#the bands song wasn’t the first song ever about heartbreak

[neonghostlights]

I am SO happy that you’re taking requests! Your work is fantastic, I adore seeing you pop up on my feed 🥰

Could I request a little angsty piece with Rockstar Eddie? He’s gone a little off the rails, enjoying everything that comes with being young, hot and famous and you ended up breaking things off with him as his behaviour got more and more inexcusable.

Six Months after you break up, he shows up at your door in the rain, crying, full of regret. He begs ‘take me away from this big bad world and agree to marry me, so we can start over again’ (yes that’s from a blur song 🤣)

I’m happy for you to run with this and let your creative juices flow! Thank you Angel 😇

Aw thank you so much❤️! I really hope you like this one! Rockstar!Eddie Munson x ex!Reader

Warnings: Angst, Break up, Crying, Alcohol, Hurt/Comfort, 18+ only

Wordcount: 2.1k

Memories

The cardboard box of memories sat in the middle of your kitchen island. It had been there for a few hours, ever since you got brave enough to pull it out the back of your closet. 

You knew you needed to get rid of it, it wasn’t healthy to hold onto. But you found yourself doing this once a month, when you heard a song on the radio that was too familiar or someone was brave enough to mention his name when you were within hearing distance. You would always shove it back in the closet when you were done, promising yourself you would never do this again. 

The rain and wind hit the windows so hard you thought they might crack. You could blame the weather on your mood, and not the fact that today was the six month anniversary of the break up. You had just gotten to the point you could call it the break up mentally and out loud. There was a time where you could only bear to refer to it as the separation or the incident. You liked to think you were making some progress. 

That was until tonight, of course. 

You pulled the box off the counter, making your way to your living room. You set it on the wooden coffee table with a thud. The creases of the box were fraying from carrying over its weight limit. One day you’d have to throw it all out. But not today. 

You reached in and grabbed the tape you knew would be right on top like it always was. You popped it in the radio, letting the sound of Never Tear Us Apart play. He never liked this song but you did. You played it enough that he started to sing along to it too, and then that turned into dancing to it in the living room together. 

It unofficially became your song. And now it was the soundtrack of your heartbreak. 

You sat on the couch gently, afraid that if you moved too quickly it would break the trance and you wouldn’t be able to savor these little moments you allowed yourself to have. 

The first thing you grabbed was an old t-shirt of his that you never gave back on purpose. You were wearing it the night it all went to shit. If you inhaled deep enough you could still catch a whiff of the perfume you were wearing and the stale smell of cigarette smoke. 

He hadn’t shown up to dinner that night. You had both moved out to Chicago together in hopes he would gain some traction with his music there better than Hawkins. It worked. He got what he wanted. 

The day it ended was your 4 year anniversary. You had made plans together for when you got off work and he made it out of the studio. You waited at the restaurant for over an hour and he just never showed. 

Eddie had started partying a lot. His band had taken off and they were picking up fame. With the attention of all his new friends he had seemed to have forgotten about you though. You left the diner, embarrassed that the sweet waitress was pitying you. 

Your small one bedroom apartment felt suffocating by the amount of people inside of it when you got home. 

You slammed the door behind you when you entered but no one paid you any attention. The music was so loud you couldn’t hear your own thoughts as you maneuvered and pushed by sweaty bodies. 

“Baby!” You heard him call as you passed by the couch he was sat on with people surrounding him. He always had people surrounding him. You were never alone anymore. 

You ignored him, making your way to your bedroom. You opened the door to two people tangled on your bed. 

“Get out!” You yelled, watching as they picked up stray clothes and scrambled out of the room. 

“Baby. What’s wrong?” Eddie cooed when he caught up to you. He was swaying, the smell of alcohol strong on his breath. 

“Everything’s ruined, Eddie,” you bit out, grabbing the duffel bag from your closet. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand across the wrinkled blanket. 

“It’s not ruined, babe. We can wash it,” he informed you with a smile, slurring his words. 

You rolled your eyes and started grabbing handfuls of clothes and emptying out your drawers, throwing anything you could get your hands on into the bag. 

“Wait a second,” Eddie said, pushing himself up from the bed sloppily. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m leaving,” you snapped, zipping up the bag. 

“But why?” He asked, genuine confusion in his voice. You wanted to pull your hair out. He just didn’t get it even when it was right in front of him. 

“Why do you think, Eddie? I waited for you for over an hour and you never showed! This shit,” you waved your hands in the air, “is all you care about now. You used to hate parties and all of this bullshit but look at you now.”

Eddie’s face softened, some coherency coming back as he realized what he had done. He reached for you but you moved away. You watched as the panic came across his features. 

“I can fix this. I can make everyone leave,” he said, making his way to the bedroom door. 

“Don’t bother. I’ll make it easy for you and I’ll go,” you muttered, pushing past him and into the hallway. 

“Wait!” He yelled, scrambling after you as fast as he could with the alcohol still burning in his veins. “Where are you going?”

“Does it matter? We’re done,” you called over your shoulder, using your bag to push through the people. 

Something shattered and broke in the kitchen.  You didn’t bother to stop, it wasn’t your problem anymore. 

“So you’re going to give up on us? Just like that?” He questioned, anger lacing his voice. 

You whipped around to face him, not caring that you had an audience. 

“Just like that? I have been begging you to give me an ounce of attention for months, Eddie, and you’d rather give all of your time to strangers. Don’t put this on me,” you snapped, turning back around and running through the front door before he could say anything else. 

“What a buzzkill!” Someone taunted you before you could close the door all the way. The sound of a scuffle broke out but you didn’t check to see if it was Eddie fighting. You needed to get out of there. 

That was six months ago. You had moved back to Hawkins and rented a house. Eddie’s band got even more famous. You doubted he was even still in Chicago anymore. He was probably out in California or New York, enjoying even bigger parties and everything that came with them. You grew nauseous at the thought. 

You couldn’t do this to yourself anymore. You tossed the shirt back in the box, covering the rest of the memories in there. You popped the tape out, cutting the music off, and threw it in there too. You couldn’t handle this tonight. It was all too much. 

You placed your head in your hands. Did he ever miss you as much as you missed him? Doubtful, since he never once called or came looking for you after you left. 

The sound of the doorbell had you lifting your head out of your hands. You waited a few moments, wondering if it was just all in your head. The sound of it ringing again had you getting up from your seat. 

No one should be here tonight. The weather was so bad that you were sure the streets were flooded. Maybe Steve and Robin were stopping by to check on you since they knew what today was. They had promised to give you space but maybe they had changed their mind. 

You threw the door open, ready to scold them for coming out all of this way. But it was Steve or Robin standing on your doorstep with dripping hair and eyes. 

Eddie clutched a bouquet of flowers tightly in his hands. They were soaked, the white and red petals drooping from the weight of the water. Eddie looked like he had just gone swimming, his hair wet and his black band t-shirt drenched and pressed against his t-shirt. 

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he wanted to speak but couldn’t. He thrusted the bouquet forward and into your hands. You caught them, water streaming down your arms and soaking the sleeve of your sweater. 

“What are you doing here?” You demanded, tempted to throw the flowers back at him. 

“I miss you,” Eddie sniffled. It was obvious he had been crying tonight. His voice cracked on every syllable. 

“Eddie, I-” You started. 

“I’m sorry. I need to say this because I have a whole speech planned and then you can say whatever you want to me,” he explained, shaking slightly from the cold air and water. 

You nodded silently, allowing him to speak. 

“I’m so fucking sorry. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you. You were- I mean are the most important thing in my life and I got so blinded by everything else that I didn’t take care of you and our relationship. I got so blinded by people wanting to be around me and thinking that I was cool that I lost touch of what really matters. I need you. I feel like I haven’t been able to breathe since you’ve been gone, baby. I wanted to marry you, you know? I was gonna propose to you once we signed that deal with the label. Now we’ve signed it and you weren’t there and I feel so damn lost.” His teeth were chattering as he spoke; his limbs shaking from the low temperature. Every time he blinked drops of tears and rain flicked from his long eyelashes. 

“Why now? I’ve been here for six damn months and you never even called,” you bit out, eyes tearing from what he had confessed. It felt like a slap in the face to know your whole future had gone down the drain because of Eddie’s behavior. 

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me. Trust me, you don’t know how often I wanted to come here since Harrington mentioned you moved here. I wanted to get better for you first, though. You were so mad and I thought that you didn’t want me anymore. I, uh, I’ve been seeing someone. A therapist,” he explained, “I’ve been working on my shit. I don’t drink or party anymore. I just work with the band. That’s it.”

You chewed your lip, thinking over what he was saying. 

“I don’t want to be like how I was anymore. I just want you. I want to make you my wife. I want to have a life with you. Please,” he begged. 

“I can’t jump back into this relationship again. I can’t get hurt again and I’m definitely not going to just marry you after you show up on my doorstep claiming to have gotten your shit together,” you said finally. 

Eddie’s face crumpled but he didn’t argue. He just nodded in understanding, looking down at his feet. 

You sighed, your heart arguing with your head. How often had you wanted this exact scenario to happen? You couldn't just push him away now when he has been all you've needed for the past six months. If what he was saying about getting help was true, he deserved the chance to make things right.

“But I’ve missed you so much. I still love you so much that it hurts. I can’t just hand you my heart again and let you do whatever you want with it. Maybe we can start over though and see what happens?” You offered. 

Eddie’s face lit up at the offer and he straightened up, sticking a hand out to you. 

“Hi, I’m the new and improved Eddie Munson and I promise not to break your heart,” he said, taking your hand and lifting it to his lips, pressing a delicate kiss on the skin there. 

You told him your name in a shy voice. Eddie didn’t let go of your hand after he kissed it, he just squeezed it tighter. There was a moment between you, where neither of you knew what to say. 

“So, Mr. New and Improved Eddie Munson, would you like to come inside and dry off for a bit?” You asked.��

Eddie smiled, nodding his head in agreement. You led him inside the warm safety of your house, shutting and locking the door behind you. 

You and Eddie played your song again that night. And this time, you were able to listen to it all the way through.

#eddie munson au #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x you #eddie munson request #rockstar!eddie munson x reader #rockstar!eddie x reader #rockstar!eddie munson

[metalhoops]

Corroded Coffin didn’t ‘do’ love songs. 

It wasn’t some unwritten rule or unspoken theory that they were too ‘cool’ for love songs. Hell, metal ballads were a whole subgenre. Even W.A.S.P. had a love song. 

It was just that in their three years as a band, they’d never written a single love song. If Corroded Coffin had a lyricist, it was Eddie. It wasn’t as though other members hadn’t tried their hand at writing. Gareth and Jeff had written a handful of songs between them, as well as helped Eddie polish a couple of verses. Grant had even written a chorus, but generally, the lyrics of a Corroded Coffin song were, first and foremost, Eddie’s brainchild. 

The closest they’d ever gotten to writing a love song was ‘Killer Konnection’, and that was all Jeff. Though it was more about lust than love. So you could imagine the boys' shock when Eddie showed up to band practice and played them a love song. 

It was unlike any of their other material. Since Eddie disappeared back in March after being framed for a series of murders, the songs he’d written had changed. That hadn’t surprised the boys. Being proverbially run out of town with pitchforks could really change a guy’s view of the world. He pulled out some killer prose about red skies filled with bats and dark wizards out for deathly revenge. But they’d never heard Eddie write anything like the song he played for them that morning. He hadn’t even named it. Though Gareth caught a glimpse in Eddie’s notebook and saw it was going by the tentative title of ‘S’. A mysterious name for a mysterious song. 

Sure, ‘S’ had all the hallmarks of a Corroded Coffin song. It had the killer beat spurred on by the anxiety-inducing pounding drumbeat and base, accompanied by thrashing guitars and raw vocals, but the lyrics? Downright Robert Smith or Morrissey vibes. Maybe ‘love song’ was too harsh. Really, it was a song about longing. Even the guitar chords appeared to ache under the weight of the song. 

The song left the three other members of Corroded Coffin asking one question. What the hell happened with Eddie? They’d known Eddie was gay since before they’d become a band. It wasn’t like the boys were the type for adhering to societal conventions anyway. 

It’d be another year before Gareth decided he didn’t particularly have any preference as to who he fell in love with, and Grant? He decided he’d rather play D&D and work on creating his own tabletop RPG than date anyone, anytime soon. Thank you very much. Jeff was the token straight friend, though he did like wearing eyeliner and painting his nails, so people thought what they would. 

They knew Eddie had dated guys — maybe ‘dated’ was too strong a word. They knew Eddie had hooked up with guys but none of them had inspired such a response. They made it their mission to work out who the hell ‘S’ was about, and maybe try to knock some sense into him. Eddie’s song sounded so damn heartbreaking. They were his best friends. They had to do something. 

It wasn’t until their next Hellfire session that all the pieces fell into place. Since Hawkins burst of Satanic Panic, D&D at the high school was no longer an option, so they’d been couch surfing across different members’ houses. How they ended up at the Harringtons’ the Corroded Coffin boys would never know. They knew Dustin and the younger kids were friends with the guy, but since he’d gotten off the hook for the town murders, Eddie and Steve had gotten close. 

The men had eyes. It was clear to see by the way Eddie’s focus honed in on Steve the second he entered the room, the guy was equal parts smitten and grief-stricken. It was also painfully apparent Steve was oblivious. Not Eddie falling for a straight guy, again. That always ended poorly. 

Yet there were moments, the boys questioned how one-sided the affair was. Gareth noticed the way Steve went straight to Eddie after the session was over. He asked about the game. He knew Harrington didn’t give two shits about D&D but he listened attentively, nodding his head and narrowing his eyes as though in deep concentration as Eddie spoke. Weird. 

He was also nice to the Corroded Coffin boys. Uncharacteristically nice.  Harrington got a little snarky with the kids. He’d make jabs about them making sure to use coasters or get their feet off the coffee table, but the Corroded Coffin boys? It was nothing but small talk and platitudes, as though he was trying particularly hard to be nice and non-offensive. Why would Harrington care what they thought? 

Eddie was always the last to arrive at rehearsals, which left plenty of time for the men to discuss. One pressing question: was Steve actually queer? Gareth said yes, Jeff said no and Grant wanted to be excluded from the conversation. The next, had anything actually happened between Eddie and Steve? After going through ‘S’s lyrics with a fine-toothed comb, they all agreed on ‘maybe’. Which was less than helpful. The boys weren’t usually the type for meddling but Eddie had been downright mopey all month.  They needed to do something. 

Gareth took one for the team at the next Hellfire session held at the Harringtons’. They’d been playing for three hours straight and were taking a well-deserved break. The kids were eating lunch while Eddie was smoking out back near Steve’s pool. Harrington was cleaning plates in the kitchen, so Gareth offered to help. He’d never been subtle, so he began the conversation with a sentence that seemed to hit Steve, much like a sledgehammer to the face. 

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Steve looked at Gareth wide-eyed, all deer in headlights, dull doe eyes. Gareth didn’t understand Eddie’s seemingly deep and aching love for the guy, but he was easy enough on the eyes. 

“No. Not currently,” Steve fumbled. 

“Oh. Okay cool.” Gareth paused for too long. He should’ve had a better plan than just ‘talk to Steve’. 

“Do you want one?” 

“A girlfriend?” Steve clarified, still looking both alarmed and dumbfounded. 

“A friend. Who doesn’t happen to have to be a girl,” Gareth circumnavigated. People said Harrington was dumb, but the guy appeared to catch onto what he was implying too quickly for an entirely straight ex-jock. 

“I-uh. I don’t know you that well,” Steve mumbled, his eyes suddenly glued to the dishes in the sink. 

Holy fucking shit, Steve Harrington thought he was asking him out. Nope. NO. Abort. Gareth needed to crawl into a deep, dark hole for the foreseeable future. He had no clue what he’d said to Steve. He just got himself the hell out of there. Steve spent the rest of the session being annoyingly nice to him, without mentioning the awkward moment in the kitchen. Gareth spent the time wanting to crawl inside himself and puke. Eddie was going to be so mad if he ever found out. 

With all his inner turmoil, it wasn’t until he left the Harringtons’ that he realised, Steve hadn’t turned Gareth down because he was a guy. He’d turned him down because they didn’t know each other. Holy shit. There was hope.  

At the next rehearsal, he managed to sway the other band members into believing that despite their (and likely Eddie’s) assumptions, Steve Harrington wasn’t as ‘totally straight, off limits’ as they’d assumed. It was Jeff’s turn to have a plan. He kept the other members in the dark, besides his exclamation of ‘I have a plan’. By the time the plan came to fruition, it’d sunk into the back of the band members’ collective subconscious. 

The band was playing at The Hideout and Jeff insisted they change their setlist to include ‘S’. There wasn’t much argument.  When it was time to play the song, Jeff quickly introduced it, dedicating it to ‘someone special in the crowd’. It was then that the other Corroded Coffin boys were suddenly on hyper-alert, searching the crowd for whatever poor girl Jeff had decided to fall for, when all three sets of unassuming eyes found the familiar face of Steve Harrington lingering in the back booth. He stuck out like a sore thumb amongst their regulars. 

Eddie looked ready to puke or run but the boys quickly counted him in, and they were off to the races. Eddie couldn’t resist a catchy hook. Once the setlist was over, Eddie remained hiding backstage, pacing and looking ready to actually commit a string of murders while muttering ‘what the fuck did you do?’ whether to himself or the rest of the band, they didn’t know. 

Eventually, a familiar figure appeared at the backstage door. Steve knocked tentatively before peeking in. He gave an awkward half-hearted wave to the other members before making a beeline for Eddie. 

“I got your note,” Steve said, the note all band members were now sure Jeff had somehow engineered. 

“I liked the song, it was kind of sad though...” Steve muttered, gazing down at his shoes: dentist’s teeth fresh, white reeboks. Who wore reeboks to a metal show at a bar? 

Much to the dismay of the other Corroded Coffin members, Grant chose that moment to get involved. He ushered Gareth and Jeff out to the front of house, out of earshot. Leaving Steve and Eddie to have their conversation in private. 

The next week, Eddie arrived at rehearsals early, with Steve Harrington and a new, real Corroded Coffin love song in tow. 

#steddie #steddie fic #steddie fictlet #drabble #steddie drabble #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #corroded coffin #outsider pov baby #everyone is a disaster #stranger things 4 #stranger things au

[sonnetsoncanvas]

Mess it up

Summary: Years ago he had let you go for your own good. But this time, he isn’t sure he can

Part of the Mess it up series

Pairing: brother’s best friend rock star Bucky x fem reader (Steve’s sister) (dual pov)

Warnings: modern AU, angst, second chance, eventual smut, brothers best friend trope, implied cheating, self-deprecation, happy ending?

Inspired by: Mess it up by Gracie Abrams

Notes: This is the first time a fic has made its way from my laptop to the internet. So please be kind and do leave your feedback. Happy reading! 

Chapter 1:  How could I think that all that I gave you was enough?

Bucky Pov:

Walking down the street, he heard a group of teenagers screaming his song on the top their lungs. A small smile tugged at his lips as he pulled his cap down over his silken brunette locks.

After all, if anyone recognized James Buchanan Barnes, the lead singer of the Avengers, in the middle of the farmers market…. Well that would be another headache to deal with.

A tabloid on the newsstand with his face plastered on it caught his eye. The headline, "who is the muse behind our heartbreak prince’s chartbusters. Is there a special someone in the Avengers heartthrob’s life?"

He scoffed, knowing all too well what would be written in the article. They would have papped him with yet another woman, and casted her as his girlfriend, or even fiancé.

It didn’t bother him anymore. These made up lies, these speculations, only helped in building the enigma around him, the quiet, reclusive rockstar who kept a tight leash on his personal life.

As long as they didn’t know the truth behind the inspiration for his songs, the reason why he wrote and sang songs so emotive, that they earned him the misnomer of the heartbreak prince. As long as everyone remained oblivious to his own heartache, he was unconcerned.

And oblivious they were. nobody knew. Not even his best buddy, his bandmate and flatmate, Steve. And Bucky couldn’t ever let him know too.

Because if Steven Grant Rogers ever knew that it was his childhood best friend who broke his precious little sister’s heart, he would leave the band and Bucky with it, 30 years of friendship be damned.

And so Bucky carried this secret in his heart for years, well hidden from the rest of the world, about his first and only love.

Because he could never even try to deny it. It was you, had always been you.

Even if he had to let you go, he could never bring himself to fill the void that you had left behind.

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

He carried the shopping bags into the spacious penthouse that he shared with Steve, dropping them off at the kitchen counter. “Thank you for helping me carry these bags inside punk” he sassed at the blond mass of muscle glued to the television. “Especially considering the fact that your lazy ass nagged me into going to farmer’s market early in the morning. On a Sunday. To buy mangoes. ALONE.”

“well, A. if you don’t go early all the good produce is gone. My ma told me that. B. Farmer’s market is only there for Sunday. And C. I did not come cause I was injured.” Steve pointed to a small cut on his pinkie with a cheeky smile.

“bullshit! You once went for a concert with a dislocated shoulder. Do not give me that crap. And since when did you start eating mangoes?”

“they aren’t for me.”

“you’re telling me Nat gave up whatever stupid diet she’s on?” Bucky was referring to Steve’s on again off again girlfriend Natasha Romanoff, a supermodel, whom he’d been dating since college.

“like that’s gonna happen” he chuckled, “the mangoes are for Y/N”

Bucky froze in his tracks.  It wasn’t like your name wasn’t mentioned around here. You were Steve’s sister after all , and he did keep sharing your latest achievements and tit bits from your life time and again. But that didn’t mean his heart didn’t skip a beat every time anything remotely related to you was mentioned.

“you got mangoes for Y/N ?  are you planning to visit her in Boston ?” he asked

“Yeah, about that man, I told you that she graduated top of her class at Harvard, Right?”

“yeah” Bucky said, secretly proud of you. Your convocation was a few weeks ago, he didn’t attend for obvious reasons, but Steve did, and he heard everything he had to say about it.

“So of course lil peanut got a lot of offers but it all comes down to these two jobs, one in this firm at Manhattan and other one in San Francisco. So she’s coming here to interview and then stay here for a week, cause I literally begged her to. She’d already interviewed for the San Francisco one online, but between you and me, I'm tryna get her to stay here, its been too long………”

Steve kept on rambling, but somewhere in between Bucky’s brain stopped comprehending his words. All he could think was you.

You are coming.

To New York.

To stay.

Under the same roof as him.

He will see you.

After 4 years.

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

He stayed in his room for the rest of the day. Reminiscing with his eyes closed. Of his life back in Brooklyn, of the happiest year of his life, of falling in love

Of the last time he saw you. tears marring your beautiful face. Pain and betrayal in your eyes. Your shoulders sagged with defeat.

“I can never stop loving you.” you’d said.

He opened his eyes with a long, suffering sigh. He has no idea how he’s going to survive seeing you again.

Because he couldn’t stop loving you either.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes x reader #bucky angst #bucky fanfic #bucky headcanon #bucky x you #bucky fic #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes smut #boyfriend bucky #bucky imagine #bucky smut #bucky x female reader #steve and bucky #bucky x reader #bucky barns #bucky fluff #fanfic #avengers fandom

[sixzeroes]

moon taeil’s basement is where dreams come true. at least, that’s how it goes for no celestial, a pop rock band on the rise. part-time students, full-time artists—the four of them are booked and busy, their entire souls poured into their musical careers. but what the quartet want more than just fame is a taste of love—something taeil’s basement can’t exactly fulfil.

maybe, college might offer some help.

alternatively, a retelling of my college experiences through a not-very-researched band au because i’m desperate for band!nct </3

TRACK #01 _ is this song about us?

► eight years ago, you decided to end things with your first boyfriend after agreeing that the relationship wasn’t working. it was heartbreaking, but you got over him with time—or so you thought. your heart is starting to run at an all-too-familiar erratic pace. perhaps, your feelings for him never went away. and perhaps, he’s in the same predicament as you, considering that the band’s latest album is allegedly dedicated to his first love.

pairing. vocalist!renjun x psci-major!reader(f). genres. exes-to-lovers, pop rock band au, university au, non-idol au, tbd.

status. unreleased.

TRACK #02 _ the mundane things in life.

► you’re a little plain, but it’s not like you really care. there’s nothing wrong with simply living life on do not disturb, low power mode, silent mode on. but some alarm begins ringing in your monotonous lifestyle—and all of a sudden, you’re out on your very first clubbing night, drinking your very first cocktail, listening to a live band for the very first time, and having your very first kiss with the hot drummer in the restroom.

pairing. drummer!jeno x art-major!reader(f). genres. strangers-to-fwb-to-lovers, pop rock band au, university au, non-idol au, tbd.

status. unreleased.

TRACK #03 _ keeping tabs on lee haechan.

► this is the first time you’ve seen your best friend in love, and to be frank, it’s kind of scary. she’s developed a crush on some guy she slept with who just so happens to be a student in your faculty, too. so, you’re tasked with keeping tabs on her newfound love. no biggie, except for the fact that you’re starting to fall in love with the guy who was lowkey an asshole at first but is now caring and gentle and—wait, he has a twin brother?

pairing. guitarist!donghyuck x bio-major!reader(f). genres. (one-sided) enemies-to-lovers, pop rock band au, university au, non-idol au, tbd.

status. unreleased.

TRACK #04 _ ditto (hope you feel the same).

► one month, and not once have you seen the face of your student’s guardian. you’re more of a babysitter than a tutor at this point, teaching the teenage girl a few basic survival tips. when you begin to doubt the existence of her uncle, he comes stumbling through the front door, reeking of alcohol. you aren’t sure who you had been expecting, but nothing would’ve ever prepared you for the sweet family guy no celestial’s bassist is.

pairing. bassist!jaemin x econ-major!reader(f). genres. acquaintances-to-lovers, pop rock band au, university au, non-idol au, tbd.

status. unreleased.

IN A CERTAIN SENSE, MOON TAEIL IS A FATHER TO FOUR YOUNG ADULTS. In the same vein, he’s basically the manager of a pop rock band. Don’t ask him how or why; he’s not too sure either. At one point in his life, he ended up babysitting his younger brother and three of his friends. They must’ve had one hell of a time because afterwards, four little gremlins would show up at Taeil’s bedroom with expectant eyes.

Those four little gremlins are the same ones that have now established a band and utilise Taeil’s basement for all sorts of things. Not only is it their studio, it’s also become their makeshift living space. At least they pay rent through the revenue their gigs bring in.

Club Moonlight is located at the edge of Neo Culture University, amidst a plethora of restaurants that close by ten p.m. It’s a sensation on campus, a must-go-to-at-least-once-in-your-life sort of place. With the nightclub alone, Taeil rakes in a good amount of money. But when No Celestial performs, the income is outstanding.

Taeil, to be frank, is a little worried for the boys. He can’t even refer to them as ‘boys’ anymore, either. They camp out in the basement and live off of cup ramyun whenever Taeil forgets to feed them. But then again, it’s not like they lack survival abilities or social skills. Perhaps, Taeil is just overthinking as a result of practically raising them for nearly fourteen years.

He sighs, setting down the cup he’d been drying for the past ten minutes. In thirty minutes, the club is to open and No Celestial is planning to play a few songs. Taeil looks over at the stage, where the DJ set had been pushed aside for the band’s equipment.

Huang Renjun, the lead vocalist and keyboardist, is busy messing around with his electric keyboard, adjusting the volume to his liking. Taeil is the least worried about him; he’s quite the competent kid who has demonstrated independence on many occasions. Renjun is just…a little too mean to people with his blunt truths. Taeil fears he might end up creating several enemies here and there without actually meaning to.

Lee Jeno, the drummer, is flipping through his music sheets with his lips pressed into a thin line. Taeil is very, very worried about him—not that Jeno is incapable of surviving, but as his older brother, Taeil can’t help but feel nervous at the thought of allowing the kid to live all on his own with no adult supervision. Additionally, Jeno likes to sleep around. Taeil respects the game, but he’s concerned about, you know, STDs and the like.

Lee Donghyuck, the rhythm guitarist, is off to the side with his guitar, plucking the chords and fixing the tune. Taeil is also very worried about him. He’s a smart kid and will probably survive just fine, but he comes from a rich family who are rather dead set on making him a doctor. Donghyuck is also an alcoholic, although the kid firmly denies the accusation. Taeil just hopes that the habit of downing soju will disappear soon.

Na Jaemin, the bass guitarist, is nowhere to be seen. Taeil technically has nothing to worry about as Jaemin is already a legal guardian and has been taking care of his niece for three years now. But the kid is overworking himself to provide for the girl, and it’s evident that the hours spent doing physical labour is taking a toll on his body. Taeil can only pray that graduating will allow him to land a stable career with a hefty income.

The clock strikes ten forty-five. In fifteen minutes, the nightclub will be in full swing, with No Celestial on stage and his employees running around to keep things in order. Taeil scans the bar, ensuring that everything is tidy. He clasps his hands together.

It’s time for another night of fun.

now playing ► no celestial by le sserafim.

nabi’s note | whaaaat a pop rock band au when i have zero clue as to how bands work??? (dawg could i even count this as a band au it just feels like a college au,,) n e ways i am so so excited to start this series bc it’s a mix of my fantasies and my irl experiences lol we’ll see where this goes 👀 ngl this was supposed to be a university/college au but i really felt the need to make it a band au so i decided to shift some things around to make them a band 😹😹 i am a sucker for rockstar!00line so it was about time i made a cute lil bad boy rockstar band au for the dudes that i’m obsessed with ^^ ik i’ve been lowkey uploading a lot of stuff but i just have sm ideas rahhh i need to get them out asap! also yes this is inspired by le sserafim!! i don’t really listen to them but this song is so good i just had to <3

btw | i’m not too sure yet but depending on the flow of my feelings, these works may contain smut! for now, the series is definitely suggestive, but i might write smut if i feel brave enough lol ^ 

taglist | @strangevante @bockhyun @matchahyuck @ablackbtsstan @jlsavy @thesunsfullmoon @hwanunjin @loveazri @sundamariis @just-michell @mora134340 @haechology @leleluvss @loevngyuno @rum-gone-why @dandelionxgal​ @byungbyungbaek @littlestarjasmine @iheartchoerry​ @ldhstrap @wonforgyu @lovesuhng @schwizhies @ahnneyong @jenyoonoh @patitotodd @eaglesnotravens @sukistrawberry @haedgaf @vivisoni @shentlngz @haechoshi @minkyuncutie @maeyoung @carelessshootanonymous @hibernatinghamster @1oving-j4em

please send an ask or comment if you’d like to be added to the tag list! <3

#neowritingsnet #nct series #nct dream series #renjun x reader #jeno x reader #donghyuck x reader #haechan x reader #jaemin x reader #renjun oneshots #jeno oneshots #donghyuck oneshots #jaemin oneshots #renjun smut #jeno smut #donghyuck smut #jaemin smut #renjun fluff #jeno fluff #donghyuck fluff #jaemin fluff #renjun au #jeno au #donghyuck au #jaemin au

[coleskingdom]

Letting Someone Go

Adam Cole x F Reader

Minors DNI 18 + NSFW

@midwestmade29 @madhatterbri

Summary : Revenge and Sad Songs leads to betrayal

Coles POV

Finding her was never hard when Jay was out of town, she liked a drink and a country cover band at the place in town. She sat at the back by herself with her vodka and soda. She looked more relaxed when she wasn’t around him softer, prettier not that any of that mattered for my plan to work. Jay had made all of this personal, first with the concussion he gave me, then the constant condescension, and finally only half heartedly coming after me as if I wasn’t a threat to him. I needed to hurt him mentally, I needed to shatter his soul, to hit him in his known weakness her. She was going to be collateral damage.

My POV

I saw him when he walked in, this wasn’t Cole’s scene. I wondered what he wanted, why he was here. I kicked out a chair, “ Adam sit” I said cooly,” what do you want?” . His eyes showed a slight surprise I clearly had interrupted his thought process. “ what would Jay say about this? You asking me to sit“ the smirk on his face. “ I didn’t ask I’m pretty sure I told you.” my tone unamused. “ Besides, I do this thing called whatever I want. “ raising my drink at him. He didn’t need to know that I had just had a fight with Jay, that we’d been fighting for weeks. He sat down and flagged the waitress down for another round.

“So?” I said eyeing him, his brown hair slicked back into a pony tail, a black v neck shirt, jeans and boots. He was attractive always had been, his eyes a light blue, the lines around his eyes told me he laughed a lot.

Adam’s POV

Fuck, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought. She’s waiting on me to say something . “ I thought I’d come out to have a drink” I said wondering if I could charm my way in. “Really?” She questioned “ This bar tonight? When I thought you were looking for little ol me” her over emphasized twang making me laugh. “ What? Why?” I asked “Oh I don’t know, Jay is my boyfriend, you have a vendetta against Jay, you want to get at him by irritating me.” She said “ That’s it isn’t it.” as my face was clearly shocked. “You’re all the fucking same.”

My POV

“You can have the table, I’m done.” anger rising. “I swear to God it never fucking stops. Between the time away , the travel, the kayfabe that turns into a shoot. It’s too fucking much. I can’t even come out for a drink and a sad fucking song without his shit following me. Fuck.” Adam’s face fell, “ Hey, I’m sorry” he said his tone sincere, “Are you okay?” “If I wasn’t why would I tell you?” Wiping a tear from my eye. “No, I’m not okay. I just wanted a drink, to get away from all of the bullshit.”. taking a swig of my drink. “ How about a dance?” he said “ Your serious?”I said looking at him quizzically. He offered his hand, I accepted even if it was the worst dance ever it’d be funny. He led me to the dance floor the band started a cover of “PBR promenade ” he pulled me close and he led me in a two step, he didn’t say anything just led me across the dance floor.

Adam’s POV

There it was her walls coming down, I danced her across the floor. A little spin, my hand appropriately placed with just enough pressure to seem like I was enjoying this. Nothing like a soundtrack of cheating and heartbreak songs as a sound track to this plan, maybe it makes it easier, the idea of lost love, dreaming of someone else than who you’re with. She does feel good in my arms , she’s feisty but just wants someone to meet her half way. Her soft clean perfume, made me pull her closer, as the song ended. I held her a little bit longer. “ Thanks for the dance “ she said pulling away, her face a mix of emotions. “No problem” I said my hand lingering in hers. “ What’s one more dance?” pulling her back in, she nestled her head on my shoulder,I heard her sigh. My head and heart at war with each other. “You’re okay” I don’t know if the words whispered were for her or me. I felt her tears on my shirt, the words of the song hitting her , the only lyrics I heard were her soft breath and sighs as she pulled me closer.

My POV

“You can't lie to yourself

After loving something true

And I've never loved a soul

Quite the way that I loved you

You told me you despise

Everything that I've become

How we always turn into

Everything we're running from”

Why did he feel so good and why did I not feel guilty ? I’m crying in the shoulder of the last person I should be, but he’s here, and his hands feel good. It’s just a dance I can leave as soon as the songs over. I can tell Jay I danced with him, I can tell him he won’t be happy. He smells good, he’s so warm.

“Take it slow as you leave me

Don't you go home this evening

With someone

You're acting like is me

And I will try my hardest darling

Wait on a star that's falling

And I will wait so desperately

One thing I have quickly come to know

Nothing kills you slower than

Letting someone go”

The song ended, the last line of the song, the double meaning as I let go of his hand. Walking from the dance floor, grabbing my purse and out the front door of the bar. I got to my truck, I couldn’t breathe. I heard his footsteps, “I can’t let you leave like this” Adam’s voice soft, “let me drive you home.” his hand soft on my face. I looked into his blue eyes, there was a sadness there I recognized. I kissed him, his mouth reluctant,before giving in and pushing me up against my car as his body pressed closer into mine.

Adam’s POV

“Listen, I need to tell you something” I said needing to tell her what my plan was, I needed absolution from this. “ I don’t care, whatever it is I don’t care” she said cutting me off. Kissing me again wrapping her arms around my neck. If she doesn’t care then who am I to force the issue it’s what I came here to do. I kiss her deeper bringing her as close to me as I can. “ Honey, we can stay here, I can take you home, or you can come home with me.” In her ear.

My POV

I should just go home, I should just go home but why does he feel so good? Jay would forgive anyone but him, I’m not going to delude myself into thinking he wouldn’t find out. He presses me further against the truck, parting my legs with his, kisses move down my jaw, and to my ear I barely recognize the noises coming out of my own mouth. “Adam, truck please” he moved me barely catching my breathe to the side as he opened the truck door and climbed in the drivers side, he chuckled and smiled as he looked at me as he moved the bench seat back before helping me up and settle on his lap. Face to face in the truck it feels more intimate than it should, he kisses me again bringing me back to the moment and my overwhelming desire for him.

“Honey , you’re gonna be the death of me” as he bucked his hips in to me making me whimper. He continues his ministrations kissing down my jaw and neck as I grind against his lap, the combination of his jeans and the seam of my shorts the friction on my clit was addictive. I reached around and pulled his hair down. As I pulled away from his mouth on my neck reaching for the hem of his v neck, as I pulled it up over his head. His chiseled chest and arms further stoke the fire inside. He hums as I run my hands down his chest letting me take my time. “Honey, as pretty as you look in this top, I’m gonna need it gone as I’m much more interested in what’s underneath.” I raised my arms so that he could take it off.

"Honey you're fucking perfect," Adam pulls your hand that was going to cover yourself and places it between both your crotches onto his hard cock. You both moan out at the sensation. Adam reaches up to unbutton your shorts and you aid him in pulling them down and tossing them to rest with your discarded shirts. Only the black lace thong remained. The phone rang in my purse but I ignored it.

Adam’s fingers toyed with the edge of my panties before he pulled my panties to the side to catch a glimpse of your wetness.

"All for you Adam," Adams whole body audibly twitched at that admission and he pulled me in by the back of the head for another deep kiss with his hand that wasn't between my legs. As you kissed messily with your free hands palming over his length Adam increased his speed and plunged his middle finger into you. I moaned against his mouth at the intrusion and whimpered trying to find something coherent to say.

"Adam please I'm so close,"

"I know honey, please cum for me." Adam begged whilst he circled my clit once more with his thumb. Feeling myself clench around him Adam repeated his actions over and over as I moved against him as pleasure overcame me. Breathing hard. I kissed him, parting from the kiss, he stuck his fingers in his mouth and licked them clean. His blue eyes focusing on mine as the phone rang again. “ You probably should get that , he’s gonna keep calling.” his cocky tone bringing the gravity of what we just did to the forefront of my mind. I dug for the phone and tried to get off his lap his hands held my hips in place.

I answered “ Hey Jay, sorry I didn’t hear the phone in the bar.” trying to compose my voice, Adam mouthed put it on speaker, I mouthed no . He reached for the phone and hit the speaker button. Adam heard Jays explanation for the fight and the generic I’m sorry. Adam bucked up into me causing a laugh curse moan to fall from my lips. “Are you okay he asked?” his voice concerned. “I’m tipsy, and I just kind of tripped.” trying to not moan again. He chastised me for being out tipsy, that I should be more careful. “I’ve got to go, we will talk when you get back.” as Adam found the place on my neck. I hung up the phone finally releasing the breath I held. “Oh Honey, did you think I was going to say something?” I nodded, “ Why would I do that? When your neck has the imprint of my lips on it.” his cocky tone replacing the soft sweet tone, that he’d used earlier. I got off of his lap and put back on my clothes refusing to meet his eyes. “Honey don’t be that way, we had fun, I know you did. “his grin caused a shiver down my spine. “This is all up to you, you can tell him break his heart, I can tell him, or I’ll make a one time offer we don’t tell him and we do this again sometime.” his voice fully composed and with an edge. “Adam” my voice pleading with him not sure what I was agreeing to. “ I’m gonna say you’re gonna pick the first or last option, no need to answer now. You’re too feisty to let me be the one to do it, but you do have a self preservation instinct. However , I think you liked this more than you’re going to admit” as he reached for his shirt putting it back on. “Get out” refusing to look at him. “ Honey, I’m going” he turned my face to his and kissed me again deeply and possessive before getting out of the truck and shutting the door. I didn’t know what I was going to do. As I started the truck and drove away.

Adam’s POV

The mix of emotions that were warring inside was not what I expected. I expected to feel satisfied instead, I missed her, and realized that I wouldn’t hurt her, even if it furthered my goal. Though something told me she’d be back as I watched her peel out of the parking lot.

Song list

PBR Promenade American Aquarium

Letting Someone Go Zach Bryan

Something in the Orange Zach Bryan

Sun To Me Zach Bryan

City Lights American Aquarium

#adam cole fan fiction #adam cole x reader #Adam Cole x you #adam cole smut #adam cole imagine #wrestling smut #AEW smut. #song fic

[babygirlgh0st]

Modern Leper

Summary; Despite living with Simon Riley for several months now, the intricacies of his mind still find ways to surprise you; Tonight is nothing new for either of you.  Word count; 2,245 A/N; This is the first fic I’ve actually finished and decided to post for CoD! I rarely ever post my writing, so forgive me if it isn’t the best. I just really love Ghost, and my fiance deals with night terrors and I saw an outlet and decided to run it into the ground with this. The relationship dynamic for them is something I cherish and is loosely inspired by this song. I could write a three hour power-point on all the trauma this man struggles with, but for now y’all gotta deal with my drabbling instead lmao. No beta we die like men. 

I’m also open to taking requests, if you have anything to offer me :>  Warnings; Vague mentions of past trauma/gore/death, night terrors, ambiguous and complex situationships, minor physical harm (unintentional), hurt/comfort. 

It had taken you months to finally convince Simon to move in with you, just like it had taken nearly a year for him to admit to your not-quite relationship. It was based on understanding more than love or romance; The common knowledge that you shared the same weight as the other, that your weird quirks were complimentary despite their usually volatile state. 

You both understood each other's needs, traumas, the baggage you both carried within yourselves that you’d yet to find the space to put down. He needed space and quiet, a silent companion who never seemed to judge him for whatever ailed him at any moment, and you had a supernatural ability to read him like a book and offer what you could when he needed it without a word being exchanged. It was an invaluable bond you two shared, not quite love, but not quite friendship. You just knew each other like you were one and the same, and found safety in that fact. He had grown to trust you, and you found solace with him, and you were relieved when he relented to moving into your sad one bedroom apartment. Filling some empty void that always seemed to follow you in life. 

You had been having such a nice dream, something warm and soft and honey sweet for once, when the yelling started. It dredged you from the depths of sleep, like ripping off a band-aid or throwing ice water down your shirt, and you blearily shot up in bed in surprise as you blinked into the dark of your shared bedroom, seeking its source.

Simon had warned you about his night terrors, but you hadn’t fully comprehended just how bad they could get sometimes. Yelling, screaming, pained moans and thrashing like he was an animal caged, feral and in desperate need to escape himself. He’d told you that there wasn’t much to do about them, and apologized when he said to just let him be until they were over. He’d even insisted on sleeping on the couch for several months upon moving in under the concern that he’d hurt you or cost you sleep, or god forbid traumatize you even further than your shared line of work already had. 

It took you a few moments to process that it was happening again, blinking the sleep out of your eyes as you watched Simon jerk in his sleep across the bed, sheets twisted around his limbs in a way that you found both angelic and heartbreaking in the moonlight from the window. You were sure there wasn’t a single way he could appear to you that you wouldn’t find beautiful, though you knew better than to voice those thoughts out loud. 

He remembered everything if he was woken up in the middle of a night terror, though waking him up while in one of his fits was a feat of its own. You had relented to leave him be and fight his demons in his dreams undisturbed, until the neighbors started to complain about the noise. It killed you to see the haunted, distant look he would always get the following morning if he didn’t sleep through it, but he understood that it couldn’t continue, not in your subpar apartment. After a few too many noise complaints, things had to change. 

“Simon?” You called softly, voice heavy with sleep as you shifted to face him, watching him for a few moments. You knew that pinched expression, visible even through his balaclava that his face was an image of agony. You’d never learned what he had been through- never anticipated you’d get to know- but it still made you question the poor man’s past as you watched him squirm and groan in pain in your sheets. 

“Simon,” you call his name more loudly this time, shifting closer to him on the bed as you did. 

You had never let go of the hope that maybe one day, you’d be able to soothe away his nightmares with just your voice. That your presence alone could banish the horrors that he hid inside of himself, the things he fought back during the day that he couldn’t run from at night. You prayed for a day when you could simply whisper sweet nothings to him, and ease his pain without having to wake him. 

It had yet to work despite your insistent efforts, and after a couple more minutes of soft crooning and attempts to console him with no changes in his behavior, you relented to the one trick you and Ghost had found to wake him up; Sternum rubs. 

“I’m so sorry,” you said as you always did, before shifting to get out of bed and walk around to his side of the mattress. He’d attempted to grab or punch you the few times you’d had to resort to this specific method in the past, and you couldn’t blame him for it; it was an agonizing sensation to experience, and he had always been adverse to physical contact regardless of whether or not he had just suffered a night terror. You couldn’t fault him for lashing out when you woke him from painful dreams in an equally as painful way, even if it cost you a few bruises. At least if you were standing, you had a better chance of moving out of reach when he did come to. With a sharp breath in, you lowered your knuckles down onto the solid muscle and bone of his sternum and pressed, dragging your fist across his chest.

It didn’t take long for him to let out a shuddering gasp, a choked yell of “Get the fuck off me!” following after. It left you flinching, startled by the outburst despite this situation not being a new one. His eyes flew open in shock as his hand locked tight, too tight around your wrist in a grip that brought a squeal to your lips. You knew by now it would leave bruises, the skin tight and twisted under his calloused palm as he ripped your hand off of him.  

“G-ghost! It’s me, it’s me,” you chanted, fear evident in your words as you tried to not struggle against his grip. You had never been able to get used to the violence in his awakenings, the way he would shudder and heave like he’d been shot. His eyes were frantic, manic as he stared at the room around him, at himself, at you as if he had never seen you before in his life, your words foreign in his ears. 

“Simon… It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re at ho-”

“Shut up.” 

He panted heavily, releasing your wrist from his ironclad grip as he shifted to sit up in the bed. His eyes were squeezed tight, hands reaching to cover his face as he tried to reorient himself to the waking world. His body shuddered and rattled as if still stuck inside of his dream, somewhere else, experiencing who knows what. You stood silently beside the bed as you watched him, letting him calm down in his own time.

It felt like a century before he spoke, but his words were much softer despite the way his hands trembled against himself. 

“...I’m sorry, love,” he mumbled, fingers rubbing at his eyes as he forced everything in his mind down into the trenches of himself. Hiding away from your concerned eyes as you watched him like a hawk. His scars throbbed, his skin still clinging to the feeling of blood and dirt and rot as if he had never showered since everything had happened to him. 

“It’s okay, Si,” you said quietly, finally letting yourself move, breathe, as you made your way back to your side of the bed and settled back into the sheets there. 

“You… Can I get you anything?” You offered, always trying to be helpful after an episode. Always supportive and gentle and quiet in his presence as he struggled to hold everything down like bile in the back of his throat, threatening to spill out. A mug of tea, an ear, a shoulder, a warm bath, it was always the same with you despite him always pushing you away every time. He usually settled for silence and nothing more, and this time didn’t seem any different. 

Simon finally pulled his hands from his face, blue eyes exhausted as he stared down at your red wrist with a look of heartbreaking guilt. You knew he was staring; he always did when he’d hurt you after this happened, guilty and pained as he struggled to chew and swallow the reality of once again doing the one thing he always told himself he wouldn’t. 

“I’ll get you some ice,” he offered, no room for argument in his words as he shifted out of bed with a groan and disappeared from the bedroom. Your hand cradled your inflamed wrist, and as you looked down at it you could already see the angry, finger-shaped signs of a bruise forming under your skin. 

He’d always shown his care through action, insisting he was bad with words and worse with touch, so he settled on the little things to try and bring his affections across to you. Grabbing things that were too high for you to reach, doing the extra steps to make whatever task you had at hand that much easier, bringing you small souvenirs when he went on an assignment that you couldn’t follow him on. 

He returns with a deep rooted sadness in his eyes, silently asking for your injured hand as he goes to wrap a bag of frozen peas around it like you were made of glass; something so fragile, so delicate. It felt wrong to feel you in his hands, no matter how careful he swore to be with you, the feeling of staining or breaking you never leaving the back of his mind as he iced the wound he’d caused.

“Really, it’s okay,” you reassured him a second time, offering him a gentle smile as you let him ice your wrist for you. It felt like he was licking a wound like a dog, trying to erase the accidental damage he caused like he always tried with himself. He only offers you a curt nod at your words, and once he’s decided your wrist is sufficiently encased in the frozen peas does he let you go and return to his spot in the bed. 

“It was the coffin, this time,” he says in a low voice, rough from yelling and the cigarettes he tended to chain-smoke every second he was off base and out of your shared home. 

You turn to stare at him in surprise, not expecting him to be open about what happened as your mind reeled from just that one sentence. He stares down at his hands in his lap as he speaks, but you can tell his eyes are looking at something beyond your gaze. 

“It… Isn’t the worst one, but it’s still not great.” Simon laughs bitterly, shaking his head to try and rid his mind of the memories. Some part of him still felt like he was stuck down there trying to claw himself out, nothing but the rotten bones of someone else to help him along. 

You aren’t sure what to say in response. A part of you wants to pry, to take the mile he’s offered with the inch given and see what horrible things seem to follow him like a shadow, but you can’t bring yourself to respond. Instead, you open your arms to him, head cocked to the side in question. 

A hug. Simple, easy, comforting- For you at least. He looks up at you quietly for a few moments, the air easy and calmer in the space between you both as he considers your offer. His eyes are raw and wet when he finally relents, folding himself easily into your arms. 

You make a point of ignoring the way his shoulders silently shake as he presses himself against you, his own arms going to loop around your waist with that same fragile care he’s always given to just you. An olive branch in the distance he always held between you, for his safety or your own you weren’t sure. You accept it all the same though, hands light and gentle as they go to rest against the back of his head, his shoulders, his spine; petting him like a wounded dog, some poor pet dying on the side of the road. 

“You’re safe now, love,” You whisper in hesitance, body wound tight like a live wire as you wait to do something you shouldn't, cross some unspoken boundary you weren’t able to pick up on in this uncharted territory; But the moment never comes. His shoulders still shake, his face finding refuge in the pulse point between shoulder and throat, and you both act like your skin isn’t damp as you let him hide inside of you. 

You don’t think you’ll ever find the right word for what you two have. It felt like something too delicate, too raw and wounded to be love, but it felt like it went deeper than just simple understanding. Beyond the realms of your minds or bodies, beyond the atrocities the two of you had both committed and been subjected to. 

All that really matters to you though is that he trusts you, and you trust him, and you decide that that is all that matters. 

#simon ghost riley #ghost cod #simon riley #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x you #ghost x soap #ghost/reader #simon riley/reader #call of duty #simon riley cod #ghost call of duty #my writing

[hollywoodxwhore]

Mine | Chapter One

Colson x Original Female Character

A new series for y'all because this man has me on my kneeeeees. No idea how many parts it's going to be.

Synopsis: Presley may look sinful on the outside, but deep down, she's innocent, guarded, and terrified of intimacy. Colson, on the other hand, is living up to his womanizer reputation as a way to cope with heartbreak. When his new guitarist invites his twin sister to join them on tour, Colson discovers that he's actually capable of feeling. Will Presley and Colson be able to push past all of the barriers trying to prevent them from happening?

Chapter One Warnings/Content: swearing, a little bit of smut, col being a cocky fucker

Hope y'all enjoy! I've had so much fun writing this.

Presley

I have a confession to make. 

I was a Machine Gun Kelly hater back in the day. 

It’s true. I believed everything the media said, and why would I have challenged it? From what I knew, his music sucked. He was a total asshole. He was a womanizer. He was a poser who switched genres.

Looking back, I’m ashamed of myself for being a follower. I wasted a lot of time judging someone I didn’t know. 

I would probably still be a hater if it wasn’t for my twin brother, Cash. 

Cash and I were raised by music-loving parents (if you couldn’t tell by our names). We grew up playing instruments and going to shows. Cash and I got our first tattoos on our 16th birthday, and by the time we were 19, I already had a full sleeve and Cash had a neck tat. We’ve continued to collect ink ever since, and now that we’re 23, we’re both pretty covered. 

We have an impressive collection of piercings, too. We both have our nostrils pierced, though he wears two rings and I wear a stud because of my septum piercing. Cash’s lip is pierced and both of our ears are full of piercings. I have my belly button and nipples. It’s been fun growing up with such accepting parents. 

We’ve both spent lots of time pursuing art in some way or another. I play guitar and sing in a few local bands, but it’s nothing serious. I prefer body art, and that’s why I’m a piercer. I pierce at a tattoo shop in the city and make bank. People in this hipster city love their piercings. 

Cash and I are best friends. We run in the same friend group and spend a lot of time together. We had our rows as kids, but we’ve always gotten along and been super close. So when he got the opportunity of a lifetime, I was hugely supportive, even though it broke me knowing I wouldn’t be able to see him every day anymore. 

About six months ago, someone reached out to Cash through his Instagram. He has tons of followers and he’s a super talented guitarist. The guy who messaged Cash happened to be none other than Machine Gun Kelly himself. He wanted Cash to be a part of their band and tour with them. 

We were sure it was a hoax, even though it was his official account messaging Cash. We thought it was too good to be true until Colson — MGK’s real name, by the way — passed Cash’s number to his management, and the very next day, Cash had a Zoom meeting set up to meet with Colson and management.

Cash was so serious about it that he wouldn’t let me sit in on the meeting, no matter how silent I promised to be and no matter how many times I assured him that I wouldn’t be on camera. I had to settle for listening through the door. I couldn’t hear much, but I knew it was a positive meeting. 

13 days later, Cash packed his stuff and flew to LA to meet up with the band. The band itself is called Machine Gun Kelly, even though the lead singer/rapper goes by that name. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but whatever. 

As soon as Cash was gone and I found myself lonely as hell, I decided to check out MGK’s music. The longer I sat and listened, the more pissed off I became with myself for having deprived myself of such good music for so long. I started with Tickets to My Downfall and then got hooked on Hotel Diablo. I ventured to Bloom, Lace Up, General Admission, and then onto songs you could only find on YouTube. 

Bottom line: I was obsessed. 

Well, let’s not get dramatic. I fell in love with the music and developed a crush on the very man I’d hated just a month before. And I felt like an asshole for it. I still do. 

I miss Cash a ton. But his life is amazing now. He’s traveling with a hugely famous band, gaining followers every single show, and better yet, he gets along with the guys great. There’s Colson, of course, and then Rook, the drummer. Baze plays the bass and Slim does a lot of keyboard and sound stuff. Justin plays guitar alongside Cash, and Colson plays, too. They party a ton, but they also go out to eat, take trips together, and hang out constantly. I’ve never heard Cash so happy when we talk on the phone. 

I’ve had a shitty day. Clients were dicks, especially the guy who wanted a Prince Albert and got a little excited during the piercing process. If that wasn’t bad enough, he hit on me before one of my tattoo artists came in and dragged him out of the shop. The encounter left me feeling shaky, and by the time I get into my apartment, my hands are a trembling mess. 

I sigh and toss my keys into their designated bowl, then kick off my Doc Martens, trudging to the kitchen. I grab a Mountain Dew from the fridge and find my weed pen on the counter, taking a long pull until I cough out a huge puff. I’ll feel better very soon. 

After changing into comfortable clothes and washing off my makeup, my black hair tossed into a bun, I curl up on the couch with a stupid scary movie. Almost immediately, my phone lights up with a FaceTime from Cash.

I answer the call and there’s his grinning face. I don’t think we look much alike. I have my mom’s raven hair and he has our dad’s blonde curls that he wears long on top and short on the sides and in back. My jade green eyes are the opposite of his chocolaty brown ones, so dark they’re almost black. We do have the same dimples, though.

“Hey, Cash,” I greet.

“Pres!” He says happily, and I can’t help but smile. “You good, sis?”

I shrug, smiling weakly. “Rough day at work.”

Normally he’d ask, but he’s clearly not calling to chat. He has news. I can see the excitement all over his face. “Fuck that,” he says. “Can you take some time off?”

My brow arches. “For what?”

“I want you to come visit!” He says. “Ride on the tour bus with us. Come to a few shows. I miss you and everyone wants to meet you.”

My stomach flips. “Wait, seriously?” I ask warily. “The band and management are okay with this?”

“Kells suggested it!” Cash replies, eyes wide with joy. Kells — MGK, Colson. A man of many names, apparently. 

I’m still skeptical. “I don’t want to impose,” I say. I’m not fun enough to hang with them. It may appear that way based on my career and the fact that I play live music, but I’m boring. All I want to do is smoke weed and maybe go out to eat. I don’t really like to drink and big crowds make me anxious. 

“You wouldn’t, I swear,” Cash continues, still trying to convince me. 

“Cash…” I bite down on my lip. “I don’t know.”

Cash turns his head and talks to someone but I miss what he says. My brow furrows, and then the phone is being passed. I swear to god I stop breathing when my brother’s face disappears and Colson’s takes its place.

God. This man has no business being as hot as he is. His bone structure is unreal. In another life, he could be a successful model. He’s got the height and the body for it. Covered in tattoos and piercings, he matches my vibe. His hair is bleach blonde and messy, currently, so long it almost covers his eyes until he flicks it away and pushes it back, rings glinting on his long fingers. Christ.

“Hey, Presley,” he greets like we’re old friends.”

“Um, hi,” I say after a moment. How could Cash just throw me onto FaceTime with Colson fucking Baker?! Cash doesn’t know about my crush, but still, he’s a big celebrity. I needed more time to prepare.

“What Cash isn’t saying is that it’s non-negotiable. You’re coming,” he says casually. “We’re going to be in Detroit next Saturday and you can just join us then.” 

“My job—”

“Cash already told me it’s easy for you to take time off,” Colson interrupts. Dammit, Cash.

“Well, tell Cash that not all of us are famous rockstars like he is and that some of us still have rent to pay,” I say, loud enough for Cash to hear.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Colson says. “Cash already paid for your next three months’ rent.”

I blink. “Cash David Carver,” I say, tone clipped. “What the hell?”

Cash’s face pops in as he throws an arm around Colson’s shoulders with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Gotta take care of my little sister,” he explains.

“You’re 12 minutes older than me,” I say through gritted teeth. 

“Still,” Cash says annoyingly. “Come on, Pres, come see me.”

I sigh. I don’t have to worry about rent for three months. Cash was right, it’s easy to take time off. It means the other piercer gets way more hours and makes more money. I’ve been there for long enough that I can do pretty much whatever I want. I chew on my lip.

“Fine,” I say, and Cash cheers. Colson smiles, and fuck, what an adorable smile. Crinkly eyes and all. 

“We’ll see you next Saturday,” Cash says. “Maybe get a friend to drive you. We’ll get you both backstage passes and tickets for the show.”

Holy hell.

“Okay,” I say, head still spinning. I can’t even believe this is real.

“Alright, we gotta go. Love you, Pres,” Cash says.

“Looking forward to meeting you,” Colson says.

“Yeah, me too,” I say. “Love you, too, Cashy. See you soon.”

The FaceTime ends and I’m left sitting on my couch, knowing that in less than two weeks, I’ll be riding on Machine Gun Kelly’s tour bus. I’ll be at shows. It occurs to me that my wardrobe is not good for the paparazzi pictures in which I very well may appear. 

I need to go shopping. 

I need to mentally prepare.

Somehow. 

Colson

“Daddy!” Her voice is almost a shriek and I smirk around the gum in my mouth as I go harder, bringing a hand down onto her ass as I do. God, she sounds like a fucking pornstar, the way she’s moaning and crying over my dick. I’m sure some of it is for show, but the way she’s clenching ain’t fake. 

“Fuck,” I mutter lowly, grabbing her hips for leverage as I fuck her harder, feeling myself start to get close. 

“Oh fuck, Kells!” Her back arches and her pussy seizes me as she comes, ass pressing back. Feeling her lose it gets me, too, and with a curse, I come, too. 

Once I catch my breath, I pull out and get rid of the condom. Panting, she pulls her panties back up and shoves her skirt down. She tries to fix her hair, but it’s a damn mess, and there’s mascara smeared on her cheek and her lipstick is pretty much everywhere but her lips. It’s definitely on my dick, that I know for sure. 

I button my jeans and smirk at her, reaching a hand out to help her up. She smiles shyly and I lead the way out of my bunk and into the main space of the tour bus. 

“We gotta take off soon,” I explain, bending to kiss her cheek. “It’s been fun, Sabrina.”

Her blonde brows furrow. “Savannah,” she says flatly.

“Shit. Sorry,” I say, giving her my brightest smile. It works. She smiles, too, batting her eyelashes.

“Goodnight, Kells,” she says, fluttering her fingers in a wave as she steps off the bus.

“Goddamn, aren’t you tired?” I turn around to see Cash and Rook on the couch, grinning proudly. Cash’s question has me considering.

“Yeah. I am,” I admit, reaching into the mini fridge for a bottle of water. I plop into one of the cushy chairs and prop my feet on the table. “That’s life, though, boys.”

Rook snorts and Cash smirks as he takes a sip of his beer. I love the kid. I’m glad he’s on tour with us. He’s fucking sick on the guitar and he gets along great with all of us. He’s always down for a good time and he’s a great wingman. I think it’s those damn dimples and the curly blonde hair. 

My mind flashes to Cash’s twin sister, Presley. From what I’ve seen in pictures, she looks nothing like Cash. Her hair is black and her eyes are a piercing green. She’s tatted and pierced like him, and though she’s not as tall as he is at 6’2”, she still has legs that go on for miles. She’s hot as fuck, and I’m excited she’s going to be joining the tour for a bit.

As if Cash is reading my mind, he brings her up. “I can’t wait for Pres to join us. She’s my best fucking friend, man.”

“I can’t imagine having a sister,” I say. “Especially a twin.”

“Is that telepathy shit legit?” Rook asks between puffs off a joint. 

Cash plucks the joint from his fingers and takes a long drag before passing it to me. The smoke is sweet as it fills my lungs, and I follow up the first hit with another until my head tingles. 

“Yeah,” he admits, nodding. “I got in a car crash when we were in high school. Broke my leg and needed stitches in my forehead. Presley had no idea but she left school with a raging headache and a limp.”

“No fucking way,” I say. “Seriously?”

“It’s crazy,” he says. “That’s kind of why I’m glad she’s coming. I can tell she’s not doing so hot.”

I frown, not liking the way his words make my stomach hurt a little. I don’t even know this chick. I shouldn’t really care. But she’s my friend’s sister, so I guess it makes sense. “What’s wrong? Shitty boyfriend?” I ask.

Cash barks such a loud laugh that Rook and I both freeze, looking at him like he’s crazy. “Sorry,” he says, chuckling and shaking his head. “Pres has never had a boyfriend.”

“How?” I blurt before I can stop myself. I clear my throat. “I mean, she’s hot. Respectfully,” I add.

Cash chuckles. “Guys want her. They’re all over her,” he says, and I notice the way his hand tightens protectively on the armrest. “She doesn’t want any of them. We tell each other everything, but she doesn’t date. Dunno why.”

“Hm,” I reply. Interesting. I don’t date either, but I do fuck. Maybe his sister is the same way. Good news for me, if so. 

“So on that note,” Cash says. “She’s off limits. No hitting on my sister.”

I’m visibly disappointed and Cash narrows his eyes at me. “I mean it, Kells.”

I hold up my hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Loud and clear.”

“But what if she hits on me first,” Rook asks, and when Cash swats him, he cackles. 

I sit back in the chair and take another drag off the joint. What’s the point of Cash’s sexy ass sister coming on tour if I can’t touch her? I have a feeling she’s even hotter in person. Oh well. I’ll have to deal with it. Cash is my boy and I’ll respect his wishes. 

It might be a little cocky to think she’d want me back if I made a move, but I haven’t been rejected since high school. It doesn’t happen when you’re at the place I am. Hell, I don’t even have to ask anymore. Girls, quite literally, throw themselves at me, along with their panties, bras, and even a vibrator one time. That was an interesting show. Funny as fuck watching Reed pluck it off the stage. 

I hear what Cash says, but there’s some weight to what Rook said, too. What if she wants me? Am I expected to reject her? Shit, I won’t be doing that. We’ll just have to see what happens.

XX

Our Detroit show comes on fast. It’s been a crazy week, and to be honest, I haven’t been thinking about Cash’s sister at all. There are plenty of other girls to keep me occupied. 

So when I’m backstage smoking a joint and Cash walks back with a couple of girls, I’m intrigued. I get up from the chair I’m in, but as I get closer, I recognize her. Cash’s sister. And fuck if she doesn’t take my breath away, as stupid as that sounds. 

Because holy shit. When I say Presley Carver is the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen, I’m not lying. Pictures don’t do this girl justice, and her pictures are pretty damn hot. There are those gorgeous legs beneath a short leather skirt. A tiny sliver of tanned stomach is visible beneath her shirt, a simple t-shirt tied in a knot at the bottom. Black, leather boots with a heel, making those legs even longer. Her hair is left down and straight, and I can see the green of her eyes from twenty feet away.

I basically tuck my tongue back into my mouth before snuffing the joint out and going over to say hi like a gentleman. The three of them are chatting with Ashleigh and Olivia, but Presley looks up as I come over, and for the few seconds that our eyes are locked on one another, I feel a bolt of electricity shock through me. She blinks and looks away, but there’s a little smirk on her face. 

“Cash, gonna introduce me?” I ask, putting a hand to Cash’s shoulder.

“Yeah, Kells, this is my sister, Presley,” he says.

“Nice to meet you,” Presley says, holding out a hand.

I smirk and step forward to hug her instead. “Nah, fuck that, we hug around here,” I say, noticing the way her head tucks into my neck, inhaling the smell radiating from her hair — something sweet and sugary. She smells like fucking candy and for a second, I can’t help but wonder what she tastes like.

As I pull away, Cash gives me a warning glance, but I just smile. “And this is her friend, Sadie.”

“Hi Sadie,” I say, hugging her as well. She’s cute, but she isn’t Presley Carver. No one is.

“Thanks again for being so generous,” Presley says. God, her voice is hot, too. Sultry and low, slightly raspy. She sounds like she’d be one hell of a singer. 

“No problem,” I say. “Make yourselves at home.” I need to finish my joint and take a piss before I get out onstage, and as much as I want to stay here and stare, I have shit to do. I wave and walk away. I glance over my shoulder after a few seconds and catch Presley staring. She jumps a little and immediately focuses on what Cash is saying, but she looks flustered. I notice the shape of her long black nails as she tucks her hair behind her ear and I shiver. Focus, Colson. You have a show to do.

But somehow knowing Presley is watching makes me go harder. Makes me take my shirt off and put on a good show of thrusting at my guitar. I drag my fingers down my body, grab my cock over my pants. Old Colson is coming out. The kid who used to suck tits onstage. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him. He was fun. I stopped acting that way when I met…never mind. 

I like that this girl is making me find my old self onstage. I completely give into it, and it’s my best show of the entire tour. Detroit is lucky Presley Carver is in their presence. 

After the show, I chug a full bottle of water, accepting daps and high fives and hugs backstage. I hate how my eyes are searching for her. Cash was very clear — hands off his sister. Which is such a dick move. Has he seen his sister? I mean, I know that’s his sister but he’s not blind. Right?

“Great show.” I jump a little when I hear that slightly raspy voice behind me, and when I turn around, my breath hitches. She looks even better a little sweaty from the show, black hair slightly mussed up. 

I clear my throat and put on a smirk to hide how flustered this girl has me. “Thanks. You had fun?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, her eyes bright. “You guys put on a good show.”

I mop my face with my sweaty t-shirt and flick my hair out of my eyes. “Did you sing along to any songs?” I ask, my not-so-subtle way of figuring out whether or not she knows our music. 

Her grin is a little sly. “Maybe,” she says with a little shrug. 

My brow arches. “C’mon, you’re gonna leave a guy hanging?” I ask. I really want to know if she actually likes my music.

“Pres, quit acting mysterious,” Cash says when he steps up beside me, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “She listens to your shit. She knows all the words.”

“Cash!” Presley hisses, giving him a look. 

“What?” Cash blanches. “It’s true!” He turns to me. “As soon as I joined y’all she started listening.”

“So you didn’t listen before we kidnapped Cash?” I ask. For some reason, I like that she hasn’t always been a fan. 

She shrugs. “Not really.” Now she looks a little sheepish. “I was missing out, though.”

“You should've heard the shit she said about you when Killshot came out,” Cash adds, and when Presley stomps on his toe, he yelps. “Ow, what the fuck!”

“Cash, you’re such a dick,” she groans. She looks up at me and smiles weakly. “He’s exaggerating.”

I’m amused as fuck. All I can do is laugh. I don’t give a fuck whose side she was on when that all went down. She’s backstage at my show now, and I saw the way she looked at me earlier. She’s into me. There’s no way she’s not.

“I’m gonna go find a bathroom,” Presley mutters, shooting one last glare at Cash before she turns on her heel and stomps away. And maybe my eyes fall on her ass, the way her waist curves out into smooth hips. Cash elbows me, and now it’s my turn to yelp.

“C’mon, I was just looking!” I insist.

“Yeah, looking at my sister like you want to fuck her,” Cash says, but he’s still grinning a little. The smile fades and he clears his throat. “Look. She’s a good girl.”

A quick burst of irritation blooms in my chest. “Are you saying I’m a bad guy?”

“No!” Cash insists, eyes widening. “Not at all. She just…she’s different, Kells. And she’s my sister. I don’t want anyone taking advantage of her.”

“Taking advantage?” I blurt in outrage.

“No, Kells I — fuck.” Cash tears his hands through his messy hair. “Please.”

I sigh, the fight going out of me, and nod. “I won’t do anything,” I mutter.

“You promise?” The kid asks.

I have half a mind to make fun of him for the juvenile ass question, but I just nod. “Promise,” I sigh. Cash relaxes after that and he claps me on the back before jogging away to find some of the other guys. 

I’m annoyed now. I want a shower and something to eat. And my dick is a little bit hard in my jeans. I shift and then walk stiffly outside to the tour bus. 

Sure enough, a group of girls squeals when I come outside. They’re hanging near the tour bus and I quickly scan the group for the hottest one. There’s a cute brunette and I decide she’s the one. I approach the fence and reach for her hand. Her eyes twinkle. 

“You busy right now?” I ask.

She looks to her friend whose eyes are bugging out of her head. “Nope,” she says. 

I smirk. This will be a good distraction. Just what I need.

#colson baker #machine gun kelly #mgk #colson baker fanfic #machine gun kelly fanfic #mgk fanfic #colson baker smut #machine gun kelly smut #mgk smut #colson baker x ofc #colson x ofc #mgk x ofc #machine gun kelly x ofc

[edensflaw]

What Sleep Token Has Done for My Heartbreak

I am a relatively new listener of Sleep Token, only have listened to them since August of 2023. But man, when I tell you I have fallen deep and hard for this band, I mean it. I have joined subreddits and discords, I follow tags on tumblr, and so so many instagram accounts. They're music feels so deeply personal to me. The lyrics feel like they fell out of my heart with the emotion that emits from them.

August of 2023 is also when I experienced a very traumatic separation from my now ex-spouse. They confessed to multiple acts of infidelity after trying to work through an emotional/romantic affair they were having at the time. To say I felt betrayed is an understatement. We had been together for 16 years. All of my young adulthood I was with this one person. Unsurprisingly, I fell into a heavy depression.

At first, I discovered Bad Omens. My anger was raw and all encompassing, and Bad Omens seemed to capture that so perfectly. I listened to them non-stop for a long time.

And then I came across Sleep Token thanks to Tiktok. I had listened to them earlier that same year - just once, a few songs - and I remember just feeling sort of indifferent towards them. I honestly think my heart wasn't ready to hear or feel what they were saying. I knew the pain they sang of, but I was still in deep denial about my own relationship and the pain my partner was causing me.

When I listened to them again post-separation - it started with Granite. And the lyric that hooked me - line and sinker: "If you had a problem / Then you should've told me / Before you started getting all aggressive and controlling". At so many points in my relationship I was not being told things and that led to a lot of aggression. Naturally, i tried to control things because that’s a normal human thing to do when you sense that something is changing in a way you never wanted. Like when a stack of dishes starts to fall and you, rather uselessly, put your hands out to try to catch them, stop them from breaking. Ultimately your action is useless, the dishes still break despite your efforts. And it wasn’t even a conscious effort, just a reaction. And from that point on I feel deeper and deeper into my love of Sleep Token.

The next song I remember hitting me hard is Aqua Regia. “Oh, when I am done dancing to alarm bells/No wonder my ears are still ringing/And I am done fighting off change/No wonder my arms are still swinging”. Early into our separation, when my emotions were still very much raw I would find myself still fighting with my ex in my head - talking to myself and continuing fights we would have repeatedly. Alarm bells were still very much ringing in my head and even though the fighting had stopped between the two of us, I, myself, would find myself still arguing thin air. 

In a moment in my life where I felt very much isolated and alone and removed from everything that had ever felt familiar, it felt so reassuring to know somebody, somewhere, felt what I was feeling. I felt seen. I felt heard. Especially coming from such a toxic relationship where I was not feeling heard or seen by my partner. 

There are a lot of Sleep Token songs that seem an obvious choice when it comes to heartbreak. Missing Limbs is one of those songs. 'Cause it still makes my blood run cold/To remember what I did before’ The person I became in such a toxic environment is not someone to be proud of. I’ve talked in therapy a lot about how I struggle with being the person I thought I was when I know I’m capable of such horrible things. The environment really does make the person. ‘The stories that you never told to me’ A lot of our fights were about their lying and their secrets. How I would beg them to just talk to me and how much they would absolutely just shut down and shut me out. ‘And it still makes my blood run thin/To remember what you are to him/And I live like I've got missing limbs/For you’ And to remember what their affair partner means to them - it makes my heart drop into my stomach and my stomach drop into my gut; it makes my blood boil and brain go from zero to sixty. And yet, even with all the knowledge I have now of just how much my ex betrayed me - it very much feels like I’m missing a part of my physical body without them in my life. I have achieved a level of peace I haven’t felt in a while and I am proud of myself for getting to this point, but even with all of that something feels like it’s missing. Like a lizard discarding its tail. 

I could probably go through every Sleep Token song and break down how each word relates back to me and what I was feeling. Blood Sport, Dark Signs, DYWTYLM, the Love You Want, etc. There’s very much a theme of eating, consuming, biting flesh, etc. in Sleep Token’s lyrics. I would’ve crawled inside my partner if it meant that we wouldn’t be separated. I would have consumed them. I let my love for them consume me, mind and body. I let them consume me. I trusted them so much I bared my stomach, the most delicate parts of me, and they tore into them like a wolf that hadn’t eaten in weeks, all the while telling me they weren’t. 

The emotions Vessel presents when singing, it feels like such a dichotomy within himself. There is such a longing, a yearning, for what was, what is comfortable, the love he knows he could get if he made the right (or wrong) sacrifices. The yearning is a literal pain and that pain is often mistaken for love, but for the wrong reasons. 

Then there’s those moments where the fog clears he realizes just how much Sleep has wronged him, used him and that makes him so angry, and rightfully so. There’s such a quiet rage that’s just bubbling beneath the surface. And when that rage comes out there’s almost a sort of regret that comes along with that. A regret for the relationship itself yes, but also regret for the way he acted while with Sleep, and regret for the anger he feels. Vessel's relationship with Sleep feels very familiar to me and my ex. 

There was a post recently by melit0n about the song Jaws. In the tags of my reblog of that post I put "And if my love doesn't love me anymore I know Vessel is capable of love and maybe that means someone can love me like that too".

But it's more than that. I loved it like Vessel does/did. I gave so much of myself to someone that didn't deserve it and was ultimately so toxic and bad for me, much like Vessel's and Sleep's relationship. Sleep is narcissistic and toxic and is only using Vessel as a means for their own selfish ends. And I very much feel like that's how my relationship ended even if that's not how it started.

Vessel's lyrics feel so deeply personal to me because I've lived them. I've lived that feeling of being so consumed by love for another being that I was willing to let it destroy me, body and soul. Vessel knows the pain and struggle I feel: that feeling of longing and yearning for something you know is no good for you and at the same time the anger expressed because how dare they use me?! 

This was a very long winded explanation and I’m sure half of it doesn’t even make sense. I’ve been thinking for a long time about putting down into words what this band and their music has done for me during these months of navigating this heartbreak and putting my life back together. They’ve been such an important part of it and even if I never get the opportunity to express what they mean to me to them directly, if you’ve read this far into this already long post at least someone else maybe gets it. 

Thanks for reading, friend. Because yes, if you’ve read this far and this deep into my life, we are friends now. 

#personal #heartbreak #sleep token #sleep token band #sleep token vessel #toxic #relationship #break up #divorce #separation

[thenatashamaximoff]

The Last Day Of Christmas; Day 12

Summary: On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Pairing: Wanda x Reader

List of warnings could be found on the masterlist

Words: 2,753

✎ | ☃

December 25th, 2022 (Present Day) “Waiting for the call is one of the bad parts of the job…”

It was something nobody ever wanted. It brought tears that held no end and heartbreak that will never ever mend. It brought the stages of grief and disbelief. But nothing could compare to the broken scream that came from Wanda’s throat when she had opened the door after the knock. It was a cry, a blood-curling, gut-wrenching howl that pierced the morning air to the point where they were surprised nobody had called the cops. Neither Natasha nor Clint had to even open their mouths for the witch to know, she felt it in her soul. And the sullen expressions on both agents confirmed her suspicions.

“...but the knock will always be worst.” 

They had moved to sit in the living room, cups resting untouched on the coffee table, and the house had never been so silent afterward, all of them mentally recalling how constantly noisy the house was. Whether it’d be you singing a song to Wanda, your asinine arguments with Natasha, or just you poking fun at Clint, this place was always filled with your voice. And, to Wanda, it was the best thing that came with the house.

“Anyone with decent courtesy will tell you in person.” Wanda’s voice broke the stillness first, earning Clint and Natasha’s wary gaze. She couldn’t seem to handle the unnatural silence the house was settling in, the sound of quiet bringing an emptiness that brought them to reality. “I had a feel-” The crack in her voice caused her to pause, breathing in slowly, shakily, as she processed her thoughts quickly. “The bracelet.” She cast her gaze down to the band resting around her wrist. “Be together, even when you’re apart.”

“The touch ones, right?” Clint asked softly, earning a look from Natasha, though he easily ignored it. “Yeah, she was- She was telling us about it on the way to the mission yesterday.”

Wanda nodded with a smile, though Clint and Natasha saw the way it wasn’t the same as it was when you were around. “She sent me a message. The… The last message she sent me. I just assumed it was her telling me she missed me, but it felt different when I received it. Like it was a…” She picked her head up, looking at the two. “One of you knows morse code, right? Nat? You can… read the message.” She quickly pulled her phone out, unlocking it in search of the app. “You can tell me what she said.”

“I don’t think-” Natasha cut herself off when she felt Clint send an elbow her way, looking at the archer with a raised eyebrow, but the two didn’t have time for their silent conversation before Wanda was showing them the phone. The redhead sighed softly before taking it out of the witch’s hands. It was an easy code, a simple scan of the signals retrieved from your final touch and she already knew the message.

And so did Wanda.

“Wanda-”

“What does it say?” Wanda interrupted quietly, shaking her head subtly. The tears were on the verge of returning, glossing her eyes with a thin layer. 

She knew Wanda knew what the message said, having had read her mind the moment she figured it out, but the witch wanted to hear it said out loud. “‘We’ll meet again,’” she read, pursing her lips together as she awaited for the Sokovian’s reaction. Natasha sighed out heavily as she watched her sit back down, her eyes focused on something far away as her bottom lip trembled. “Wanda-”

“I’m going to need the two of you to leave.” Her voice came out spooky calm, the stoic look on her face sent chills up and down Clint and Natasha’s spine. It was silent as they stood up, Natasha setting Wanda’s phone onto the coffee table before they left her alone. And it didn’t take long for the Sokovian to snap, not even waiting to hear the click of the door closing before she was up on her feet. Anger coursing through her veins suppressed the sadness.

Her phone was the first thing she had grabbed, throwing it across the room with all her strength to watch it smash into the wall. For a moment, it gave her a sense of serenity, however brief that feeling was. It distracted her from the fact that you were gone, that you were never coming home. She was throwing another item before she could stop herself, having picked up the small, decorative bowl resting on the coffee table. The shattering of the dish seemed to have lifted the burden off of her shoulders. She was desperate to feel more of that, picking up the cups resting on the table in need of a diversion from the pain filling her heart, ignoring the water pouring out of them as she hurled them across the room, listening to them smash against the wall with a satisfying crunch. 

She released a small, sharp breath when she saw the crack on the picture hanging on the wall. Your smiling, 2D face met her red, tear-stained one through the fractures in the glass. But the longer she stared at your face, the more angry she grew. She could feel the fury rip through her in a painful way, tearing at her insides with a fire that she didn't think would ever be extinguished. “See?” she expressed through clenched teeth, hot tears streaming down her face as she continued to stare you down. “This is what happens when you don’t kiss me before you leave for a mission.” She sucked air through her locked jaw, refilling her lungs as her hands formed tight fists by her sides. “You end up in the ground.”

The bracelet around her wrist ripped off with ease, the tears blurring her eyes as the last gift you had given her flew into the wall with a sickening crack, but the rage coursing through her veins caused her to pay no mind to the object. She was quick to run out of handy things to throw, the anger still boiling in her blood as her eyes searched the room for something else. It didn’t take her long for her to make her way towards the tree sitting in the room, decorated with memories of the time you and her set it up. She picked up one of the presents, her fingers digging into the wrapping paper as she gripped it tightly, her eyes burning as she launched it across the room, turning away before it hit the wall. She grabbed another one, unintentionally tearing off the gift wrap and sneaking a quick peek at the present - a framed map of the states - before flinging it into the wall once more.

The tears streamed down her face, her chest convulsing painfully as she smashed your unopened presents, but everything seemed to stop when her hands found one last gift. Wrapped delicately in a paper she hasn’t seen before, her name written on the small box in the familiar handwriting she had come to know. She felt her knees give out beneath her, collapsing to the ground as she stared at the gift.

In the wake of destruction with broken objects surrounding her, she settled down as she moved to sit cross-legged on the floor. Her hands shook as she quickly blinked the rest of the tears away, managing to calm down long enough for her to slowly unwrap the present with care.

She felt her heart stop as she flipped open the box.

━━━ᗢ━━━

November 5th, 2022 “Thanksgiving is coming up. Are we going to do our own little dinner or are we going to the compound this year?”

Wanda hummed at your question, picking her head up to watch as you strolled out of the bathroom. She picked up one of the pillows to toss it onto your side of the bed as you stopped walking to watch her. “I already told Steve and Tony that I was going to make everybody food.” She tugged the corner of the blankets to reveal the mattress underneath before looking at you. “Everybody’s bringing someone. Tony’s bringing Pepper, Clint’s bringing his family, Bruce-”

“Alright, alright, I get it, Hex,” you interrupted, laughing as you took a step forward. “We’ll do Thanksgiving at the compound.” You rested your hands on your hips, taking a moment to stare at her a bit longer as she plugged her phone into the charger before setting it onto the nightstand. “We should get married.”

She scoffed a light chuckle, straightening her posture and turning to you. “Is that your idea of a proposal, Y/N?”

“Certainly not,” you assured her, grinning as you stepped up to the foot of the bed. “I’d do something much more memorable than just laying in bed.” You smiled at her, eyes shimmering in the light. “I want to know so I what to expect if it ever happens. Would you marry me?”

She hummed lightly, wrapping her arms around herself as she raised an eyebrow skeptically. “What are these plans of yours?”

“I had Steve pull some strings,” you told her. “Our next mission together, I’m going to pull out a ring as we’re getting shot at.” She rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she turned away from you. “Hey, that’s fine. I have other ideas. I can steal one of Tony’s jets, we can travel the world, and I can propose to you in Paris.”

She repositioned the pillows on the bed. “You don’t even know how to fly, Y/N.”

“You’re right. The stubborn redhead’s refusing to teach me.” You rolled your eyes and shook your head mockingly. “Besides, traveling around the world would definitely be our honeymoon.” You sighed softly, sending her a warm smile. “No, it’d just be us. Me and you, nobody else. You’d never see it coming.” You moved closer to her, placing your hands on her shoulders to make her face you once more. “Maybe I’ll reenact our first date. Maybe I’ll play a song on my phone, lead you throughout the park in another dance.” You pulled her to you, resting your palms on her hips as she draped her arms over your shoulders on instinct. She seemed to be having trouble concealing the smile growing on her face. 

“Y/N…” She let you sway her back and forth to silent music. “You’re not the type to dwell on the past.”

“People change,” you whispered softly, noticing just how much closer she had gotten in the past five seconds. “I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately.” You pulled her into you, closing the small space in between your bodies as your nose brushed across hers. “We wouldn’t be able to get to the first kiss part.”

“And why’s that?” She smiled teasingly at you, her eyes flickering down to your lips before they snapped back onto your eyes, and your soft chuckle caused your minty breath to fan over her face.

“That’s when I’d get down on my knee,” you answered, your voice still a delicate murmur as you spun around, not letting her body leave yours even for a second, “with a ring in my hand. And I’d say, ‘Forever wouldn’t be long enough for me to spend with you, but it’s a place to start. Marry me?’”

Wanda blinked as she stopped moving, your dance ultimately coming to an end as you moved a hand up to swap your thumb across her cheek, catching the stray tear that had slipped on by.

You sighed heavily, seemingly in defeat, as you took a step away from her with a small shrug. But her eyes were glued to you as you turned your back onto her, slowly making your way around the bed as you said, “It’s only a thought, my love.” You moved the blanket off of your side, doing everything you can to avoid eye contact. “There’s no rush.” You grinned, placing your phone onto the nightstand as you finally met her gaze. “We have all the time in the world to tie the knot and care for an extra mouth.”

She was pulled out of her daze, eyebrows knitting together tightly with confusion as her head tilted to the side ever so slightly. “An extra mouth?” She took a step forward, a small, humorless laugh passing her lips, but the grin on your face has yet to waver. “You don’t want kids, Y/N.” She breathed out stiffly, crossing your arms over your chest as you didn’t dare look away from her. She said your name once more, desperate to get a response as her heart hammered steadily against her ribcage.

“I didn’t,” you confirmed, shaking your head, “but I’ve been thinking about it lately and… I want to start a family with you.”

“Y/N…” Her voice came out broken, hesitant to believe if this was some sort of joke or if you were being genuine. The look in your eyes told her it was the latter. “You… You want to start a family?”

“With you.”

“A-Are you sure?”

You nodded confidently, laughing softly when another tear slowly crawled down her cheek, and you were itching to swipe it away again. “I love you,” you expressed, uncrossing your arms from your chest and taking another step forward, your knees pressing against the edge of the bed. “Always and forever, Wanda Maximoff, and I’m so ready to take the next step with you.” You hadn’t realized you were crossing over the mattress until you were directly in front of her, sitting on your knees as you brought her face in between your hands in a fragile hold. “So… would you say yes if I asked you to marry me in the near future?”

She cleared her throat, closing her eyes as she sucked in a deep breath, seemingly giving herself a moment to reset. And the next time she met your gaze, the warm, loving glint that had built up in her irises had turned mischievous, and you could feel your stomach flip as she breathed out. “You’re going to have to ask me to find out, darling,” she whispered, smirking wickedly as her chin moved forward ever so slightly. Her lips brushed across yours, and you gave in to the desire to close the distance, but she only left you chasing after her. “How many?”

“What…?” You were distracted, staring at her mouth as you seemed to be trying to devise a plan to get that kiss.

“How many kids?” You blinked out of your daze, looking into her eyes as a smile teased a corner of your lips.

“Fifteen,” you claimed, leaning back on your feet. She scoffed, her head shaking at your answer. “Don’t you want a big family?” You smirked at her when she rolled her eyes.

“How about three?”

“Let’s start with two,” you suggested, your voice a bit more serious, “and we’ll go from there.”

She stared into your eyes, half expecting to find some doubt, some hesitation, yet all she could find was love and confidence. You truly wanted this with her, and her heart was more than happy to oblige. “Two,” she confirmed with one stiff nod, leaning forward to catch your lips against hers to feed that burning hunger that had forged inside her chest.

━━━ᗢ━━━

Present Day Wanda picked her head up, tearing her eyes away from the box in her hands as she looked at the tree in front of her. “Y/N…” she murmured, biting her bottom lip to prevent the tremble. She sucked in a breath, looking back down at the ring nestled in the case. So elegant, so beautiful. “Yes.” She nodded, feeling the hot tears crawl down her cheeks as she took the small band in between delicate fingers. “I’ll marry you.” Her chin fell to her chest, her eyes squeezed close, but that didn’t stop the tears from coming. 

Today would’ve been the start of something she had always wanted. A family all of her own. All with you. But what was once a happy, attainable wish is now just a broken, impractical dream. A future that’ll never come to be. Instead, while everybody else is celebrating the season with their families, with joy and laughter and hearts that are whole, she’ll always think of today as the day she lost it all.

Christmas isn’t Christmas anymore. Not to her.

#wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #wanda maximoff x reader #scarlet witch x reader #wanda #maximoff #wanda x reader #maximoff x reader #reader insert #christmas #day twelve #day 12

[everythingelvispresley]

Stories From Elvis’s Band

When he first hit in 1955, Elvis was like an H-bomb on shaky legs. In 18 months, he went from hillbilly singer to the biggest star in America, with a parade of No. 1 hits such as “Heartbreak Hotel,” “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock.” Along the way he upended our entire pop culture—from music to fashion to attitudes about race and sexuality.

His traveling companions on the road to the Hilton were a group of ace musicians, including Glen D. Hardin (piano), James Burton (guitar), Ronnie Tutt (drums) and Jerry Scheff (bass)

Preparing for Elvis’ new live show was an impressive undertaking. Luckily, Elvis and his new band clicked immediately. We rehearsed probably 200 songs, says Jerry Scheff. When we played them with him, it wasn’t like a rehearsal. It was more like we were just having fun, like jamming almost.

In rehearsals, and on stage, Elvis keyed off the guitar, says James Burton. We had great eye contact. He loved guitar. If I’d play a lick or something, he would just turn around and say, Yeah, baby! It was a great communication that all of us had. With so many songs at his disposal, Elvis rarely followed a set list. You never knew which way he was going to go on stage, Burton says. He could change at any moment. He’d say, James, give me an E. Then he’d go into whatever song he had in his mind.

He’d play stump the band, Hardin says. He’d try to find little ways to pull something on us. I don’t think he ever did because we were watching him so closely. We were playing the Forum in L.A. one time, and he was about as far away from me on stage as he could possibly be. He bent down to kiss a girl and I guess she whispered in his ear, Do Blue Christmas. As he raised back up, he went right into it. Now there’s only three eighth notes as pick-up notes. I’ll have a … and the whole band came in. It was things like that, non-stop. He was always very appreciative that we were right on top of him.

Says Tutt, As time went on, he would use more and more karate moves, to cut off songs and during songs, where there’d be musical interludes or solos. Because they’re almost quicker than the eye, those moves, I felt like there was only way for me to really understand them. And that was to study the same form of karate as he did. We’d have lessons and workouts up in his suite. It helped me a great deal to understand how he moved.

Elvis the comedian

The intensity was balanced out with practical joking. For all his iconic status as the king of rock ’n’ roll, Elvis often acted more like a jester on stage and off.

He was always coming up with something silly, says Hardin. Once he introduced me and said, You know, somebody told me the other day that the D in your middle name stands for Dolores. Is that true? I said, Why, hell no!He said, I think it is. I was told by somebody who ought to know. He just went on and left it at that.

He’d do imitations too. He did Engelbert Humperdinck and Tom Jones real good. He could do Billy Eckstine, Dean Martin a bit, even Moms Mabley. He would sing happy birthday to me a lot, Burton says, even if it wasn’t my birthday.”

Scheff says, One night, he brought one of those little battery operated laugh boxes on stage and said, Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Colonel Parker. As far as the humor is concerned, says Tutt, Elvis, as much as anybody I’ve ever known in my life, loved to laugh. He was a very emotional man when it came to that. He didn’t hesitate to laugh or cry. His whole life was built around trying to find humor in things.

What Might Have Been

All the musicians agree that the big fight that might’ve saved Elvis was a world tour. During the ’70s, he toured America, but never beyond the 50 states (his 1973 TV special Aloha from Hawaii was a vicarious substitute, beamed worldwide via satellite). The reason that Elvis never performed outside of the U.S. was that Colonel Parker, née Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk, was an illegal alien. To fly out of the country would risk not only being exposed but barred re-entry.

Elvis wanted so bad to go to Europe and to Japan, says Burton. He was looking forward to it, even in the year or so before he died. He felt that these people always came to him from around the world to see his shows, and he felt like it would be great for him to go over there and present his show to them in their country.

If Colonel Parker had let him follow his idea to become a more serious artist, things might’ve been different, adds Scheff. Elvis had a lot of pressure put on him by the Colonel and by fans to do the old stuff. I’ve worked with a lot of people, like Bob Dylan and Bob has always been able to change, like a chameleon. He didn’t care what the fans thought. He didn’t care what his manager thought. Elvis wasn’t able to say, Listen, screw you. I’m doing it my way. That more than anything else was one of the reasons he got so depressed.

In the end, when these players talk about their time with Elvis, it’s overwhelming how much they loved and respected him. I’m sure I expressed how much I enjoyed working with him, but he wasn’t one to sit around and let you pat him on the back, Hardin says. If you said, You’re the greatest, he would’ve probably said, Well, I’m doing pretty good for an old country boy.

I don’t think I ever told Elvis how much I admired him as a singer, says Scheff. Back then, everybody was being cool. I regret that now. I don’t even have an autograph, because I was being too cool. I think if I’d asked him for his autograph, it might’ve pleased him.

Burton concludes, Elvis didn’t know how great he was. He never came off like, I’m the king of rock ’n’ roll. As a matter of fact, there were many times on stage when people yelled out, Elvis, you’re the king! And Elvis would say, No, I’m not the king. God’s the king.

#elvis presley #elvis #elvis aaron presley #50s elvis #60s elvis #70s elvis

[black-arcana]

‘As Pure and Raw As It Can Get’: The Pretty Reckless’s Going to Hell Turns 10

Taylor Momsen and Ben Phillips recall the tragedy-to-triumph story of the band’s second studio LP, released on March 12, 2014

Taylor Momsen and The Pretty Reckless perform during the 2014 iHeartRadio Music Festival Village on September 20, 2014 in Las Vegas. (Credit: Isaac Brekken/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times—the making of The Pretty Reckless’s Going to Hell, that is. As the band’s second studio album celebrates its 10-year anniversary, frontwoman Taylor Momsen and guitarist Ben Phillips recall the epic and often heartbreaking journey of its creation—and surprising success, against the odds. “I think that it’s a story of triumph in a lot of ways,” Taylor says. “To see it become so successful when that wasn’t the intention is a little surreal, to say the least.” 

The triumph part is easy. Four years after their studio debut Light Me Up (“Make Me Wanna Die” its hit lead single) established them as a band of definitive talent, The Pretty Reckless set out to create an album that reflected their shared love for the same fiery sound—with zero interest in topping anyone’s charts. The result was Going to Hell, an album best described in any room as unapologetic. Untamed and gut-wrenching also apply, as well as thoughtful, deliberate, and empowering—showcased by Taylor’s fierce and flawless voice, one perfectly suited for hard rock ‘n roll. 

For perspective, in 2014 the Frozen soundtrack boasted the longest-running No. 1 album, with Pharrell Williams’ sticky, bop-along “Happy” Billboard’s No. 1 song of the year. And then here comes Going to Hell, flame-throwing itself onto Billboard’s No. 5 spot upon its release. “We melted Frozen,” Ben remarks, and he and Taylor break out in laughter. 

Bassist Mark Damon, Taylor Momsen and the band on stage at London’d Brixton Academy on November 26, 2014. (Credit: Christie Goodwin/Redferns via Getty Images)

Clearly, the intention wasn’t to create a commercial album, and Ben goes so far as to recall when he and producer Kato Khandwala first met Taylor and how authentically “non-commercial” she was.

“She wanted to be Chris Cornell, and she didn’t care about anything else,” Ben says. “We don’t even know what a hit is in this band.” 

As Ben recalls, Taylor and Kato met first, and it was established that Taylor “didn’t want to write songs for the record label or for [an] audience or for the whatever. She had songs that she wanted to write, and that meant that you had to be an artist about it. No one ever hears our records till they’re mastered and finished. That’s the first thing. No one. We’re not looking at the radio, we’re not looking at anything. We just create in the studio.” The 15/16-year-old Taylor that ignited Light Me Up wasn’t the same as the 18/19-year-old Taylor behind Going to Hell. “She’d stepped into maturity,” Ben says.

Going to Hell started with the best of intentions. Gone were the “childish pretensions” and “a whole mess of music industry stuff we weren’t expecting” of their studio debut, according to Ben. Kato had put together a new studio for them—Hoboken, New Jersey’s Water Music Recording Studio—and they “worked on songs as they came, in a vacuum making our music and not knowing what anyone else was doing,” Ben says. Also present were bandmates Mark Damon on bass and Jamie Perkins on drums. Working as a unified, creative force, these were the best of times. But then, in October of 2012, Hurricane Sandy came and destroyed the studio. They relocated to Lake Hopatcong (also in New Jersey) to finish up. 

“There’s no songs on this for radio or anything,” Ben thought, at the time, and they were happy with what they believed to be an honest, authentically non-commercial album. Taylor agreed, definitively, remembering: “This is not a hit record.”

Taylor and Ben before a live performance at London’s Electric Ballroom, March 24, 2014. (Credit: Rob Monk/Total Guitar Magazine/Future via Getty Images)

Ben refers to the album as a “dark record about Taylor removing herself from her childhood, growing out of her upbringing…identifying with all her childhood mistakes and everything that she had done.” Aside from its obvious dark themes, the album was written in actual darkness, during the 2012 NYC blackout, Taylor sitting in her apartment surrounded by candles. “I was sitting in the freezing cold writing ‘Going to Hell,’ Taylor says, of the single that eventually became the theme of the entire project. Though they initially wanted “Going to Hell” to be the album’s first single, they went with “Heaven Knows,” released on November 13, 2013, and it would become the band’s first No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs chart. “Messed Up World (F’d Up World)” and “Follow Me Down” followed in chart-topping suit.

No one was more surprised than The Pretty Reckless. “We never had any radio [play] in America, so we didn’t even think that was a possibility,” Ben says. They clearly struck an unexpected chord. A “heavy and dark” chord at that, according to Taylor. Going to Hell was already a hit.

Taylor and Ben attribute the artistic and unanticipated commercial success of Going to Hell to being a cohesive unit. 

“Possibilities were endless… musically we were on the same page,” Taylor says. This, of course, included Kato who, according to both of them, was at his creative height on Going to Hell. Aside from Hurricane Sandy drowning their studio in six feet of sewage, and, in Taylor’s words other “devastating outside forces” during the making of the album, Kato’s wife Lisa passed away at the end of the year. It was Lisa who’d come into the studio with Q-Tips and, as Ben recalls, “cleaned every guitar from screw to screw for us, bringing them all back to life.” Going to Hell is dedicated to Lisa. 

This devastating loss signaled a definite shift. In an attempt to help Kato through the tragedy of Lisa’s passing, they brought him back into the studio to work on the last single, “Messed Up World (F’d Up World),” a song that Taylor says “sums up the whole thing.” Kato, their cherished collaborator who Ben referred to as “our best friend,” died in 2018 as the result of a motorcycle accident. 

As Ben says, losing Kato meant trying to navigate future projects without him, moving forward: “We had to rebuild and figure out how we were going to do this without him.” 

Taylor adds: “[Kato was] a conduit for our songwriting and our creativity. He got inside what Ben and I were writing and helped to make that vision come to life in a really deep and involved way.” Going to Hell, she continues, “changed our lives. Even though we maybe didn’t see it at the time, we certainly are feeling the effects of it to this day. First, it made us double down on our ethics. It gave us the confidence to go, ‘We’re doing the right thing by doing it this way,’ and continued us on the path that we’re still on.”

“It’s ups and downs, but…that’s life,” Ben says.

“That’s the life,” Taylor says. “It’s a perpetual, lifelong sacrifice to be a songwriter and to be true to yourself.”

From his 125th Street Harlem studio, photographer Danny Hastings, best known for his legendary hip-hop album covers (Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, Eminem’s Slim Shady special edition, among others), shot a naked and painted Taylor over the course of 16 hours. 

Determined to preserve authenticity, and inspired by the classics, Taylor and team were committed to capturing the Going to Hell cover image in its entirety on camera. That meant, the now-famed downward-pointing arrow/cross was painted on Taylor on site, a task that took time, but was well worth it, in the spirit of iconic covers of the past. As Taylor explains, the idea came from the famous 1996 Pink Floyd promo poster shot by Tony May featuring six naked women sitting by a pool, their backs painted with the band’s cover art. (Eric Clapton’s E.C. Was Here and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, where a man was actually lit on fire, served as further inspiration.) 

“It’s kind of a homage to love, with a new take on it,” Taylor explains. “Because the cross was something that I had drawn myself and come up with. I was like, ‘This is the physical representation of this record to me, this is the symbol.’” Visuals, she says, come naturally to her, “especially when making music.” (She says she sees music visually, too.) 

“I was drawing [the cross] while we were recording the record, and I was like, “Well, this is the logo, this is the symbol for this record and so let’s put it on my back and use sensuality and sexuality.”

An outtake from the Going to Hell photo shoot. (Credit: Danny Hastings)

The artist hired to apply the graphic on Taylor was familiar with the band, but not Taylor and her former acting career — in the beginning.  “As he was painting my nipples very detailed and it’s specifically my nipple…that’s what’s funny about this…he’s leaning in…creating every little speck and dot perfectly. He puts together that I was Cindy Lou Who [in 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas], and this guy drops his paintbrush, starts spinning around the room, screaming, going, ‘I can’t believe I’m painting Cindy Lou Who!’” Taylor says. It provided some “much-needed comic relief [for] this very serious project.” 

As to not distract from the music, Taylor’s face is intentionally not shown. They thought of every detail, including the redness under the right elbow. “It’s getting scorched by flames you can’t see as I’m reaching down to hell, being tugged,” Taylor says.

To achieve the final image—Taylor’s body curved just so, arms forward in gentle balletic motion—the inky graphic had to be painted perfectly and, according to Ben, she had to angle her body a certain way, to achieve, in Taylor’s words, “a piece of art.” 

The result is an astute personality test for any onlooker: Is the woman in the picture actually going to hell – or emerging from it?

“This is me as pure and raw as it can get,” Taylor says. “Kind of how I feel about this album.” 

#taylor momsen #ben phillips #the pretty reckless #interview #long post

[rjwhite]

That's the Day I Throw my Drugs Away

The Morphine album Cure for Pain came out 30 years ago, on September 14, 1993. A few years back, I was on this music review mailing list, where each member had to take a turn writing about an album of great importance to them. This was mine.

Ever since I was a kid, cities always held a fascination for me. I was not well-traveled, growing up in the middle of Michigan. The idea of being in some cosmopolitan, dense, East Coast metropolis was amazing to me, yet it took until well into college to even head out there, for a college television conference in Providence in 1996. We made the drive from Michigan State University, cut across Canada in the dead of night to spend a day in Boston, then head down to Providence in rush hour traffic. Checked into the hotel and one of the people in our group asked who was playing in town. Morphine at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel. A friend said we absolutely had to go, as the band was amazing. I’d never heard of them, but went along because, hey, a concert in an actual, real city and everything, you know?

A loud club with cheap beer. Lots of people crowded in. The band came on. It was one of those weird things you always remember. These guys were on stage- not young, one of them playing a bass with only two strings? The one guy playing two saxes at once? The lead singer going into some beat poetry? What was this? I’d never seen or heard anything like it. My mind exploded. The band, the crowd, everything was in sync. Leaving the club, being downtown in an old, established city- the whole weekend of experiencing something I’d built up for so long … it just cemented that I needed to be in a place like that. I needed to live somewhere with history, vitality.

We got back to East Lansing and one of the first things I did that week was go to Flat, Black and Circular (still one of the best record shops I’ve ever been lucky enough to shop) and pick up Cure for Pain. It wasn’t even the album they were touring for (Like Swimming). I think Cure for Pain was the first one I saw in the rack? But it grabbed me and entranced me and hooked me for life. I listened and listened and listened. This incredible, smooth, wonderful mix of I don’t know what- jazz? Rock? Stories of cheating and sleaziness and sadness and loss and regret?

It’s just a wonderful thing to just discover a band you had no idea existed and instantly be taken with them. To feel that connection you never knew was there and somehow know you’ll be listening to them for a good, long while. It’s almost like falling in love with someone, you know?

I just always associate the album with that time and it’s all smashed together in my head, making that absolutely certain decision that, someway, somehow, I was going to live on the East Coast, in an honest-to-god city where I could go to places like Lupo’s and see bands like Morphine for the first time.

Now, I live in Philadelphia and never go to shows!

Though the odd, strange miracle of the internet, I’m able to hear a bootleg of that very night, knowing that 21-year-old RJ is in that crowd somewhere, just happy and dumbfounded by what he is hearing and utterly enjoying being in that moment.

I don’t know if I can hear myself in there, though. That might be too strange, like thinking of the dead people in the repeated laugh tracks of old sitcoms.

But, the record! Just a pleasure to listen to, front to back.

“Dawna” and “Buena” kicking it off… “I’m Free Now” as a sad, incredible post-breakup song where you feel like that terrible jerk who’s made a bad mistake (I'm free now to direct a movie/Sing a song or write a book about yours truly/How I'm so interesting I'm so great I'm really just a fuck-up/And It's such a waste to burn down these walls around me)... That delicate mandolin of “In Spite of Me”... The barrelling train of “Mary Won’t You Call My Name”... That jazzy, smoky rambling of “Let’s Take a Trip Together”... “Thursday” is almost a short film, with the wenching title track slamming you right after… all of it...

July 3 will mark the anniversary of Morphine frontman Mark Sandman’s death from a heart attack in the midst of a 1999 concert in Europe. If you could throw this (or anything from their wonderful catalog, really) on, I think that would be nice.

Anyway, that's why I love this 30-year-old record and this band. Listen to it wherever you can, it's a hell of a beautiful thing.

#morphine #cure for pain #mark sandman #Youtube

[flurrys-creativity]

Back to me

Pairing: Park Dojoon (The Rose) x GN!Reader; Genre: Break up AU, Angst; Rating: sfw, pg-13; Warnings: mentions of previous fights, mentions of heartbreak, lots of tears, breaking up, a physical fight, bruised lip, bloody nose, more crying, some curse words... that should be it; Wordcount: 1.302

Summary: Dojoon tries to win you back - even starting a fight with one of your neighbours to bring his point across. Though he might be too late for that.

A/N: Am I obsessed with this song? Yeah, pretty much since it came out. Do I love the band? With my whole heart!

You heard the banging on the door clearly through your now empty apartment. Tears streamed down your cheeks while you sat between a bunch of moving boxes.

The banging continued and you even heard the dull pleas from Dojoon on the other side of the door. 

He kept pounding against it for the past twenty minutes already but you couldn’t bring yourself to get back to the door again after you shut it prior.

When he first knocked you had opened the door, forgetting to look through the little spy hole who was there. Your breath got caught in your lungs when you saw the dishevelled figure of Dojoon in front of you. He had one hand stemmed into his side, inhaling the air greedily as if he just ran a marathon.

“You’re leaving?” He all but gasped, his eyes searching your face for something you weren’t sure of.

You didn’t know what to answer him. Sure, you were leaving this apartment but you weren’t about to drop from the surface of the earth. Additionally you didn’t want to leave, you didn’t want to leave him but the constant fights and yelling and heartbreak made you consider finally cutting ties. 

There was only so much your heart could take.

“I know I can make you mad and it probably wasn’t the best idea to ignore your calls when you needed me but please, you can’t do this to me. To us.” 

You noticed the tears welling up in his eyes and how he fidgeted with his hands, wanting to touch you, hold your hand but unsure how you’d react to it.

“Please, yell at me, curse me, cry. You can even punch me, whatever it takes, please. Please, don’t leave.”

You bit on your lower lip, trying to keep your emotions at bay. You still loved him, your heart and body yearned for him to hold you but wrapping your arms around your torso had to make do. Soft sniffles escaped your lips as you slowly started to shake your head. “It’s too late for that”, you whispered, voice breaking into a sob.

Dojoon tried reaching out for you but you hurriedly stepped back and shut the door between the both of you. 

With the barrier between you the sobs broke out freely, shaking your whole body in the process. You pulled yourself away from the door and back to the living room, where you broke down between the moving boxes.

Ever since Dojoon hammered against your door as he simultaneously called your cell phone over and over again. After the first three times you turned off the sound and vibrations. Now you only stared at the screen lighting up whenever he tried calling you again.

By now your tears had dried and your senses dulled, letting you sit apathetically on the floor and stare into nothingness. Everything shifted into the background as you disconnected yourself from the whole situation. You hardened your heart and numbed your emotions until you practically became a shell of yourself. You didn’t know how much time passed, having lost the sense of it in your state. 

Loud yelling from outside of your apartment pulled you back to reality. You sluggishly turned your head towards the front door, needing several seconds to actually focus on your sense of hearing before you were able to register the words that got screamed. 

You hesitantly got up and moved back to the door, staring at it warily. Now you heard a voice that didn’t belong to Dojoon. A voice that sounded quite aggressive and not like the desperate tone Dojoon had while he yelled at your door. You flinched when something or maybe even someone got slammed into your door. After a few heartbeats you ever so slowly creeped up to your door, peeking through the spy hole.

You gasped and clasped your hand in front of your mouth, seeing one of your neighbours down the floor fighting with Dojoon.

Without thinking you opened the door and rushed out on the hallway. “Stop it!” You clasped your hands in front of your chest, staring at the two men in front of you with wide, shaking eyes.

Both of them turned their heads to you, one with a bloody nose and the other with a bruised lip. 

“What are you doing?”

They looked at each other and back at you, both of them starting to explain two different reasons at the same time. 

You stared at them in disbelief. Even though they had talked at the same time you got the gist of it. Your neighbour thought Dojoon was bothering or even low key harassing you and decided to take matters in his own hand to help you, while Dojoon wanted him to leave again so he could talk to you.

Dojoon pushed your neighbour away, turning and even taking a step towards you. 

You hit his chest without much force, feeling the tears welling up once again. “What were you thinking?”

Your neighbour looked between the both of you, narrowing his eyes momentarily before he sighed and walked back to his own apartment. 

You hit Dojoon again, crying silently in frustration. Dojoon caught your fists and pressed them against his chest, smoothing them out until your palms rested on his chest and followed the movement of his breathing. “I fucked up”, he whispered and leaned down to place his forehead against yours.

“You can’t build a world out of broken dreams. You need to let me go”, you told him as you tried controlling your sobs again. You moved one of your hands up to his cheek, thumb lightly brushing over his bruised lip. “You can’t make me come back to you. Not like this.”

Dojoon inhaled sharply and closed his eyes, his brows furrowing as if he was in pain. A tear rolled down his cheek and when he opened his eyes again you noticed how red they were.

“Please.” Now you were pleading for him to understand. “Please, let me go.”

“How could I?” Dojoon exhaled shakily, slowly realising this was a fight he was about to lose. “How could I let you go? I know I don’t deserve you and I took so much for granted and I just realised that I need you like you needed me.” His hands tightened around the one on his chest, the fear of losing you way too palpable.

“Please.”

Dojoon stared at you with red rimmed eyes, tears silently running down his cheek. It mirrored your expression almost perfectly, though they had slightly different reasons. With a defeated cry Dojoon dropped your hand, accepting his fate. “So I really can’t make you come back to me.” He rubbed over his eyes with his sleeve, silently cursing himself for being so stupid.

Your lips quivered as you leaned forward and pressed them one last time against his bruised ones. The kiss tasted salty and conveyed all the regret and the love you two still felt.

“Thank you”, you whispered while you stepped back, your hand ever so slowly dropping from his cheek. You looked at him one last time, clutching the door as if your life depended on it.

“I hope you’ll come back to me.” Dojoon looked at you with hopeful eyes. “One day at least.”

You mustered a crooked smile as you closed the door, not daring to answer him without breaking down once more. You leaned against the closed door, silently listening to his retreating steps.

He could make you mad, he could make you scream. He definitely could make you cry and made you actually leave. Sometimes he even made you hate him for everything, even hate yourself for saying things you didn’t mean. But you couldn’t say whether he could make you come back to him.

© all rights reserved

Taglist: @xavi-in-kpopland

#kwritersworldnet #kdiarynet #kvanity #wkcnet #the rose #park dojoon #leo #the rose dojoon #the rose leo #one shot #back to me #i looooooove that song soooooooooo much #listen to it #stan the rose

[ihopeimsomeonesstellasomeday]

Another You

.

Brad put his hand on her knee once more to stop her from the insistent habit. It was understandable how nervous she felt, but the longevity of her behaviour surprised the band. Yes, the song was one of the most personal they have written together, and yes, it was nerve wracking. But the ball of stress didn’t leave her chest since the first time they decided that it would be best to include her in the performance. It wasn’t even a big performance anyway, just a cosy party with fellow industry people and an acoustic little performance. It was a piece of cake, just to have fun.

Breath in, and then slowly out. She repeated to herself a couple of times, willing his non-existing lunch to go down. God, wasn’t she furious with herself, felt betrayed most of all. It was just a stupid performance, but she was still thinking about the person she wrote the song to. About how he would feel after hearing the lyrics, if he ever did obviously. Would he feel sad, like a blade was piercing through his heart, like how she felt every time she saw him with another? The tears starting to cloud her sight was the last thing she needed at the moment, so she looked up and tried to shoo the unpleasant thoughts away alongside the tears. Standing up and evening out the edges of her skirt she marched out of the room with confident steps. It was enough time she wasted on feeling sorry for everything. Now it was showtime. 

She walked over to the small table that held cocktails and fetched herself the brightest one with the umbrella, it was going to be a great night. The big room wasn’t much, a classic penthouse if you will, with a small area in the farther middle with some mic stands and enough space to fit a small-portioned band. Very cosy and cute if you asked her. Even though singing in front of everyone made her nauseated from the start, even though she had to agree that the feeling mostly went away, she got used to it with time. And the boys really helped, they have known each other for roughly three years. The first meeting happened again in one of the industry parties she attended with 5sos, luckily there was another boy band that consisted of goofy youngsters, if you may excuse her French.  It was safe to say they hit it off from the start, especially her and Brad. They never cut ties after that night, having exchanged numbers already.

Brad was a constant thing in her life. Even though it was hard to keep updated of each other’s life every day, they did a splendid job at never making it too long, whether it was just a simple ‘everything good?’ or just some stupid joke they thought was the funniest thing they heard. Everything became easy after that and suddenly Brad was her comfort person. There were some things she wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about if it wasn’t with him, and vice versa. Which brought them here, about to perform one of the most sentimental and heart-felt songs they have ever written, together or individually.

 Another you, was written after both of their monumental break ups, when she decided to stay in England for a few weeks to catch up and to mend her broken heart if she can. Then the song was born. It was a piano ballad, it was sad, but it was also hopeful in the way it promised them a start. It helped them get their head straight again, gave them a place to hold on to, a place to carry them forward. The alternative was to drown in their heartbreak and cry themselves to numbness with a bottle of wine, which really lost its appeal after a week of doing exactly that. So, one night, when they were basically having a battle on ‘who can talk more shit about the other’s ex’ they looked at each other and decided to stop feeling like that. They wasted enough time dwelling on them, but now was the time they understood the craziness of the situation. No one is irreplaceable. So, if it was not meant to be, there will always be someone else. (Or not obviously, she was all for being independent, but that is not the point now.)

Walking back to the boys with a new-found confidence in her steps was something she would be proud of later in the evening, alone. A soft smile placed itself on her face at the sight of her friends, warming their voices up while messing around. It was always astonishing to see bands that got on so well, their dynamics, their friendship and all the other bonuses. No one can deny the appeal of a band like One Direction but something about friends from the start really played with the strings of her heart. The lightning inside the room had a golden dim to it, just enough to give it the necessary luxurious vibe with the sincereness still intact. 

“Do you know when we’ll be on?” 

She asked, to no one in particular. “Probably in about half an hour.” Replied Tristan, while threading his fingers through his hair. Nice, she thought, enough to get mentally ready, but not enough to drive you mad. She gently sat on the small place next to Brad who was playing some specific chords and singing along. She joined him and reached out to the piano a little farther in front of her. Singing something she wrote always brought calmness and happiness to her, Making her feel extremely proud and causing her to disassociate from the real world. Her voice combined with Brad’s calm voice soothed her. Couple of other songs, some warm-up sessions later they started to move over to the little stage. Some with their instruments and the others with a couple of water bottles in hand. It was true that she was only going to be in one song, but the boys will be there for a small set of about four songs. She did a couple more of those breathing exercises to decrease her heartbeat. 

Brad was seated on the piano, next to him was her on a stool with a microphone in front of her. She arranged the mic stand to her height while others either checked their instruments one more time or took a sip of their water, she raised her head and caught Brad eying her with a giddy tinkle in his eyes. He raised a brow, asking if she was ready and smiled wildly when she replied with a small nod of her head. 

He cleared his throat and leaned into the mic that was attached to the piano in a charming, his hands sitting on top of his thighs. “Good evening, everyone.” He greeted everyone first. 

“I am Brad, and we are The Vamps, plus one. This is our dear friend Leighton. She is going to be singing our first song with us. The song is called Another You, Leighton and I wrote it a while back and felt like it was time we introduced it to the rest of you, the song is very dear to our hearts and…. Hope you enjoy it.”

He faced her one more time to assure, and then started the song after a countdown. The first line of the song burned a hole in her chest, the desperation in the first verse was just as touching every time she listened to Brad sing them. She was amazed by the way Brad put these together in mostly freestyle. They were so heartfelt that it felt wrong to share with the world, the exposure was real in this one.

“Am I to blame?

Is "leave me lonely" written on my face?

Did I try too hard to make you stay?

Guess I let my hopes get high again.”

She easily found herself closing her eyes and losing the feel of anything other than the lyrics. The possibility of Calum seeing this was high, but she didn’t care at the moment. She just wanted to express that she moved on too. That she didn’t care that much either, that it was time she got him out of her heart too. Because it was unfair, in her opinion, how he got to move on as fast as he did, leaving no choice for her but to suck it up and do the same. She was almost sure he was pretending but the knowledge didn’t make it hurt less unfortunately. 

“It took some time

For me to figure out that I'll be fine

Without you there to keep me warm at night

I guess you never were my ride-or-die”

She knew the part that would hurt the most was her dig to their tattoos, but she just simply couldn’t help herself. It felt like the heaviness behind them was something to get over. They were not a ride or die, maybe in the past, but not now. So, she wanted to make that clear, and hit it low. Feeling the tears pooling in her eyes once more while singing her verse, she forced her voice to get affected by the personal emotions. 

The song seemed to end too quickly once it started and she was almost startled back to reality with the sound of light claps. While a genuine smile appeared on her face she thanked them quietly and gave Brad a quick hug, wishing him good luck on the rest of their performance alongside the boys. She walked away slowly from the stage, trying to find a decent enough seat to sit. 

‘That went well’ she said to herself once seated comfortably, with a new bottle of water she fetched on the way. Her heartbeat slowly turned back to its normal pace since she was out of the spotlight now. And even if the word gets out and finds him, well then… It is what it is.

#the vamps #bradley simpson #brad #calum hood #calum hood imagine #songwriting #fan fiction #calum is so subtle you might miss it #5sos #5 seconds of summer #calum imagine #calum hood blurb #calum hood one shot

[hairstevington]

15 questions, 15 mutuals

I was tagged by @tartarusfairy (thank you for thinking of me!! I love these!)

Are you named after anyone? Depending on which parent you ask, I was either named after a famous album OR a random dead person.

When was the last time you cried? I am a triple water sign. All I do is cry lmao. I actually do hold it together quite well most of the time now, other than the week of my period but you can't fault me for that.

Do you have kids? I do not! But I am a pretty damn good babysitter ;)

Do you use sarcasm a lot? I think I do? I tend to do this thing where I make a ridiculous joke/observation but my delivery is super flat so people think I'm being serious lol. Generally though I've gotten a lot less sarcastic over the years.

What sports do you play/have you played? Currently nothing, I am an un-coordinated queen. But growing up I was a huge tomboy so I played baseball and danced. I went to a bunch of camps for sports too (baseball, basketball, golf, dance). And then puberty hit and I was like oh no I actually hate sports I think I'm gonna start a band instead. The rest is history!

What's the first thing you notice about people? Okay, I don't know if this makes any sense but...the vibes?

What's your eye color? Blue/grey. A lot more on the grey side of the spectrum these days. Sometimes they look kinda green.

Scary movies or happy endings? I love both! I had a huge scary movie phase in college (I still like them), but even then I prefer the ones that aren't soul-crushingly devastating. Recently I've been a lot more into wholesome content because I don't have the energy for super emotional/heartbreaking content. Thus why Season 4 Volume 2 broke me.

Any special talents? I can solve a rubick’s cube!

Where were you born? New Jersey, technically.

What are your hobbies? It's been music my whole life. Like, I AM music lol. It wasn't until recently where I started writing stories over songs, but obviously now I write fanfic all the time so it's my main hobby.

Do you have pets? Yes I do! My ESA <3

How tall are you? 5'10''(178cm) - I am super tall and I don't like being this tall a lot of the time. But! I'm only a little bit shorter than Joe Quinn, which meant we were ~eye to eye~ when I met him a few weeks ago. Love that for us.

Favorite subject in school? It was math, I think. I was always really good at it and ended up teaching calculus right out of high school, which is wild in hindsight. Then I realized I was gay and lost my abilities (just kidding! It wasn’t because of that. But the timeline does match up...suspicious...)

Dream job? I was an actor when I was a teenager and nearly moved to California to pursue it, but then I...didn't. Sometimes I still wonder about that other life, but I'm equally if not more passionate about my current career path (therapy and writing). Also, being a musician would be the coolest thing ever, but man oh man does getting started cost a lot of money. If I win the lottery though, that's what I'd put my winnings toward!

This was....long-winded. Oops. But hopefully interesting? Thank you so much for tagging me!!! <3

You're up, friends (if you're comfortable)! @steviesbicrisis @eddielives1986 @satan-is-obsessed @goodolefashionedloverboi

#I love learning about my internet friends #me #tag game

[rom-e-o]

Oddly Specific Constance Headcanons (Questions by rpmemestbh)

How does your muse feel about seafood?

Constance is a New York girlie, and LOVES SEAFOOD! Lobster, clams, oysters, all of it. She’s one of those people who can shoot oysters raw with no help.

What is their favorite piece of technology?

Well, this is mid-1800s London, haha, so ‘technology’ doesn’t really apply. Still, if she had to pick, probably the abacus. While she can do math decently fast in her head, her memory can be spotty, so the abacus really helps!

When did they lose their virginity?

Constance lost her virginity at age 20 on her wedding night with her first husband, Orin Gustav Spiegler.

Was there anything their parents pushed them to do? (e.g. sports, theatre, band)

Her mother urged her to learn French (which she didn’t love or hate). She was much more passionate about mathematics and physics.

Describe your muse’s worst nightmare.

Losing her mother or loved ones. When her father (Arthur) passed away, it was said all of New York heard her wail that day. Once she marries Ebenezer, she’s terrified of losing him as well. Once she has children, she’s terrified of losing them. “You can’t die before me - I can’t make it alone!”

What is a deal-breaker when it comes to dating someone?

Physical violence or a desire for non-con activities. This is in addition to the list of other things like…being a murderer, etc.

What was the most embarrassing moment in your muse’s life?

She is horribly embarrassed of likenesses painted when she was a young girl. She was an awkward little thing (beaver teeth, cowlicked bangs, the works). She truly believes there are no ugly people in the world…except her when she was a child, as heartbreaking as that is.

What keeps your muse up at night?

Silly things, usually. Her mind has a hard time slowing down. She’ll roll over and be like, “Hey. Do you think sharks sleep? If they do…do they sink? That sounds sad.”

What chronic illnesses does your muse have, if any?

Chronic pain from two broken femurs from a nasty fall down the stairs.

Does your muse get carsick seasick?

Thankfully, no! She actually has a pretty strong stomach when it comes to food, drink and travel!

Does your muse wear glasses/contacts?

Nope!

What are some warning signs that your muse is getting depressed? 

If Constance is silent, something is wrong. If she stops taking care of herself (doesn’t bathe, clean teeth, change clothes) things are REALLY wrong.

What is your muse’s favorite candy?

Not a candy, but she like sarsaparilla. She’s a bigger fan of baked goods, where raspberry tarts and sugar cookies are her favorite.

Does your muse have a “victory song” and if so, what is it?

She loves anything by Mozart, so I’d say anything by him.

Who do they tend to bicker with the most?

Probably her mother, because they’ve known each other the longest. It’s always playful bickering though, never serious.

Has your muse ever been hospitalized or institutionalized? 

After Orin pushed her down the stairs, she was hospitalized for an extended period. She was also previously hospitalized for an attempted s*icide. In both cases, doctors were paid off by her ex-husband to keep media coverage quiet.

Does your muse pray, whether it be to a god or some other force?

Constance really isn’t the praying type. Not that she doesn’t keep people in her thoughts or wish them well, but since religion wasn’t big part of her life, it’s not an action she defaults to. That being said, she is a believer in karma.

Has your muse ever lived in poverty?

No, never. She recognizes her privilege and is very thankful of that.

Do they have any distinct voice mannerisms? (e.g. saying ‘like’ or ‘um’ a lot, stutters) 

Her New York accent comes out more strongly when she’s frantic or scared.

Where are your muse’s ancestors from? Do they keep any of their traditions?

Connie was adopted at age two by her parents, Theresea and Arthur DoGoode. She knows nothing of her family before them – not her lineage, not her ethnicity, not her ancestry, not her bloodline, nothing.

When did your muse learn about sex?

Her parents were quite progressive and made sure she was educated on sex once she reached you adolescence.

What is your muse most thankful for?

Her family and loved ones. She truly treasures the people in her life.

What shoe size is your muse?

I….have not thought of this before. Haha. Um…7.5?

Does your muse hate their middle name? \ What is it?

She likes her middle name! It’s ‘Albany.’ It’s unconventional, in her mind! A fun conversation-starter, for sure.

How many hours a day do they spend on the internet/watching TV?

Yeah, 1800s London, haha. She reads when she can, but since she’s an extrovert and a workaholic, she tends to spend more time socializing with company than spending time alone with entertainment like music or books.

Does your muse have any trophies?

She graduated from a women’s college in Maine, which was a monumental achievement at the time!

If your muse was given the opportunity to go sky diving, would they?

Probably not. She’s outgoing and vibrant, but only really daring if she has to be.

What is the most common lie your muse tells themselves?

“It’ll be fine!”

Has your muse ever had a pet? If so, what type?

She had a brown cat growing up named Sugar.

Who was your muse’s first kiss?

Connie’s first kiss was another female classmate in school. Her name was Cecile, and one day, the two girls skipped French lessons to get fresh in a closet. Many were jealous of Cecile that day, haha.

What is your muse’s first memory?

Seeing the giant Christmas trees across New York during the holidays. Her parents would buy fresh donuts, and the three would go on long walks, hand-in-hand, to watch the lightings and decorations. This was also when the little girl experienced her first snowfall.

How does your muse feel about crocs?

She would hate them, lmao. She is NOT the kind of person to insult anyone’s outfit or taste (unless you’re a jerk, then you’ve earned it) but she is very much a “I will wear six-inch heels gardening” girl, so casual/comfort isn’t her thing. Not bad, just not her thing.

What are your muse’s biggest pet peeves?

Of someone tries to talk to her while she’d working or trying to work through problems, she will get short really quick. Not exactly angry, but definitely snippy.

What was your muse’s happiest birthday?

Her 40th birthday, because a few days later, she gave birth to her first child with her second (and final) husband, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Does your muse cross their legs/ankles when they sit?

She constantly crosses her legs, even though it makes her pain flare up. Old habits die hard.

What simple task is your muse surprisingly bad at?

Walking. She’s a klutz. She’ll fall, topple, trip multiple times a day. She always laughs it off, but it does give Ebenezer a scare every time.

Did your muse ever own a Tamagatchi?

No, but she would have LOVED them.

What was your muses’s first job?

In her late teen’s she cut her teeth in the banking scene by working as a secretary in one of her father’s offices in New York.

Does your muse usually go for truth or dare?

DARE, 1000% She always immediately regrets it (one time, eating five dandelions on a dare) but always proceeds to choose ‘dare’ again the next time anyway.

Has your muse ever been to a concert?

Constance adored symphonies and operas, and goes as often as she can. Once she and Ebenezer begin their courtship, and after they marry, the theater is a common place to find the couple.

What is your muse’s favorite holiday?

New Year’s! She loves the glitz, the glamor, the parties, etc.!

Does your muse reply to scary chain emails/messages?

Nope. She’s not superstitious, so in the trash those letters go!

Describe the first person your muse remembers losing.

She doesn’t remember her parents leaving her, but she does remember the loss of her father Arthur. She spent days weeping, then weeks in near silence.

Would your muse ever roleplay?

OH YES. Constance loves social engagement theater, flamboyant trends, singing – all these things would culminate into her being a perfect roleplay partner!

What is your muse’s Hogwarts house?

I know nothing about Harry Potter, so I’m gonna skip this one, lmao. I have absolutely no clue which I’d choose for her.

What is your muse’s first thought upon waking up?

Not really a thought, just…an appreciation for being alive. This comes after her divorce from Orin. Before they separated, her thoughts were much darker, although she never expressed them publicly.

Name a song your muse can sing every word to. 

She loves party songs and other nursery rhymes. She also has a soft spot for sea shanties.

Who would your muse sacrifice themselves for, if anybody?

Her mother, Ebenezer, and (really) all her close friends/family and their children. When Orin threatens Tiny Tim with violence unless Constance comes to him, she does so willingly and without a second for her own life.

Also, for lost animals. If a dog was stuck on the train tracks, she’d hop down to save it. A dumpster on fire with a cat screaming inside? She’ll jump into trash.

How long is your muse’s penis? || What bra size is your muse?

Ah, the subject of many tabloid gossip columns across New York and London, haha! Well, it’s a secret, of course! 😉

If your muse could rid the world of one thing, what would it be?

Abuse, in every form. Predation. Cruelty. Psychological.

#headcanons #oc constance dogoode #scrooge x oc