#where did my girlhood go

[yaku-soba]

hello I really love ur work!!! & I really want to reblog them but I was wondering if u'd be okay getting them reblogged on an nsfw one??? (my fandom one isn't MAINLY smut but u know akdhajdh)

ahh sure idm!! this is actl the first time i've been asked this but im over 18 now so go ahead HAHA and thanku for liking my writing!! i've been having a crisis over it recently :"')

#i feel so old #where did my girlhood go #😭😭 #kyouka answers

[supercityboys]

Oh. I’m cooking dinner for my family while my landlord is fixing things around my house… y’all… I think I’m an adult

#mine #oooooooooooooooohhhhhh noooooooooooo #where did the time go??????? #I just had a birthday I’m barely an adult help #I put away groceries then cleaned the house and started cooking and paid the rent oooooh my girlhood is fucking over

[loveharlow]

i wanted to write a blurb inspired by this scene so i did🤭 girlhood!

domestic violence, dad!rafe

You were awoken by the sound of your daughters cries, loud and incessant. It was Rafe's turn — his night to take care of the midnight tantrums.

But a brief feel on his side of the bed told you he'd left the spot not too long ago, the sheets still slightly warm. You edged one eye open, making sure that he wasn't there before sighing and throwing the covers off of yourself.

Trotting over to the cradle where your three-month old daughter laid, throwing a fit, you shushed her. Picking the infant up out of the structure to rock her calmly, her cries dying out.

Once she was tame enough, you laid her in the automated rocker to be able to leave the room and make her a bottle, hopefully finding your husband on the way there.

One foot out of the bedroom door told you he was in the living room, the light radiating down the hall. You rolled your eyes, taking swift, angry steps towards the living area until you were right next to Rafe — the man on his knees, sniffing a line of coke in nothing but a tank-top and sweatpants.

He made a quick side-glance in your direction but continued his recreational activities. The mere disregard for your presence made you angry, angry enough that you snatched the credit card he was using to separate the lines from his hand, blowing the remaining drugs off of the table.

He stood up swiftly, looming over you with angry eyes. "The fuck are you doin'?" He spat, reaching for the card in your hand only for you to snatch it away further.

"What the fuck are you doing?" You retorted. "Did you not hear your daughter crying? Or your lines just couldn't wait?"

"I was gonna get her eventually-"

"After you'd ingested a crackhead's year supply of coke?"

"You're being...dramatic." He rolled his eyes, motioning for the item still clutched between your fingers. "Just give me my shit back, alright?"

"No." You said sternly, turning on your heel to head for the kitchen when a fist grabbed a handful of your hair, neck craning dangerously as Rafe used the hold to yank you against his chest.

"Give it to me." He growled against your ear, snatching the card from your hand and roughly shoving you away. "You already blew half my shit off the table..." He muttered. "I was gonna make her a bottle after, you just had to go and throw a fuckin' tantrum. Maybe you're the one who needs the bottle..."

"What I need is a husband who doesn't act like he has shit for brains."

"You wanna say that shit again?" He challenged, stepping into your space.

"What, so you can hit me? Go ahead, you can put it in the same spot as last time. Or are you trying to fill up the whole canvas?" You snarked.

You knew you regretted it when his free hand wound around your neck, squeezing tightly. Your own hand went up, desperately clawing at his. He used his hold on your neck to push you up against the nearest wall. "Watch that mouth of yours or it'll be the next thing I hit you in? You understand?"

You reluctantly nodded, as much as you could, taking in an appreciative gulp of air as he released you and let you slide to the floor, breathing heavily and clawing at the wooden tiles. You didn't notice that a couple stray tears had left your eyes until they hit the floor.

"Get yourself together and feed my daughter." He demanded, dismissing your distress. "Don't you hear her crying?"

©loveharlow.

#rafe cameron x kook!reader #rafe angst #rafe outer banks #rafe cameron #rafe x you #rafe fanfiction #rafe smut #rafe x reader #rafe imagine #rafe fic #rafe cameron x reader #rafe obx #outerbanks rafe #drew starkey fanfiction #drew starkey

[luveline]

𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 | 𝐞𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

You don’t mean to make an enemy of Eddie Munson — he’s handsome, and talented, but he’s the biggest jerk you’ve ever met. Eddie thinks you’re infuriatingly pretty, emphasis on the infuriating. Too bad you just can’t seem to leave each other alone. [13k]

fem!reader, enemies-to-lovers, rival rockstars, mutual pining (and hatred), slight miscommunication, angst, hurt-comfort, eddie has mixed intentions, kissing / heavy petting, hickeys, sexual tension, eventual hate-fucking, some misogyny (not eddie), TW readers bandmate is a bully, TW drugs/alc/smoking, disclaimer: I can’t play an instrument

𓆩❤︎𓆪

Indianapolis International Airport, Indiana, Late 1988.

There's a really sweet-looking boy sitting in the chair across from you. The airport is blotted out by both your headphones —huge chunky cans, the best you could afford— and your sunglasses. He's a shade of sepia from the lenses, dark hair darker still where it's tucked into the hood of his hoodie. 

There's no way he could possibly know you're staring at him while you're facing your lap, scribbling lyrics for a song that'll never get made with your body curled inwards, and yet he looks up from the novel in his. He smiles, his cheeks pulled up, and he looks younger. He isn't old by any means but something about his smile is transformative. 

You don't mean to give yourself away. You smile back just a little. 

He says something. You push your headphones around your neck and break the seal, soft 70's rock replaced by the sounds of the airport, footsteps and clicking and children laughing somewhere behind you. 

"I'm sorry," you say, covering the cans of your headphones to cut their weak buzzing, "what did you say?" 

"I said you have good taste."

He nods toward your guitar case patterned in overlapping band stickers. 

You notice his own case on the seat next to him. It's more conspicuous than your own with only one sticker, a band you've never heard of. 

"I wish I could say the same, but I don't know who that is, 'Corroded Coffin'?" you ask, purely curious. 

He sits forward, a picture of casual confidence as he drops his face into his palm, elbow digging into the ripped jeans covering his knee. "I'm offended, sweetheart. They're only the best sound to come out of Indiana in the last ten years." 

"The Stacey's?" you offer, scandalised by his suggestion. "Doorway to Cooperstown? The Cats?" 

He blinks at you. "You know the scene." 

"It's my scene," you say.

You don't mean to sound pretentious, and hopefully you don't, but music is your life. 

"It's mine, too," he says. He leans forward and scrubs a hand through his hair, scratching absentmindedly. "Where are you going? Must be pretty important to tear you away." 

"New York. I'm– I'm a techie for Godless. I will be, once I get there." You sound smug and nervous at the same time.

"Holy shit," he says. He smiles a gorgeous, awful kind of smile, like you've been friends for years, and your good news is his. "No fucking way. Go you." 

Godless have been compared to loads of bands but the one you favour is a heavier, feminine The Clash. It's an emerging sound, punk rock stolen, repurposed, and remade. Reborn by girlhood rage. You love their sound (though you have some notes), you love their statement, and you're probably the happiest you've ever been knowing you'll be behind the scenes of a new era of music. 

"And you're taking her?" he asks, gesturing to your guitar case. 

Inside is a beat up old bass guitar you got for nothing. You're self-taught, you're good, but you don't have any disillusions on what you'll be doing on tour. 

"She's worthless," you say, "mostly taking her for company." You reuse his pronouns, though you aren't the type to assign personality to your instruments. "What about you, uh–" 

"Eddie," he says, taking his guitar case into two fine hands. Your eyes snag on his ragtag assortment of rings, and he leans over the neck of the case to retake your gaze. "This… is Sweetheart." 

— 

Hotel Edison, New York, Early 1990.

"We have to go. Why are you guys never ready when I tell you to be?"

You panic slightly. "I need a minute." 

"Ananya, could you find, like, a modicum of patience? Fucking annoying." 

Sharp, Morgan's unhappiness sounds over the droning drill of your shitty hair dryer. You shift where you're kneeling in front of the floor length mirror to check she isn't talking to you — unusual, but not impossible that her hostility would be aimed at someone who isn't Ananya. 

Ananya stands in the middle of the hotel room, thick eyebrows pulled into a familiar scowl.

"Get it together," she says disdainfully, like Morgan's nothing more than a mild inconvenience. 

You wish you had her confidence when it comes to Morgan's tantrums. You stand up, clad in nothing more than underwear and a pair of black stockings, your t-shirt in one hand and the hairdryer still humming in the other. You turn it off and let it drop to the floor, worried you're just another rockstar cliche as you take in the state of your room. Your suitcase is open and your clothes are all over the place, laid flat in an attempt to dry your rain-soaked clothes. Your underwear dangle from the lampshade, a mix of pretty lingerie you've yet to wear and full-shaped panties that had made Morgan laugh for a minute, no pauses. 

"I can see why you're so desperate," she'd barbed. 

You slip your shirt over your head in case you have to act as a human shield. It's honestly not the worst thing they've had you involved in this year. 

"You're not wearing that, are you?" Morgan asks. 

She's a fascinating creature in that she isn't always talking with thinly veiled passive aggression. You genuinely believe she's looking out for you sometimes, or believe that she believes it, at least. She doesn't say it with malice, simply asks. 

She's multi-faceted. 

"No," you say, though you'd been meaning to. 

"Good, skirts really aren't your thing. You look blocky. I have a pair of flares in my bag, wear them." 

And Morgan — Morgan's the lead singer of Godless. You don't really have a choice. 

You find the pants she'd instructed you to wear and half tuck your shirt, scrabbling for your shoes as Ananya starts lamenting the time, sat on the small table by the TV.

"They have to wait for us, babe, that's the whole point," Morgan says, fussing over her eye make-up. 

"No, they don't. And we really don't need the attention right now." 

"That's dramatic." 

Ananya leans forward and clicks on the TV with a perfect finger. The screen buzzes to life. She clicks through the channels until she gets to the local news station, and then she slumps over the frame on her elbow. 

You giggle behind your hand. Onscreen, images of Morgan are blown up and slated, your bandmate sloppy drunk on the steps of Covey Gold. They've caught you red-handed in the background pretending you aren't with her, but luckily Morgan's too obsessed with herself to notice. 

"I really don't see the issue," she says breezily, slipping into her tiny heels one foot at a time. "I look sick." 

She looks stunning, easily, but that's not the problem. 

"You have a fucking snow trail," Ananya says. 

Unfortunately, Morgan's left nostril is crusted with coke. 

"It's punk rock!" Morgan's moved onto earrings now, and she's jutting her tiny pointed chin toward the door. "Hello? We're late." 

You don't roll your eyes, but you could. You slip your shoes onto your feet and tuck the laces inside without tying them while the news anchor on TV continues to relay current events. 

"Fletcher isn't the only rockstar making a mess in New York City this week. Members of up and coming heavy metal band Corroded Coffin were sanctioned by Flume Venues Tuesday night for damaging twenty six thousand dollars worth of equipment when their lead guitarist kicked over an amp and caused a quote unquote 'domino effect.'" The anchor laughs. "Their PR has certainly felt some corrosion." 

You look up at the joke and are just in time to catch a picture splayed across the screen of the band. You're so close that their faces are made up of red, blue, and green, more colour than photo. Your skin glows with the image. Your eyes widen, perplexed. 

"Do we know those guys?" you ask. 

Morgan grabs your hand and drags you up. "They know us," she says. "That's what matters." 

Ananya turns off the TV. 

You're thrilled at being included in the 'us'. You've been an unofficial official member of Godless for four months now. Each one feels more unreal than the first, and each one brings a solidity. In Ananya's words, you're on 'probation, given you can keep up', but you look at her now, her hopeless expression as she closes your room door behind you, and know she's not hoisting you off the stage anytime soon. She'd have to deal with the world's tallest toddler alone. 

Your tour manager and assorted personnel meet you in the hotel's lobby, furious and panicky at your being late. Morgan spouts the same spiel as you get shepherded into cars idling outside of the hotel.

"We're the talent. What were you gonna do, throw the gig without us?"

You're both embarrassed by her and impressed. Morgan is pretty and talented and extremely loud — she's not afraid to stick up for herself, even when she's (nearly always) wrong. She sees each hurdle in her life as an unfair disadvantage. Insanity, in your opinion, considering nearly all of those hurdles have been jumped by means of a favour, rather than any expended effort on her part. 

Her bad attitude aside, she's a good singer. She's gorgeous, exactly the kind of face that obliterates mainstream reluctance. 

She sits between you and Ananya and kicks her feet out over the console, boots between your driver and your tour manager, Angel.

"You guys can't be late like this. You have half the time you need for sound check now, you realise?" 

"I don't need practice," Morgan says. 

"It's not practice, Morgan, it's–" 

Morgan laughs and bursts into song. She does it whenever she doesn't want to listen to Angel, and she sings an apt tune: Angel by Aerosmith. You look out the window rather than watch, eyes snagging on the wet New York streets and taxis and people, so many people despite the weather, black umbrellas like inverse stars lining the sidewalks. 

Morgan has a great voice, raw when she wants it to be and full of life when she doesn't. You can't hear Angel's venue instructions under it and are barely paying attention as a lanyard gets tossed into your lap. It sounds stupid, and a few months ago you wouldn't believe it, but you get used to the motions. Ferried from one place to another, all anybody cares about is technicalities, politics, public image, and how you look on stage. All you care about is the music. Your bass guitar in your hands, that familiar weight, the strings as your pick slides across them, and the sea of the crowd. Its waves and ripples, hands and eyes and mouths like poppies, red-pink tongues and black throats at the centre as they scream. When you throw your pick people want to catch it. They fight over it. You throw a few. There's always more in a box in some poor techies bag.

The cushy car you're in pulls up and parks outside of the venue's main entrance. You climb onto a wet curb and shield the top of your hand with your head, dirty rain splashing down in fat, sparse drops that chill your scalp. Morgan blitzes inside and Ananya tags behind her. You go slower, eyes following down the sidewalk where, in a couple of hours, fans will wait to see you, shivering in the cold. 

— 

Every breath Gareth takes sucks in Eddie's short sleeved t-shirt. Eddie scowls at the top of his bandmate's head and tries to shift away. 

"Seriously, man? There's a whole fucking couch," Eddie grouches. 

Gareth sits up with bleary eyes furrowed into a scowl of his own. He's pale and missing his glasses, giving him the appearance of a concerned zombie.

"Shithead." 

Eddie has a lot of emotions he wants to express and none he feels he can properly articulate. The injustice of his current situation, for one, is a burning irritant. How the fuck can you get grounded by your manager? And why did his warden have to be the most boring member of the band? Sorry Gareth. 

"Can't you sleep in your bed?" Eddie asks. 

"You'll sneak out." 

Eddie will sneak out. He's a fledgling rockstar in New York. Suddenly, there are a hundred colourful boozy doors wide open to him, and he intends on haunting the threshold of each one accordingly. 

But you kick one amp and boom, you're the antichrist. 

"You know this is stupid." 

Gareth rubs his eyes. "I mean, do I know that?" He reaches behind the couch armrest for the two-litre bottle of soda stashed there, and he talks as he brings the lip to his mouth. "You've been a real pissant lately, Munson." 

"You're a pissant, pissant," Eddie says, really scowling now. 

Gareth kicks him across the sofa. Eddie kicks back, foot jamming into the side of Gareth's knees. Soda spills in a shoot over the carpet. Gareth is a know-it-all with a predisposition for being as unpleasant as he can possibly be at all times, in Eddie's opinion, and Eddie knows the second the soda lands what he's going to say. 

"Nice going, hotshot. This is why you're fucking grounded." 

Eddie's halfway across the sofa when the door opens, an unimpressed Jamison standing with the light behind him. He flicks on the main switch and glares, brown skin golden in the resulting yellow light. 

"What are you losers doing?" 

"I prefer the term 'freak'," Gareth says, glare softening. "I'm fending off Munson's advances, what does it look like? No means no, asshole." 

"You're disgusting," Eddie says. 

"You look disgusting," Jamison echoes. "I don't know who forgot to tell you, but they invented running water a century ago. Go shower. I'll watch baby boy." 

Eddie thinks Jamison is hot in the freaky way — Jamison is conventionally attractive, and Eddie would let him get freaky if he asked. He has a perfect complexion, the most attractive of the band by far, medium brown skin and a broad-shouldered frame. He's the eye-candy, literally; they'd admitted him into the fold based one parts on his talent, two parts his image. 

He can play piano, guitar, bass guitar, violin, all that shit. He's a musician, and he's better than Eddie at everything but the guitar. 

Nobody's better than Eddie on guitar. At least, not anybody running in his circles. 

"I can't shower, I'm watching him." 

"I'll watch him," Jamison says, like this is extremely obvious and Gareth is an idiot. 

Eddie pulls a couch cushion over his face and drags himself onto his back, whining into the fabric unhappily. "This is fucking bullshit," he mutters

"This is due diligence," Gareth says. Eddie feels his weight lift off the couch and lets his legs slide into the empty space. 

"This is fucking bullshit," he repeats. 

There's a silence. He sulks. Gareth collects toiletries and the bathroom door clicks open and closed. The shower spray begins to sputter, and then the pillow is being tugged out of Eddie's hands and tossed aside. 

"Jame," he protests. 

"Shut up." Jamison stares down at Eddie. "Are you done being a child?" 

"I already told you, it was an accident. Yeah, I kicked the amp, because my fucking string snapped and nobody would listen to me. I didn't know it was gonna actually move." 

"If we go out, can you behave?" Jamison asks quietly. 

Eddie sits up ramrod straight. "Absolutely… Why? What's so important?" 

"Jeff's asleep, I'm bored, and-" He shrugs offhandedly. "If you got 'em, flaunt 'em?" 

Jamison holds up a silver pair of car keys. They clink together, the sound music to Eddie's ears. 

—

So you and Eddie meet for the second time like this. 

“Does it have to be this loud?” you shout over the music, pleading gaze on Ananya, who shrugs. 

She looks better after a show, even drunk. Her lipstick is a pink-red with a darker but incomprehensible outline, leaving her looking kissed sick. Her dark eyebrows are ruffled and thick, their minimal gel sweated off. She has the most heartbreaking expression about her, and you think it isn’t truly fair, how she can look so pretty and be so talented at the same time. A tragedy that other people have time for both. You feel as though you barely have the time for one.

Despite the volume, you love the sound. This is your sound. Small town hatred in a big room — begging to get out and the music proof enough that you did. It’s passionate and anxious, a two-chord progression that’s boggling simplistic but drawing you in anyhow. Wrinkled noses and bored eyes say it’s not to everyone’s taste, but you’d hazard a guess that whoever plugged it into the stereo isn’t the kind of person who worries about public opinion. If Godless worked more on your choices, this is how you’d sound.  

“Whose house are we in?” you ask. 

“Babe,” Ananya says, “seriously, there’s a whole room of people who want to answer you. Go bother someone.” Else. Go bother someone else. 

She dismisses you with little more than that, slinking into the kitchen with a toss of her thick hair. The red of her corset top darkens to a bloodier shade in the mood lighting. She looks as though she’s bleeding out from the back. 

You aren’t sure Ananya’s right. You aren’t, in the eyes of the people here, anything impressive. A techie who’s been filling in isn’t anything new, no, you’re only impressive if you get to stay, if you play better than anybody else. You’re never gonna prove that under Morgan’s thumb, and you’ll never prove it without her. 

I need a bump, you think. Morgan’s coke nose flashes in your mind and you change your mind. I need something to drink. Something fucking cold, but if Ananya thinks you’ve followed her into the kitchen she’ll throw a pissy fit in front of everybody. 

The room is a gaudy yellow, a tobacco stained fingerprint over the lampshade with whorls of dirt in lines, darker patches where shadier reconciliation plays; in one corner, a bag of coke, another something worse. This had been a surprise with age rather than location, the commonplace of cocaine and the bravado of its sufferers from high school and up. You’d die for some of that cocky confidence now, numb gums and a sullen credit card. 

I need to get paid. 

The heat of a cigarette tip kisses your shoulder. In your ear, the sound of someone taking a long, slow drag, crackling paper. You turn into it slowly, looking up slower, right into the skinny face of your missing-in-action bandmate. 

“What’s up?” Morgan asks, blowing her smoke in your face. Your eyes burn. 

She’s placing the cigarette between your lips before you can answer. Whether she believes she’s tormenting you or throwing you a life raft, you’re grateful for it, sucking in a blistering breath and wincing as it floods your nose. 

You blow it away from her. 

“Ashtray?” you ask, pinching the cig between two fingers. 

“The floor’s fine.”

You raise your eyebrows, unsurprised at her cavalier suggestion and flick it still smouldering into your cupped palm. The door is perpetually open, guests flicking in and out like the froth of a cresting wave, a rushing entrance and a sluggish recession. 

“Can you get me a bag?” you ask her. 

“I’m not your daddy,” she murmurs.

“Bored already?”

“I have to be bored?”

To bother bothering you? Yes, Morgan would have to be bored. Bored or wasted, and she doesn’t seem inebriated. You place the cig between your teeth and lean your head back to look at the ceiling rather than give her the attentive watching she desires, the roof of your mouth an uncomfortable heat.

You remove it, blow all your smoke skyward, and drop your head. “How are you gonna fuck with me tonight?” you ask plainly. 

You find you aren’t asking Morgan. 

In her place stands a much taller, much more handsome face, big eyes set into pale skin. You don't recognise him at first. He wears the uniform well, in company with every other guy in the room, a crumpled shirt you imagine discarded and re-discarded on different floors. Ripped, dark jeans. He could be wearing nothing at all and the air of intimidation surrounding him would survive — there's something behind his eyes that alarms you, a knife's edge. Sweetness bordering cruelty. 

"I don't know yet," he says. An insipid smile takes his lips from corner to corner as he eases the cig from your hand. "I'm sure we can think of something… together. Sweetheart." 

Boys don't always give you the time of day, not the nice ones, and he doesn't look very nice. He looks like he's trying to calculate what he can get out of you. You're thinking you'll pay just about anything if he can get you a bump of something fun. 

He sees your look too, his lips poised to mention it, but you've just realised where you know him from. 

"I saw you on TV."

"Yeah? In Madison Square Garden?" 

"In court." You give him your best doe eyes, a soft, sweet look, far from mastered and yet effective where it counts. "How much did you have to pay for all the stuff you broke?" 

His smile shutters, realigns. A split-second and enough to let you know his cool gaze is nothing more than a parlour trick.

"You look familiar," he says. 

You hum. "Rollerboy paid, huh?" 

He glares, the idea that his record label might pay for the damages he'd caused laughable and undoubtedly correct. You aren't trying to make enemies, aren't attempting to play someone you're not — you're meek mannered, mollycoddled, too naive to be in the industry for very long. You can see it on his face, exactly what he's thinking, and it's easy to see because everybody else is thinking it too. Even you. 

Before you can repair the offence you've caused, he's dropping your stolen cigarette on the ground and grinding out the flame. 

"Nice to meet you," he says slowly. 

You stare straight ahead and listen to him leave. Smoke tickles your nose. When you look down, the cigarette is smouldering. You squat down, pick up the flattened bud, and drive it into the floor until your fingers are black with soot. 

You wrap those same ashy fingers around the neck of a bottle of coke and try not to be too pissy about it. Fucking rockstars and their fucking egos. He did something embarrassing, and you're the villain? 

You feel bad halfway through your coke. Maybe he'd had nice intentions, but how could you know? You'd talked for all of two minutes. And even if he was bad news, he likely wouldn't have been any worse than half the jerks here. 

He'd have had a handsome face to look up into while said intentions were being acted out, at least.

You frown more. Wishing you'd been nicer to him because you're bored enough to want to get laid isn't strictly kind. Human, maybe. 

The feeling worsens when his appearance garners a small crowd. He sits in a nest of dirty couch cushions and a cloud of smoke, the smell of green strong enough to irritate you from here, telling a story with frenetic hands, and despite the cool look he'd given you earlier, he's making a show of it. Cussing, giggling, blunt between his lips as he ushers for a zippo. A pretty girl with surfer curls relights it, an act of flirting in the way she pulls her shoulders in. 

He takes the blunt from between his lips and blows the smoke so it misses her completely. 

"Thanks, sweetheart," he says, voice rough as hewn stone. 

You kick one shoe behind the other and squeeze your tired thighs together. You get this feeling like a matchstick, red powdered head flicking against gritty scratchpad but failing to strike. Something is familiar about the way he speaks, his sticky inflection. 

Or you're lying to yourself, and you just like the way he talks 

The way he would've spoken, thick fingers braceleting your wrists as he forces your hands into the pillow behind your head, the weight of his body on top of yours, the snugness of a knee between your soft thighs. Your hotel light would've kissed his left side, dividing his curls into strands, the individuals glowing like silver thread as they danced over your cheek and temple, as his breath warmed your lips, as he closed the distance. 

Joan, you could hit him.

"That's an unfortunate hand. Are you sober?"

Cheeks full of heat at being caught in a fantasy, you lift your eyes and meet light, almond brown eyes almost entirely shielded by darker eyebrows. A man stands in front of you, a comfortable gap between his nondescript skate shoes and your worn boots. He's tall and pretty and surprising: he's smiling at you like you're something worth smiling at. 

"I'm–" You brandish the bottle as if that might explain it but harshly set it aside. "No, not sober. I mean, not willingly. Coke's were out here, so…" 

"Oh, right," he says, nodding knowledgeably. "Right, I was sorry to hear about that." 

You lick your lips. "'Bout what?" 

"They banned beautiful women from the kitchen," he says. "Hadn't you heard?" 

"No, that one passed me by." 

"I'm Jamison," he says, holding out his free hand. 

You take it. You tell him your name. 

—

Morgan is crying. Big heaping sobs that she attempts to talk through, creating this ringing whining sound that fills you top to toe with anxiety. You lean back in your hotel bed, wondering what it is in the world that could've happened to her as a kid to make her this unsatisfied now. Ananya blows on her freshly painted nails though they've been dry for hours, knee to knee with you atop the squishy hotel sheets. 

"I can't fucking do this," Morgan cries, tears dripping down her bare skinned cheeks. 

The three of you have been sworn off of makeup, junk food, and unapproved wash products for the next four to five hours. You're happy for this to continue until the end of time. Morgan, less so. 

You're trying to decipher exactly why she's crying, feeling a confusion you'd liken to the first modern day archaeologist that laid eyes on ancient hieroglyphics. All these symbols and colours and stories. No clear translation. 

If Ananya were an archaeologist, she's the kind who got to see the Rosetta stone. Morgan's moods make sense to her, and while she often doesn't empathise with her, she at least knows what to say to appease the worst of it. 

"It'll be alright, Morgs," she says, her faux sympathy unconvincing.

You feel a little sorry for Morgan and clear your throat. "And you're not by yourself. We're here." 

"Fucking amazing help you've been," Morgan says. Her voice does a theatrical peak, pure hysterics. 

It irks you how good she looks. You think that, maybe, if you could make your problems pretty the way that she does, you'd be a lot happier overall. You've often lamented that you suffer the kind of unhappiness that makes people uncomfortable and unwilling. You cry ugly, and always alone, hands over your mouth to smother the sounds, and that's when you do cry. Mostly, you bounce around inside yourself and feel very afraid that this feeling is forever. 

But, you think presently, that isn't Morgan's fault. Not all of it. 

Morgan throws her hands out at you and Ananya and spins on her heel, through the bathroom and into her own separate room. 

"At least the backdrop of her breakdown is nice," you murmur, hugging the pillow against your stomach, heels digging into the mattress to keep your knees up. 

Ananya snorts and flicks to the next page of her magazine. "Right?" She stretches her naked legs out over your sheets. You know she's decided to ruin your bed with her after-waxing oils rather than her own. "Better here than back home." 

"Why's she so upset?" you ask. 

Already, your thoughts are starting to drift. You take another peek at the phone across the room and will it into ringing. 

"She draws them on everyday anyway," Ananya says agreeably. 

You summarise that Morgan's eyebrows are the root of the problem. You don't blame her for wanting to look perfect tomorrow night. Your stomach is a weight every time you think about it, solid as petrified wood. This will be your first TV appearance that isn't a recorded concert, a mid-show performance for the Prover Music Awards, and it should further cement your place in the band. If you look good and people like you, public favour might be enough to keep you around. If they don't, there'll be a couple hundred different audience members with industry links. If you play well, and you're certain you will, you might finally prove to Morgan, Ananya, and the rest of the management team that you're worth choosing. 

You want it badly. You want lots of things, and being a real part of Godless could hand them all to you on a studded platter. Recognition of your talent, further experience, the chance to perform and be supported, to be adored, and the money isn't something you'll pretend you don't think about. A rockstar's salary is hardly stable, but a lack of stability is almost always supplemented by the amount. Wouldn't that be nice? To buy your own bass, to buy whatever you liked. To go out and have spa treatments like the one you'd had just this morning whenever you please. To get to feel beautiful and limp as this all the time. More than anything, you want the validation, the poster that comes with it. 

If Godless decides to keep you, it's a huge, blinking, neon-lit sign that says you're good enough. 

They chose me, and you're stupid for letting me go. 

They chose me. I'm something worth something. You didn't see it, but it's there in me. 

The subtext isn't important. 

You're scared shitless at the reality of performing tonight, knowing any fuck up could follow you, or worse ruin your hopefully budding career in rock for the rest of time. You have this body and this name, and if you want to keep your life you have to be good. It has your fingers itching for your piece-of-shit bass guitar where you know she's hiding under the bed. You should be practising, but this entire week has been practising. The dress rehearsal went well, and you'll give yourself a pass for having certain distractions. 

Morgan warbles. You glance at the phone. 

"Waiting for someone?" Ananya asks. She misses nothing. 

You both wince as Morgan screams and throws something across her bedroom, the eventual clattering smash indicative of a fragile target. 

"Think room service will send up a sedative?" she asks. 

Room service won't send a sedative, nor will they send the single hashbrown Morgan is apparently craving. You're starting to panic when the solution practically jumps at you. 

"Morgan," you say gently, standing in the doorway of her room with a tentative smile, "can't offer you something, can I?" 

You hold up your little pouch. Morgan doesn't know you well, but she knows it's where you keep anything interesting. She should know, she pilfers it of anything truly exciting within the day. 

"Don't be stupid," she scathes. "My eyes will be bloodshot. You know smoking doesn't agree with me." 

You hold in a comment on how she'd literally been smoking out of the window last night. 

"It's a brownie. It's a couple days old, but… perfectly edible." You offer her the pouch, dropping it at the end of the bed among her things. 

She picks at the brownie, timid princess bites that make you want to roll your eyes. You often think the worst thing about Morgan is that you love her, or you could love her more, if only she felt the same way. She isn't all evil and she never will be, she's just a person. But she takes shit out on you and makes your life harder than it needs to be, so even her most endearing moments fall short. 

"This tastes awful." 

You laugh and kneel down at her dresser to start putting her thrown jewellery box back together. "It wasn't that nice when I got it," you lie. 

You clean her room. Morgan never wants to do anything she knows can be done for her, and you know she won't bother here, not when room service will spend the hour it takes themselves. You think of some poor service worker squaring away the impossible amount of stockings and garters for a sad $3.45 an hour and the task suddenly becomes much more enjoyable. 

Morgan doesn't say thank you. You don't insult her intelligence by thinking she isn't aware of what you're doing. She sniffles and blows her nose daintily with a balsam tissue. 

"I saw you talking to that guy from Corroded Coffin." 

You brush off your knees as you stand. "Which one?" 

"Eddie. The rhythm guitarist." 

"The loud one." 

"He's kind of hot. If he calls, you should go out with him." 

"That's not–" who I'm waiting for. You squint at her. "Morgan, that would be terrible." 

"Can you get me something from the minibar?" 

You kick open her minibar and grab a cold can of seltzer. She slides onto her back and accepts it, pressing it to her eyes with a relaxed smile. Eyebrows forgotten, it seems. 

"That would be perfect. He can be the cat to your mouse." 

"Your definition of perfect–" You cut yourself off again when she starts to laugh. You don't believe it to be genuine. 

She lounges in bed for an hour until she's high, reappearing in you and Ananya's suite with a dizzying smile. You don't mind high Morgan. She's smoked enough in her time to bypass the dizzying, giggly kind of stoner. This Morgan is relaxed, almost easygoing. She sits at the end of your bed and watches you pluck out a bass line proposal for one of their current works in progress, head bobbing. 

An hour again and the stylists appear to spray you down with smells and oils and make up, and soon you've been strapped into a short shining dress with a cowl neck, dark black stockings that shine like oil, and heels you can't really walk in. You complain about them politely enough that Mel, the man in charge of your 'costuming', swaps them out for shorter ones. 

"This fucking corset is a nightmare," Morgan grumbles. 

"Sorry, love, that's all we've got." 

The commute is over in a blink. You arrive outside of the venue for the Awards, staring up at its imposing silhouette against the skyline, a dark building in the strange blue night. The sun is unseen but light illuminates the wet streets in blinding patches, so white they glow violet behind your eyes. 

There's a modest red carpet where you thankfully don't have to pose for many photos. After all, besides being a temporary member of the stage, you aren't truly in Godless. Most casual fans (the majority of their fan base) only know the faces in the magazines and on TV, and you have yet to be in either until tonight. 

After a bundle of shy and regretfully nerve-wracking photos, you're drawn inside the building and away from all the flashing hubbub. You sit in your seats, short rows divided by the occasional table for drinks, and you try not to sink into the carpeted floor. It smells insanely like nothing at all. No bleach, no air conditioning cleanliness. Every now and then another guest walks past your row and you get a whiff of perfume. 

A familiar scent pricks your attention. 

You look up, slightly over your shoulder, and your eyes meet familiar sticky brown. 

He drops down in the seat next to you, and you think, No way. 

He holds up the placard that had been under his thigh. His name is typed in clear blocked letters. 

It's a strange humiliation to have been read for filth like that. You're you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me expression can be pretty telling, evidently. 

"Hey, sweetheart." 

Matchstick against the box. You tilt your head and try to place him for the tenth time. 

"Have we met before?" you ask. 

He actually grins like this is the best thing you could've said. "You met my friend," he says, pointing down the aisle. 

Jamison stands talking to a woman who is admittedly gorgeous, and, to your sinking horror, much prettier than you. They kiss each other on the cheek and it's the kind of over friendly to make you sick. 

Eddie pouts at you. "Better luck next time, sweet thing." He throws one leg over another. "You look different. New haircut?" 

"You look exactly the same," you say. 

It's surprising how untouched he is. Sure, he's had some makeup applied and his hairs been tousled into life, but his outfit is remarkable in its simplicity. Surely rockstars can wear suits too? He looks neat and dark and tidy, but he also looks effortless. It's irritating.

This phenomena is not self contained, you find, as his bandmates sit down the row with their managerial chaperones and one date. Jamison sits right at the very end. He doesn't look at you. 

You avert your eyes and wonder if it's possible to die from embarrassment. 

The venue gets increasingly busy as the bigger names and bands flood inside. Soon, you're sitting amongst legends, people who pretty much spearheaded late 80s glam rock, punk, grunge. People you've only ever seen on TV. And it isn't restricted to alternative sound, there are pop stars and their supermodel girlfriends shaking hands and kissing cheeks in the row behind, while producers with names big enough to make your mouth dry up clap each other on the shoulders in front. 

"You'll catch flies." 

You turn to Eddie. He doesn't sound entirely cruel. He doesn't sound like much of anything. You could almost believe him to be a friend. 

There's a smudge of eyeliner on his cheek. 

"You have–" You point at your own cheek, a mirror. 

His lightness fades. "Nice." 

"No, seriously, you have something. Make up, on your cheek. I have a wipe if you want it." 

He scrubs at his cheek ineffectually. 

You're reaching out to help before you can stop yourself, witnessing your own actions with a strange out-of-body horror as you wipe the small black line gently. It spreads, and you panic and dab at it until it's an unfortunate grey shadow. 

"Let me get the wet wipe," you say. You'd been holding your breath, awkwardness stiff between you, and it sounds too much like a laugh. 

Eddie flinches away from your touch and covers his cheek. "I got it," he says stonily. 

He leaves, stepping over his bandmates feet like stepping stones, earning a cacophony of protests and disparagments. 

Dick, you think. Again, that had been a little bit your fault. Not all of it, he seems to be in a perpetual bad mood that can't be your doing, but you can understand why he might think you were laughing at him, and the defensiveness that comes with it. When he comes back you'll apologise. 

Or that's what you tell yourself. The lights go down, the curtains open, and the venue erupts with applause. By the time Eddie takes his seat again you're too afraid of disturbing the quiet. 

After half an hour you're ushered backstage. You have to move in front of Eddie and the rest of Corroded Coffin as you go. 

He looks up at you in silence. Head tipped back, face barely lit by the lights while you stand in between his legs. His lips part and he's all rockstar, his brown eyes and their edging of straight dark lashes, his pink, pretty lips. He has a distinct line to his nose, a cupid's bow perfectly shaped. His maker must have looked at him and known somebody, somewhere, would want to kiss him right there. His lips twitch. 

"Can I help you?" he whispers. 

You stammer a response that won't form and Morgan shoves you. 

"Fucking move," she says. 

His expression flickers. 

"Sorry," you say, unsure of who you're talking to. "Sorry." You sound pathetic. A kicked puppy. 

You keep your eyes on the floor until you're in the aisle, where a new set of nerves tries to swallow you whole.

—

Eddie knows exactly who you are, and he hates himself for it. He remembers you, the first you, shy and sweet and so excited, sitting pretty in Indianapolis International Airport with your guitar and your huge leaky headphones pounding death metal. While fame has broadened the amount of people who want to sleep with him, it hasn't changed his type, and you'd been a ringer, right there in the middle. 

You'd been pretty and maybe you knew it, maybe you didn't, it didn't matter — what he liked most was the way your hands had moved as you spoke, hummingbird thrumming, an energy he'd seen in himself and every other musician desperate for a chance. He loved the passion and your eyelashes and the way you'd smiled as you'd waited for your plane, the two of you destined for New York, where you both seem to have looped back now. Only, he'd been cursed with remembering your every detail, and you either didn't remember him or don't care. Both sting, but he likes the second better. He'll take purposeful cruelty over the casual any day. 

Like your thumb pressed to his cheek. The heat, and then your laugh. 

"The fuck is this?" Gareth asks, leaning over the space between their two chairs. 

Eddie looks up at you on stage and shrugs. While bands made up completely of women aren't new, they aren't as common as bands made up of men, obviously. He likes it, likes your sound, though it's not the kind of thing Corroded Coffin would ever play, and he won't join in on Gareth's doubt. Even if you are, like, a magnanimous shithead. You're good. 

"She's hot," he furthers. 

"Jesus, Gareth." 

"What? She's fucking hot." 

He has to squint to see you from this distance, and he can't truly make out many details. Gareth's not wrong. You're pretty, and out of the three members of the band you're the only one who actually looks like they're having a good time. 

The lead singer trails around the stage pulling Blond Ambition poses. She can sing well, she has a strong voice that does whatever it is she bends it into, but her propensity to drop the guitar slung around her neck to grab at the microphone stand like it's escaping isn't helping anything. 

The girl on drums is arguably given a pass, fighting to keep up with the pace, sweat sticking her thick hair to her neck in glossy spirals and her huge eyes set in concentration. Her messy lipstick sparkles under the stage lights, a party pink that pops against her brown skin. 

He thinks you might be trying to cover up the lead singer's sloppy playing. You're good, sure, but it's not the easiest to tell when it's ragtag and rough like this. Only because he's watching does he notice your pick slipping between strings to the floor, and your willingness to strum with the sides of your fingertips. He likes that. The dedication is hot. 

"I've never seen a girl on drums who didn't look like a guy," Gareth says. "She's killer. Think I can get her number?" 

Eddie groans. "No, you fucking loser." 

"I was just asking." 

You bounce around and Eddie shifts in his seat, annoyed that he'd assumed you were the one Gareth was talking about. 

He claps for you when the song is over and hates how you return to your seat during the break, back in your cute dress and beaming, practically dripping in deodorant and post-show adrenaline. 

You apologise again as you step over him, and if there's one thing he doesn't want from you it's a sorry. Twice now you've spoken to him in the last week and twice you've made fun of him like some plaything under your thumb. Eddie isn't in the habit of being under anyone's anything. Apologies feel like salt in the wound, even though he knows you aren't saying sorry for the stuff that's pissing him off.

"What the fuck was that?" Lead girl asks you, sounding about as uptight as she looks as she climbs over your leg. "What were you doing?" 

"Morgan, I don't know if you noticed, but you didn't play half of the song," you say defensively, the skirt of your gem-encrusted dress glancing off of his thigh. The gems are tiny, like pinprick stars in country night skies. They shine purple, green, orange. 

Morgan holds her hand up for an attendant. When one approaches, she says, "Appletini," and nothing else, waving dismissively. She pulls at her stockings and doesn't notice the ladder she makes near the calf. "You're here to play what you're given." 

"I did." 

"And only that." 

Your silence speaks volumes. What he'd thought to be an edge in Godless' sound may have been an improvisation, something Eddie personally applauds. 

"Christ," Morgan says, "you're more trouble than you're worth. I hope you know that." 

Eddie believes the sting of her barb to be in the presentation rather than the words themselves, though what she'd said is hardly kind. She looks away from you as she says it, like she's giving instruction far below her station. Factual, concise. 

You barely wince. The lights dim, and he watches you contend with how you're feeling from the corner of his eye.

Eddie isn't evil. You may have gotten off on the wrong foot, and he's definitely holding his resentment at being forgotten tight to his chest, but nobody deserves to get shit on like that. You'd played well, you'd had a great time, and that should be commended. What's worse, your lack of a reaction tells him this is a common occurrence. 

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," you say. 

Morgan waves you away like she had the waitress. You stand, and you say, "Excuse me," to every person you pass. Eddie put his hand on the back of his chair to follow you up toward the back of the room where the sign for the bathrooms glows green. 

He sets his eyes back on the stage and begs himself to stay sitting. Corroded Coffin's nomination for best up and comer has already passed, a loss, and there's no reason he can't nip to the bathroom himself. There's also no reason he should go after you. 

Fuck it, he thinks. 

What could go wrong? What could go wrong, outside of the women's bathroom, where he has so obviously followed you, where he waits for you like some creeper trying to paw one off on you. He can't hear anything but the running tap. For a moment he thinks you haven't come here to collect yourself after all, you'd needed to pee, which makes his situation that much awkwarder. 

Stuck between indecision, he leans against the wall between the women's and men's and digs for a cigarette. His pockets are empty, a precaution for exactly this moment. You can't smoke in the Prover Theatre, pissant.

You appear and blitz past him. 

"Hey," he says before you can go too far, "d'you have a card?"

You turn on your heel. Hands already in your purse, you dig out an unopened box of cigarettes and offer it to him. You don't look as though you've been crying or anything like it, but you don't look him head on, so he keeps his theory. 

Eddie peels the plastic off of your box and slaps the end against his chest for good measure. 

"I don't think you can smoke in here," you say finally. Your voice is tired. 

He raises his eyebrows and peers down into the box, pulling a cigarette free and sliding it between his lips. He holds out his hand for a lighter and you give it to him, already waiting with it between two fingers. 

He lights it, inhales sharply, and passes you back your carton and lighter with a clouded, "Thanks." 

"Yeah." 

He's surprised when you don't move. You stand there and watch him smoke, whorls of pearly smoke dissecting the air between you, spider-webs over your pert face. You're waiting for what he doesn't know, so he'll give you something. He's nice. 

"She's a piece of work." 

You shift uneasily. 

"I'm not the feds," he says, pulling the cig from his lips to talk unfettered.

"Forgive me for wondering if you have my best interests at heart." 

He beams at you, really smiles, startled and enamoured by your sharp tongue. "Now why wouldn't I?" 

You don't say anything, only pull at the neckline of your dress in what's likely a nervous habit. He gets a flash of the top of your chest and looks away. He thinks you're beautiful in a rather understated way, and he doesn't not want to see what it is you're showing, but he knows you don't actually mean to be so forward. He might be an asshole, but he's not like that. 

It's quiet here in the foyer, like standing outside the doors of the movie theatre. You can hear the announcement of a new category, the roaring applause. The hallway and the bathrooms feel cordoned off from it in a strange way, an uncanny energy that has him on internal tenterhooks. 

"You always let her treat you like that?"

"Like what?" 

He steps toward you because the distance feels unnecessary. "Like that. Like you're a dog." 

"Fuck you, I do not." 

He pouts, the taste of smoke thick on his tongue. 

"What would you know?" you ask.

"Besides hearing it all fucking night, nothing. You must like that shit." 

Your eyes go wide. He hadn't meant to say it. There's a light behind them now, some life, something to cover up that shitty wounded despondency you'd been wearing. Your hands bunch in the soft skirt of your dress, shaking. He's touched a nerve. 

"I must like it," you quote, strained.

"Woof. Do you do any tricks, or is it just the one?" 

He doesn't mean for it to happen this way, he wants it on the record. He's a dick, he's a loser, whatever, he hadn't meant to argue but he will. And, you know, there may be a slight possibility that he isn't as sure in himself as he appears, and that there are nerves he keeps too close to the surface, too. 

"You can teach me one of yours, if you want," you offer, voice tight with annoyance, "I'm thinking smug asshole picks easy target, but I'm open to other options." 

That's funny. He takes another step toward you, another, your cigarette between his lips smouldering at the tip as he inhales through his smirk. 

"Yeah, like what?" he asks, smoke licking your cheeks as he breathes out. 

"How you get your head through the door might be a good place to start." 

He waits for you to explain, knowing the silence will force you to fill it. 

"You know, considering you're in the exact same place as me, only one of us performed tonight and it isn't the one acting like God's gift." 

"You think they invited you to play because you're good?" he asks, feigning an earnest tone.

"I know exactly why they didn't ask you." You hike the strap of your purse higher up your shoulder, chin lifted in a snooty superiority that makes his heart pound. "Wannabe rookie who had too much smoke blown up his ass and thinks he's somebody. But you're not," you say. "You're a child. They've seen a hundred guys just like you in the Indiana circuit."

"You're a jumped up fucking groupie that got lucky," he says.

The light behind your eyes dims. He takes that last step, the step that's gonna put you shoe to shoe. 

He should stop now, he would, but suddenly his anger is real, this isn't strictly fun anymore. He says what he knows is gonna hurt you. 

"You're a stand-in, a temp who's already overstayed her welcome." He flicks the tower of ash between your heels. You follow it down, watch as it settles into the fibres of the carpeting. "You're a burnout waiting to happen." 

Your breathing is loud in his ears. Slightly too fast. 

"You don't know anything," you murmur. 

"If it barks like a dog, and it heels like a dog," he says, pausing, words coming out thick and slow, "it's a dog."

Your face flares with hurt. You're gone before he can say anything else. 

He's glad for it. Honestly, he's not sure what else he would've said, and later, he'll regret this, regret blowing up at you, regret following you out here and making you feel worse when he'd wanted the opposite. But tonight he's lit up from the inside out, your words a reverberation. A hundred guys just like you.

"Yeah, right," he says to himself, scoffing with a surety he doesn't feel. 

—

Donington Park, England, August 1990

"I'd be a little more excited if I knew they weren't desperate this year," Jamison's saying, "that's all." 

"They're hardly desperate." 

"Last time they had KISS, Iron Maiden, Megadeth." Jamison sighs and falls back into the couch, muttering about the stale smell before continuing, "and this year, what do they have? Poison? Thunder? Who cares." 

Eddie thinks he might actually have an opponent for biggest ego right now. 

"You know they put Godless bigger on the poster," Jeff says with a bright smile. 

"Can we not talk about them for one fucking day?" Eddie pleads. 

He's a little disappointed at the lineup too, but that doesn't make this entire festival a bust. Monster of Rock may not be the most prestigious event they've ever attended but it's still impressive to be asked to play here, and this is only Corroded Coffin's third festival. Eddie's a smug bastard and even he knows Jamison sounds like a bitch. Besides that, he's so, so tired of talking about Godless. 

"They finally stopped stringing that poor girl along. What was her name?" Jeff asks, clicking his fingers. "Eddie, you know, the one who said she didn't know you in the magazines?"

"What?" Eddie asked. "They cut her?" 

Jamison sits up, eyes lit with mirth. "What's it matter to you, heartthrob?" 

"It doesn't." 

He's not being truthful. His bandmates are all unkind, and none extend the generosity of pretending they believe him. 

"Nah, she's not cut, she's official. Writing credits on the new album and everything, 'cordin to Rolling Stone." 

"You have it?" Eddie asks.

Jeff laughs at him but digs it out of his suitcase, brandishing it all rolled up. 

"Shit better not be sticky," Eddie mutters under his breath. 

"... Skip the interview with Kim Gordon." 

Eddie gags and flicks through the pages until he finds the article on you, or rather the column. 

"All female rock band Godless finally welcomed a new bass player this month after the departure of Millyanna Richardson in '89. Y/N L/N, 24, had been with the band for almost a year under a 'touring only' basis, though she performed live with remaining members Morgan Fletcher and Ananya Roy at the Prover Music Awards in early June. Fans have praised her talent and finesse, and are looking forward to her contributions to the band's next album expected this December. Hopefully she has thicker skin than her predecessor, who branded the band's inner politics as 'gruesome' and 'unlivable'."

There's a grainy photograph of you and your bandmates at the Prover Theatre overtop. You look exactly as you had that night, pretty and glitzy. He scowls at your printed face.

He can't fucking stand you, let it be known, and he thinks your frontman is the most spoilt brat he's ever seen. He hadn't seen the article, but he'd heard via word of mouth that you'd both had something to say about him. His approximation goes as follows: 

Interviewer: …and you guys will be performing at the Monster of Rock music festival in England this August, right? Any faces you're excited to see? 

Morgan: I think I'm better than everyone despite being in a mildly popular band that didn't qualify as hard rock until, like, three months ago, and I totally shit on our bass player for trying to make the change by the way, so I'm not excited to see anyone besides myself in the mirror. 

Interviewer: How sophisticated and mature of you. And you, Y/N, are you excited to see anyone? Photos from the Prover Music Awards show you were sitting beside Corroded Coffin's Eddie Munson, did you two hit it off? 

Y/N: Who was that, the guitarist? I'm so sorry, I don't really remember getting a chance to talk to him, but I'm excited for the opportunity to meet more people in the scene right now and to get to play for a new audience. Also I suck and I want Eddie sooooo bad. 

"I wish I were asleep." Gareth squints at the ceiling. "Asleep or back home."

"Miss mommy?" Jamison asks him. 

"And Cindy." 

"Oh, god," Eddie groans, "I don't want to hear it, seriously." 

"She always had smooth legs, you know?" Gareth says. "Always shiny, soft. Fuck, I miss her legs. Girls on the road never shave their legs." 

"Do you shave your legs?" Eddie asks. 

"Fuck off, Teddy, you know you like it better when they shave." 

"Do I know that?" Eddie asks. 

He turns to Jamison, giving him a much-used 'make him stop' expression. Eyebrows raised, lips parted. When Jamison says nothing, and Gareth starts to talk about hair removal in other places, Eddie scrubs his eyes with both hands and stands up. 

He's a guy. He has guy thoughts. Yeah, he thinks about girls, and their legs, and everything else, but he also thinks about them as actual people, something Gareth hasn't quite grasped yet. 

"Remember why Cindy said she didn't wanna come with you?" Eddie asks. 

"Because she was jealous of my success." 

Eddie snorts and shrugs on his jacket where he'd left it thrown over the ratty couch. "Because she was going to beauty school," Eddie corrects. "I'm going out." 

"We're miles away from anything interesting," Jeff says, magazine crinkling in his hands. 

"I'm sure I'll find something," he says, and doesn't add that it should be easy. 

What counts as interesting has taken a sharp turn since arriving in Donington. Which isn't to say it's boring, exactly, there's a rich culture Eddie isn't familiar with, and a fucking castle, but he's so used to loud dives and backroom parties that this has been a stark change. Wending had said to think of it like a vacation to get his head screwed on tight. Paula had said to think of it like a punishment, which had been funny at the time. Now he's wondering if she was serious. 

He knows there'd been a convenience store somewhere down the road from the hotel. Or rather, the bed and breakfast, a strange cottage situation where the hosts keep an eye on you under the guise of making your dinner. Eddie's first world problems continue. 

He could get weed, possibly. He doesn't know where from, but he knows someone who knows someone who must know someone, right? 

Then he starts debating with himself about if he should smoke just to escape boredom. That sounds like a terrible idea, life isn't even bad right now, he's just hungry, and— 

Eddie turns the corner, wet sidewalk dark as pitch under his feet, and spots the back of your head as you disappear inside of the convenience store. The corner shop, as Wending had informed. Eddie doesn't understand because it isn't on a corner, but he has bigger fish to fry. He considers waiting for you to leave. What are the chances you'll walk back this way? Pretty likely. 

Don't be a bitch, he tells himself. 

Light rain spots his neck as he hurries inside, the bell above the door ringing to announce his entrance. He's confused as soon as he looks up, because in front of him is an aisle, and to either side is an aisle, and he can't make out where the cashier is. He takes a tentative step in, eyes tracking muddy footprints down the way to the drinks fridge humming loudly at the back of the room. 

Claustrophobic, he makes his way through the aisle and stops in front of the drinks. Because luck isn't ever his friend, you're standing toward the leftmost part, where a second fridge hums, filled to bursting with canned beer and litre bottles of cider. Eddie isn't sure it's really you until you turn to the left slightly and reach out for a colourful glass bottle. He should walk away. He doesn't like you, he has no business watching you, but there's something so sweet about it. 

You in the humming chill, a coat pulled tightly around you, your chin hidden by the multicolour of a yarn scarf. You turn the bottle in your hand delicately and blink slow as you read the ingredients. Your hair is frizzy from the wind, flyaways surrounding your face in a little wave. His fingers twitch. 

You keep the bottle and pick up a second, nails clinking against glass. Your movement pulls like you're moving through jello, and Eddie turns to the fridge in front of him hurriedly. 

He can feel your gaze on the side of his face. 

He picks up a couple of drinks without thinking, his face burning with heat. When he chances a glance your way, you've moved. He stares at the rainbow of drinks and the gaps where you've taken what you wanted. 

He leaves some time between your departure and follows the way you must've gone down an aisle of more alcohol that's unrefrigerated and pet food, wondering how they organise here, and is confronted with you again at the end. 

It's a snug building. You're blocking the way past where you're standing in front of the cashier's desk, a plexiglass shielded cube decked out in hanging sweets and cigarettes. 

"Do you have Newports?" you ask mildly. 

"Sorry." 

"That's okay, uh, I'll just take a carton of whatever you think is best?" 

The cashier retrieves a light blue box of cigarettes. "Lambert and Butler blues," he says. "Total, sixteen fifty six, and I'll need to see some ID." 

You pull your passport from an already opened purse and offer it to him. While the cashier's checking it over, you peek at Eddie, and you don't smile but you don't not smile, a formal quirk of the lips. 

"You're American?" the cashier asks. 

"I'm visiting for the festival," you say. 

Apparently having passed his test, the cashier hands your passport back and accepts your card. 

"Are you paying together?" he asks, nodding at Eddie. 

Eddie grins unconsciously, worse when you say quickly, "Oh, no, we're not together." 

"Your brevity wounds me," Eddie says.

You snort with a similar geniality. "You don't need me to pay for you, do you? I heard you're rich now." 

There has been an improvement in Eddie's finances lately. Your album breaking into the Billboard top 100 does that. 

"I thought you didn't know who I was?" 

"I thought that was kinder than what I really would've said." 

He hates how your snark makes him smile. You're not looking at him, waiting for your change with your eyes forward as the cashier clicks a couple of buttons on the till. 

"What were you really gonna say?" 

The cashier hands over your change. You slip it into your purse, put your purse in the pocket of your coat, and slide your hand through the weak blue handles of your plastic bag.

"Thank you," you say sincerely. You take a step like you're going to leave, but you pause, and you look Eddie in the eye and say, "I would've said you were mean." 

His jaw drops. You look hurt, and you leave with a discomforting frown. 

He puts the drinks he's carrying down on the cashier's desk and says, "I'll be right back," before following you out.

You've pulled your hood up to defend against the thickening rain, walking with your face angled down. Eddie beats along the wet pathway. 

"Hey! Hey, wait, wait a second, princess." 

"You can't be serious." 

"I'm so serious," he says. 

He weaves in front of you and stops. You look cold as he feels with his red-tipped nose and stiff fingers, your arms drawn together over your chest. You look pretty and he's so sick of thinking it and not saying it. 

"You're hot when you're mad." 

You glare at him. "I wish I could say the same." 

"Hey, hey, okay, we had a spat, but we got off on the wrong foot, you know?" 

"I thought that too," you say. 

He smiles. "See, we're– you're fucking with me. Nice." 

You start laughing, edging around him. He moves in front and you shrug, stepping off of the sidewalk and into the leaf litter clogging the gutter. 

"Don't be stupid," he says, hands held up in surrender "get back on the sidewalk." You keep walking. "Come on, don't get hit by a car. That would really put a damper on the festival." 

You take a step further into the road, the kind that would make a collision unavoidable. He checks both ways for cars and sees none, knowing you're fucking with him and hating it anyway. The two of you are locked into a stand off, grey skies above you and wet ground underneath, your face partially occluded by your scarf and your hood and the dribbling rain. If he listens, he can hear the small sounds of the festival preparations a half a mile away, guitars hooked up up an insane array of speakers and the pounding of a beat through the floor. 

You start walking again. He follows, treading backwards to keep your attention. 

"Seriously, come on." 

"No." 

"No?" he asks. 

"No. I don't have to listen to you." 

"You're being stupid." 

"Eddie, I truly, honestly, don't care." 

"Sure." The sound of tires on the road draws his eye. A car appears behind you, approaching fast. "It's your funeral."

"What do you get out of this?" 

He bites his top lip, shaking his head from one side to the other. "Out of what?" 

"Tormenting me." 

"Tormenting you? Sweetheart, we hardly know each other." 

"Exactly!" You almost trip over your own shoes. "Exactly, you don't know me, but you thought you could say all those things–" 

"You started it." 

You laugh again and Eddie would be pissed but the car is still coming, headlights beaming through the light downpour. He huffs and grabs your wrist, tugging you up onto the sidewalk with his second hand on your waist. He doesn't mean to rag you about, feeling especially apologetic when your face knocks into his chin. The car spins close and validates his concern. You have enough sense to realise what's happened, watching over your shoulder as the car beeps and whizzes past. Still, you yank your arm out of his. 

"Don't touch me," you say quietly. 

He dips his head to force you to meet his eyes. "Next time I'll let you get hit by a car. Great idea." 

"I wasn't going to get hit by the fucking car." 

You're infuriating. 

Infuriating, and yet he feels bad for pulling you around. He lowers his voice, softens his tone. "Sorry," he says. "I don't know why this happens, everytime I see you, I…" 

You look intensely uncomfortable. "I have one of those faces, I guess." You shrug away from his reach. "Try to play well tomorrow? I don't want to go on to a dead crowd." 

His mouth snaps closed. "If you need me to warm them up for you, just say that." 

—

You go to watch Eddie's set because you're awful. You want it to suck. You want Corroded Coffin to bomb it and you want it to be his fault, anything to wipe that pretty smile off of his face, smother the electricity of his bouncing steps as he bounds from one side of the stage to the other. He's entranced by the crowd — it's hard not to be. Ananya had told you on the plane that UK festival audiences are a different kind of enthusiastic, eager and loud, and it's obvious now that she was right, and that Corroded Coffin had more than a few loyalists in the sea of people. 

The barrier bends under the force of it, thousands of warm bodies throwing themselves against one another despite the terrible weather, mud to the shins and sliding. You've never seen so many people happy to be covered in dirt. 

Neither Morgan nor Ananya had wanted to join you so you stick to the shadows with your lanyard pass. You refuse to think about why you've dressed the way you have, a black, stiff corset type top to cinch your chest, exposing the soft hills of your breasts, and the flare pants Morgan had insisted make your thighs acceptable. You're bedecked in pretty jewellery and your hair looks perfect, and it's all for your show, you swear, all for your set straight after his. 

Eddie's dripping with sweat and rain at this point, darker curls wet and slick and sweet around his face. His brows are furrowed like he's in pain, and his thumb has split on the strings, blood like cherry juice running down the body of his guitar, a Warlock NJ Series electric with a red and black tortoise shell design. It shines like mother-of-pearl. 

You're impressed by him, and worse, there's a heat stirring in your abdomen you despise. He's attractive, you've always thought him pretty, but on stage he's something else entirely. The passion transforms him, makes him a different person. No trace of agitating smugness about him. 

And he's good. You're not a critic, an expert, and your opinion hardly matters, but if he's this good now you'd love to see him at Hammet's age, at Hanneman's. He could be one of the greats. 

You're riddled with jealousy. Bass and rhythm guitar are not the same, and they're comparable in some ways, incomparable in others, but you know you're not like he is. You want to be the next Entwistle, the next Ian Hill, but practising You've Got Another Thing Comin' until your fingers bleed is never going to give you what Eddie plainly has. 

You hide your bandaid covered fingers in your back pockets and shake your head. You can pinpoint the moment Eddie notices you on the side stage despite the small audience they've attained. His neck snaps to the side, and his eyes bore into yours for a split-second. 

You could pretend you aren't here. If he ever calls you out on it, you could lie. You want me so bad you're seeing me places, Munson. 

You don't do that. 

You wave. 

You've never been the prettiest girl. You know you aren't model material, people aren't shy about letting you know that, and so, you're practised in the art of quiet flirtation. Your wrist straight, you wiggle your fingers sweetly, a face of fresh make up and your sweetest smile, like he's a guy across the bar and you're trying to get a ride in his passenger seat. 

For a split-second you adore him. It's the meanest thing you can do. 

You aren't expecting him to fuck up. His hand slips down the neck and that's it, one missed second of sound. He throws himself back into it and doesn't look your way again, a storm of emotions clouding his handsome face. 

Not what you'd meant to do, and yet. There's a cruel satisfaction in knowing you'd had any sort of power over him.

There's a ten minute gap between sets, twenty because of the shitty weather. Morgan and Ananya are nowhere to be seen as Corroded Coffin pour off of the stage and down the short stairwell where you're waiting, picking at your clear nail polish absentminded. You don't look up, and the resulting quiet makes you think they've all left. 

A wooden board creaks. 

You look up. 

"Hey, you–" 

Eddie takes your shoulder into his warm, big hand and pushes you back. You wobble and rush to correct your posture, hand clamping around the crook of his elbow. Even though he's soaked through, wet to the skin, his hand is a blistering heat. 

Your shoulders collide with the wall under the stairwell. It's a snug fit, dark and out of view. 

"What gives?" you seethe, pushing at his chest. 

"You fucking–" Eddie tucks a lock of wet hair behind his ear, and his hand stays at that height, hovering between you. "What's wrong with you?" 

"What's wrong with me?" 

"You want to mess with me, is that it?" 

His hand takes to your face, index finger following the line of your cheek, his thumb along your jaw. He isn't kind. He isn't cruel. He's touching you, just touching you, and your mouth is bone dry at the sensation, the stuttering beat of your heart. 

"I don't want to do anything to you, Munson." 

"We both know that's not true." You've never heard his voice like this. It's scratchy– pleading. It's a desperation. 

He's breathing hard. Your proximity means you feel each one as it comes, heat fanning over your lips. You look to his, find them parted, the barest hint of pearly teeth between pink dewy skin. They look soft. 

You lift your chin. 

I dare you. 

His hand slides down. He presses his thumb into your bottom lip and inclines his head. You close your eyes, fine stands of his hair drawing lines of wetness against your face as he boxes you in. 

"Are you going to–" 

"Shut up," he says, crushing his lips to yours. 

It his nose you feel more than anything, the force of it as he moves in, bridge sliding down your own. His hands, and how they tighten, fisted in the slope of your shoulder and clutching at the underside of your jaw like you might slip away. His touch brings you in, his hips force you back, wedging your spine tight to the panelled wall behind you. 

You let him kiss you, let his lips work over yours, let him take what it is he wants. Your fingers slide softly up the chilled leather of his jacket, coveting the wet mess of his hair. You weave your fingers into it, their tips pressed to his roots, and pull him away. 

You steal the gap between you and try to take control. You don't know how to kiss like he is, you don't know where all that meanness comes from. You force his hand from your face and nip at his bottom lip, imprecise, stammering pecks that reveal too much. 

Eddie inhales hard, pulls the breath from your mouth. 

"Don't play games," he says. 

He presses a firm, hard kiss all lopsided into your lips and pulls away, yanking your hand from his hair and setting it against the line of his waist. 

"You like games," you argue. 

He tilts your head to one side a millimetre at a time, tilting his own to follow you. A teasing light burns behind his eyes, a playful flare of his lashes that worries and excites at once. 

His thumb haunts the column of your throat, pressing, releasing, pressing again. Never enough to hurt. 

"Stay still." 

You stay still. You aren't expecting him to weave the other way, the hot and unapologetic scratch of his teeth against your pulse. You laugh at the feeling, find it gets all clogged up when he starts to bite. The hand that isn't anchoring your head roams down your shoulder, your back, falling into the small of it as though it were made to be there. His fingers spread and pull and your pelvis pushes hard into his own. 

"Is that a–" You cough on your murmuring, chastened by his thumb outside your windpipe. "S'that a micronta quartz in your pocket, or are you just," —you hiss as his hickeying turns brutal, hand pawing ar his waist uselessly— "happy– Happy to see me?" 

Your shuddering makes him smile. He lets your bruised skin slip from between his lips only to scandalise you further, kissing and nipping, licking a humiliating stretch until he's under your ear, speaking into it. 

"I'm never happy to see you," he murmurs, hand turned, the back of his index knuckle stroking a tender back and forth. His forehead kisses your temple. "You should know that by now." 

A picture of composure but you know what you feel. You roll your hips to revel in his subtle groan. 

"You want me to mark up the other side?" he asks. 

His question sounds so genuine, you almost say yes. He laughs at your silence and kisses wherever he can reach, crescent moons, spit-damp and branding. 

He pauses to speak into the corner of your mouth. "Mess me up again during a set and I won't be this nice." 

"You're not nice," you say, lashes skimming the skin under your brows as he stands at full height, widening the gap between you to a safe distance again. 

"Exactly…" Eddie squeezes your cheek until it aches. His eyes are unreadable. "Have a good set, sweetheart." 

Unreadable turns smug. He pats your panging cheek, gaze dancing over the sore stretch of your neck, and turns without a second glance. 

You press the heel of your palm to the cold wall behind you and blink. Once. Twice. In that moment you hate him more than you've ever hated him, hate him like you've never hated anyone, because his retreating figure is unaffected, and you're dizzy with the lingering press of his lips.

You have to hand it to him. He's good at the game. 

You'll have to be better. 

𓆩❤︎𓆪

I wrote the bulk of this really quickly so please forgive any major errors I missed during editing, I’ll go back again in future and make more corrections! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and if you did please consider reblogging or telling me what you thought, I promise it makes a big difference <3 I was super nervous about this one and I still am lol

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things x reader #stranger things 4 #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #fem!reader #rockstar!eddie #rockstar!eddie munson #rockstar!eddie munson x reader #rockstar!eddie x reader #eddie munson fic #eddie munson angst #bite the

[fatimaamerbilal]

fatima aamer bilal, from shame is a girl’s second skin.

[text id: i wanted to hurl my girlhood on a sidewalk and never walk that road again. / my insides have been eating me up alive lately. / i put my fist in my throat and yank misery out of me. / it looks like me. / you think your touch would burn the sun. / but you want to be held, / you’ll let a hand around your throat for the sake of it. / in grade one, i was six, i would pick the skin off my thumbs until they were bloody, so my teacher would hold my hand and ask me if i was okay. i was six. i thought the show of wounds would earn me love. where did i learn that from? / I WAS SIX / little girl, you’ll grow up, but the malice on your tongue will forever be the words of your father. / every time he opens his mouth, you think it’s to shout. it’s not. / what are memories of childhood if not quicksand? swallowing you whole. / my mother and i, we sit down at the dinner table and translate each other’s hurts, but we do not speak. / because you don’t address the hurt / (it hurts more) / learning to say goodbye but never to let go / choosing to sit in a house that’s burning, because that’s home to you / oh, how i wish this was just a phase, but i am afraid life is becoming a coffin, just with ample space.]

#fatima aamer bilal #poetry #quotes #prose #poeticstories #poem #literature #book quotes #book quotations #literary #girlhood #childhood #daughterhood #trauma #bts #taylor swift #writers and poets #lana del rey #dark academia #dark poetry #writing #words words words #lit #art #yearning #longing #pining #sylvia plath #mahmoud darwish #franz kafka

[paperlunamoth]

Just watched a youtube video where a bubbly young woman discussed an indescribably fucked up hentai manga about a teenage girl getting forced into prostitution and raped by her father, and otherwise tortured and violated in ways I will not describe here, as though it was just some run of the mill piece of media, and treated it like it had some kind of profound literary value because sometimes real girls go through those kinds of experiences, while completely ignoring the fact that it was hentai created specifically for sick men to jerk off to and written by one such sick man. And most of the comments also failed to acknowledge the nature of this work, and were just things along the lines of, "yep, life sure can be unfortunate for some people that is true." I just. What is happening to these girls? Like I truly don't understand how you can get to a place mentally where all you have to say about something like this is that it's "dark" and the characters are "bad people" like girl what you read should be illegal it is literally underage torture porn with a plot that serves the sole function of providing context that makes the porn parts as depraved as possible, and you think it was an enjoyable read that had important things to say about the female experience?? The author was not trying to earnestly depict the horrors of girlhood in order to get people to contemplate the significance of such atrocities and compel them to do something to help prevent them, he was trying to get himself and men like him off to the rape and misery of a teenager! This is a level of pornbrained internalized misogyny combined with poor media literacy that I previously did not think possible. My heart weeps for this girl and for other young women like her who are so numb to this kind of visceral depravity that they don't even register it as anything other than a sad story.

#rant #vent #feminism #radical feminism #radblr #random thoughts #luna's

[ionlydidthisforspirk]

Im sorry but this scene is not mentioned enough among Trekkies. I think this is one of the most heartfelt and well written scenes in all of Star Trek and it pains me that no one mentions this. For reference in case I need to memory jog, this episode is the episode right after seven gets severed from the collective. She is learning basic ship rules and getting her implants removed. Earlier, there is a scene where Janeway is talking to her, trying to access her humanity, and she’s talking about how she feels bad for the little girl Seven once was. Janeway says “There's still a lot we don't know about her. Did she have any siblings? Who were her friends? Where did she go to school? What was her favourite colour?” This scene takes place at the very end of the episode.

I bawled when I first watched this episode, and this scene specifically triggered it. It absolutely breaks my heart. Seven was assimilated when she was a little girl. She never had a chance to live her childhood, to experience girlhood, or to grow up. She lived her whole life being apart of a hive mind, where she constantly had someone thinking for her, where she continuously had other voices in her head. Now all of the sudden, it’s stripped from her. The entire episode she’s scared. She never got to live her own life, she’s not used to being so alone, like a young child separated from their mother. This scene man, it just highlights the fact that she never got to grow up.

I’m not great at putting my thoughts to paper (or in this case a website but you know what I mean) but this scene… it’s a work of art, and I wish it was more acknowledged amongst the Trekkies. 🙁❤️

#her favorite color was red :( #I love seven so much I can’t #star trek #trek #uss voyager #star trek voyager #seven #seven of nine

[muxshwriting]

my love, my life

Violet Bridgerton x daughter!reader, Bridgerton!reader

summary: Violet and her youngest, Y/N were mirror image. when you debut and fall in love, she faces the reality of letting you go || warnings: growing up, nostalgia, crying sessions when writing this|| word count: 715 || masterlist

Violet Bridgerton had nine children, four boys and five girls. Her youngest two, Hyacinth and Y/N, had surprised her by being twins. Neither of them would ever meet their father and Violet held them closer to her because of that fact. As a child, Hyacinth wanted to discover everything, see the whole house and the gardens and sometimes beyond. You, on the other hand, were perfectly content to curl up on your mother’s lap as she stitched, watching her work.

If anyone ever asked, Violet Bridgerton did not have a favourite child. She loved all her children equally was equally saddened when they, in turn, flew from the nest. But secretly, you were her favourite child, always willing to help your Mama and wanting to spend time with her. You were always content, never causing a fuss or making trouble for her to fix, unlike all your other siblings.

When you debut, you remain by your mother’s side, wary of this new experience. You spend your first season testing the waters of romance, charming suitors but not being interested in any fully. It’s on,y in your second year that you find yourself truly charmed.

Lord William Harding comes from a respectable and wealthy family but most importantly, he understands you. He will gladly spend an afternoon strolling through the park together, not saying a lot but occasionally pointing out something and telling a joke. He makes you feel warm and safe and that’s all you can ask for. It’s starts slowly until you realise that you crave his warming silence and his gentle conversation.

“I think I love him Mama.” The confession came as you were lying across your mother’s lap in the drawing room. Your book had been abandoned and Mama put down her embroidery to look at you.

“You think or you know?”

You meet her gaze, suddenly worried at the realisation. “I love him.”

Violet simply laughs at your concern. “Relax, my love. You have nothing to fear. I see how he looks at you.”

“What does that mean?”

“He loves you.” She says. “Whether he realises yet or not, he adores you.”

“Are you sure?”

Violet simply raises an eyebrow and smiles knowingly, continuing with her embroidery.

Your mother is all-knowing, especially after watching most of her children marry. William continues to court you, constantly looking at you with adoration. You confess your love to him as you dance together at your mother’s ball towards the end of the season and he reciprocates fully, imagining your future together and planning everything. Unbeknownst to you, he calls on your brother the very next day to ask for your hand in marriage. Anthony is well aware of your feelings towards William and gives his blessing willingly.

The time flies through your engagement until you're standing in front of your mother on your wedding day. You can't stop the tears gathering in your eyes as you look at her, knowing this is the final hurdle of your girlhood. Violet grasps your hands tightly in hers and pulls you close.

"You'll always be my daughter, no matter where you are."

"Mama-"

"It's alright to be afraid, it's alright to be unsure. That's love and life."

You dry your tears. "I want this so badly yet I am terrified of leaving you behind."

"I am not left behind." Violet says, convincing you more than she convinces herself. In truth, she is afraid of being left behind. All her children are now married, all will begin families of their own and she'll be reduced to the grandmother who is visited when it's convenient. It's only life, everyone grows up and grows away from their roots.

"I'll always need you." You promise her. Mama hugs you tightly once more before shooing you towards Anthony who was waiting for you by the entrance to the chapel. This was the end of your childhood, walking down the aisle on your brothers arm watching your mother follow behind you. He passing you to William and you find yourself perfectly at ease next to him.

"Take care of her."

"I swear to everything, I will."

Anthony nods once, taking his seat in the front row as the rest of your life begins.

In the mirror of your eyes, my love, my life

taglist: @aoi-targaryen

#violet bridgerton x daughter!reader #bridgerton!reader #bridgerton x reader #bridgerton #muxsh #muxshwriting #my love my life

[chaeinedup]

1 + 1 = S2

Loud music could be heard from both rooms in the house. Your neighbours have probably grown accostumed to such thing, it meant it was going out night. Part of them was relieved it wasn't another noisy game night, which are pretty frequent as well.

You were seated on the floor, redoing your ponytails for the 3rd time. Your arms were on fire but you were committed to this look.

"Siri, call yuyu please."

"Calling yuyu."

.....

"Hello ? Y/n ?"

"Hiii just wanted to ask where you are."

"We're almost ready to leave the house. You guys ?"

"I'm almost done if my hair cooperates with me. Wooyoung is most likely waiting for me. I'm surprised he hasn't barged in my room yet."

"Try not to be late!"

"AS IF!!"

"Don't give me attitude missy. Now I'm gonna get the car started, I'll see you in a bit. Bye"

"Bye Bye, don't miss me!"

.....

After 10 more minutes you were finally done. One last look in the mirror and all that work paid off. The boots made your legs look longer and your mini skirt complemented the cropped shirt well. You grabbed your purse and headed to the leaving room where a very impacient Wooyoung awaited you.

"What took you so long ?"

"It takes time to look this good you know?"

"Pleeeease!!"

"Don't roll your eyes at me wooyoung I'll hit you."

"And I'd like it so who's really winning?"

He gave you his signature smirk and winked at you from the couch.

"EW. Let's go. The others already left."

The club was pretty crowded, expected for a friday night, but you weren't scared to get lost. You like to get loose. And it's not like you don't have 8 guys that are constantly keeping an eye on you.

"Don't run off on us again for the love of god."

"Seonghwa for your own sake if I stay none of yall are pulling anyone. Same applies to me."

"Why do you want to get with anyone ?"

"Wouldn't you like to know! I'm off, if you need me yell."

You made your way t the dance floor before he opened his mouth.

"BUT YOU WON'T HEAR IT!!"

"YEAH THAT'S THE POINT!!"

Since it was a 2000s night you were more than happy to have traded your comfortable apartment for the hell. It has it's perks.

You had no idea but someone was drilling holes in your head, Wooyoung was exceptionally bothered by how you left them behind.

"How can she just leave ?"

"Cause she can ?? What are you on about, chill she's not your girl."

Mingi's words were harsher than what met the eye. Sure you weren't dating but he can't lie that the though of some other guy touching you infuriated him. He kept denying his feelings and that maybe this was just him wanting to protect his friend. But Yunho smiled to himself when he saw Wooyoungs furrowed eyebrows.

"You should just tell her how you feel you know?"

"What feelings? It's just unfair we're her friends and she doesn't care."

"And you care too much for "just a friend" don't you think? Listen she can take care of herself she's always been this way, you get used t it."

Yunho tried to relax him but it just made Wooyoung get int his head. Maybe he should've stayed home. No, he couldn't possibly let you out of the house by yourself looking like that.

Meanwhile you were having the time of your life, you had met a group of girls that were on their bacherolette party. It's like you knew them all your life, screaming all the songs, taking pictures, clinking drinks. Girlhood.

You decided to go get another drink and since no one else wanted anything you went alone. Normally this would mean getting approached by a couple of random guys trying to smooth talk you and al of them failling to do so. But unlike other times, the voice behind you was familiar.

"So. Are you having fun ?"

"Oh my god Yunho, I am those girls are so fun. Did you know that the bride and groom met through mutual friends and they actually lived together for a while before he realised he had feelings for her?? How CUTE is that??"

He couldn't help but smile due to the resemblances.

"Yeah it's really sweet. I guess you really never know when love is ready to knock at your door. But what about you, have you gone maneater on anyone?"

"I kinda don't care honestly, I'm having a good time and that's all I care about."

"That's my girl. Now be sure to behave. If you need us, we're at the booth.

He kissed your cheek before disappearing into the sea of people.

You looked at the time, 5:23am. Time to call it a night. You sayed goodbye to the group of girls that accompanied you through the night and wished them all the best. Making your way up to the booths you realised you were a lot more under the influence than you thought. You didn't really care, it's almost the end of the night and the guys are more then used to this side of yours.

Once they saw you they cheered and clapped, you bowed like a princess and smiled at their unnecessary but appreaciated "welcome back".

"How many fishes did you catch sailor?" Mingi gave you another shot he had brought upstairs.

"A THOUSAND" You yelled and chugged the green liquid. "I'm kidding 0, there's no cute guys here."

You sat down next a very pouty Wooyoung.

"What's up with you? What happened to my loud and energetic comrade?"

He gave you no answer, just his cold gaze.

"Damn are you really that upset that I didn't stick around? I thought you were used to it by now."

He got up and made his way to the balcony. There's no way he's throwing a tantrum for something so stupid, you thought to yourself. You followed his angry steps.

"Be so fucking serious Wooyoung? What the fuck?"

He turned to you and you could see there wasn't a hint of alchool in his system. This wasn't one of his drunk stunts that he pulled when he wanted a tad bit more of attention. He was actually upset.

"Okay, I'm sorry I'm being so agressive, just talk to me woo, please."

"I don't like you running off on us that's all."

"That's not all Wooyoung, we've never been mad at eachother and it's not gonna start now."

You got closer to him holding his hands and caressing them. You were giving him your most sincere eyes and he couldn't believe that he was about to kiss you.

It caught you by surprise, so much so you froze in the first few seconds, not knowing if this was a dream or reality. You decide to give in nonetheless. His hands soft, like you remembered from all the times he touched your skin in times of need. Heartbreaks, cramps, tickles, you name it. He was always there for you.

Yunho sipped his drink with a victorious grin, as he watched from the inside. He looked at the rest of the guys and let out a "I told you so."

previous// //next

#wooyoung scenarios #jung wooyoung #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung imagines #wooyoung fluff #wooyoung smut #wooyoung ateez #atz #wooyoung smau #wooyoung au #wooyoung series #wooyoung texts #the housemate chronicles #chaeinedup #ateez fluff #ateez masterlist #ateez scenarios #ateez x reader #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #ateez imagines #ateez #ateez au #ateez smau #ateez texts #ateez smut #ateez hard hours #ateez soft hours #ateez soft thoughts

[borderlinebelle]

Hi. Hello. Take a seat, you’re not going ANYWHERE new friend. 🙂🙃

Welcome to my field of screams & dreams!

Below you’ll find my personal tumblr blog. I’m so motherfucking happy to share it with you. I’ve been growing here for over 10 years..

NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL IS UP!

NEW VIDEO WILL BE OUT: WHEN MY MENTAL HEALTH ALLOWS 👍🏽

🎥▶️🔴

BUT FIRST: INTRODUCTORY HUMAN FLESH OFFER BELOW 👇🏽

welcome 18+ wanderer,

you’re safe here

🫠 WHY TUMBLR? 👀

Tumblr is akin to.. taking a tiny hammer and chisel to the back of a human being’s mind and tapping gently until the skull creeks open and deliciously exposed is SOUL.

At its core, every blog on the platform is personal collection of blended mixed media displays woven together with the careful consideration by an original curator.

every blog is a unique and valuable tapestry that allows for a look into someone’s mind through their perceptions of themselves…

artwork,music,talent,fandoms,community: all grows here…

😵‍💫 WTF is a GIRLBLOG?

this is my carefully and painstakingly curated feed spanning over a decade… displayed is my internal battle, my triumphs and tragedies, all laid brutally bare in the hope that someone, somewhere sees this blog and sees me, and feels less alone. It’s my personal journey and battle through eating disorders and mental health and general girlhood into womanhood, which it turns out, is a spectrum. 😅 to be a woman is brutality and I did it and do it brutally. It doesn’t help that I’ve battled Borderline Personality Disorder for most of my life, but that’s my personal truth. I’m dedicating 2024 to personal growth, creating community, accepting responsibility for my past actions, and continuing to choose to seek health and help.. because as many of you know, recovery is an ongoing lifelong decision.

I see you. I hear you. I feel you. You matter.

Let’s heal together.

👀 WHERE can I see more?

1. NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL IS IN THE BIO!

2. I deleted Instagram for the time being 🤷🏽‍♀️ toxic af imo

3. DM’s ARE CLOSED at the moment across ALL platforms!

#️⃣ WHAT hashtags to search?

#borderlinebelle 👁️ #mentalhealthmatters 👁️ #personal

✍🏽

weary wanderer,

rest easy at last

#borderlinebelle #living with mental illness #recovery #tumblr live #tiktok live #actually mentally ill #self discovery #self discipline #self growth #bpd community #bpd fp #borderline personality disorder #actually borderline #personality disorder #recovering #the girls who get it get it #deranged female #female fatale #female hysteria #female manipulator #female rage #mental health #healing

[allsadnshit]

I have been enjoying so many spoils and joys of reconnection to my femininity and girlhood heart and have been so excitedly caught up in the magic of it all and making sure to lean in since I missed out on so much of it already that I forgot how wounding and lonely it can also be and how much potential for harm and isolation there is in it in a way that that doesn't exist if you block it out of your life completely

I've been busy buying gold necklace charms and natural lipstick and perfume and forgot about the part where you go absolutely crazy with emptiness at night in your bedroom like something is erupting and crashing your center

How did I forget about this part

[ironunderstands]

if you want to, please give your opinion on this I’m really curious on others thoughts

Me remembering @blood-orange-juice post on how Childe has the aggression of a prey animal made me think of how I feel he is a very feminine character despite not outwardly presenting as such. His aggression doesn’t stem from a masculine desire to feel stronger, it stems from his fear of being hunted down, overlooked, and overpowered, an aggression felt by a lot of femme and afab people, including myself. Like the scene in the golden house where everyone ignores what he has to say, or the scene in the courtroom where everyone dismisses what he has to say and blames him guilty for actions he couldn’t have possibly committed. The courtroom scene in particular reminds me of how often famous women (especially poc but that’s a can of worms that’s not my place to get into) are often demonized with people waiting for them to make one minor slip up (real or made up), so the public can justify their hatred towards them. Moreover, the attitude of “he’s a fatui so he probably did something wrong anyways” (which is true but doesn’t matter in this situation) mirrors the attitude a lot of famous women get of the “I never liked her anyways”, or “finally a reason to hate” or “I knew she was a mean girl” if the public gets a reason to turn on them.

There is also Childe’s habit of for lack of a better term, larping as a normal person, especially as a normal brother and son to his family. This changing of his behavior, especially in front of family members as to not lose their approval is also a pretty common feminine experience (not for me though luckily) and I have a lot of people in my own life who I know act that way. Playing the “good, responsible, nurturing, and almost a third parent” older sibling is also a fairly common feminine experience, and Childe acts very similar to that archetype despite having completely different reasons as to why.

His important female relationships with characters like skirk, Tonia, his mother and the Tsaritsa also add to this. It’s made very clear that he loves his younger siblings a lot, with Tonia being no exception, and Childe likes experiencing Tonia’s girlhood with her, playing along with being the knight in shining armor to her princess. He buys dresses and other gifts for her in inazuma, and doesn’t posses the slightest bit of shame or care that others might judge him for going dress shopping on his own. Continually, Skirk and his mother both teamed up to give him mommy issues (although Skirk didn’t do it on purpose she didn’t try to abandon him like his mom did, he left the abyss of his own accord), although mommy issues tend to be pretty universal, his respect and desire for acknowledgment from female authority figures like Skirk, the Tsaritsa, and to some extent the traveler and Clorinde (he did really want a duel out of her and views her as a strong, worthy opponent) reads as a feminine desire to me. More specifically, the need to be liked and acknowledged by the women you look up to so one day you can feel as secure as they appear to be, I personally find to be a very feminine experience.

What I find most interesting about this situation is that most of Childe’s traits I find feminine are painful feminine experiences, besides the heels in foul legacy form, the garter around his legs, the exposed skin on his stomach and being canonically pretty, things viewed as traditionally feminine, the feminine aspects of Childe’s character deeply painful for both him and people who experience similar things in real life. It reminds me of a phrase I can’t quite remember where I heard from, but is something along the lines of “femininity is pain”.

#childe #genshin impact #I have more thoughts on this that my brain can’t put into words #I need more opinions on this #My brain cooked on this one I think #Someone should write an ftm Childe fic talking about this and make me cry

[nexkoyotl]

Can we please talk about how Natalie is maternal?, like I know Shauna is the one who is the most in the whole group, but literally nobody talks about Natalie.

At first we don't see her interact with Javi too much but that makes sense, she is hooking up with his brother wich makes it weird specially because Travis "acts" as if Javi was just annoying him. But then as things with Travis get more serious and Nat realizes how much Javi means to Travis, she at first thought he was dead and was unhealthy for Travis to just keep holding to "fake hope" but when Javi is back she tries to redeem herself but not for Travis anymore but because she actually wants to do something for Javi, maybe as an apology?.

Now, we didn't see as many interactions of Javi with Nat as we did with Shauna but she still impacted him in some way because he knew how important Nat was for his brother and impacted enough for him to wanted to save her.

And of course, Natalie as many of the other suffers Javi's dead because they were part of it, Nat literally tries to justify herself with Travis, but let's put that aside, everyone that eat from him is "guilty". But Nat tried to save him, she literally was about to do it if it wasn't because of Misty, but Natalie could easily push her and get him but then she would have die, she chose herself instead of him and I don't blame her due to their situation, they were hungry and scared. But again, this doesn't mean she doesn't blame herself after since she CHOSE not to save him.

Now I don't see Natalie as the one of "I want to have kids" type, specially after how her parents were and I don't mean she is like "families are the worst is just the same" no, I mean as "I'll become one of my parents" situation, specially after Javi, chosen herself instead of the kid is something a father like hers would have done, she believes she is such a pretty shitty person that she would be a shitty mother as well. So In short I just mean that for her is more of "I don't want to hurt a kid" than "I don't want that life again".

But now we go to the "present"

Natalie has been in and out of rehab for 5 times now, of course If she consider herself a shitty person before the crash then just imagine now? So she continues this toxic path of drugs and alcohol, probably same as Travis, now idk if they ever were a couple after they were back but I'm pretty sure "settle down" wasn't really an option they consider or at least not her for what we have seen so far.

Then we get Kevyn, he was her best friend back then and I guess they like each other at some point and now he is an attractive divorced man that still likes her but he has 2 children, and when she tell this to Shauna and Tai they both are like "that sound complicated" but Natalie affirms that she doesn't care. Now, I don't think she was talking about Kevyn's ex since she has never cared about that as we see with Travis and Jackie, so I guess she talks about how she doesn't care about Kevyn having kids.

And in this scene of Mason's game she actually was enjoying before the Ptsd kicks in.

Now, where am I going with all this? Motherhood and maternity are a whole spectrum in the life of a girl, not matter how you view it, as positive or negative, it still forms a part of girlhood, and I think for Nat is more than we realize, she claims she is poison, she is selfish and that everything she touches dies but she was also the hunter, the provider, care for the younger, gived advices, protector, etc.

But what do you guys think? As I say this is a topic that has an impact in every girl's life no matter what, for me I see Natalie like this, maybe in another life, she would've had kids or just like the idea of it. (Specially since I've known a lot of people that you wouldn't think of them on wanting a family or settle down but then they have kids and are like the best kind of parents) is so sad we never got to see Nat thinking about it, she probably didn't even had the opportunity to do it, specially since she died when she was just healing.

So again, what do you guys think? Can you see what I'm trying to say or am I just crazy?

#yellowjackets #natalie scatorccio #shauna sadecki #shauna shipman #tai turner #van palmer #jackie taylor #lottie matthews #misty quigley #travis martinez #kevyn tan #jackieshauna #lottienat

[omakosohc]

satoru gojo shouldve picked up this book ☝️😭

“Grief and sadness overwhelmed me. I did not know what I had done wrong. And nothing I tried made it right. No other connection healed the hurt of that first abandonment, that first banishment from love's paradise. For years I lived my life suspended, trapped by the past, unable to move into the future. Like every wounded child I just wanted to turn back time and be in that paradise again, in that moment of remembered rapture where I felt loved, where I felt a sense of belonging. We can never go back. I know that now, We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago, when we were little and had no voice to speak the heart's longing, All the years of my life I thought I was searching for love I found, retrospectively, to be years where I was simply trying to recover what had been lost, to return to the first home, to get back the rapture of first love. I was not really ready to love or be loved in the present. I was still mourning, clinging to the broken heart of girlhood, to broken connections. When that mourning ceased I was able to love again.” — All About Love, bell hooks

#bell hooks #all about love #gojo satoru #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #geto suguru #matter of fact #give it to yuta

[octaviasdread]

I hereby conduct this tortured poets society album meeting in all of its mania and sorrowful blues as I move from unhinged impressions to unhinged first-listen analysis because I am incapable of saying less.

(and to all the Aimees i’m so sorry but that’s on Kim)

This Anthology is taking me so long to process, but nothing feels like the first jarring moments of I Can Do It With a Broken Heart - the cacophony and flashes of a birthday breakdown bopping to 80s arcade game synth. It's crumbled cake and mascara streaks when Bejewelled is actually a delusional Mirrorball,

and The Secret Garden reference in I Hate It Here, oh god, she’s so me:

I hate it here so I will go to / secret gardens in my mind / people need a key to get to / the only one is mine / i read about it in a book when I was a precocious child

I need to come back to that. But the whirlwind of Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me? Plans cancelled. IM THE ONE barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine, actually. It's me chained-up in that poor things victorian mourning dress shrieking elegies in my tortured nightingale screams.

She's Grammys Taylor looking at the crowd of her peers rolling their eyes, she's the litany of snide jokes diminishing her success, and the children, sisters, friends, and girlfriends of those who wronged her loudly singing her songs.

so i leap from the gallows and i levitate down your street / crash the party like a record scratch as I scream / who’s afraid of little old me

i was tame i was gentle til the circus made me mean / don’t you worry folks we took out all her teeth

ohhh, the throwback to Speak Now and the significance of MEAN. The song and its titular word show how childish language encapsulates that pointless spite and the bone deep hurt mean behaviour breeds - but now she’s a phoenix risen, and they hurl her youth and her downfall back in her face - word for word, surprised face - its the dark side the The Lucky One, of not escaping the cage of fame games.

you lured me and you hurt me and you taught me / you caged me and then you called me crazy

i wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me / you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me / so all you kids can sneak into my house with all the cobwebs / i’m always drunk on my own tears isn’t that what they all said?

PUT NARCOTICS IN MY SONG took me out. This album is funny in the most sardonic and absurdly humorous ways,

like the classic cowboy western guitar strings in her crime songs (I Can Fix Him, No Really I Can - pistols drawn), but especially the ones leading into Fresh Out The Slammer. Fucking genius, and to follow on with static sounds at 2:26ish to the house where you still wait up, is exactly the kinda detail I adore.

Naively, I thought Florence was done with me after Florida!!! It's a lyrical meme for single 20 & 30 somethings who moved away from home,

my friends all smell of like weed or little babies / and the city reeks of driving myself crazy / little did you know your home’s really only / a town you’re just a guest in

and the haunting morphs from the ghost of your girlhood into the catalogue of decisions and delusions which get you through adulthood. Yet it feels almost like an interlude within the song when

me and my ghosts we’ve had a hell of a time / yes i’m haunted but i’m feeling fine / all my girls got their lace and their crimes / and your cheating husband disappeared/ well no one asks questions here

appears like an alternative pov for No Body, No Crime with the girls and their ghosts and their pacts made over wine. Every Action has an Equal Reaction. Run away to Florida, or Texas, and lose yourself to lose the heartbreak. Its self-destruction, it's trauma-healing, bonding, and its breaking.

(what a song for an angsty girl collab, problematic girl in hand with problematic girl, lyrically and thematically, maybe the real love story is the friends we make along the way.)

And that wasn't even the last of it. It's Florence 2.0 with B side Cassandra, but instead of Dance Fever, its Taylor’s glorious mythology with all the allusions, parallels, intertextual and lyrical ruining of my mind:

when the first stone’s thrown they’re screaming / when its burn the bitch they’re shrieking / when the truth comes out its quiet

so they killed cassandra first cus she feared the worst / and tried to tell the town / so they filled my cell with snakes i regret to say / do you believe me now?

No apologies anymore. A girl given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, the GOD OF POETRY, is cursed with her prophecy never being believed: Burning all the witches even if you aren't one, indeed. She saw the truth of the Trojan horse, and the Trojans insulted her. Rep snake branding and the current cultural view of KK and Ye. I don't need to say anything else.

i was in the tower weaving nightmares / twisting all my smiles into snarls

the family the pure greed the christian chrous line / bloods thick but nothing like a payroll / bet they never spared a prayer for my soul

I literally played that THREE times before I got over it enough to finish my first listen,

and i’m still thinking about Clara Bow and that Stevie Nicks tambourine we collectively freaked over from the Spotify installation, and all the silent movie speculation from the track title release.

you look like Clara Bow in this light - you look like Stevie Nicks in '75 - you look like Taylor Swift

Three women whose public profession became entangled with their pain. Silver Springs. Boyfriend songs. The jokes. Clara Bow.

Clara feared being left behind by 'talkies.' Miss Americana. The fear of 30 bringing death to a woman's Hollywood/Musical career,

beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours demanding more / only when your girlish glow flickers just so / do they let you know?

Three women who beat the odds - three women whose talent, craft, and popularity carried them through.

But there's something more to unpack here with cycles and patterns - of the past endlessly repeating. It's the transient nature of fame and our fleeting view of beauty mapped out in the untouchable, ever-changing, and culturally worshiped moon.

It's a body of physical craters, a natural body we call discovered, and fight to claim. We project emotions and create rituals of worship - you're the new god we're worshipping. Endless stories are told about her, but we can never fully see the moon with human eyes. Eclipses, shadows, - 'half moonshinе, a full eclipse' - half-truths and half-moons:

this town is fake but you're the real thing / breath of fresh air through smoke rings / take the glory, give everything / promise to be dazzling

There's a play on light and a play on words in the repetition of Dazzling, shining so bright so blindingly bright. Who is dazzled? Who is doing the dazzling? There's an instability between Director - Public - Star. It's Hollywood lights, No one in my small town thought I'd see the lights of Manhattan / No one in my small town thought I'd meet these suits in LA.

She beat the 'War Big Machine' - but for me, there's ambivalence and illusion on all sides of the final lyrics, you've got edge, she never did / the future's bright, dazzling.

(and ‘Edge’ is particularly ironic when you consider the songs on this album…)

Moving again into the B Side, it's Taylor's departure from Invisible string, red strings of fate, and golden threads à la the golden chain of fate in Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities that strikes me.

First, I thought her writing was a complete departure from the themes of destiny and fate, but then, The Prophecy:

cards on thе table / Mine play out like fools in a fablе

it isn't an absent symbol; it transformed. It's the evermore forest amped to the max. Witches, folklore, fairy-tale and fable - a homeric epic. Its the hero's journey distilled as she opens the song with a move from 'full throttle' adventure, to slowing down 'Hand on the Throttle' to appeal for Supernatural aid at the hero's transformative fall.

and it was written / I got cursed like eve got bitten / a greater woman wouldn't beg / but I looked at the sky and said / please I've been on my knees / change the prophecy

Lover asking Traffic Lights becomes spending my last coin so someone will tell me, and this might be the most slept-on heartbreaking line. Her search for reassurance can't be framed as an arbitrary musing anymore. It can't be dismissed as a mere thought on her drive home, or something triggered throughout the day - its intent. It's a quest for answers, a plea, a last-ditch hope difficult to deny.

and I sound like an infant / feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen/ a greater woman stays cool/ but I howl like a wolf at the moon / and I look unstable /

gathered with a coven 'round a sorceress' table / a greater woman has faith But even statues crumble if they're made to wait / i'm so afraid I sealed my fate / no sign of soulmates

She's asking for a gift from the Gods, and when the God's won't answer, she plunges straight down from heaven or Olympus into the self seizure of power in witchcraft. And when it fails, she descends further - Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it'll be okay - paying mortal fortune tellers, even if they lie.

The song leans on figures without redemption, on the Eve's, on the women cursed and punished, and those who scream like infants rather than enduring burdens and pain in silence. She's poisoned, infected like Aurora from the wound of the pricked hand with dreams of him. Is this a punishment?

She's infected, cursed like Eve got bitten, [lyric of all time!!!!] but does a monster always do monstrous things? Who is the monster? Who is the folkloric, the literary Mad Woman? Perhaps she's written from the desperate, the scarred, and the wronged.

and the transition into another tale with Peter? As in Peter losing Wendy? Is it an epilogue to the Betty trilogy? or a different use of the metaphor?

and I didn't wanna hang around / we said it was just goodbye for now /said you were gonna grow up / then you were gonna come find me / words from the mouths of babes / promises oceans deep / but never to keep

The triangle is echoed in love's never lost when perspective is earned, reflecting the different povs of Betty, August, and James, and placing Peter as the new conclusion - the shelf life of those fantasies has expired / lost to the lost boys chapter of your life/ the woman who sits by the window/ has turned out the (porch?) light.

Promises wear out. Wendy's window closes, and so does this chapter in her life.

my lost fearless leader / in closets like cedar / preserved from when we were just kids / is it something I did? / the goddess of timing / once found us beguiling

is also - intentionally or not - Narnia coded. Is the storybook collecting dust in her closet? Or is the closet still holding a portal to another fairytale land accessible only in youth, another home you can't return to (and another folklore parallel with mtr, anywhere I want just not home).

Side B is so harmonious with ttpd being the end of a chapter as the anthology moves through all the seven stages (or Taylor playlists) of grief.

The Manuscript, the signing of the autopsy, is the Death of the Author. It's the Roland Barthes realisation of All Too Well reborn in joy and fan culture, the story isn't mine anymore, of the Eras - 'I hope you hear these songs and think of this night' - Tour. She knew what the agony had been for - art. connection. - and its these things that create the hope lost in ttpd's journey through mania, disorientation, loss and despair. It all leads to healing, nothing left but a manuscript.

So many thoughts from listen no.1 and they’ll probably change, but i’m so exhausted from this 31 song rollercoaster that I'm just gonna let this sit. death of the author, I guess.

#still calling it the poets society and im not sorry #blurred muses #the fans her peers the lovers and HERSELF #and uncomfortable honestly #would love to hear other people’s thoughts #anthology is so much to take in and I am so invested #CO Posts #co speaks #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #who’s afraid of little old me #waolom #cassandra #the prophecy #i can do it with a broken heart #icdiwabh #peter #clara bow #florida!!! #fresh out the slammer #the manuscript #ts ttpd #ttpd analysis #ttpd reaction #ttpd anthology

[houseofpendragons]

New Ideas for HOTD Alicent Fashion pt.2

So technically the last one I did for Alicent was apart of a Rhaenyra one, but for continuity sake this is my second outfit redesign for a younger Queen Alicent Hightower.

The dress in question we’re changing is one that will be changed in both scenes it’s worn. One will be a new dress entirely but the other will be just mentally recreating it to look more like the concept art.

The scenes are the dismissal of her father as Hand & The confrontation between she and Rhaenyra about the rumor that had her father dismissed:

I actually love this❤️❤️❤️ it’s just missing a little something, so when comparing these two pics:

If you notice these look exactly the same, except the black is darker, perhaps a velvet, the gold embroidery is more in the form of a design and brighter. The necklace is also more regal looking, bigger than the ones we saw her wear in her girlhood as a noble Lady. Those are the things they should’ve kept for the design of the dress in this scene, she’d look more like an actual Targaryen royal of the time. No offense but the dress that made the cut is kinda bland in tone.

The hair as well, she went for a jeweled hairnet to back to her girlhood hairstyles, precisely why I wish they would’ve kept the braided jeweled crown. It makes her seem more mature (despite her not being but jewelry can be a mask just as much as makeup sometimes) and more royal. She could even still keep it in this half held up hairdo just with the jeweled braided crown/twist added into it:

And the last thing about it the to want to say, the cape would’ve been awesome to see and it would’ve fit the scene. It was raining and she had a man carrying an umbrella for her, I think she’d have that cool ass cape too. Again makes her look more regal, more queen like, more mature.

The next time she wears it that I’d like to change, when she confronted Rhaenyra. A tense scene.

However at this point in time is when she is the most conflicted between her marriage to her husband and her “duty” to her house. I feel she’d reflect that in a representation of both houses. More so red, almost as if adding green was an afterthought, bc I rather think it would be a last minute decision for Alicent to add a green sash or piece of fabric to her usually Targaryen adoption in appearance. A way to feel close to her father by wearing the colors of the house she was born from (just like I headcanon she wore blue as a child to feel close to her mother; Helena Cuy, look it up where I go on a whole rant).

That in mind, imagine something similar to this:

The green being held in place at her neck, Targaryen dragon scales but in gold (perhaps a subtle nod toward Sunfyre/Aegon), it comes to wrap around her waist like a belt, tied at one side the remainder of the green fabric falls free on her left side of her hips down side by side the red dress. Also from the neckline, a half cape of green coming to cover her right side, thin gold chains reaching out from the neckline to hide beneath the half cape.

The red dress underneath would suit the summer climate/warmer climate of the time in the Red Keep, it’s just the right shade of Targaryen red, not to mention the red dress isn’t what really makes the dress but really what is meant to catch ur eye is that she’s wearing green for the first time in a long time. It meant to be hinting at her internal battles. Ofc her cleavage wouldn’t be exposed as depicted so it’s have a higher neckline, perhaps some simple gold and/or black embroidery to enhance it a bit.

Her hair would be something else to consider, thinking back to how we want it to be more mature and queen like. So perhaps a head peace or a jeweled net?

A mixture of these two would suffice:

The first picture is my favorite one and the main inspo for how I’d have done her hair, the pearls, the way her hair is twisted at the top with her bun being kept nice and beautiful in a net. The only thing I’d add from the second photo is the gold lace around the edges of the net, as well as the braid surrounding that as a whole. I’d also take the bands and add them loosely to the bottom part of her hair left down.

As for jewelry, they could’ve taken inspo from actual royal jewels. Something like this for Alicent:

Like I said the look starting originally as her traditional Targaryen Queen attire, with her Hightower symbolism added as an afterthought. Some small pearls could be added between diamond to go more with the pearls in her hair (although I think I might see some pearls in there but I might be dumb).

As for the earrings they could be something like this:

Again incorporating pearls into them or straight up replacing the diamonds entirely.

It’s just Queenly. It’s appeasing to the eyes. And it’s what I expect people to design royal fashion as to look like in period/historical dramas when you’ve proven yourself not concerned with accuracy or if it is a style fantasy gown.

#house of the dragon #hotd #alicent hightower #team black #team green sympathizer #asoiaf #fire and blood #hotd fashion #hotd costumes #hotd season 1 #hotd s1 #young alicent hightower #queen alicent hightower #lady alicent #princess rhaenyra targaryen #queen rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #otto hightower #anti viserys i targaryen