just staring at nothing pretty much. His eyes filled with complete nothingness as he face was just dead pan. The only color on his face was the slight pink that rested on his pale nose from the cold atmosphere of Belgium. Winters told him to go into town and get a hot meal after the rough day of Joe and Guarnere getting hit on the same day.

The past week was taking a harsh tole on the medic. And everyone knew it. But, the only thing that he saw when he reached town was utter chaos. The chapel being used as a hospital for wounded and dying soldiers being blown to pieces by German Artillery strikes.. Knowing that a friendly nurse that he had met and actually became proper friends with was inside, he ran towards the ruins. Flames littered the area and so did bodies. The smell of rotting corpses and burnt up bodies could be smelt, along with the loud piercing screams of pain and fear. When Roe picked up the bandanna wrap that the blonde woman wore to pull back her hair was on the ground between debris. He knew he was too late. And all he could do, or all he could really stomach in the moment, was to just go back to the forest and watch over his men.

So that is where Eugene sat. In the passenger seat of the Jeep, just in a daze. He chewed on the inner lining of his cheek, digging his hand into his pocket and pulling out the bandanna. Running his rough thumb over the soft blue fabric. Pursing his lips as a he pushed a sigh out. He barely knew the woman but he felt as if he lost a best friend. She probably had a family. She could've been a sister. She was a daughter. He sniffled slightly and wiped his nose using the sleeve of his military issued jacket. Stuffing the bandanna back into his pocket. Just looking to his right. Staring at all the passing trees that held snow all over the branches. He took in the silence. For once in this forest, Eugene wasn't hearing the cries of agony and the screams for a medic. He shut his eyes and just listened to the wind. Getting lost in his mind.

///

Y/N watched from afar as Eugene's boots hit the snow when he climbed out of the Jeep. She saw the look in his eyes. The look of a empty, and distressed man. She watched as he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and buried the lower portion of his face into the color of his jacket. Eugene had been pushing everyone away slowly. Even her. He had to much burden on his shoulders, and she wanted to take it off. God, she really did. As his lover, it pained her in ever possible way to see Eugene like this and just slowly but knowingly distance himself away from her. She could understand where he was coming from, and she definitely wasn't judging him. Eugene had a lot of responsibilities as one of the company's medics. Taking care of all the men, making sure they're fit for the field. And it was his job that if anyone got hit that he saved their lives. But he couldn't save everyone. And there had been a lot of deaths throughout the years. And maybe Bastogne was the straw that broke the camel's back for Eugene. But Y/N wasn't just going to let him push her away. He was all she had. And she couldn't lose that just because he was building everything up within himself and didn't want to bring his walls down. She knew it was a lot, but she needed to know he was alright. Even though he clearly he wasn't.

She began making her way over to the Cajun. Her hands wrapped around her torso wanting to create more warmth. He met her eyes and she shot him a soft smile. He just stared back at her standing still and watching her approach him. "Hey Genie," she spoke softly, looking up at him. His eyes were cold. Just piercing through her.

"Hey Y/N," he replied, his eyes darting back and forth. All around, but just not into her eyes. She sighed softly. "Want to go for a walk?" she asked, her voice quite happy. Eugene just looked back down at her and pressed his lips together. Giving her a slight nod. Y/N nodded and turned, and began walking. The soft sound of snow crunching beneath their boots. Eugene sat quiet as they walked. Only sounds coming from him were the sounds of his heavy breathing.

The two walked in silence for about seven minutes. They had walked past foxholes upon foxholes. Though, Y/N had enough of him suffering in silence. She was his significant other, how was she just to leave him like this. She sighed softly. "You know we are worried about you, Eugene," she hummed. Eugene didn't answer right away, but she looked over and saw him furrow his eyebrows for a second.

"We have been over this before, Y/N. There ain't nothin' to worry about," he answered, not even taking a glance in her direction. She took a step in front of him. Crossing her arms over her chest and looking up at him.

"Eugene, you can't keep playing this game. We all can see how sleepless and warn down you are. Hell, I never thought you would start distancing yourself from me but yet, you have. Jesus Eugene, we've been together for what? Over a year now? We promised each other that we would be there for each other no matter what," Y/N raised her hand and pointed to the small silver band that rested on her left ring finger. Eugene and her had found two silver banded rings that seemingly fit their fingers when going throughout a half way destroyed building. Y/N surprisingly found them before Speirs did with his silver sticky fingers. With those rings, the two labeled them as promise rings. Promising each other that no matter what, they would be there for each other and care for each other until the day that Eugene could put a ring on Y/N's finger that made her his wife. "Remember?"

Eugene huffed slightly. Not wanting to admit his faults, and still not wanting to talk. He pressed his lips into a thin line and buried his hands deeper into his pockets and pushed past her. Oh how he hated what he was doing. Especially to the woman he loved the most. But he just couldn't help it. He didn't want to burden someone with his own thoughts or problems. The medic just thought it was apart of his job. "It's different this time, Y/N. You wouldn't get it," Y/N turned and watched him push past her. She went and grabbed his arm, not too hard or harsh. But just enough to stop him in his tracks.

"Jesus, Gene! How won't I understand? Just.. Just please talk to me about it!" She raised her voice. Eugene snapped around quickly. The built up anger, fear, sadness, and all those emotions that Eugene had been feeling had got to much. He grabbed the wrist of the hand the connected to his arm. Pulling her closer and looking deep into her eyes.

"You just won't understand it, alright Y/N? You aren't a damn medic, you are just a rifleman. You won't ever understand it. So just leave it alone," his grip on the woman's wrist grew tighter a she stared down at her. Her eyes had a glint of fear. Eugene had never been this angry. His job wasn't to hurt or to kill. It was to care for and save his comrades.

"Eugene," Y/N started. He just kept a hard eye on her. Like he was in a frozen state. Her voice sounded muffled, like he was under water. Not seeing the full picture of what he was doing. His fingers tightening even harder on the woman's wrist. "Eugene you are hurting me," Y/N whispered. Trying to tug her wrist away. The trooper medic snapped out of whatever state his emotions locked him in and looked down at the hand that was wrapped around Y/N's wrist. He could see how tight he held onto her and immediately let go. Looking down at his hand for a second before looking back to Y/N. "Fine Eugene, I guess I will leave it alone," she mumbled, rubbing her sore wrist as she turned around and went to walk back to her foxhole.

"Y/N wait! I'm.. I’m sorry!" he jogged up to her. She turned and looked at him. Her hand still rubbing where he had left visible finger markings where he had gripped onto it just seconds ago. She squinted up at him.

"Eugene, when you decide to realize that I am worrying about you, and that you can't just push me away. And when you realize that I am your girlfriend and not just another Paratrooper and stop acting like a child then taking out you anger or whatever the problem is out on me when I just want you to be happy and safe. Then you can come talk to me," and just like that she turned around and walked off. Eugene stood there, feeling guilty. He knew he shouldn't of her gripped her that tight. Why didn't he just tell her how he was feeling? Roe took off his helmet and angrily slammed it on the forest floor. A puff a snow coming up. His chest heaved as he looked down at the bowl of metal now with a dent at the top. He huffed as he scooped up the helmet and just stared at it. Pressing his lips into a thin line as he just placed it back onto his head and digging his hand back into his pockets and walking towards Spina's foxhole.

///

Eugene crawled into the foxhole that Spina say in. The fellow medic looked up at him and raised a brow. "Hey Roe, saw what happened with you and Y/N. How you holding up?" It wasn't like the two were in private honestly. Eugene and Y/N were probably only a little ways away from the line. So most of the men saw the small quarrel they had. Eugene sighed and looked over at Spina.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't want her to worry about me. That isn't our jobs to make people worried. You and I are supposed to decrease worry," he spoke, looking down at his hand that had the silver band that sat on his left ring finger. Spinning it in around on his finger. Spina chuckled slightly and looked over at him.

"Eugene, that is your girl. She is going to worry all the time. Just like how you always tell me you are worried about her. She knows that us medics put our lives out on the line to save the men. She doesn't want to see you hurting, Gene. That's all. She is going to worry no matter what, but you have to talk to her sometimes. Isn't what all the shit about with promise rings you gave her?" Spina spoke, going through his medical supplies within his bag. Eugene sat and thought about the words just spoken to him. He knew Spina was right. He sighed and stood up.

"Thanks Spina, I gotta go do something," Roe began climbing out of the foxhole. Already making his way towards where he say Y/N laughed. Spina smirked up at him and nodded.

"Good choice!" he called out. Eugene scoffed slightly, cracking a small smile as he shook his head./// When Eugene reached her foxhole, pressed lips together and just looked down at her. Chewing on the skin on his lower lip. Y/N slowly looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. Eugene sighed heavily and climbed into the foxhole, sitting in front of the woman. Just staring at her for a moment. He dropped his head for a moment, taking a deep breath.

"Darling, I'm sorry. I should not have grabbed your wrist. I didn't even realize how hard I was squeezing. There is just so much-" before Eugene could finish his sentence, Y/N lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. Leaning against him and burying her head in his neck. She could hear all the pain laced in his words. He was breaking. And he couldn't stop it, it was the one thing Eugene 'Doc' Roe couldn't fix. Which was the entire start of his down hill state. To know he couldn't fix or heal something. Eugene couldn't fix himself. And he didn't know how to understand it or live with it. But now here he was, feeling different then before just having Y/N's arms tight around him. He realized what he had missed since he distanced himself away from the female trooper.

The corner of the medic's lips quirked up into a smile as his hands snaked around his woman's waist. He felt a warm feeling of comfort. Knowing that whatever he told the woman that he felt inside, that she would be there every step of the way. He swallowed hard before continuing. "So much has happened, doll. And I can't quit on these men or get a second of clarity like they do since someone is always hurt or dyin'. I know I can't save them all, but I really wish I could."

Y/N clung to him tighter. Finally getting him to the point where he actually was telling her what was on his mind instead of suffering in silence. She pulled away and looked at her man. She could see the hurt etched onto his face. Her hands went up to cup his cheeks, her hands warm against his cool and pale skin. He mouth was open slightly as he stared at her. Y/N dipped her head, taking his lips to hers warmly. She used one of her hands to remove his helmet and set it softly to the side of them. Taking the chance to run a hand through his jet black hair.

Roe pulled away for a moment and Y/N smiled at him. "See, doesn't it feel better to let someone know what you are feeling inside?" she asked. His cheeks reddened in the slightest and a small grin came to his lips.

"Yes, I suppose it does," She giggled softly and sat to the side of him. Pressing her back into the wall of frozen solid dirt. Y/N dug in her jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of smokes. Pulling out one for her and then one for Eugene. Handing the cigarette to her lover and placing the other between her own lips. Using her lighter to light up both of them. Inhaling the smoke and letting it float around in her lungs before exhaling it. Y/N leaned her head on Eugene's shoulder, snuggling into his side. Taking his hand into hers and interlocking their fingers. The silver bands of the two's ring fingers touching.

"Eugene?" Y/N cooed as his calloused thumb ran over his hand. Their eyes fixated on what looked to be the never ending forest coursed with fog.

"Yes, Darling?" Eugene responded. Y/N craned her neck to look up at her medic. "I love you," now, for a moment, his eyes weren't filled with hurt, fear, or anger. None of that. They were filled with love. And nothing else. Just love for his woman. He smiled down to Y/N and pecked her lips.

"I love you too, doll."

#eugene roe imagine #eugene roe #eugene roe x reader #band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #HBO Series #hbo war #hbo #hbo imagine #richard winters

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meangirlsx · 3 years

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I’m the anon from the bi ask and I just wanna say thank you!! That was really helpful and sweet! I’ve only ever had like 2 real crushes before and they were on guys but there have definitely been times where talking with friends I’ve said ‘I’d go gay for x character’ as like a joke but maybe I wasn’t actually joking lol. Obviously I still have some soul searching to do but I’m definitely going to be more mindful of this going forwards, see if I can recognize any of those feelings! - 💛

Feel free to come to me if you want to talk about anything, think something through, run potential feelings by someone, have any questions, or anything else. I’m always happy to talk.

Take as much time as you need to do your soul searching. And know that you’re allowed to change your mind.

I wrote a whole journal entry at 14 about how I thought I was bisexual, and then I decided that I wasn’t. It took me years to reevaluate. I started by thinking I was demisexual or gray ace, and eventually I became comfortable with the concept and terminology and realized I’m asexual. It took me another year or two to start to question my romantic orientation after that. I started with pan because I’d come across the false idea that pan is more inclusive than bi. Once I learned the truth about the labels, I’d thought about it enough to become comfortable with both, like I’d done with the asexual labels, and I felt comfortable calling myself bi after deciding it was what fit me best.

Know that it’s a process, too. I’m much more comfortable talking about all of this on here. I still struggle talking about it out loud depending on who I’m with, but the more I talk about it, the easier it gets. It took me a long time, both times, to adjust to the new identity I’d found. Sometimes that’s how it goes and that’s completely okay.

There’s a quote I love that really emphasizes that point, from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott:

“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”

Similarly, one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given is, “You can do anything for five minutes.” Five minutes isn’t that long in the scheme of our whole lives. Sometimes you need a lot more than five minutes to get through something. That’s okay. When the five minutes are up, you start them again. You can get through a lot that way.

If you do notice signs, maybe they’ll be different for you than they were for me. Maybe they’ll be the same or similar. Whatever it is, it will be your process, and that’s wonderful.

I know it can be scary and I know it can be hard. Especially if you don’t feel like you have a support system. I’m here if you want a friend through any of it. You are not alone.

There’s one more Anne Lamott quote I want to share with you:

“Every single one of us at birth is given an emotional acre all our own. As long as you don’t hurt anyone, you really get to do with your acre as you please. You can plant fruit trees or flowers or alphabetized rows of vegetables, or nothing at all. If you want your acre to look like a giant garage sale, or an auto-wrecking yard that’s what you get to do with it. There’s a fence around your acre, though, with a gate, and if people keep coming onto your land and sliming it or trying to get you to do what they think is right, you get to ask them to leave. And they have to go, because this is your acre.”

I know it’s not that simple all the time. We don’t always get to just ask people to leave. But in your own mind, you can. No matter what’s going on in the outside world, no one is allowed to mess with what’s going on in your head and in your heart. No one else gets to decide any of it.

I also love this quote from Captain Holt on Brooklyn 99, “Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place.” Maybe the only person you’d be comfortable saying it to is yourself, and maybe that would even take time. That’s all okay. If you discover this is who you are, and you decide you want to share it, you’re the one who gets to decide where, when, how, and who you say it to.

This is your story. No one else gets to hold the pen. And no matter how your story goes, I know it will be beautiful.

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albatris · 4 years

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GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS

IT’S RAPIDFIRE UNDERTOW CHARACTER RUNDOWN TIME YEEHAW LET’S GO

YOU CAN READ IT IF YOU LIKE

the setting: who the fuck knows

the time period: who the FUCK knows

the premise: amnesiac youth acquires a magically-enhanced sentient truck that runs on stories. because of reasons, she then embarks on a weird cross-country roadtrip, meeting equally weird people and investigating strange phenomena and curious magical goings-on. there is a ragtag gang of misfits and some world-saving involved also. and some dogs. yep

important caveat: this entire story is just my self-indulgent daydream universe. literally the entire thing? just for funsies. it’s my catch-all for ideas that don’t fit elsewhere. it’s my ridiculous worldbuilding melting-pot! it’s an excuse to string whatever wholesome and angsty moments I like together with whatever weird shit I think would be fun

the only motive behind anything I do in Undertow is “why the fuck not?” and that’s totally valid imo

and here we go. long post ahoy

the bastards:

ASTER (they/she): Conveniently amnesiac protagonist! Aroace and genderqueer! Woke up one day on the side of the road with the keys to a weird truck that runs on stories instead of fuel, and now uses delivery driving work as an excuse to careen all about the country collecting friends and solving magical mysteries. Vaguely clairvoyant and can ~speak~ with the energy-flow of the universe. Dresses like they’ve fallen straight out of a cyberpunk anime. Chatty, over-excited, impulsive. Extremely full of love.

important tunes: “overture” by sleeping at last, “timebomb” by walk the moon (weird choice for an aroace character but bear with me)

KIT (he/him): Not the first random Aster gets into shenanigans with but the first who tags along for further shenanigans and also becomes a protagonist. Pan. Wouldn’t know what a gender was if it punched him in the face. Highly skilled necromancer who straight-up doesn’t believe in magic, currently trying to fulfil the dying wish of his late wife (to reanimate a t-rex). Awkward and standoffish and lonely, tries to pretend he’s cool but just really really isn’t. Would rather set his entire self on fire than admit he considers Aster his best friend. Schizotypal synesthete whose fashion sense can be described as “how many clothes can I layer on top of each other before I physically cannot move?”

important tunes: “body” by mother mother, “hunting season” by fences, “necromancin dancin” by bear ghost

MEG (she/her): Mad scientist mechanic who does tonnes of magical illegal shit to cars for funsies. An expert on bizarre vehicles! This is the person you talk to if you, idk, happen across a strange truck with sentience that eats stories. She hates people and lives completely isolated in the middle of fuck-off nowhere with sixteen dogs. Completely unhinged. Thinks clothes are for losers so wears as few of them as possible and I want NO ONE making this a weird sexual thing. She’s just a feral bastard maniac. She’s living my weird feral bastard in the woods dreams. She has no interest in labelling her sexuality or gender, but both can be accurately summed up with “how dare you fucking look at me”

important tunes: “the machine” by lemon demon, “a mask of my own face” by lemon demon............ there’s just....... lemon demon songs here ok........ I haven’t yet found the songs with the Peak Meg Energies

NOLAN (he/him): Bastard. Chaotic bastard. Is of some relation to Kit, possibly an older brother, possibly just some dude who decided Kit looked like a fun person to annoy for all eternity. Speaks entirely in riddles and cryptic poems, loves needless melodrama. Dresses like he’s going to the beach even when he isn’t. He has zero motives beyond fun and chaos and boredom, which sometimes leads to him working with the protagonists and sometimes leads to him actively sabotaging them. Role in the story ranges from “genuinely terrifying villain” to “weird almost-friend who hangs around with the heroes even though no one invited him and is just a general endearing nuisance”. Literally cannot die, because he has some seriously impressive and terrifying subconscious reality-bending powers and it does not occur to him that he can die. So he doesn’t. Unrelated, he’s the only Undertow character besides Beth who canonically dies.

important tunes: “complicated creation” by cloud cult, “when he died” by lemon demon (peak Nolan chaotic energies)

BAKER (he/him): Meg’s apprentice? Meg’s assistant? Doesn’t really know that much about cars and I think he landed in the role because he misread the job advertisement, but he tries to be helpful anyway. Very small lesbian. Possibly some form of vampire except in reverse? Listen. I don’t know that much about Baker but one key fact is that he’s solar-powered and sometimes he’ll just lie down on the floor unconscious mid-task and you have to haul him over your shoulder and lob him into the sunlight and wait for his energy to recharge. Easily flustered, hardworking, pleasant enough but not super great at Peopling. Also gets possessed at one stage but he gets better so it’s nbd

important tunes: “pink smoke” by the scary jokes, “featherstone” by the paper kites

???????? (??/??): The main villain. The big bad. I have no idea if this is a thing that has a physical form or if it’s just an abstract floaty intangible concept. This is the thing that briefly possesses Baker. This is also the thing that one-shot kills Nolan. Possibly it’s some kind of river-surface reflection monster that steals your face and becomes a fucked up version of you except it accidentally reflected some kind of ancient god and now the whole world is screwed. Possibly it’s the gradual marching of the universe towards death except that marching gained sentience and is incredibly frightened. Who the FUCK knows. Not me.

important tunes: “dead moon” by brick + mortar, “ruler of everything” by tally hall

other bastards who exist. vaguely. probably:

CARDS (xe/xem): Gentle, patient, good at growing herbs and reading tarot cards. Xe’s married to Meg. Literally no one knows this because they hardly ever interact and they don’t live together and when they do interact people are generally like “huh, Meg doesn’t seem to despise Cards quite as much as she despises everyone else” but like. They’re happily married. Also xe’s called Cards because xir last name is “Cardone”. This is a fact that I stole from someone I’ve met in real life, because no one is safe from my terrible thieving writer hands

BETH (she/her): Kit’s late wife. She’s a ghost. She has lots of opinions about things. She’s not here in the story because of any necromancy or raising the dead on Kit’s part. She refuses to die out of pure spite. She’s got shit to do. She likes heavy metal and writing romance novels. These are currently the only facts I know about her. Thank you

FERRIS (she/her): Her last name is Wheel. She is a character I created specifically because I realised that Ferris Wheel is a name that you could actually for real name someone. I can’t decide if it’s funnier if this character’s name is Ferris Wheel in a world where ferris wheels exist but she herself has never been exposed to the concept of one so she doesn’t understand why all the other characters are like “??????” when they first meet her, or if this character’s name is Ferris Wheel in a world that is essentially just Earth But Magic, save for the fact that the exact, specific concept of a ferris wheel was never invented. Also she’s a businesswoman.......... also she can levitate...... also she’s a lesbian

ok that’s it bye thanks love you

#this is not all the characters by any means but this is like #the main ragtag gang of misfits who somehow end up teaming up to stop the destruction of the world or whatever #for one reason or another #with the exception of the main villain of course LMAO #anyway this is just like......#the most inconvenient way i could ever relay any amount of information #while i was typing this i was like #''this would all be so much easier to parse if it was in comic sans powerpoint format''#and now that all this information is here like......... this is the info that would go in the powerpoint anyway #but the FACT of the matter IS that i'm lazy #and i only have good drawings done of aster kit and meg #anyway #ta-da #undertow #there's a lot going on in this post I'm sorry idk if any of this is like.................#interesting? to anyone who's not me?? but i thought it would b fun anyway #this is another one where u can play the fun game of ''can u spot the shameless self-projection?''#river monster is actually the envisioned villain i had for Ruby Pace Floats Down The River but who fuckin knows if #THAT'S a wip that's ever going to be acknowledged by me #river monster is not shameless self projection #it's important to me that you know i am not a river monster #thank you #the only important fact in this entire post is that Baker is small enough to be picked up and carried with ease

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