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ordinaryschmuck · 3 years

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What I Thought About "Yesterday's Lie" from The Owl House

Salutations, random people on the internet who absolutely won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons!

Here it is! The midseason finale of The Owl House Season Two! An episode featuring Luz going back to the human realm, is hyped up to heaven about how painful it'll be for the audience, and features more anxiety by how Creepy Luz is a thing. And BOOOOOOOOY howdy were fans not ready for this. I'm sure as hell not ready for when I wrote this intro at *checks time* thirty minutes before watching the official premier. Yup, the words you're reading right now are from me in the past, when everything was still pure and simple. Whereas future me is still probably destroyed by the events that transpired. Isn't that right, future me?

Future Me: Actually, it wasn’t that bad. The ending hurt, sure, but other than that, it wasn’t too painful.

Wow, that is some neat input! At least, I think it was. I wouldn't know because I literally wrote that after watching the episode. With the words you're currently reading being written at *checks time* twenty-six minutes before the premier...this whole intro is confusing, isn't it, future me?

Future Me: Sure is.

Yeah, it's definitely confusing. In any case, let's dive into this spoiler-filled review as we find out together just how painful this episode was! Take it away, future me!

Future Me: Will do! Major spoilers ahead, folks!

Now, let’s review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Luz’s Room: We only see it for a short time, but everything about it just screams Luz. The pile of weird-looking stuffed animals, the witch hat in the center of the floor, and the fact that she has bunk beds, a single child's dream (Or so I've heard). It's a small thing, but I love it.

Vee: Here she is! The character previously dubbed Creepy Luz who now turns out to be yet another new addition to the ever-growing list of characters that we, as a fandom, would give our lives for. Because holy s**t was Vee the best type of expectation subversion. Showing us all the ominous ways of how she basically took Luz's place made fans assume that Vee was an evil doppelganger. Turns out, she was just a tortured soul that was desperate to live a new and better life and lucked out in finding Luz's. What Vee does is...questionable at best, but seeing what she went through with the experiments Belos pulled on her, you understand why she would do it. And I personally love it's that same background information that makes Vee resentful of Luz of all people. Luz's life is a relative dream come true, and running away from that would be insane to someone who spent most of their existence through imprisonment and experimentation. It's an intriguing point of view, even though it's admittingly flawed given how it's mostly Camila that seemingly made Luz's life bearable. But the flaws don't matter. What matters is that you can see where Vee is coming from, and to me, personally, I think she's understandable enough to make me root for her to have some kind of happy ending. Whether as Luz or as herself, I'm hopeful to see Vee get some semblance of peace.

Camila: *Round of applause* Don't mind me! Just taking the time to love how all them sons of b**hes who thought Camila was a bad mom are now heavily invalidated. 'Cause, guess what? Camila is a fantastic mother, both to her daughter and her daughter's doppelganger! Allow me to walk you through the highlights:

How Camila looks like she’s not okay with the fact that "Luz" is clearing out her weird stuff, seemingly acting too different to the Luz she knows. Added to the fact that Camila doesn't like it.

How Camila drove Luz to camp whether than letting her take the bus

The fact that Camila takes that box of junk back in, not willing to part with the tin foil sculpture Luz made.

The way she was willing to play along with the game she thought Luz was doing, supporting her daughter's creative mind that Camila admits to being glad to see.

And, best of all, the willingness Camila had to help this poor creature, despite the lies it lived.

It's that last part I really want to touch upon, though. Because an action like that shows just how much Luz's heart comes from Camila. The kindness and generosity of helping this poor creature, who she has every right to run out on, proves how Luz learned to be everything she is today through Camila's own loving heart. Vee was scared and hurt, and the second Camila saw that she was then more than willing to help because of it. It's something that Luz would do, and it proves that even though Camila didn't exactly get everything right, she's still a great mom where it counts.

“A new life”: A perfect line.

Initially, it makes audiences think that it has everything to do with replacing Luz. It's only through future context that we know it's about escaping the s**t show Vee once lived through that it's clear she's talking about starting over. It hits us with intrigue on the first viewing, only to hit harder with the feels during a second. Really well-done.

Luz in the Mirror: A well-done surprise that makes fans curious about how this even happen in the first place. Kudos to you, writers.

The New Portal: I don't mind that they found a way to build this off-screen. Showing Luz and the gang slowly building a new portal would have been a little too tedious to watch, and it's so much better to just start this episode out with it. Besides, maybe we'll get the slow and steadier version now that we've seen how quickly building one might not have been the best way to go, given how fast that thing fell apart.

Luz Between Dimensions: I have no clue what the hell that place she was in is called, but it's awesome! The overall design of the realm is the correct type of unsettling, like it's oozing with mystery, but it's somewhere that you probably don't want to be in for too long. Whoever designed it deserves all of the credit because I don't want to even think about all the hard work that went into making this look as well-made as it was.

Luz Resisting to See Amity: What? Luz and Amity are adorable, and seeing Luz's immediate thought about seeing Amity makes my shipping heart scream with glee. Don't judge me!

Hiding Luz’s Dad’s Face: Well, that was a fun story while it lasted.

So, it turns out that Luz's dad really was a part of Luz's and Camila's life at some point, but not anymore. As for why remains to be seen, as we don't really know yet if we'll see him make an appearance. I'd say that the odds are high that he will, given how much of a point this episode made about keeping his face hidden. Shows don't usually do that unless the goal is to hype up some official reveal, and I can't wait to see what comes of it.

Luz Telling Herself to Count to Five: Hey, more evidence for how I relate to Luz! I know how it feels to be all panicky about a specific situation, and I only got better when I took the time to calm down for a bit. Sometimes, I even tried the "count to x" method that Luz used...it never worked, primarily because it made me feel worse when people told me to do it, but I still tried it! Plus, there's also some narrative foreshadowing when after Luz says five, the realm shows her Vee, or Number V, which is a pretty cool detail you'll notice on a rewatch.

Luz Helping Vee: I gave Camila praise for helping Vee in the end, but that doesn't abstain Luz from her own set of recognition. The second that Luz realized that Vee wasn't really a threat and is far from evil, our favorite human does what she can to help and even makes a deal where they're both happy. Because, of course, Luz is that perfect of a protagonist who is more than willing to help others in need. And it's why we love her so.

Looking for Magic that Eda Left Behind: A pretty cool idea that gives Luz and Vee a chance to bond and giving us an insight into Eda's past antics and misadventures in the human realm. Not much I can add to it, though.

Gravesfield: It's surprisingly not as jarring as I thought it would be to spend an episode in the human realm. I thought for sure, after all that time in the Boiling Isles, there would be something off about walking around a normal environment for a change. Turns out, it's almost easy to get used to. Or, for me, it is.

But I will say that there's this neat use of colors when comparing Gravesfield with the Boiling Isles. In Gravesfield, the coloring looks dulled down and standard, which is a stark contrast to the bright vibrancy of everything we've seen in the Boiling Isles. It's a subtle way of showing how things are different, aside from the major discrepancies we could come to expect. And I think that's why I appreciate it much more.

Eda’s Called Herself Marylynn in the Human Realm: Hang on...hang on...do you mean to tell me that the crack theory about Eda being Stan's ex-wife is actually true?

...

...What even is this show?!

Vee Making Friends with Camp Members: This shows the most apparent difference between Luz and Vee. Where we see Luz is already fearing the many ways that could go wrong with interacting with teens, Vee revealed that she adapted to her situation and had a chance to make friends. The implications of this are worth discussing another time, but for now, I'll say that it's pretty intriguing that we gain this much insight into both Luz and Vee through such a small thing.

Belos Wanting to Learn How Basilisks can Drain Magic: ...Didn't Raine say that Belos was taking away magic? If so, I think we can figure out how he's doing it. The question now is: Why?

Jacob (The Curator Guy): This guy was a riot. At first, Jacob seemed like a threat with the way he trapped Vee and was apparently stocking her, but the second he goes off about his conspiracy theories, it becomes clear what type of character he is. And was it a blast seeing how much of a crackpot this man is. It wasn't cool seeing him wanting to dissect the precious angel that is Vee, but I still chuckle about things like his "Flat Eather's Certificate." So while he's not that much of a threat, he's still fun to watch.

The Owl Beast was in the Human Realm: ...How did that happen? When did it happen? And how the hell did Eda get out of a situation like that?! Who knows, but it's still a shocking piece of news to learn.

Luz Telling Camila the Truth: Hey, she faced her fear after all! Although, the results aren't as pleasant as when Amity faced her fear two weeks ago.

Camila is a Veterinarian: ...One insignificant reveal...managed to destroy so many fanfics. I mean, we probably shouldn't have just assumed Camila was a nurse...but what the f**k else were we supposed to think?! Sorry for seeing the scrubs, and the first thing that came to my mind was "nurse" and not "vet."

By the way, that had to have been intentional, right? There's no way that Dana Terrace didn't think we'd assume Camila was a nurse. She'd had to have put off a reveal like that just to trip up her fans. And if that's the case, then that is a major d**k move...but that's why I mildly respect it.

Two Human Brothers went to the Demon Realm: Turns out we don't have to be in the Boiling Isles to learn more about it. Because now we have more information about how two humans were taken to the Isles with the help of a witch, thus setting up a grander reveal if it turns out that one of the humans was Philip and the witch was Belos. Because if that's true...then there's more of a history between those two than we thought.

Jacob has a Training Wand: This helps me believe that it's highly likely for Jacob to make a return and to have a power boost for when he does. After all, focussing all that attention on the training wand is way too convenient for it not to come up again in the future. Meaning we're most likely going to get more pain from Jacob if he shows up again.

Camila Beats the Crap out of Jacob for Vee: ...Writers, don't make me choose between Camila and Eda on who's the better cartoon mom. I know Eda's technically not a mom...BUT I STILL DON'T WANT TO CHOOSE DAMNIT!

Also, the sandal...just...

Why the f**k does Camila have a sandal in her purse? I don't know. Is it still funny that she does? Most certainly.

Camila and Luz’s Talk in the Rain: Ooooooooh, I was not ready for this...

I wasn't ready for the crying.

I wasn't ready for the hurt in Camila's eyes when she found out Luz chose to stay in the Boiling Isles.

I wasn't ready for Camila asking if Luz hates being with her that much.

I wasn't ready for Luz profusely stating how it was never Camila's fault.

I was not ready for Camila to tell Luz that she'll try to do better.

And I definitely was not ready for Luz to barely have enough time to promise that she'll come back.

This episode wasn't the twenty-two minutes of nonstop angst that I thought it was going to be...but this short scene more than make up for it.

Luz Tries to Stay Strong: Yet another thing she unwittingly learned from Camila. Camila tried to keep a brave face when Vee was with her and Luz, most likely not wanting to tear either of them down in the process. Luz does the same thing here as she avoids talking about the details of what went down in her sort-of journey back home. And seeing her clearly fake smile slowly droop into an uncertain frown, it uh...it definitely tore me up inside.

WHAT I DISLIKED

I want to say it's perfect, but there's one major issue that really bogs this episode down.

Continuity Error in How Vee Replaced Luz: Having Vee take Luz's place the same day Luz appeared in the Isles is a smart idea on paper...if it wasn't for the fact that it's impossible.

Because Eda closed the portal door the second that she saw Luz, meaning that there's no way for Vee to go to the human realm. It's a major plothole that makes no sense, and it might just be the first time ever that this series wasn't so closely knit with its story. Which ends up taking a dive in quality in the process.

IN CONCLUSION

I'd say that "Yesterday's Lie" is an A-. Everything about Luz, Vee, and Camila is incredible, combined into a story that ends in tragedy and uncertainty for the future. That plothole may drag things down a bit, but everything else is handled so well that I'm not lying when I say it's easy to forgive and forget.

(And that's ten episodes in a row without a single stinker. HOW THE F**K DOES THIS SEASON KEEP WINNING?!)

#the owl house #the owl house spoilers #toh spoilers #luz noceda #camila noceda #camila is a good mom ok!#toh vee #emperor belos #what i thought about #the owl house reviews

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ruewrites · 3 years

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Thrones are Built on Lies Chapter 4: Little White Lies

AO3

Ship: ???, Diavolo/Lucifer

Word Count: 3083

Warnings: None

A/N: Hey guys! I hopy you’re continuing to enjoy the story so far! I love hearing your feedback especially when it comes to theories you might have about the story.

The magic of Arcadia runs deep in her roots. Legends tell of deep underground caverns filled with guardians and traps which prove perilous to anyone who dare venture into the deep. It is also said the royal family has their own connections as well. The gods had entrusted the first Kings and Queens to the magic in order to both protect it and the land which it sleeps beneath. Magic then became a part of the family bloodline. It is unknown whether or not it skips generations and no one is exactly sure as to how it shows itself within different family members. Some believe that this (magic) is also the reason that the Arcadian kingdom became an empire, as it allowed Kings and Queens to emerge victorious from battle time and time again.

Regardless of whether these tales are fact or fiction, it is undeniable that Arcadia holds power in one form or another. Many sources point to magic, yet none have substantial proof due to the fact that if it does indeed exist the royal family would certainly be rather protective of it. This may also be why they are peculiar about who they let into the family.

Furthermore-

That had been the last of Solomon's summary before he had collapsed onto his parchment. The wax from his candle slowly dripped downwards towards the tin holder below. He functioned incredibly well as a king, but not so much as a human person.

Low knocks on his door roused him, grumbling from his slumber. He stood from his chair, allowing his vertebrae to crack as he did so, and trudged over to the door.

"Good Morning," Simeon's all too cheerful voice rang out, "You have ink smudged on your face."

"Aren't you a little cheery this morning Simeon?" Solomon asked, attempting to wipe the ink off of his face.

"You've never been a morning person have you? Perhaps it's a good thing the princess ran into me so she wouldn't have to see you like this," Simeon lifted a tray stacked with eggs, pancakes, and a variety of meats and cheeses, "She wanted to bring you breakfast since you weren't at the table. Apparently there's something she wants to speak with you about."

"Something?" Solomon repeated, ignoring the jabs aimed at him and eyeing the food in front of him.

"She wouldn't elaborate, but she did seem nervous. Incredibly so."

"Really now?"

"The entire tray was shaking in her hands."

So her mood hadn't improved from last night. If anything, it seemed to be worse now. Taking the tray from Simeon, Solomon moved to sit on his bed. Yet another problem added to his list.

No. He shouldn't think of her as a problem.

That wasn't the way to approach this, grumpy or not.

"I should probably seek her out then," he sighed, starting to work on his breakfast, "If she really is that anxious it'll be easy for her to lose her nerve. The sooner we speak, the less time she has to dwell on it."

Simeon stared at him for a moment. Solomon tried to ignore the look on his face. It was one he'd become familiar with. He only ever saw it when Simeon felt the need to be brutally honest with him.

"Are you sure you should go through with this marriage?"

There it was.

He set down his fork and sighed.

"This family seems, what's the word, unfit for someone like you. They're disjointed and rather chaotic. I'm sure the death of their father doesn't help things, but," Simeon sighed, "I just don't want you stuck in something like this."

Solomon mulled over Simeon's words in his head. Dinner with the family certainly had been quite the event. If Simeon was saying something then he must have also witnessed something. Surely, marrying into the royal family would prove to be more of a commitment than he originally thought. But he couldn't give up on his ambition. Not when he was here.

"Simeon, we're in Arcadia. Opportunities like this don't just hand themselves out! To give this up would be ludicrous!" Solomon said. Though he still saw the doubt swimming in Simeon's eyes, so he continued, "Besides, if her family is always like this, marrying me will bring her a sense of normalcy."

"Solomon-"

"Am I wrong Simeon?"

Simeon didn't say a word.

Solomon ate the rest of his breakfast in silence, said silence stretched into the time it took him to walk to his clothes, "Where is Luke?"

"With Lord Diavolo's butler. Barbatos made quite the impression on him yesterday."

"Really?"

"Really."

And Luke had been so set on not trusting any Arcadian. Though, to his credit, Barbatos wasn't Arcadian so to speak. So the child had found a loophole. Sweets and cakes were the way to a child's trust it seemed.

"Who knows Simeon, you may lose your apprentice to a butler."

"Oh I highly doubt that."

Solomon decided on something a bit more relaxed today. Perhaps if he wasn't wearing his kingly attire Lilith would be more incline to open up around him. He needed her to feel comfortable around him. How were they to make this work otherwise? Solomon refused to live a miserable life.

He stepped out from behind the curtain in a loose shirt that left part of his chest exposed and black slacks. "Well?" he asked, turning in a circle around himself, "What do you think? Is it enough to make a princess swoon?"

"I do believe so. Maybe even enough for you to start your own little family tonight."

Solomon flinched, "I wouldn't go that far."

"And why not?"

Oh why not? For starters he wouldn't be able to devote time to his research. Solomon was a busy man, he had things he needed to do before he was too old to meet his goals. A child he wasn't prepared for yet would put more than a damper in his plans. Not to mention, stress he wasn't prepared for. Then there had also been Lilith's reaction to the very mention of fertility.

No.

A child right now wouldn't be the right thing.

Not for him.

"You are aware her brother already seems to despise me right? He already doesn't want me in her room, I don't think I'd live to see another day if I added to his family tonight," he said. It was a partial truth. Not his main concern, but a partial truth nonetheless.

Simeon only chuckled in response.

After his trusted friend left to find his apprentice, Solomon went after his fiance.

He had to wonder if she was hiding from him. He figured he wouldn't run into her right away, but he at least figured that it wouldn't take very long to find her.

Surely he expected to see someone, anyone, to ask where she might be but every hall was oddly empty.

Just like the streets of Arcadia.

The first person he ran into was none other than Azazel. Well, it was better than running into the crown prince himself. At least Solomon could assume that Azazel didn't despise him.

He appeared to be inspecting each of the thrones, moving them ever so slightly in one direction or another. His fingers caressed the throne in the center, following its every curve and bend. Focus consumed his eyes. Perhaps he was inspecting them for the upcoming coronation? Under his free arm, there was a book. It was thick, leather bound, and from what he could see it also looked worn.

Solomon had to wonder if Azazel looked up by chance or if he sensed his presence.

"Solomon, good morning! I was hoping to run into you. You slept well I hope?"

"I did. I'm enjoying a bed to myself while I still can. Thank you Azazel."

He'd have to share one for the rest of his life in a short time. Cool sheets would turn warm and Solomon would lose the comforting familiarity of solitude. He could always have his own room he supposed, but he wasn't sure how his fiance would feel.

"I do understand what you mean. Speaking of my niece, I do want to apologize for last night."

Solomon tensed. This was already a conversation he didn't want to have.

"I assure you that she's usually polite. We had to work hard to break some of her more stubborn habits, but it appears there was a slip up last night," he frowned and clutched the book tighter, "I had a talk with her this morning, and I can assure you that it will not be happening again. "

"I didn't think she did anything wrong," Solomon's words came out quick and sharp, "In fact, I quite enjoy how she reacted. I would have liked to see her take it farther. After all, she was dragged into the whole thing. It wasn't like she orchestrated it herself."

Azazel seemed stunned, but he didn't say any more. Instead, he studied Solomon. His fingers drummed against the book in his possession and a low hum left him.

Solomon had said what he said.

He wasn't going to regret it.

"I see. That certainly isn't something I would have expected you to say," he said, "I would have expected a man with your reputation to be a bit more strict in nature."

Certainly he wasn't implying what Solomon thought he was implying. Strict with Lilith? She was an adult, not a child.

"She can make her own decisions," Solomon's voice became lower, darker, "I'm not her guardian."

"Whatever she does reflects your reputation as well," Azazel countered in a similar tone, "Keep that in mind when making your decisions."

Solomon hated the way something within him twinged.

He did want to control how he was remembered.

He wanted to be praised across the ages.

Azazel's smile returned to his face. "But of course that's something you can do to help curate your own legacy. And speaking of legacies," he held the book out to Solomon, "I've been informed that you took a trip to my nephew's library. I think you and I have similar interests from what I've heard, and I thought you would take interest in this book."

Solomon didn't make a move to take it.

"It's focused on magic, specifically Arcadian magic, and more in depth than anything else you'll find here. I'm sure such a talented scholar as yourself would thoroughly enjoy it."

It was tempting.

How could he resist?

Any lead he could get when it came to Arcadia's secrets was one he needed.

"I was hoping we could chat together at some point over tea? It would be a shame for you to be left out of family secrets when you're about to become family" Azazel slipped his arm to Solomon's back and gazed down at the book in his hands, "I'm sure we'll have plenty to discuss."

When had been the last time Solomon spoke with another scholar? Someone who was on his level of intellect? When had he found the time to do such a thing?

Never.

The truth was that Solomon couldn't remember the last time he'd had a back and forth conversation. Usually people would listen to him as he rambled on about his studies and interests, but they couldn't contribute to the conversation. It was frustrating and often left Solomon feeling as if he was lacking something. Yes he had knowledge, but he wanted to share it and build on it.

Solomon gripped the cover in his hands.

"I've been meaning to speak with Lilith, but I certainly can start on this book. I'll be able to read enough to discuss with you soon."

His fingers were itching to start digging into the pages.

Would it be as enticing as Azazel was promising him?

"Good! Good. Let me know whenever you wish to speak and I shall be waiting for you," Azazel patted his back, and started to leave, "Now I must leave you. I have to speak to Lucifer about the matters of the day. He always has tea with his husband at this hour."

"Wait, do you know where Lilith is?"

"What for? I already said I spoke to her about last night."

"That's not- I was under the impression she wished to speak with me."

Azazel paused for a moment, "Well, I do believe she is busy at the moment."

"With wh-"

"With tasks she must attend to. She also needs to review a few of her lessons, as is evident from last night."

Solomon thought he'd already made it clear how he felt about last night.

"Now how is that-"

"Listen to me," Azazel snipped, turning his head to look at Solomon, "That innocent looking doe-eyed fiance of yours will bleed you dry and ruin your reputation if you don't watch yourself. Take it from a man who witnessed other reputations ruined. These descendants of my brother will ruin you. They are nowhere near fit to rule alongside the crown prince."

He turned away from him, "I am their uncle. I think I would know when discipline is the correct form of action."

He had some point Solomon supposed. He had just met the Morningstar family. He knew nothing of them. Yet he couldn't help but want to prove Azazel wrong.

Yes he was a fellow scholar and Solomon would appreciate his company when fit, but that didn't mean he had to agree with him in all of his methods. And Lilith seemed to be one of those things that they'd have to disagree on.

Lilith couldn't be that bad. How could she be that bad?

No one seemed to be able to tell him when her lessons would be done or when he could speak with her. Not a soul. He thought that he might be able to catch her that day, but he was wrong.

Not that day.

Nor the day after that.

He kept missing her.

It was driving him insane.

Maybe he should have gone to breakfast the day she'd said something to Simeon.

He tried to pour himself into his studies, tried to finish his other books so he could get to the one Azazel had entrusted to him. Yet even when he did finish his other books, he couldn't bring himself to open it, not yet.

This one would require all of his focus, and he couldn't focus when he knew that Lilith had some sort of thing to ask of him.

Something that seemed to have her incredibly nervous.

It was evening, Solomon sat at his desk, pouring over his notes next to dripping candle wax when a knock came from. His door.

Simeon stood slightly behind Lilith who was twiddling her fingers and desperately trying to avoid his gaze.

"They don't know I'm here," her voice was soft, as if she was afraid of speaking any louder lest she summon one of her brothers (or all of them), "I asked your friend if he could take me here… I hope you don't mind."

Solomon shook his head. He wasn't exactly dressed for the occasion, but he opened his door a bit more, "Not at all, I've been looking for you actually. Would you like to come in?"

No sooner had he motioned for her to come in than her eyes widened in horror and her hands quickly shot up. Nervous laughter spilling from her lips, "Oh no. I was um, actually hoping we could go outside the palace. Somewhere a bit more private…"

Solomon looked at Simeon who shrugged his shoulders. With a snap of his fingers Solomon extinguished the candle and stepped outside of his room.

"Lead the way."

Leaving Simeon behind, the two made their way outside and away from the town that surrounded the entrance. Solomon supposed he should have been a bit more wary when they left the gates and the wall that surrounded them, but he wasn't.

He couldn't help but notice how Lilith kept him at an arm's length away. Could she be worried about his intentions? Maybe he had done something to offend her during her bath, or maybe he shouldn't have followed her in at all. In hindsight that was rude of him. Perhaps there was some way he could reassure her and have her feel safe around him.

Finally, she came to a stop at a small clearing and sat down, still avoiding his gaze.

It was a warm night, and fireflies danced around the two of them bursting into light every now and again.

Solomon sat a little ways down from her, and looked up at the sky.

"I don't know how to start," she said after a moment.

"Take your time, there's no need to rush," he said, "Besides, I'm not usually on the best of sleep schedules anyways."

"Stop that."

Solomon furrowed his brow. What? What had he done? He hadn't moved from his position. He hadn't reached out for her.

What had he done to upset her?

"If you don't mind me asking, what is it that I did?"

Lilith made a small noise of frustration while wiggling and gripping at her sleeves, "Being so nice to me. And charming and funny and attractive- You're making this harder."

Solomon was stunned, "I? I'm? Excuse me?"

Was she planning on calling off their union? No. No no no. Not when he'd come so far. Not when what he desperately wanted was right in his grasp. He couldn't let her go. He had to find some way to fix it.

Standing up, Lilith started to walk towards the other end of the clearing. She was tense and her body was shaking. Honestly, Solomon thought she looked like a scared rabbit.

A scared rabbit who'd been caught nonetheless.

"You're making this so hard for me."

He almost missed her words.

The snuffles came before the hyperventilating, and that's when Solomon came to her. Had he really been that horrible to petrify her in such a way?

He could figure that out as he went. For now, he needed to calm her down and figure out how to keep their union together. She was his ticket to Arcadia, to new knowledge. He wasn't going to lose her.

"Lilith, I-" he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.

She smacked it away and quickly turned on her heels to look him dead in the eye. A new sense of fire in her eyes.

“I’m not Lilith.”

#ruewrites #TaBoL #obey me #obey me solomon #obey me asmodeus #obey me lucifer #obey me diavolo #obey me simeon #solodeus #asmosolo #soloasmo #asmodeus x solomon #dialuci #diavolo x lucifer #arranged marriage!au #royalty!au #slow burn

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jungshookz · 4 years

Note

Idk if this has been sent before but imagine like baker jin and forgetful y/n like she needs to get a cake for yoongi asap bc she forgot his bday and jin is completely okay w working at supersonic speed for this cute little teary eyed person who seems to be in big trouble

➺ pairing; kim seokjin x reader

➺ genre; baker!jin duh, fluffier than jin’s popular angel food cake!! jin and y/n are a couple of cuties :’)

➺ wordcount: 3.9k

➺ what to expect; “okay! that’s easy. a birthday cake is doable! see? nothing to get teary-eyed over, darling!”

➺ note; i’m not going to lie the one thing that motivated me to finALLy write this request was the phrase ‘cute little teary-eyed person’ i am soFT! I AM SOFT! okay bye i love baker!jin

»»————-　🍰　————-««

you’ve been sitting in your car for the past twenty minutes trying to remember what exactly it was that namjoon asked you to do for yoongi’s birthday

you know it wasn’t to get everyone to sign his birthday card because that was your job lasT year and also jungkook is in charge of that this year because last week he literally asked you to sign yoongi’s card

and it definitely wasn’t to decorate the venue because namjoon always takes care of that (because he likes things done a certain way and doesn’t trust anyone else with the important job of whEre to place the balloons)

and it also wasn’t to wrap his birthday gifts because according to jimin your wrapping skills are awful and you have the cutting skills of a toddler using those play scissors

it certainly wasn’t to pick yoongi up from his apartment because if that was your job then yoongi would be in the car with you right now (it’s hoseok’s job this year)

and taehyung was the one who curated the invite list aNd took care of the music playlist so you know that wasn’t your job either

so what… in the world… did namjoon ask you to do?

your memory has always been pretty shitty so you probably should’ve written it down

actually you dID technically write it down the day namjoon asked you to take care of it because you remember vividly using your pen and writing it on the back of your hand and then you remember namjoon scolding you and delving into a lecture about the dangers of ink poisoning

but then you washed your hands

and once it was wiped away from your hand it was wiped away from your memory

and that was two weeks ago

so now

here you are

in the parking lot of the venue (you guys are celebrating yoongi’s suRPRISE party at his favourite video game arcade) sitting in your car in complete silence hoping that whatever task you were supposed to complete will just naturally come to you

the party starts at 8 and it’s 7 right now so you still have an hour left to think

you came early to help namjoon set up but then the whole ‘i feel like i’m forgetting something’ thought creeped into your mind and now here you are

and you’re a little afraid to go in and ask namjoon about your mystery task because you feel like he’s going to skin you alive if he finds out that you have noT completed the mystery task

but then again he’s namjoon and namjoon wouldn’t hurt a fly!!!! he’s a sweetie pie!!!

whatever your task is it probably wasn’t that important because namjoon should know better than to send you off with completing something that is integral to the success of yoongi’s surprise party

“you have three seconds to tell me that you’re kidding before i actually lose it.” namjoon presses his lips together before exhaling slowly

okay

quick breakdown of what happened after you decided to leave the safety of your car

you came in

said hello to everyone

complimented jimin’s gift-wrapping skills

snuck one of the mini cheeseburger off the foods table

asked tae if he could add dancing queen on the playlist because no party is complete without some ABBA

snuck a mini corndog off the foods table

and then wandered over to a busy namjoon to say hi but before you could say hi namjoon asked you where ‘it’ was, to which you responded with “what… what is ‘it’?”

“by it, i mean the birthday cake. yoongi’s birthday cake. yoongi’s birthday cake that you were supposed to take care of this year because of the revolving system that i- y/n, i need you to say something and stOP staring at me like you don’t know what i’m talking about-“

“oh, the birthday cake!” you snap your fingers before putting your hands on your hips “god, thanks for clearing that up for me. i was literally scratching my head over it for like an hour.”

well there we go!

the mystery has been solved!!!

now you know what namjoon asked you to do for yoongi’s birthday

you were supposed to get his birthday cake!

…

…hollup

the smile immediately drops from your face

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET YOONGI’S BIRTHDAY CAKE

“oh my- oh my goD-“ your eyes practically pop out of their sockets when it finally registers that you were supposed to order a custom birthday cake for yoongi and you definitely did noT order anything for yoongi

“y/n, i asked you to do one thing-!” namjoon groans and throws his hands up into the air

“i know, i know!!!!! it’s okay, i’ll fix this!” you reassure as you rummage through your purse for your car keys “what flavour should i get??? classic birthday cake?? lemon curd??”

“lem- leMON CUR- oh my GOD i want to hurl you into the middle of a busy intersection-“ namjoon feels like he’s about to have a stroke christ almiGHTY

LEMON CURD????

yoongi’s not turning EIGHTY

“lemon curd??” your voice is turning piTchy and that’s an indicator that you are PANICKING “was that a yes for lemon cur-“

you freeze in fear when namjoon suddenly reaches forward and squiSHes your face in between his hand

“shut up and listen to the words that are about to come out of my mouth.” he says lowly and you swallow thickly before nodding

you’re not sure if you like this namjoon

“a four layer cake. alternating layers of chocolate cake and confetti cake. light blue buttercream frosting in between the layers. dark blue buttercream frosting all around. black sprinkles around the cake - not the top, just around the cake, it’s crucial that there are no sprinkles on the top. in black buttercream frosting, ‘happy birthday yoongi’ in block letters.” he almost growls and you feel like your heart is about to fall out of your ass

if anything will teach you to nevEr forget anything again it’ll be this version of namjoon

he’s like bridezilla except instead of a bride he’s a self appointed party planner

“four layers. chocolate. confetti. light blue in between. dark blue all around. black sprinkles all around, not on top. happy birthday yoongi. block letters. black letters. block black letters??” you probably look like a crazy person muttering things to yourself as you huStle back to your car

namjoon said that if you don’t get back to the party with a custom birthday cake by the time the clock strikes 9:00 he’ll kill you and you beLIEVE him

since you’re not going to be there when the party starts jimin said he’ll come up with some buLLshit excuse about you running late so that yoongi doesn’t get too suspicious about your whereabouts

he mentioned that he didn’t really want a cake this year but all of you know how much yoongi loves cake

and you love seeing him make that ‘i’m pretending i’m surprised but in reality i knew this was going to happen all along’ face

it’s so cute!!

you slam the front door shut and hurry to buckle yourself in as you type ‘custom birthday cakes near me’ on google maps

it’s fine! you’ll be fine

you wiLL definitely be able to find some bakery to put together a suPER last minute custom birthday cake

more specifically, a four layer cake with alternating layers of chocolate cake and confetti cake slathered with blue buttercream frosting and covered with sprinkles around it (not on top! just around! very important!) and also it should say ‘happy birthday yoongi!’ and the writing should be in chunky letters using black buttercream frosting

“why do bakeries close so early???” you wonder out loud as you continue to scroll through the results

literally everything is closed

if there’s one thing you’ve learned from this it’s that bakers are noT night owls

c’mon come oN

you’ll take anything at this point

you nearly scream in joy when you see that there’s one bakery that a) specialises in custom cakes and b) is still open for another thirty minutes and c) is not that far from you!!!!

according to google the place called sweet kimfecjins

oh dear god

what the heLL kind of a name is that???

whA-

and it is far from you!!!! it’s a twenty minute drive away from you!!!

under these circumstances that’s not close at aLL

you need a place that’s at the most thirty seconds away from you (you are noT kidding you really need this cake right here right now)

what other options are there

well

there’s a mcdonald’s near you

maybe you can just buy a bunch of those apple pies and use the oreo mcflurries to glue them all together to buiLD a cake

sure, it’s literally the farthest thing from what namjoon told you to get, but it’s a cake!!!!!

…okay you can’t do that to yoongi

if you were presented with an apple-pie-mcflurry nightmare as a birthday cake you would be pretty bummed out

so this means one thing

sweet kimfecjins here we come

surprisingly enough you make it to the bakery in twelve minutes time without running any red lights oR running any pedestrians over

you did honk at a couple crossing the street but you made sure to shoot them an apologetic smile

they still flipped you off but the point is you made it to the bakery with like fifteen minutes left to spare until they close up for the night

and-

“oh- oh no- nonONoOnONONO-“ your eyes are as wide as saucers as you practically slam yourself up against the glass doors right as the (presumable) owner is flipping the sign to ‘closed’ “oh, please- please, google said that you’re not closing for like another fifteen minutes, please, you haVe to help me i nEED a cake-“

namjoon is going to have your head on a stick if you don’t get this cake so you are going to have to beg like you’ve never begged before

jin sighs to himself as he watches the clock tick tock tick tock

it’s been a slow day today

he had a couple people in this afternoon but they only bought like one strawberry turnover to share in between the two of them

who shaRES one single strawberry turnover???

psychopaths, that’s who

and also he had some tourists come in and they bought a box of his carrot cake cupcakes so that was pretty good

he also managed to convince them to buy another box of red velvet cupcakes >:-) it was actually pretty easy because he just had to flirt with the two girls and they immediately were like okAY more cupcakes won’t hurt

…what???

he has to make a living!!!

yoU would do the same if you had to make money

but other than that business has been a little slow

last week he had a bachelorette party cake request and he spent five hours moulding a penis out of fondant so that was pretty exciting

they even gave him a bonus tip because they said it looked very realistic

what can he say?? his hands are magical

but now he’s bored out of his mind and honestly he wouldn’t even mind if he got another request for a penis cake

he just wants to maKE something!!!

he made a couple cakes this morning and put them in the display cases hoping to lure people in to buy them but they’ve been untouched!! so he’s just going to pack up all the leftovers of the day and deliver it to the food bank

hopefully they’ll enjoy all his delicious treats.,.., that they’re getting for free.,,.., even though he would much rather prefer getting compensated for his hard work

do you SEE how beautifully braided the puff pastry is for his apple tarts???????

since no one seems to be buying baked goods at this hour jin decided to close up a little earlier tonight

he’s going to clean up a little bit and do some prepping for tomorrow (his secret to the best chocolate chip cookies is chilling the dough overnight) and then he’s going to pack up all the leftovers and deliver them and thEn he’s finally going to go home and maybe order some dinner or something

as he flips the sign to ‘closed’, he-

“jeSUS fuCJK-“ jin jumps thirty feet in the air when someone suddenly slams up against the glass doors

goD

“oh- oh no- nonONoOnONONO- oh, please- please, google said that you’re not closing for like another fifteen minutes, please, you haVe to help me i nEED a cake-“

thank god the doors are locked because whoever you are you seem INSANE

“i’m sorry, i’m closing up for the night!” jin replies and gives you a shrug “come back tomorrow! i open at 7am sharp-“ jin immediately stops talking when he notices your eyes starting to well up with tears

oh god

he didn’t mean to make you cry!!

why are you crying????

is 7am not early enough for you??

“i- um, i mean i guess i could open at 6:30 but to be honest i might pass out while frosting your cake that early because my beauty sleep is-“

“no, you don’t understand- it’s my friend’s birthday tonight a-and we’re throwing him a surprise party and i was supposed to get the cake for him because that was the task that namjoon- he’s another one of my friends - that he assigned to me but i- well, i wrote it down on my hand but then i washed my hands and then i kinda forgot about it but that was two weeks ago and now i have to get yoongi - that’s the birthday boy - i have to get him his special cake otherwise namjoon’s going to be so upset with me and-“ your mouth is running like a motor and jin can barely keep up with this story because you keep throwing in new details and also it’s hard to hear you through the glass

something something birthday cake something surprise party something bukjoon something something

okay

you know what

you made a fair point

he iS technically still open so he’ll let you in

(and also you’re…,,. kind of cute so there’s that)

a fat tear threatens to roll down your cheek as you continue to blubber and jin holds a finger up

you immediately shut up and jin offers you a smile before opening the door “i’ll help you if you stop crying.”

you nod quickly and reach up to wipe at your drippy eyes

your nose has gone a little pink and your eyes are glossy and jin can’t help but find that even moRe endearing

“now - what did you need?” jin asks calmly as he leads you towards the front counter

“a birthday cake.” you sniffle before clearing your throat

“okay! that’s easy. a birthday cake is doable!” jin claps his hands together after he makes his way behind the counter “see? nothing to get teary-eyed over, darling!”

okay woAh

he’s not sure where the pet-name came from

it just rolled off his tongue so naturally!!!

you hiccup and your nose twitches and jin feels his heart pit-a-pat in his chest

o boy

“but i- it has to be four layers and it has to be chocolate confetti chocolate confetti and then i need blue- light blue buttercream frosting in between the layers and… and i think dark blue buttercream around- or maybe it’s dark blue in between and light blue around-“ you start to ramble again and jin’s eyes widen

chRist

this birthday cake might not be that doable after all

usually he just has to write ‘happy birthday ____!’ on top of a cake and maybe make some pretty frosting roses on top and that’s it

“how about-“ jin interrupts you agAin with a gentle smile, “how about i get you a pen and paper and you can list out all the requirements for this special cake? in the meantime, i’ll heat up a cup of my homemade strawberry milk for you and- are you a fruit person or a chocolate person?”

“chocolate?” you pull a chair out from a table and drag it over so that you’re sitting right by the front counter “i like milk chocolate.”

“lucky for you, i use milk chocolate for my chocolate mousse cake. do you like whipped cream?” jin asks as he slides a notepad and pen over to you

you nod before offering him a shy smile

okay

so far so good

your cake actually isn’t that complicated! it just has a loT of different pieces that have to be put together

and it’s a good thing jin still has some pans of cake that he baked this morning (usually he bakes the cakes in the morning and then lets them rest for the night and then he frosts them the neXt morning so that it’s ready for his customers)

unfortunately he didn’t have any confetti cake so instead he replaced it with plain vanilla cake and then in the blue frosting he threw in a whole handful of sprinkles

and the buttercream frosting is easy to make because he makes them by the buCket so all he had to do was dump food dye in it

and he knows about your time limit so he’s working as quickly as possible

he really wants to strike up a conversation with you but a) he needs to focus and b) for some reason he can’t seem to turn his usual boyish charm on with you because you seem so… delicate?

and you seem to have calmed down from earlier

you’re still working through the chocolate mousse cake and-

jin’s lips press together in a poor attempt to suppress his smile when he notices whipped cream on the corner of your mouth

you seem to be enjoying the cake which is a good thing

“this whipped cream is like, really good-“ you look over at jin (you asked for his name when he first started putting the cake together and just like that the name of his bakery suddenly made sense) ((and now that you think about it it’s actually a pretty clever name so braVo to him!!)) “what brand is it from?”

“oh, it’s- i actually make my own whipped cream, so it’s my own recipe.” jin smiles proudly and stands up a little straighter

“what do you put in here that makes it so good??” you wonder out loud as you scrape some off the top of the cake before sucking it off your pointer finger

“it’s easy, i pretty much just-“ jin suddenly stops whipping the frosting before narrowing his eyes at you playfully “actually, that’s for me to know and for you to nEver find out. how do i know you’re not from some rival bakery??”

“-if i was from a rival bakery i think i’d probably be able to make this cake on my own. instead i came to you and started crying when you said you were closed for the night.” you raise a brow before narrowing your eyes baCk at jin

“touché.” jin snorts as he starts to pipe the message on the top of the cake “so, um-“ he clears his throat and glances over at you briefly “this yoongi - he’s your boyfriend, you said?”

“yoongi?” you laugh lightly before shaking your head, “no, no way. yoongi is not my boyfriend. god, that’d be…. nO, yoongi is not my boyfriend.” you wipe your mouth with a napkin before dropping it on the plate

“right, right- and namjoon is-“

“namjoon is dEFINitely not my boyfriend- i don’t have a boyfriend, so-“ you lean back against the chair as you watch jin slowly piping out yoongi’s name

“ah, i see, i see.” jin nods in understanding

a moment of silence goes by

…he doesn’t know how to continue this conversation

when did he get so awKWARd at flirting????

maybe if he tries to sell you a box of cupcakes like he did with those tourists he’ll become charming again

“do you have a- is there, like, a mrs sweet kimfecjins-“

…and it’s just hitting him that yoU seem to be just as awkward as him when it comes to subtle flirting

“well, if you play your cards right you might just end up with that title, darling.”

your cheeks immEDiately go bright red and jin can’t help but smirk to himself

he’s still got it

“thank you so much for doing this at the last minute, you’re a literal life saver-“ you gush as you dig through your purse for your wallet

there are approximately 18 minutes left until the clock strikes niNE so if you drive as crazily as you did when getting hEre then you should make it back to the party before namjoon gets the chance to bite your head off

“oh, you know what?” jin shakes his head as he makes sure the cake is secure in the box “you can just take the cake - i feel like you’ve been through enough, so this one’s on me.”

“what?? no, i can’t do that to you! it’s such a nice cake!! i can’t just take it-“

“how about-“ jin stops you before you can get into another one of your five minute rambles (you seem to do that a lot) “how about in return for the cake, you let me take you out on a date?”

you blink owlishly at him and jin beams when he sees colour rising to the apples of your cheeks once again

“you- you want to take me out on a date?”

“the journey to becoming mrs sweet kimfecjins has to start somEwhere-“ jin jokes lightly before shaking his head “if you don’t want to, that’s totally fine, but i’m still going to give you the cake on the hous-“

“no, i want to!” you blurt out a little toO enthusiastically before clearing your throat and rEELing it way back “i mean- yeah, a date sounds nice… or whatever.”

“or whatever?” jin teases as he slides the box over to you “i wrote my cell number on the back of the receipt, so… text me, or whatever. let me know when you’re free and we can sort something out.”

good lord

jin seems to know the way to a woman’s stomach aND her heart

‘i scrape fresh vanilla beans into the whipped cream - that’s what makes it so yummy! there’s also another ingredient but i’ll tell you what it is on our date. see you soon, darling. -your favourite very super unbelievably handsome baker, jin’

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

requested drabbles masterlist

660 notes · View notes

welllpthisishappening · 4 years

Text

To Be Totally Locked Up By You

It’s not a big deal.

So, Clarke and Bellamy are sharing a Spotify account. They share plenty of things already. An apartment. A school. Buying rounds at the bar four blocks away. This is basically the same thing.

Until. Octavia tells them about the playlist. Joint music and both of their listening habits on full display, some ridiculous algorithm that leaves Clarke, quite suddenly, feeling more exposed than ever, sharing emotions and feelings, all set to a soundtrack.

—-

Rating: Teen Word Count: Nearly 8K AN: It’s happening! Admittedly sooner than I expected (I’m still only in season five, but the feelings. I’ve got them) and this is almost too autobiographical to be entirely fair, but I wrote this in like…four hours. So, here it is. Long-time Bellarke fic-reader, first-time Bellarke fic-writer. With lots of thoughts on Bellamy Blake’s curls. Joining a new fandom is exciting and terrifying.

|| Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll ||

—-

“Why are you and my brother sharing a Spotify account?”

Clarke nearly breaks the pencil in her hand. She lifts her head slowly, not entirely surprised to find Octavia staring expectantly at her, arms crossed tightly enough that it’s very likely doing permanent damage to her ribs.

Possibly her lungs.

It’s been a very long time since Clarke took those anatomy classes.

“Well,” Octavia prompts, one eyebrow arching perfectly. “Yes or no question.” “How did you get in here?” “Did you not hear me come in?”

Clarke makes a contrary noise in the back of her throat, tugging her legs closer to her chest so she can rest her chin on her knees. She’s genuinely impressed with the state of Octavia’s right eyebrow. It appears to be defying gravity.

She doesn’t really know enough about gravity either.

Maybe she should make a list of the things she doesn’t know.

That seems inevitably depressing.

And Octavia is very clearly not going to move until she gets a response she wants, that stupid eyebrow and a pile of papers resting against her hip. Her phone is just barely hanging on in her back pocket, the soft vibration barely audible over the music coming from Clarke’s laptop speakers and the creaky pipes in their bathroom.

Bellamy is in the shower.

Clarke is at least sixty-seven percent positive Octavia planned her ambush that way.

“How do you even know about Bellamy’s Spotify account?” Clarke asks, burrowing further into the corner of the couch. “And seriously, did you pick our lock?” That eyebrow should be studied.

“I have a key,” Octavia drawls. “Obviously. So, your lock is fine and you can stop trying to deflect the important part of—” “—Why are you here?” Octavia gnashes her teeth, but there’s not really any threat there and Clarke only huffs slightly when she tosses her sketchbook on the coffee table. Because she knows that expression. The phone stops ringing. Only to start again.

“How many places are you going today?” Clarke asks knowingly, pointing at the open spot next to her.

There’s another round of huffing and flailing legs, Octavia’s left foot nearly colliding with both of Clarke’s knees, but that’s also impossibly familiar and nearly comfortable and—

“He thinks I should have a wedding cake,” Octavia mumbles. “Like an actual cake. Apparently it’s very historic—” “—Oh my God what an idiot.” “—There’s ancient nonsense involved and something about how that proved you were rich or something—” “—In Rome?” Octavia hums, eyes falling closed like she’s resigning herself to the horrendous ordeal of her older brother buying her a wedding cake. And, really, it’s almost nice. That’s a lie. It’s better than nice and just as expected as Octavia’s flailing limbs.

Because for as long as Clarke Griffin has known Bellamy Blake, since she met Octavia in an intro to stats class they both hated, she’s known several things about him.

One, he loves his little sister. More than anything. Two, he likes taking care of people. Octavia, especially, but at some point that also started to include Clarke, which is another nice thing and another vaguely overwhelming thing and—she doesn’t think about that. It is fine. Three, that same protective streak makes him certain he has to do things and provide things and that means driving Octavia crazy with possible wedding ideas.

And that leads to thing four: he’s an idiot and a nerd in an endearing sort of way that makes Clarke sure he didn’t have to look up that fact about Roman wedding cakes.

It also makes Clarke smile.

She ignores whatever happens to Octavia’s face.

“In Rome,” Octavia echoes. “Anyway that’s what we’re doing. Traipsing around the city and taste-testing cakes and—” “—That doesn’t sound too bad, honestly.” “Stop interrupting me, it will not distract me from my ultimate goal.” “Which is?” Octavia props herself up on her elbows, ignoring Clarke’s groan when she moves. “Do you know how expensive real wedding cakes are?” “That feels like a trick question. In Rome or—” Octavia sticks her whole tongue out when she responds, a noise that Clarke is sure will get stuck in her head for the rest of the day, The shower shuts off.

And Clarke’s mouth doesn’t go dry, per se, but she’s only momentarily worried that everyone in the apartment can hear the way her heart speeds up, falling into rhythm with her perfectly curated Spotify playlist and it hadn’t been much more than a suggestion, a monetary decision that made sense because—

“Jesus fuck Bell, put clothes on!”

Bellamy grins, another shift of eyebrows that Clarke is genuinely starting to resent, rivulets of water falling down either side of his face and dripping towards the towel wrapped around his waist. “Did you break in here, O?” “Used her key apparently,” Clarke mumbles, hoping the heat she can feel rising in her cheeks isn’t obvious.

Because thing number five Clarke has always know about Bellamy Blake is that she’s kind of..into Bellamy Blake. In a passing sort of way. That’s just happened to linger for years.

It’s his hair.

It’s far too curly.

It’s not—it’s more than that, it’s things one through four and a whole slew of other numbers she hasn’t come up with yet and how easy it’s been to live in the same space, both of them looking for roommates at the same time, mixing lives and remembering to buy creamer and always keeping an extra box of strawberry Special K in the back of the cupboard for breakfast-type emergencies, but Clarke likes to lie to herself and—

“Right, right, right,” Bellamy chuckles. “Well, she’s also ridiculously early.” Octavia scowls. “And standing here. Having a conversation you’re not actually a part of. Or invited to.” “Wow. Scathing.” “Do you wander around your apartment naked all the time?” “That’s not what’s happening. Obviously. Also, I live here. Why are you here so early?” “Just super psyched about cake.” “You’ll want to practice that some more before we leave. You might insult the baker in Brooklyn.” “You’re going to Brooklyn?” Clarke balks before she can stop herself, another noise out of Octavia that cannot possibly be good for her throat.

“The bakery got really good reviews.” “Oh my God you looked up bakery reviews.” Bellamy tilts his head, more drops of water that are equal parts horrible and far too distracting to be fair. “Was that supposed to be a question?”

“No, no, I am not even remotely surprised that’s exactly what you did.” Endeared, maybe. Perpetually. But not surprised.

Clarke doesn’t say that.

Octavia is far too busy swinging her feet back on the floor, a slightly different look than earlier and Clarke glances down to make sure her stomach hasn’t actually dropped. She’s still retained enough anatomical knowledge to know that it is supposed to stay in her body.

No drop.

And yet.

She can’t stop the butterflies or the nerves that rise up the back of her throat, another expression she’s far too familiar with.

“Fine,” Octavia snaps. “We will go to Brooklyn. We will taste test all the cakes—there better be hummingbird cake—” “—Who do you think I am, O?” Bellamy mumbles. It gets him a well-deserved eye roll.

Clarke’s going to bite her lip in half.

“You and Clarke are sharing a Spotify account!” Bellamy blinks. Once, twice, runs his fingers through his hair and maybe it’s just a Blake thing, this seeming ability to twist their bodies in wholly unnatural ways. “Do you know what that looks like?” “Like I wanted to save a couple bucks a month? So it would be easier to do cake-type things?” “Phrase that differently,” Clarke suggests, but Bellamy just smirks and the towel thing is really starting to become a problem. The whole liking him is becoming a problem. But she’s just as unsurprised that this is what Octavia wanted to talk about as she was that he looked up bakery reviews, so.

“Also,” Bellamy adds, “Clarke already had Spotify premium. It made sense.” Octavia shakes her head. “You’ve got to live together to be on the same account.”

“I thought we already covered that you have a key to this apartment. The one where Clarke and I live. Together.” “It looks romantic. It looks—” Octavia waves a pair of clearly frustrated hands through the air. “—Domestic. Partnered and, like joint playlists and—” “—You know he gets unlimited skips now, right?” Clarke interrupts, a desperate attempt to end this conversation and, maybe, get Bellamy to put a shirt on.

“Don’t forget the no ads,” Bellamy grins. “That’s been a godsend.” “What an old sentence. Also, you’re a podcast dweeb.”

“Informed, princess. There’s a difference.” “Yuh huh. Whatever.” “As always, your arguments are well-structured and articulate.” She flips him off. He grins. Octavia makes a noise previously unheard by human ears.

“You two do know,” she hisses, “that everyone is talking now and—” “—You all need to find a hobby,” Bellamy groans. “And I did not tell you this to make you lose your mind.” Clarke perks up, something in the back of her brain startling at that particular string of words. “You told her?”

“Yeah. I mean—well, I know it’s not a ton of money saved, but it’s something and…” He trails off, dots of color on his face and eyes that are suddenly very preoccupied with the floor. “It was nice of you to offer. So, I looked up Brooklyn.”

The music gets louder.

Clarke is sure. She’s not sure how, but it seems to swell, the beat settling under her skin and in between her ribs, wrapping around a stomach that refuses to stay where it’s supposed to, flipping and flopping and feeling and, for a moment, she forgets Octavia is there.

For a moment she smiles at Bellamy and he smiles at her and there’s no smirk, nothing except the way his eyes crinkle slightly, half a head tilt and damp curls falling and it’s good and great and then—

Octavia coughs. Pointedly.

“Alright,” she sighs. “Well, I think it’s dumb and you guys should opt out of the joint playlist. It’s the absolute worst and definitely embarrassing.” “What?” Clarke asks.

“Do you not know?” “You’re enjoying yourself.”

“Does Bell know about your secret Jonas love?” “What?!” Octavia throws her whole head back when she laughs, a sudden shift of emotion and the water falling off Bellamy’s elbow is starting to leave a small puddle on their floor. “Lincoln and I had it at first,” Octavia explains, “when we got it.” “You don’t think it’s a little hypocritical to be judging our Spotify purchases when you’ve got your own family plan?” Bellamy mutters. Octavia ignores him. “It’s some algorithm or something. I don’t know how it works, only that it takes all the songs you listen to all the time and turns it into a playlist that the entire family can listen to. In this case, that’s you guys. It’s very telling. About you know—you personally.” “I know Clarke personally,” Bellamy reasons.

“Do you, though?” “I really don’t know how many times we can talk about this apartment.”

“You don’t have to. Because you didn’t know about the Jonas Brothers, did you?” “I really don’t—” “—Exactly,” Octavia says. “Music is...emotional. Certain songs for certain feelings, things that were playing in specific memories. It’s—it’s a whole new avenue to getting a person. Listen to this. Clarke, tell me the truth, how long did you spend making this playlist?” Clarke shrugs. “I don’t know. Not long, but it’s all kind of the same theme...Fleetwood Mac, Clapton, Jefferson Airplane. Good music to draw to.” “What’s the name of it?” “Of the playlist?” Octavia nods. Clarke scrunches her nose. “Music to sketch and avoid stress to,” she grumbles.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Bellamy’s staring at her. Gaping. Like he’s never seen her and it would be overwhelming even with a shirt on. As it is, Clarke swallows back the emotion taking up residence in the back of her throat, ignoring just how exposed she feels and— “You’re stressed?” he asks softly.

“Not really. Just end of the quarter and you know parents at the school—always think their kid deserves a better grade and I’ve got meetings all next week. So. It’s—” God, she’s going to kill Octavia. And write a strongly worded letter to Spotify. “I knew you guys were going out today. The music is a lot of my dad’s favorite stuff. Calms me down.”

Bellamy doesn’t say anything else, a blessing and the single worst thing in the world, but the ends of his mouth curl up slightly and Clarke should stop looking at his mouth. Octavia grins like she won something.

“You should put clothes on Bell,” she says. “Don’t want to miss the baker in Brooklyn.” He salutes, all sarcasm and snark, eyes flitting back towards Clarke’s before he and Octavia leave and she lets the playlist repeat three times. He brings her back a slice of cake.

Octavia texts them both the next day.

Bellamy grumbles, cursing under his breath about the sanctity of Sundays and Clarke resists the urge to make jokes about the New York Times crossword puzzle or his obsession with finishing it every weekend.

She reads the text instead.

Octavia Blake, 11:42 a.m.: I think you guys should stage a bet. A music bet. About the joint playlist.

Clarke Griffin, 11:43 a.m.: Stop calling it that.

“Now, you’ve done it,” Bellamy murmurs, not lifting his eyes from the newspaper. There’s a pen stuck behind each one of his ears.

Octavia Blake, 11:45 a.m.: No. I won’t. It’s weird and you guys are weird and if you're going to commit to Spotify, then I think you should bet to see who can control the playlist.

“Don’t answer,” Bellamy suggests.

Clarke grunts.

Clarke Griffin, 11:46 a.m.: What kind of bet?

Octavia Blake, 11:47 a.m.: You guys can set terms. But basically see who can annoy who first with their musical tastes and seize control of the playlist.

“Why is your sister so violent at all times?” Clarke asks, but Bellamy just fills in another clue and it’s an admittedly interesting idea. She’s nothing if not perpetually competitive.

Octavia Blake, 11:47 a.m.: One musical genius to rule them all.

She kind of forgets about the bet.

Or, whatever.

Clarke’s too preoccupied with those meetings and the Wallace family continues to be the worst family at Mt. Weather, old money and far too many expectations, even for art elective classes that she promises won’t affect your child’s changes at the Ivy League, I swear, and her spine does not appreciate the way she’s sitting in her desk chair.

She’s got a free period, is seriously considering slumping forward and taking a nap when she hears footsteps moving through her doorway. And Clarke’s got every intention of telling whoever it is to fuck off, but she also knows those footsteps and she can hear a soft beat playing in the background, so her curiosity is piqued.

“Have you listened to it?” Bellamy asks, brandishing his phone and his tie is a little crooked.

“What are you doing here?” “Isn’t this the same conversation you had with Octavia?” Clarke rolls her eyes at the same time he drops onto the corner of her desk. She lets out a noise — a warning about paint and half-finished projects she’s got to move to the back of the room, but Bellamy just gives her a steady look and the beat is coming from his phone. “Plus,” he continues, “we just got back from the Museum—” “—Did you geek? “I was a responsible adult figure, princess.” She hums, doing her best to infused as much disbelief into the sound as she can. It’s an old nickname—older than the joint lease and breakfast emergencies, a past Clarke doesn’t always like to think about because they hadn’t always gotten along, but at some point the word had lost its sneer and gained its own look she’s started to covet just a bit.

She really needs to move those eleventh-grade acrylics.

“So, like on a scale of one to three-thousand, how much did you geek, then?” Bellamy clicks his tongue. “I’d never been to the Morgan. 3,000 B.C.! They had stuff from 3,000 B.C.! Scrolls and artifacts, actual jewelry. That is—” “—Old?” “Ancient,” he corrects. “Proper ancient.” “I’d give this geek out a two-thousand, six-hundred and forty-seven. Out of the previously discussed three thousand.” “Yeah, that seems about right.”

“And you had a soundtrack to go with it?” Clarke asks, nodding towards the still-musical phone.

“Kind of. Spotify caught up.” “To?” “Us.” It takes a moment for Clarke to figure out what he means, but then she’s taking a deep breath and trying to remember what she listened to in the last five days. A ridiculous amount of My Chemical Romance.

It’s been a week.

“I didn’t peg you for pop punk,” Bellamy laughs. “Or is MCR a different genre? I was never really sure how that worked.” Clarke groans, sliding further down her chair until his smile threatens to stretch the muscles in his face. She can’t flip him off in school.

“I think, technically, they’re more power punk,” Clarke says. “Or maybe emo—depending on what album the algorithm picked up on.” “What have you been listening to more of?” “Mostly Welcome to the Black Parade on loop.” “Is it Wallace? All your stress and—am I missing out on jam sessions?” “God, not if you call them that,” Clarke exclaims. He blushes again. She may make a list of all the times she can get Bellamy to blush. “But kind of. You’ve had those Model UN meetings after school, so I’ve been blasting music when I get home. I think Pike’s going to rat me out to the super eventually.” “Yeah, well, he’s a dick neighbor. So.” “And my options are limited. No scream-singing in the car when I take the Subway every day.” “You could start singing on the Subway.” Clarke chuckles, sitting up a little straighter. Her spine appreciates it. “Showtime on the downtown six.” “You might be able to make some money. Learn how to flip on the polls.” “I’d donate it to your cake fund. Also, did you call them MCR?” “Is that not right? O went through a very serious Hot Topic phase when she was in high school and I remember some of the lingo, so—” “—You are seriously the oldest man alive.” “Who’s your favorite Jonas Brother?” Clarke scoffs, the song changing and she doesn’t think it’s one of hers. “Frank Ocean?” “A genius.” “You know we don’t have to do this. The sharing playlist thing. It’s—well, O was being crazy, especially with that bet idea, and there’s got to be a way to opt out of it.” “Do you want to opt out of it?” The question seems to hang in the air around them.

And Clarke isn’t sure why it sounds impossibly important, like some line they’re crossing and can’t come back from, but she can’t shake the feeling or the admittedly lyrical genius of Frank Ocean. She turns the music up.

“It’s kind of fun, isn’t it?” Bellamy asks. “Seeing what changes it picks up on and how the playlist evolves with what we’re into.” “Please stop talking about the playlist like it’s a sentient being.” “Fair, fair. But, uh—what do you say?” “To?” His fingers find the back of his hair, pushing curls away from his eyes and he’d left earlier than her that morning. That explains the glasses. He only wears his glasses when he’s tired.

Clarke knows that.

She knows...a lot about Bellamy. And not. Nothing about Frank Ocean, at least.

She’d like to.

She likes Frank Ocean.

She loves—

“If we only listen to the playlist, we’re not going to change it,” Clarke points out.

“Sounds like you’ve got a plan.” “At the risk of giving O any credit, it’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? That we keep listening to our own music during the day or night or whatever, but when we’re coming home from school we listen to the joint playlist. See what happens with it.”

“And are we trying to influence the playlist?” “That’s up to you, I guess.”

“Yeah, ok. Try to influence the playlist, see what we can force the other person to listen to and—” He tilts his head, a forced casualness that makes Clarke widen her eyes. “—Whoever eventually seizes control of the playlist with the majority of their songs by...O and Lincoln’s wedding wins.” “Wins? Wins what?” “I don’t know. Something at home. Or one of us can just pay for the other’s Spotify account.”

Clarke twists her lips, considering it. Bellamy’s eyebrows fly up expectantly. “Yeah, ok. We judge the playlist based on what we hear when we’re leaving school.” “Makes sense. And what happens if we leave school together? You going to share headphones with me?”

“Only if you’ll join my showtime brigade.” “Good name.” “Is that a yes?” He grins — another one of hers, which is vaguely possessive and a little insane, but Clarke’s heart is doing its best to beat its way out of her chest as well, so she figures the whole thing is kind of a wash at this point. “I will definitely join your showtime brigade,” Bellamy promises. “If only because I’m pretty confident in my ability to flip from the top bars.” “No you’re not.” “I’ve got upper-body strength you couldn’t even imagine.”

“Sure, sure. When do we start with our musical experiment?” “Today.” “Today?” “Today,” Bellamy repeats, as students start to file into the hallway and Clarke’s not all that upset with how her free period turned out. “I will pick you at exactly 3:15, Ms. Griffin. Be prepared for an introduction in modern classics. And 90s hip hop.” “I’m going to listen exclusively to pop punk for the rest of the week.” “May the algorithms ever be in your favor.”

“Idiot,” she calls, but he’s already walking away and none of her students look remotely surprised.

Raven slides the glass across the bar without a word. She doesn’t have to use words. Her face is judgmental enough.

Clarke sighs. “What?” “Did I say anything?” “Did you have to?”

Raven waggles a finger, more opinions and very obvious thoughts and Clarke knew it was only a matter of time. She blames intro to stats. It’s how she met Octavia, after all. Which is how she met Bellamy, which is how their friends group grew and evolved and there’s been good and bad and this bar and she’s fairly certain Raven has a very detailed bet with both Monty and Murphy about her and Bellamy.

They all know about the Spotify playlist.

“I guess not,” Raven admits. “Has anyone ever told you that your psychic tendencies are both terrifying and impressive?” “Not in so many words, no.” “What about your weird flirting rituals?” Clarke downs the drink — not sure if it’s actually meant for her and not worried either way. It burns the back of her throat, settling in the pit of her stomach with an almost audible thump, right next to her ever-expanding knowledge of Bellamy’s musical taste and his determination to shift the playlist. He’s been listening to nothing except It’s Tricky radio for the past three days.

She’s got to figure out how to fix this.

On several levels.

“It’s not flirting,” Clarke argues. “Or a ritual. That’s weird.” “You’re telling me.” “Buy me another drink.” “No,” Raven says. “Tell me about the ritual.” “Stop calling it that!” Clarke’s voice rises of its own accord, drawing more than a few curious glances and Bellamy looks up from where he’s talking to Lincoln and Octavia. She smiles. She doesn’t mean to.

Raven cackles.

“Oh God,” she mumbles, the words barely that, “so, how screwed are you? Like ballpark.” “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Have you figured out that he secretly loves the Goo Goo Dolls?” “How do you know that?” “You don’t?” “Oh my God,” Clarke groans.

Raven reaches a hand out, a move that’s probably supposed to be comforting, but feels far too heavy when it lands on Clarke’s forearm. “Slow down on the liquor, Griffin. You’re a lightweight. And I know that because the one night I was there—don’t make that face.” Clarke definitely makes a face. She’s a little buzzed. Cage Wallace is setting up a meeting with the school board. About her art classes. “Anyway,” Raven adds, “I was kind of...looking to get out of there quick, but he had music playing and—” “—He played music while you guys were hooking up?” “Nah, he let me shower. He was reading.” “Oh my God.” “Anyway. I don’t think he knew that I could hear the music and it was definitely an entire Goo Goo Dolls album. Straight through. Not even a mix.” “Huh.” “You act like you’re not fascinated by that.” “Should I be?” Clarke questions, but it’s another badly formed lie and the energy under her skin is starting to make her restless.

Raven nods. “Yes. Eventually that’s going to show up on the playlist too. I know. Or you could ambush him with the Goo Goo Dolls.” “What a sentence.” “Matchbox Twenty?” “Those are two different bands.” “Similar genres,” Raven reasons, Clarke waving down Miller for another round of something, anything. “And I’m trying to help you, here. Rule the playlist, rule the world, right?” “Or at least part of our roommate budget.” “Say roommates again like you don’t want to make out with his face.” “Jeez.” “Not an objection,” Raven points out at the same time Miller decides to show up. Clarke does her best to melt. It does not work.

“It is not,” Miller adds. “And—just in case you were looking for some more information. He’s been asking about your musical tastes too.” Maybe Clarke is drunk.

She wishes.

“Why?” “Search me,” Miller admits. “But a lot of it seemed to revolve around your favorite Jonas.” Clarke refuses to look at Raven for the rest of the night.

It goes. Days, weeks, the rest of April.

The music keeps on playing. Or, whatever.

She listens to more My Chemical Romance. Bellamy goes through a pretty serious ten-day spiral over Weezer that leads them both down some 90s-alt rabbit hole, both of them bobbing in rhythm while they do the dishes on a Thursday night.

At one point Octavia threatens to ruin it all, grabbing Clarke’s phone while they’re at the bar and announcing, “I am getting married, so I pick the music.” It ends with Carly Rae Jepsen on loop and a playlist that refuses to recover for the next two days.

Clarke comes home to Bellamy humming Run Away With Me while he folds laundry in the living. She spends no less than five seconds processing that before she starts matching socks.

They play the song fourteen times in a row.

He counts.

And she learns things. Raven had been right about the Goo Goo Dolls and Clarke girts her teeth when Bellamy asks “why are there so many Frozen songs on here now,” but that leads them to debating the merits of twisting traditional mythologies in Disney movies until Monty tells them to “shut up and drink.”

So, they do.

And then, May happens.

It’s not that Clarke often finds herself stressed enough to burst into tears as soon as she closes the apartment door behind her, but her stomach is churning and between self-important parents at school and her own parents—parent, singular—she’s an emotional, exhausted mess and—

“Oh, shit,” she sighs, sliding onto the floor. She hasn’t listened to the playlist all week. And she knows Bellamy won’t really care, but Clarke has started to depend on the structure and the ever-increasing knowledge and while she might not admit it, Arcade Fire probably would have done a pretty good job of psyching herself up for an afternoon with her mom.

As it is, Clarke spent the better part of the last six hours listening to backwards compliments and questions about that school of yours and not-so-humble brags about the cardiac center at Lenox Hill and the “opportunities you passed up, sweetheart.”

That sentence played on loop in Clarke’s head the entire train ride home.

She sniffles, a quick lip of suddenly dry lips because she’s started breathing out of her mouth too and—

“Clarke?” Her head bumps the door when she snaps it up, Bellamy standing there with curls that desperately need to be cut and glasses and he’s wearing socks. It makes Clarke’s pulse speed up and slow down at the same time.

She’s very glad she’s not a doctor.

“Hey, hey,” he says quickly, rushing into her space and there are already tears on her cheeks. She hates that. Bellamy drops in front of her, knees cracking and a hand on her shoulder, staring at her like she’s going to fall apart or break in half and neither is true. Clarke is just mad.

Pissed off, really.

She’s angry at her mom and the cardiac center with its looming benefit, Clarke’s lack of a date some black mark on the whole thing, apparently, far too many veiled suggestions that her own choices are less structured and real, because Clarke has made her own choices since she was eighteen and hated stats and she’s got a schedule and she can’t believe she forgot about the playlist. She’s harping on that. “And how was the esteemed Dr. Griffin today?” Bellamy asks knowingly. Clarke isn’t sure what sound she makes at that, but it might just be the audible version of gratitude, and he grins.

Exactly like she wants him to.

“Chock-full of opinions as always.” “Mmhm, I figured. You want to talk about it?” “Not really. She just—” Clarke grits her teeth, fighting against another wave of disappointment and could have been and every one of her muscles tightens when Bellamy’s lips ghost over her forehead.

That’s absurd.

It’s not the first time he’s done it. Or her. Quick displays of affection when things went well or things went bad and she can remember every single one. Which, honestly, is pretty telling, but she spent most of the day lying to her mom.

This shouldn’t be any different.

This is the complete opposite.

“Go ahead,’ Bellamy mutters.

“She’s just—God, Bell, she’s the worst and she’s so positive she’s right and I’m wrong, but she doesn’t even have the decency to really tell me I’m wrong and—” Clarke runs out of air. Bellamy brushes away the tears on her cheeks. “They’ve got this gala coming up and she wants me to come. She’s getting an award.” “Prestigious.” “Self-absorbed,” Clarke corrects. “The hospital she works at is awarding her for her work at the same hospital. I know it shouldn’t get to me. I do, but she kept talking, like she was going down a list of make Clarke feel like garbage and—” “—You don’t deserve to feel like garbage, princess.”

“Tell me mom that.”

“Here, give me your phone.” Clarke’s skull can’t cope with much more of this, but there’s an earnest edge to his voice that she’s never heard before and her phone suddenly feels impossibly heavy in her pocket. She pulls it out, willing her fingers not to tremble.

It takes him exactly twelve seconds to start playing music.

There’s no Arcade Fire. No Goo Goo Dolls or 90s hip hop.

“Fleetwood Mac?” Clarke whispers, Bellamy’s soft hum of agreement in her ear and she’s sure, eventually, they’ll get up. She’s not in a rush. “If you play Landslide,” Clark warns, “I will cry even more.”

“I can cope with that.” “Yeah?” “Yeah,” he says, and it sounds like another thing in a way that things shouldn’t be things. Not with roommates and weird bets and—“You know I do have some rhythm. I could...if you don’t want to show up to this thing by yourself.” Clarke doesn’t pull her head off his shoulder. She’s not sure when her head landed on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do that.” “It wouldn’t suck so bad.” “That's not true at all.” “I’m serious. We could make fun of people. Come up with ridiculous backstories. Wow them with our Fred and Ginger ways.” “You sound very confident in your dancing talent.” He kisses the top of her hair.

“That’d be nice,” Clarke says, voice a little scratchy and she’s not sure if that’s because of the day or the week or how goddamn comfortable his shoulder his. “And you’re going to ruin the playlist algorithm with this.” “I’ll live.” “Good.”

Dr. Abby Griffin’s eyes get very wide when Clarke and Bellamy show up at Gotham Hall.

They dance. They drink undoubtedly expensive champagne. They dance some more.

She smiles.

A lot.

And Bellamy doesn’t ask before handing Clarke one side of his headphones as soon as they slide into the Uber back home, her eyes fluttering shut while the music drowns out the sounds of the city on their way home.

She gets really annoyed with him one week and plays the original Broadway cast recording of Cats every night while she’s asleep.

He hates that she can’t ever remember to turn the AC off when she leaves the apartment. So, he plays Bizet from Carmen every time she walks in for a four-day stretch.

It takes another two days for the playlist to realize neither one of them is mad anymore.

At some point around Memorial Day they both realize they love Ben Folds.

Bellamy plays a ridiculous fake piano.

Clarke sings the Regina Spektor parts on all their duets.

They blast Killer Queen on a Saturday afternoon in June after Cage Wallace’s kid graduates.

Clarke stands on the couch, hands thrown in the air and something akin to joy leaping up her spine, Bellamy shouting lyrics from the kitchen while he blends...something.

It presumably has alcohol in it.

Or, more alcohol.

It’s a celebration.

And it doesn’t take long for Pike to start banging on their shared well, but neither of them move to to turn own the music, just sing louder. Bellamy grins when Clarke throws a pillow at the wall, shouting “take that dick,” like Pike can hear them over Freddie Mercury.

She almost falls over.

It is...patently stupid and inherently romantic and Bellamy is impossibly solid behind her, cotton t-shirt not doing much to distract from the planes of his chest and—

“What was that about upper body strength?” she breathes.

Bellamy laughs into her shoulder blade, nosing at the top of her shirt, and there must be hair in his face, but he doesn’t seem all that upset by it, which is only messing with her head a little bit. His fingers splay across her hip, tugging Clarke back to the floor.

His glasses are falling down the bridge of her nose.

Clarke presses up on her toes, suddenly aware of how much bigger he is than her and how clear his eyes are when he looks at her — more earnest energy and a flick of his tongue between his lips, like he’s waiting for whatever she does next and only a little impatient.

“A solid save.” Bellamy barks out a laugh, head falling close to Clarke’s, and it takes everything in her not to card her fingers through his hair. That lasts about four seconds.

If even.

Her calves are still aching, but she doesn’t back down and she doesn’t think and for one of those four seconds she’s absolutely positive Bellamy is going to kiss her. He doesn’t blink, just stays impossibly still, except for the flutter of his fingers and the way they push under the hem of her shirt and—

“Turn your fucking music down!”

They both jump back, like they’ve been shocked, Clarke wincing when her legs slam into the front of the couch.

“Are you ok?” Bellamy asks, but she’s already nodding and any sense of joy has rather quickly morphed into something much worse. Regret. That’s the word for it.

She’s neither a doctor nor an English teacher.

“Fine, fine,” Clarke stammers. “I, uh—I’m going to turn the music down, ok?”

“Nah, Clarke—fuck that guy, c’mon, it’s…” “It’s really loud, Bell.” He’s setting a record for not blinking, she’s sure. He stares at her—a little appraising and just a hint wary, the moment drifting away as the song fades out. Clarke swallows.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Bellamy agrees. It still doesn’t sound like the words he’s saying. “What do you think about celebratory David Bowie?” “Good call. You going to keep mixing?” “10-4, princess.”

“Idiot.” He grins, a quick twist of eyebrows and squeeze of his hand, but Clarke can’t help to think that the end of the school year may also be the end of something else.

Octavia’s getting married in two weeks.

Her dress is blue.

And it makes her boobs look great, which Clarke isn’t focused on, but Raven’s mentioned it enough that eventually she agrees and she’s happy.

Octavia is getting married.

It’s sunny. It’s warm. There’s already music playing, soft and melodic outside the door where they’re waiting, Raven’s far-too-knowing stare boring into the back of Clarke’s head.

“Don’t do that,” she warns, and she doesn’t have to turn to know Raven rolls her eyes.

“I’m still not saying anything.” “Again, you didn’t have to.” “The experiment ends today, right?” “You say that like you don’t know. “And what did we learn?” Clarke turns around. It’s a mistake, she knows, but part of her has also been dreading today, which is pretty fucked up. All things considered. Octavia looks gorgeous.

She’s got a five-dollar bet with Murphy that Bellamy will cry.

Bellamy’s definitely going to cry.

“You’re supposed to learn something in an experiment,” Raven says. “Even one as weird as this one. With all its flirting. You seriously haven’t made out with him yet?” “No.” Raven crows, Clarke grimacing at the admission that isn’t really that because everyone knows and she’s always known and—she bets he looks very good in his tuxedo. “Oh, god you’re an idiot,” Raven exhales. “But seriously, did you learn things? That he—”

“Yes to the Goo Goo Dolls. Slide is a very predictable favorite, but it’s been on the playlist since the get. He knows way more lyrics than he should. O had a pop punk phase too and he’s way too confident in his own rhythm, but sometimes he’s good at dancing. His mom used to listen to a lot of ballads and Karen Carpenter makes him feel emotions, but mostly at Christmas, so that hasn’t really affected the playlist and—what? You’re doing that thing with your face.” “Am I just?” “Nothing’s going to change, Rae,” Clarke cuts in. “We’re going to keep our musical preferences and our separate playlists and one of us will pay for no ads.” “Seriously, tell him how much you want to kiss him.”

“Shut up.”

And the photographer sounds like he’s on his way back. With Octavia. Who certainly does not want to hear about Clarke’s unrequited feelings for her brother. On her wedding day.

Priorities, Clarke’s got them.

“We had some fun and—well, O was kind of right. It was like getting a chance to…” “See into his music-loving soul?” “I really like Arcade Fire now.” Raven hums noncommittally and Clarke can practically hear the gears in her mind turning, but she’d been right about the photographer and maybe they’ll all just cry over Octavia.

She’s beaming.

And there will be hummingbird cake at this reception.

“You guys ready?” Octavia asks.

Clarke nods, ignoring Raven’s expression. “Definitely.”

He cries.

Clarke gets five dollars.

She doesn’t have any pockets in her dress.

That feels like a sign.

Strictly speaking, Clarke hasn’t been to too many weddings. A family friend when she was a kid. Her mom’s. This one.

And yet.

She’s positive that this is the most beautiful wedding she’s ever been to or could ever go to and part of that is because of the music and part is because of how often she’s noticed Bellamy smiling and most of it is because he keeps glancing her way.

It’s a very blue dress.

She’s still holding a five-dollar bill.

And there is a whole schedule — toasts and more tears, posing for photos and ignoring the way her stomach flutters when she spends an inordinate amount of time glancing Bellamy’s direction. Octavia laughs. She and Lincoln flit from table to table, a hint of tradition in a wedding that is still them and this family and—

“You want to dance?” She’s sitting at the head table, a glass of half-finished champagne in front of her and they haven’t cut the cake yet, but Clarke figures that's soon. Bellamy doesn’t blink. Again. One side of his mouth tugs up, fluttering his fingers in her space until she feels her own smile stretch and maybe her stomach should just be studied.

There’s color on Bellamy’s cheeks.

Clarke never got around to making that list.

“Don’t leave hanging, princess,” Bellamy says. “They’re playing good music.”

He’s not wrong.

It is good music. It’s...oddly familiar music. And Clarke had been too happy to really notice it before, but now that she’s listening, she hasn’t heard anything that’s not hers and—

“Oh my God, you idiot.” He laughs. Loud. And honest. And one-hundred percent hers. The sound sinking into the very center of her, where everything else she’s ever loved has taken root, a foundation for the rest of it, for all of it, for a family.

A Spotify premium family plan.

“You keep complimenting me like that and—” “—Did you do this?” “Did I do what?”

Her hand finds his, warm fingers and slightly callused skin. Clarke can’t stop shaking her head. It’s absurd. It’s vaguely romantic.

“Is this…” she starts, but Bellamy smirks and she’s a lost cause.

In a far more romantic sort of way.

She jumps up, closing the already minimal amount of space between them and, to his credit, he doesn’t flinch. He might still be smirking. Clarke can feel the curve of his lips as soon as hers land on them, a little cautious at first, but that lasts about one verse of whatever Jonas Brothers song is playing and then it’s all mingled breaths and an arm slung around his shoulders, fingers in his hair and the sudden swipe of his tongue.

Clarke arches her back, desperate to feel as much of him as she can, like that will ground her or remind her that it’s really happening.

He tilts his head, changes angles and cups her face. It’s soft and bruising and a perfect contradiction that leaves her pushing up further in her heels, pulling on Bellamy’s curls until he groans against her and she’s going to think about that on loop for the rest of the night.

The room spins.

Clarke’s only seventy-two percent certain she’s not the one spinning.

It doesn’t seem to end. They don’t seem to end. She can’t tell where his hands stop, moving across the expanse of her back and tracing across skin, as if he’s memorizing every shift, every way she rocks against him, trying to fill the space with him and them and— “Oh my God, finally,” Octavia cries.

Clarke snickers, Bellamy’s head dropping to the curve of her jaw, leaving goosebumps in his wake. Still smirking. “Huh,” he muses. “Look at that.” “Don’t be smug,” Clarke chides. “I’m wooing you, was that not obvious?” She leans back, expecting a wholly confident expression, only to be met with something slightly hopeful and a little young and yearning and, really, the only thing to do is kiss him. Again. So, she does. Again.

And it’s good and great and exactly what she thought it would be when she thought about this, far more often than she ever would admit to.

But it’s also...something else. It’s the perfect chord and a well-constructed bridge and the song she wants to play on repeat forever, a favorite she knows she won’t get sick of, until the melody finds its way into her memory and her.

Full stop.

“Yeah, it was,” she whispers. “Is this—” “You know when you first offered to go half on this premium thing, I really was in it for the money.” “It’s like an extra ten bucks a month,” Miller yells. Both Octavia and Raven swat at his side.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Bellamy admits, “But I wanted to help O and I was sure this would help and then the playlist thing came up and I just—” He shrugs, another brush of his fingers over Clarke’s arm. “—Well, it was...you know you hum under your breath? Constantly. Every song. Even the ones you said you didn’t like. And you’ve got drawing playlists and I can’t believe how strongly you feel about All Time Low.” “They’re good,” Clarke shouts. More than a few members of the peanut gallery let out exasperated sighs.

Bellamy kisses her hair. “I know. I know. And that’s been—the first time O talked about you, I figured you were some uptight—” “—Am I still being wooed? I am a fun person!” “Let me finish. You were old money and plans and structure and I thought I had to hate you on principle. But then. Clarke, you’re—ok, yeah, you like some structure and plans, but there’s so much more and it’s...every single time you start dancing to David Bowie I think I love you a little more.”

She’s not sure what sound she makes.

An exhale and a sigh and a give — into the feelings and the want and he’s not done.

“So, uh, it hasn’t been easy. It took a lot of repeat plays. But yeah, to answer your question. This is the playlist and it’s our playlist, with...mostly your music because—” He scrunches his nose. It makes the freckles more obvious. “You’ve gotten under my skin, princess. So has your music. And the Frozen soundtrack isn’t that bad.” “Get that in writing,” Octavia demands.

“Shut up, O,” Bellamy grumbles. She flips him off. The photographer takes a picture. “Anything to add?” he asks, an undercurrent of misplaced nerves that she doesn’t understand at first. She hasn’t said anything back.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s—” she starts, shaking her head and she kisses him before she answers. Third time’s the charm, or something. "I love you too.”

There are cheers. And louder music. A ridiculous bass line and shutter snaps and—

“We going to dance?” “Did I not ask first?” Clarke hums, already tugging him towards the floor and she’s got high hopes of his hand never leaving hers. For the rest of the night. If not longer. “Semantics,” she says. “C’mon, this is definitely a good song.”

Her favorite Jonas Brother is Joe.

She tells him while they’re tugging clothes off, stumbling down the hallway of their apartment.

“Don’t mention that again.” “10-4,” Clarke laughs, but the words get caught between them and she very quickly forgets about anything other than the noise Bellamy makes when she moves her hands into his hair.

They never opt out of the family playlist.

And it takes a few weeks for the algorithm to catch up, but eventually it’s a pretty even split, his and hers and theirs, all perfectly curated in replayable format.

#bellarke ff #bellarke fan fiction #bellarke #bellamy x clarke #the 100 #just casually inflicting my jonas opinions on new fandoms #oh hai new fandom #i've got thoughts and feelings about bellamy blake's hair #so here they are #there's kissing #that's my jam #laura writes bellarke #laura writes

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the-writerly-night-owl · 4 years

Text

A Conversation of Favorites

The Elementalists/ Beckett Harrington x MC

Summary: Beckett and Ellie have a dinner with his family, including Katrina’s new boyfriend.

Author’s Note: For day 35 of the 41 Days of Cheer. This kind of came out as a quick so it might be a little jumbled, so I hope it’s okay. Enjoy!

Beckett Harrington was very protective of those he loved. His wife, unborn child, parents, and especially his sister. So, it was very concerning to see her bring a boyfriend home to meet everyone. Sighing, he helped Ellie put on her shoes.

“It won’t be that bad,” said Ellie. “I promise, if it comes down to it, I can fake being in labor.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said snapping out of his trance. “Then you’ll have me in a panic.”

She just shook her head but her eyes sparkling at the joke. Then they had left for the big fancy restaurant that Katrina had insisted on going to. Ellie had put a hand on his shoulder as if to calm him down. In a way it was comforting as he thought of the baby rather then the boy Katrina brought home.

Taking a deep breath, they went through the portal and outside of Nicola’s. A long line that had bypassed because of reservations. They were shown to their table when they realized that they were there early.

“Oh la la,” said Ellie. “Fancy.”

“Well I know that Italian is your favorite,” he said. “And Katrina’s too but when she asked where I think we should go, I thought of you first.”

Ellie just giggled and read over the menu looking for something to eat. “Are you just saying that to be nice or to not think about the boy your sister invited?”

“Maybe it’s a mix of both,” he said a bit sheepishly as he read over the man too looking for something good.

Next to them was soon joined by his parents. His mom eagerly putting a hand on Ellie’s pregnant stomach as they yammered about something or another. Although he did hear them talking about a name or two that his mother liked. Tapping his foot impatiently they waited for Katrina.

She was never late, and Beckett did not like this guy already. Sure, his sister was in her thirties and had every right to be late but still. Or maybe they were just early. He looked down at his watch as Ellie nudged him. Quickly he saw that they Katrina still had five minutes.

“Hello,” said Katrina. “Wow, I didn’t think everyone would get here early.”

“Kind of have to,” said Ellie perkily and pointed to her stomach. “Precious cargo and all.”

Beckett squeezed Ellie’s hand getting excited about the baby. Then man appeared next to his sister as she squeezed his hands. There was a lot of hand squeezing but man was this nerve racking. He was used to comforting her and…

“Everyone this is my boyfriend Nolan Prescott,” she said.

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you all, I’ve heard so much about you,” said Nolan as he pulled a seat out for Katrina. “Congratulations on the baby, I heard that your having a daughter?”

“Yes, we’re very excited,” said Ellie nudging at Beckett. “It’s nice to meet you Nolan. Hopefully you like Italian food.”

“It’s my favorite actually too,” said Nolan. “If it helps, I have Italian in my blood.”

Everyone at the table except Beckett laughed a little as he just watched him closely. As soon as the ice broke everyone started to laugh and talk with each other over everything. Katrina and Nolan staying close together. She looked really happy as he saw it.

“So, Nolan,” said Beckett carefully as he remembered that his dad was there. “What is that you work in?”

“Well I’m in magickal archaeology, me and my dad run an auction house. Do you know Waverly Auctions? That’s the family business.”

Of course, Katrina had to fall for an heir to a famous company. Beckett sighed and looked over at him with a small smile. He had Ellie who was a very talented, beautiful, intelligent, and carrying his child. Shaking his head Beckett just smiled and nodded. His dad asking questions about him which he took in stride. He even told them what his favorite color was and all those small questions.

“We met when I brought something in it to be curated,” said Katrina happily.

“And she was way off on her guess,” said Nolan piecing together what happened next.

At least he wasn’t bad or anything. Katrina was happier than ever and that made him happy. He could see the way that Nolan looked at her. Dinner had to go by fast and normal as he and Ellie shared a big bowl of spaghetti. They had decided to meet up again sometime next month.

Walking back to the wards hand in hand they headed back home.

“Now see that wasn’t bad was it?” asked Ellie once they were back at the house. “He’s so nice and they’re adorable together.”

“Yea I guess I was wrong to judge him,” said Beckett as he put up their coats. “I just want to see Katrina just as happy as we are. I mean she’s been traveling and everything, but she told that she wanted something like we have. She wanted to find the right person.”

Ellie had pulled her favorite pajama pants on and let her hair out from its French braid.

“Well she might have found it,” she said. “Although there is something that came up that I’m curious about. Is your favorite food Italian? I mean it seems to change every time I ask you that.”

Beckett just sighed and helped Ellie into the bed as he thought of it. Huh, that always did change now that he thought of it.

“Hmm, I don’t know but can I say that I’m hungry for you all the time,” he said lowering his voice, climbing next to her before kissing her lips softly. She moaned happily kissing back as he pulled her close and trailing down her neck.

“Yes, that was perfect,” she said. “Now come on, let’s get some rest.”

“Hold on,” he said pulling her top up some and pressed his hand to her stomach feeling the kicks. Then kissed her stomach sweetly. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

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Tag list: @wiselight @adrianadmirer @fluffy-cat-whisper @symonde @paisleylovergirl @elainew13 @itsbrindleybinch @brightpinkpeppercorn @darley1101 @mfackenthal @jlpplays1 @writerapprentice @wildsayeed @princess-geek @perriewinklenerdie @lilyofchoices @radlovedreamer @am-i-invisible777 @indescribablechoices @flyawayboo

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cchellacat · 5 years

Text

Happier

Love All The Marvel Ships Challenge

Day Fourteen ~ Doing something fun/special together.

“Darcy, hey, wake up!”

There’s a blaze of light as the curtains are pulled open and the sunlight hits Darcy directly in the face. She groans dramatically and rolls over burying her face in his pillow.

“Go away.”

“Darcy! Come on, you have to get up. Things to do, people to see.”

She pulls the duvet over her head, her voice muffled as she replies.

“What? Ugg, no, I am not getting up! It’s too damn early for this.”

“Oh, come on, it’s going to be a good day. You can’t lie in bed forever.”

“Says who?” Darcy mutters into the comforter.

The cover is suddenly gone and the bed dips dangerously. She blinks up and glares at Jane.

“Seriously? Who died and made you Queen?”

Jane pulls that mulish expression; the one Darcy could really have lived her whole life without seeing.

“Up, we have things to do. I have a list of instructions and you’re not getting out of it.”

Darcy frowns, blowing a curl out of her face.

“Instructions?”

Jane smiles warmly down at her. Darcy does not feel like smiling back, but a little voice in the back of her head nudges her to bite anyway.

“Up, I have coffee ready in the kitchen and Tony had your favourite pastries flown in from that bakery in Chicago.

Darcy blinks stupidly at Jane. It’s not her birthday. What the hell is going on?

Jane jumps off the bed before she can ask anything else and grabs her hand, dragging her up. For such a tiny woman she sure has a lot of strength.

“Okay, fine, I’m up. But I wanted it recorded that it is under protest.”

“Duly noted.” Jane replies dryly, shoving her toward the bathroom.

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By the time she steps out of the shower and into the bedroom again she actually feels awake and at least a little intrigued by Janes mysterious instructions.

On the bed Jane has laid out an outfit for her. It’s one she hasn’t worn in a long time. The dress is a deep amber with white polka dots and the long wrap cardigan is a jewel toned burgundy red. The heels she’s left out match and Darcy feels a tiny thrill of nostalgia.

When she’s finally seated at the table, she finds everything exactly as Jane said it would be, fresh French pressed coffee and an array of artesian pastries she loves.

She pulls the sleeves of the cardigan up to her elbows and digs in, humming appreciatively at the fine coffee and equally fine chocolate twist.

“Okay, Boss lady, hit me, what do I have to do?”

“Well.” Jane tells her, reaching into her bag. “Bucky asked me to give you this…” Jane pulls the letter from her bag and offers it to her carefully.

Darcy sets the cup down and reaches for the letter with numb fingers.

When her hand shakes, she unfolds it and lays it on the table so she can read it.

Good morning Babydoll,

I bet you didn’t expect this, but you know I never leave anything to chance. I promised you something once and I followed through, now I’m callin’ in my favour. I want you to follow my plan, just this once, no arguing. I know you’re callin’ me all the names of the day in your head right now, but I swear, you’ll thank me later. I expect if Jane followed through, you’re wearing that dress and those shoes, you know the ones I mean…

Darcy slapped her hand over her mouth and choked back an unsteady sobbing laugh. He was such a sneaky little shit.

Do you remember the day you wore it last? We went out to Coney Island, you hated it, complained the whole day about the cheap food and the sand everywhere and the crowds. But you went anyway, you knew it made me happy to take you there. I remember takin’ off those strappy little heels and holding them for you while we walked along sand. You looked beautiful in that dress, with your hair up and little wisps of curls kissing the skin at the nape of your neck. We stood on the beach and watched the sunset. You made me happy that day, let me make today happy for you. So, listen up Darcy Elizabeth cause there’s a schedule, you don’t want to be late for the grand finally. Listen to Jane, I know she’ll keep you right doll, I know I can trust her to keep her mouth shut, so don’t go needling her to tell. I hope today will be as special for you as made that one for me.

James.

P.S. I love you.

Darcy bit back her tears and pressed her fingers flat into the paper, biting her lip hard. After taking a few minutes to compose herself she looked back up at Jane.

“Jane...”

Jane holds up a hand and stops her.

“No, I made a promise, I’m going to keep it. Let’s go, we have somewhere to be in forty minutes.”

Darcy gives her a hard stare then glances back down at the letter.

P.S. I love you

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“Where are we?” Darcy asks as the car draws up outside an imposing looking stone built.

Jane looks over and hands her another letter, silent smile fixed firmly in place as once again Darcy reaches for the paper.

“Don’t read it till you’re in there, I’ll wait here for you. You’ve got an hour.”

She stepped out and made her way up the steps and inside. The curator stood waiting for her.

“Welcome to the Grolier Club Ms Lewis. We have a private viewing room ready for you.”

Darcy looked around again, taking in the detail. How on earth had he managed this? She followed closely on the woman’s heels, and followed the special instruction for handling the documents and settled down. The woman left and Darcy brought out the letter Jane had handed her.

“Hey Doll-face,

I hope you’ll enjoy the surprise. You get a private viewing of Wallace’s Supreme Fiction, the original document. I can’t claim to understand or even like poetry the way you do, but I did a little reading. I think I understand what you were trying to say about it now.

Here’s the two parts that stuck me, touched me perhaps, gave me pause as I thought of you, of us, of what we are, together and apart. Of what I’ve done and who I’ve been, the fiction of the life that was taken and the fiction of the one forced on me.

And for what, except for you, do I feel love? Do I press the extremest book of the wisest man Close to me, hidden in me day and night? In the uncertain light of single, certain truth, Equal in living changingness to the light In which I meet you, in which we sit at rest, For a moment in the central of our being, The vivid transparence that you bring is peace

I know you’ll understand why this resonated, I took the idea of the life I could have had and built it into something it never could have been, I spent so long looking back at that pretty lie I sometimes didn’t see the truth in front of me. You were the only thing I’ve truly loved, the only one that brought me peace. You think you broke me Doll? You were the one who put me back together.

“Music falls on the silence like a sense,

A passion that we feel, not understand”

I’m an asshole. I didn’t spend the time I should have listening. Until you, there was only silence and darkness. You brought the music Doll and you brought the light. I should have told you then, when I still had the chance. You gave me back my soul, I thought it was gone forever, but it was just hurt, hiding in the darkness. You found me, and I never thanked you for that. So, thank you, for being bright and beautiful, for believing and pushing me even when I know I hurt you with my actions, when I pushed you away. You never let up, never gave up. I didn’t try to understand why, I should have. I was selfish where you were always giving. You deserve everything Doll, you deserve to be cherished and loved and safe. In my mind I see you dancing still, in the echoes of my memory, in the corner of my eye. Never stop Darcy, fill your life with music, fill it with love.

James.

P.S. I love you.

She fisted her hands in the material of her dress and let the tears fall on his letter, silently letting it all pour out. She should never have watched that movie with him, he could be such a soppy bastard. She spent the next hour reading over the work, thinking of Bucky and what he’d thought of it, now she knew he had read it. In a way it’s was like he was here with her. That was something precious and she held onto the feeling very, fucking, tightly.

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“Is there seriously more to this magical mystery tour? I feel like some pathetic thirty something in a Rom-com. You know I hate Rom-coms Jane. Where is this going?”

“Not where you’d expect.” she tells her, biting the inside of her cheek.

“Come, on we’re here.”

Darcy steps out, they’re somewhere in Brooklyn, it looks like an old warehouse, what on earth could there possibly be here?

“It’s part of an Art’s Program Tony funds. They get permission from the city to encourage expressive and creative arts through certain youth groups. The idea is that even the worst places in the city should have beauty brought back to them.”

Darcy follows Jane as they make their way over to the group of kids and few adults all milling about with tables set up full of massive stencils and paints and cans of spray paint.

Jane once more pulls a letter from her bag, then turns Darcy till she’s facing the brick wall and puts the letter in her hands.

“Here, you should read this first.”

Hi Sweetheart,

I hope you’re ready to have some fun. But before you do, look up….

She steps back on one leg and looks up and her eyes widen. The laughter that bubbles up escapes her completely. Up high near the top of the wall are three panels. They all depict the same two boys. In the first a young Bucky holds a tiny Steve Rogers in by the scruff of the neck, the latter kicking his legs, swiping at Bucky with his first. In the second is Bucky in his uniform saluting his friend, Steve, shoulders slumped left behind. The third panel is what’s killing her. Steve in all his star-spangled glory is running from the Germans, Bucky in his arms like a rescued princess, winking to the street.

Jane hands her a tissue as she finally manages to control her laughter, the tears wetting her cheeks in mirth rather than bittersweet sadness.

Steve wasn’t the only one who took art classes Sugar, I hope it made you smile, I know it did. I can hear you laughing from here. I promise, he hasn’t seen it yet, you can show him later, I bet he busts a rib when he does. Go make something beautiful Doll, bring something good out of something broken, I know you can do it. Be brave, take a chance. Go pick a can and paint. Remember that day in London? When we ended up in that museum? We spend five hours in that place, I’m pretty sure I thought we were never going to leave. But there was that one painting and you sat there for near an hour staring at it. Whatever it was that touched you then, let it touch you now. I’m right beside you Doll.

James,

P.S. I love you.

She tucks the letter into her bag with the other two and heads back over to Jane where she’s tentatively picking up different cans.

“You going to help Janie?”

“You bet I am, this actually looks like it might be fun.”

Darcy grins back and picks up a can, shaking it fast and lets the arts co-ordinator direct her to a piece of wall.

Jane stands beside her looking wary….

“Darcy? I don’t know if I like the way you’re staring at the wall.”

“Chill Jane, this going to be fun. You know I was actually pretty good at art in school. It’s been a while, but this isn’t my first-time tagging. It’s just, you know, legal this time.”

Darcy grins in anticipation. She knows exactly what she’s going to do. Using a length of card board, she starts her masterpiece. She had eight feet of wall to fill, who says there can’t be a garden in the jungle?

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Sitting over lunch in a tiny hole in the wall in Queens, she feels at peace and happier than she thought the day would be. Jane’s keeping the conversation going whenever Darcy faulters and stubbornly carries on till she joins back in again. The woman is a goddess, she doesn’t know what she’d do without her friend. It’s been a tough year, somehow, they’ve both held together through it. The sudden arrival of a violinist to play music that has her somewhat speechless until she hears and recognises the notes. It’s from Thais, the same Opera he took her to a little over a year ago. She looks at Jane with confusion, she pulls another damned letter from her bag and hands it to Darcy.

Afternoon Beautiful,

I hope lunch is going well and you’re listening to the music. I enjoyed that trip to Opera, I never told you how much. It was heart-breaking and beautiful. The story made me think. About life and death, love and loss. Made me think of what we leave behind when we go. It made me realise something about us. Or maybe more accurately about me. I never looked as deep as I should at you, at all the tiny facets that made you who you are, not in the beginning at any rate. You’re more than just a pretty face, more than a figure that can fill out a dress like a dream. You’re smart and passionate and good. You’re all the most beautiful things I never took the time to really see. All the beautiful things I took for granted. If I could live the moments over, I’d look harder, be a better man. You deserve better, you deserve the best. You deserve someone that sees the things you hide. I don’t know why you hide the best parts of yourself, but I can guess. It probably started with assholes like me, that never botherd to listen, to look at who you were. I think they found absolution in death, I’d really rather fuckin not. Think about it Doll. Really think about it. Stop believing that the paint on your lips and the value men give you means more than the value you ascribe yourself. You are my Thais, I’m just the poor schmuck that didn’t realise your value till it was too late.

James.

P.S. I love you.

“Why did he do this Jane?” Darcy asks as she fold up the letter, the final notes of the violin coming to a close. Jane looks torn.

“Honestly Darcy? I think Bucky Barnes will forever be a mystery. If anyone can figure out what all this means it has to be you, because I don‘t have clue and I know how this ends.”

“Alright then. What’s next?”

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Steve is waiting at the airport, standing on the tarmac by the jet, his smile only a little guilty looking.

Darcy looks at Jane questioningly.

“Sorry Darce but this time it’s Steve who’s got the letter. I’ll be here when you get back.”

“You mean it still won’t be over when I come back?”

“there’s at least one more thing on the list before the end. Don’t over think it Darcy, just give it a chance. What the worst that can happen?”

Darcy sighs and facepalms.

“Jane, I know we talked about this. We do not taunt Murphy, God of Anything that will go wrong, with fighting words like that. What’s the worst that can happen!”

She climbs out of the car and walks to where Steve waits for her.

“Hey.” She twists her fingers in her sleeves and waits to see what he has to say.

“Hey Darce, got a letter for you.”

“Well?” she says expectantly when no letter appears.

“It’s on the jet. You can read it once we’re in the air.”

“fine.”

She moves past him and up the steps, quickly finding a seat and settling in.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they finally take off, he hands her the letter and a thick manila file.

“Is this…” she breaks off, reluctant to take it.

“You don’t have to read the file. But he insisted you have the choice.”

She takes the letter, this time more apprehensive than before.

My Darling Girl,

You are my darling, my sweetheart, my sugar, my doll. All the pet names in the world can’t encompasses what you are to me. I call you by those names because there is so much that I find hard to say.

My darling. You are precious, more precious than gems and gold, than any treasure ever lost or found, you are my darling girl. Each tear I’ve cost would bankrupt the richest man for it is more valuable than a diamond. Each time I’ve caused you pain has cost me time I’ll never have again.

My Sweetheart. You are my heart, the whole of mine beats in time with yours. The sweetness you gave me I tainted with my own unhappiness, the sourness of resentment left to festered in my mind did more damage than actual words ever spoken.

My Sugar. You were the part of me that hoped and wanted. The sweetness of a different outcome, another future, I squandered it away.

My Doll. I wanted to care for you, protect you, treat you like a princess, I didn’t know how to tell you I saw your strength as well, knew it was greater than my own. But you let me hold you close, you kept me safe through nightmares waking and sleeping. Like a child, you were my doll, to ward off the loneliness I lived in, my friend and my companion, my equal in every way.

You threw it back at me once, rightfully, that when I told you that you couldn’t understand it was because I wouldn’t tell you, show you, explain. I should have handled that better. So, Steve’s gonna take you on a little trip for me. You want honest, this is it. My files from Hydra and in Bucharest my journals. Take as long or as short a time as you need.

James,

P.S. I love you.

Why had he done this? Why now? Why wait? He must have written these months ago. She carefully folds the paper, another confession of love and pain. Why couldn’t he have told her himself? Why like this?

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The jet is fast, but not so fast she doesn’t have time to read the file. She takes her time with it, reading each page with careful consideration. For years all she’s had was speculation. A patchwork of ideas she’s put together through restless nights, sleepwalking and nightmares. He’d always been an incomplete puzzle she was trying to fix. What was contained in the files was a part of that puzzle, not all of it, but a great deal. He had never wanted to talk about what happened to him. Not to her, not to anyone. She had done what she could to hold him together, some days it had felt like she was working with nothing more than brown paper and string.

It had never been a chore, being there for him, she never felt it as a burden, but he had convinced himself he was. To her it had been nothing more than a labour of love. She’d come to know exactly how she felt early on. How could she not love him? The letters he had sent today, a mixture of apology, memories of better times and a deep confession of love. He’d never said the words out loud, but she had known, she had. She’d understood it through his actions. The way he held her, the way he took her hand, the way he defended her, the way he touched her shoulder when he passed her. It was in the way he’d looked up at her smiling as he removed her heels in a beach on Cony Island. It was in the way he held her close in a darkened Opera house as two characters met their end. It was in the patience he held while she sat in front of a painting for an hour and half, waiting while she took it in. it was in everything he remembered about her and never forgot. She hadn’t needed the words, she’d just needed him. But he wasn’t here.

She closed the file and pulled her bag up onto her lap, rifling through till she found what she was looking for. The letter she’d found when she’d finally woken up from a five-week coma.

Darcy,

I’m leaving for a while. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’m not good, I’m a mess and I never tried to fix it. I let you take too much on yourself and I blamed you for things that weren’t on you. You were right, you always were. You don’t have to wait for me.

I’m sorry.

James.

She read it over, it was so different from the letters Jane had given her. She was almost afraid to hope that this was something more than a sweet apology meant to ease whatever guilt he felt, pay back what he thought he owed her.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Did you know he was born here?” Steve asks as they walk down a side street.

She jerks her head to look up at him. No, she hadn’t known. Another part of his past he hadn’t shared. She’d not sure why that piece of information stings more than the files she read on the plane.

Steve gives her sad smile.

“He was only a three when his parents took the boat to America. He grew up learning to get rid of the accent. Its how things were then. You wanted to fit in, cover up the past, shed the identity of who you were as an immigrant and embrace what it meant to be American.

They gave up their family name at Elis Island. Took an anglicised version and moved on. People didn’t talk about then, it’s probably something he never mentioned, not because he was hiding it, but because it was part of the life he lived before that was ingrained. He learned how to speak Romanian though, guess he never forgot cause he manged to blend in here without issue for nearly a year before Zemo framed him for the bombing.”

“Where are we going Steve?”

“He kept the apartment here, even after all the trouble. I don’t understand why, but he did.”

They stop outside an apartment building and Steve hands her the keys, telling her the flat number.

“You’re not coming up?” she asks hesitantly.

“No. I’ve been here before, once. He was pretty mad at me for looking in the journals he keeps here, I’m not comfortable going where I’m not invited. You’re not the only one that got a letter today Darcy.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I should never have got in the middle of it… it was none of my business. Guess I just got so used to being… to having his back, I couldn’t see the bigger picture. I’m sorry, you know about…”

“Hey, no.” she cut him off, throwing both hands up, shaking her head. “No one’s perfect, not even Captain America. It wasn’t your fault. There’s no blame here Steve. Not from me.”

“You really do see the good in everyone don’t you?”

“It’s not so hard, it’s there if you look hard enough.”

“I’ll be down the street, there’s a café on the corner there.” He points, and she sees the awning a few hundred yards down the street. “Just come get me when you’re finished.”

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She lets herself into the apartment. It’s not what she was expecting. There had been a lot of re-modelling she thinks, it’s all clean and modern looking. Light tones of mint and cream on the walls, a brighter teal picking out the accents. It’s a calming space. On the table next to the small kitchenet is a letter. If course, there’s another letter. Next to it is a box.

She sits down and opens it.

Darcy,

This is the truth, what’s left of it at least. It’s all the broken pieces that I was trying to put back together. It’s what I hid from you, too afraid you’d see my weakness and leave. It’s the darkness I lived with, that I brought into your life with me but never let you look at even while I let it hurt you. I hope this answers the questions you had. I hope it brings some sort of closure for you for that chapter in your life.

Always,

James.

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It’s late when she finally leaves the apartment, her mind a swirling mess and yet she felt at peace. There was closure in it. A million, million, questions answered. She clutched one journal in her hand. The one he’d written after he left. She’d keep it forever, the things he wrote bringing a comfort she hadn’t known she needed.

By the time they land back in New York she’s exhausted, it’s been a long day, it’s nearing evening. The sun beginning to set.

Jane’s there waiting to take her back to the Tower.

Darcy’s thankful that Jane doesn’t press, just let’s her sit in the silence. Entering the apartment, she leaves her bag and keys by the door and Jane stops her.

“I’ve done what he asked. This is the last part. One more letter. I hope I didn’t make a mistake agreeing to do this for him.”

Darcy takes the letter with a smile.

“No, it was good. I’m glad you did. He’s been with me every step of today, that’s because of you Janie. Thank you.” They hug, laughing a little tearfully before parting.

The silence in the apartment had been the empty lonely kind since she’d returned from the hospital.

Something about today had changed that. It wasn’t empty anymore. The memories they had shared filled the space again and she sank into the couch, toeing off her shoes and pulling her feet under her. She sat for a while, not really wanting it to be over, before she finally opened the letter.

She creased her brow in consternation. There wasn’t a letter. There was a post card, a picturesque town on the front. They had been there once, a year ago. I tiny little town upstate. She had loved how quiet it was, the peace and solitude, the simple life she’d joked. But she’d seen the same longing in his eyes that she had. She turned it over, noting the key taped to the back and only a handful of words underneath a set of lyrics from a song that had played on the radio over and over.

Ain't nobody hurt you like I hurt you But ain't nobody need you like I do I know that there's others that deserve you But my darling I am still in love with you

I left and never gave you a choice. I took it away from you. I hope you understand where this is going. This is me, giving it back.

James,

P.S. I love you.

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She pulls the car to stop outside the little house, the picket white fence freshly painted, flowers planted neatly in the yard. The porch rebuilt and painted. She takes a breath before she gets out of the car. Her heart has been beating like a drum the whole way here.

He’s sitting on the steps when she reaches the gate, his face filled with hope when he looks up and see’s her.

He looks so different. The long hair is gone, instead it’s cut cleanly, if a little too short, displaying the sharp relief of his cheekbones and jaw.

She can’t hold back the tears that break free or the shrill cry of his name as she crosses the yards separating them. Then he’s right there, in front of her, picking her up in his arms, gathering her close as she buries her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him that she had missed so much.

“You came.” He whispers into her hair. He says the words like he can’t believe it.

“Of course I came, where else would I go? You’re the only future I ever wanted. Promise me this is forever?”

“I promise. I don’t want to spend another day without you, for the rest of my life, Doll.”

“Forever?” she prods again, not sure what she wants from him. But he answers, while pressing tiny kisses over her face.

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Forever?”

He takes her hand and presses something into her palm. The cool metal warms quickly, as gold is want to do, the gem twinkles in the porch light as she stares in disbelief.

“Bucky?”

“I’ll never be better, there’s too much that’s been broken and put back together, but… I’m better than I was. I’ve stopped running from it, stopped hiding. The me here now, the one asking you to take this chance? I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t all in Doll. You’re it for me, I was just too stupid to see it before. I don’t want to waste another day, not it you’re willing to take another chance on me. So, this is me asking, Darcy. Will you a take chance on this old soldier? Will you marry me? Will you let me spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you make me?”

She stands on her toes and kisses him hard.

“Yes, I will.”

@captain-rogers-beard

#love all the marvel ships #love all the marvel ships challenge #bucky/darcy #darcy/bucky #wintershock

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stopforamoment · 6 years

Text

May Angels Lead You In (8 of 12)

Book: The Royal Romance (After Book Three)

Pairing: Bastien Lykel x OFC Rinda Parks

Word Count: 1,413

Rating: M for Mature (I’m sure there’s swearing somewhere or Rinda Parks says something completely inappropriate.)

Author’s Note: Obligatory disclaimer that Pixelberry Studios owns the TRR characters and my pocketbook with those darn diamond scenes. OFC with all of her quirks is all mine. My apologies if Tumblr or I do something stupid when I try to post this.

Unfortunately this chapter is bogged down with the “get to know you” and set up details for later scenes. Even though it isn’t specifically mentioned in the chapter, this weekend brings up a lot of memories for Bastien as he introduces Henry to Drake and investigates the hidden passage in the library. Bastien is reminded of the Walker family inviting him into their home, the kindness of Liam’s mother, her assassination, and the death of Jackson Walker. Meanwhile Rinda is always balancing her role as mother and widow. She has her own triggers and Henry often mentions Jameson, which cuts her to the core, but she always has to bravely smile and encourage Henry to keep remembering his father.

Ear Worm and Inspiration: The Jimmy Eat World song “Hear You Me” is a tribute to sisters who were killed in a car accident. They were generous women who would open their home to band members who needed a place to stay. More info here.

Summary: Henry meets Drake and spends more time with Bastien. Rinda gets her research geek on in the archives.

And now, finally . . .

Bastien and Drake were waiting for Rinda and Henry when they got downstairs that morning, and Drake immediately walked over to Henry and reached out his hand. “Hey, you must be Henry. I’m Drake. Drake Walker.”

Henry shook Drake’s hand. “Hi Mr. Walker. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Heh. You can just call me Drake. I’m okay with that.” Then he turned to Rinda and they gave each other a shy smile before shaking hands. Rinda spoke first. “Um, Rinda Parks. It’s nice to meet you . . . again.” Then she nodded towards Henry and leaned in to whisper “We can talk more later, but I’m sorry we met like that.” Drake released her hand and put it behind his neck, an embarrassed habit that Rinda noticed. The mom in her wanted to give him a big hug and tousle his already messy brown hair.

. . . . .

When they got outside Rinda made it clear that she absolutely sucked at football so she would hang back and watch to get some tips, but otherwise she would just run around and be the cheerleader. Unfortunately for Rinda, Drake refused. “Heh. I lost my favorite spot because of you. And you can’t teach at a Cordonian school and not be decent at football. You’re doing drills with Henry.”

Bastien laughed. “Drake is right, Rinda. It’s the only way you’ll get any better. If there’s any hope of that . . .”

Drake was an excellent teacher and even Rinda was showing improvement. When she found out that he was half American on his mother’s side she mercilessly teased him about football. “Wait, so your mom is an American. A TEXAN. And you refer to ‘soccer’ as ‘football’?” Geez. Way to turn to the Dark Side. Seriously, you know what we’re doing right now isn’t football, right?” Rinda switched to a southern drawl. “Your Texas folk must be madder than a wet hen.” Suddenly Drake ran toward Rinda and tackled her, easily knocking her over. “Oof. Okay. Okay. No more football jokes. Point taken.”

Bastien gave Henry some time to get to know Drake before he suggested they play a game of football together. Cordonian football. “Mom, do you want to join?” Rinda laughed and shook her head. “You’ve all embarrassed me enough today. Please let me keep a shred of my dignity. I’m going to watch for awhile, but then I have to do some research stuff. Mr. Lykel said he’d take you to the archives to meet me when you’re done playing and figuring out plans for fishing tomorrow.”

It was Drake against Bastien and Henry, and it got competitive really fast. Rinda was cheering them on, but when the guys took off their shirts it was her cue to leave. “Okay, okay. I see the testosterone is out of control. This is too much manliness for me to handle, so I’m out. Henry, be good and listen to Drake and Mr. Lykel. Or else.”

It was cute to see Henry mimicking Drake and Bastien, taking his shirt off and throwing it on the ground. It was also sweet to watch Bastien and Drake include Henry in the game. But when Bastien took his shirt off, Rinda was feeling a little more than a mother’s appreciation toward him. It was definitely time for her to get to work.

“Hey mom?”

“Yeah Bug?”

“So, we’ll meet you over . . . there?” He flexed his bicep and then turned his wrist to point toward the palace. Rinda shook her head at his cheeseball antics while Drake gave Henry a high five for his smooth move.

. . . . .

Rinda stood in the archives reviewing her notes before getting started. When Bastien told her that there was a man named Neville who was responsible for Kakos’ hire, she needed to know more. So far all she had was Neville Vancoeur, Future Earl of Cormery Isle.

Even though it was quicker for Rinda to type her notes, there were still a few things she preferred to hand write in her notebook. Rinda paused before adding to her list of topics to search.

Palace Library Floor Plan

Lennox

Rinda pursed her lips and shook her head. She should have asked for the name of King Liam’s mother, but it would be easy to figure it out. Liam. She bit her lip, the coppery taste of blood on her tongue. She remembered the French couple who were banned from naming their female daughter “Liam” because of gender confusion fears.

Then she flipped to another list in her notebook.

Check Cordonia’s LGBTQ+ history and support for children. Enough advocates and support in schools? At our school?

. . . . .

Rinda completely lost track of time and was startled when Henry and Bastien came traipsing down the steps eating ice cream cones.

“Stop! Oh my God, you have food in the archives. How did you even get that in here? Just. Stop. Go upstairs NOW. You’ll contaminate everything.”

Henry and Bastien laughed at Rinda. Her voice was muffled through the dust mask she wore, and she was frantically waving them away with white-gloved hands. “Verzieh dich!”

“Oh crap, Mr. Lykel. Mom’s babbling in German. We better wait for her upstairs.” Bastien nodded and they quickly retreated upstairs to finish their ice cream cones.

When Rinda finally came upstairs she gave them both a look of death. “Don’t EVER bring food near the archives, okay? A lot of the historical records of Cordonia are in there and the curator finally trusts me to look at stuff on my own. If you guys screw that up for me I will be livid. And where’s my ice cream?”

Bastien calmly handed Rinda a bowl of partially melted spumoni ice cream with a spoon. “Henry chose it. It wouldn’t have been so melted if you would have let us eat downstairs.”

Rinda glared at them both as she sat down and took the ice cream, but her resolved didn’t last long. She put a spoonful of pistachio ice cream in her mouth, relishing its sweetness. “Mmmmm. I love spumoni. Thank you!” She repeated the process with the cherry and then the chocolate before Bastien interrupted her, leaning close so Henry wouldn’t hear him. “Do you and your ice cream want some time alone?”

Rinda kept her eyes closed, still savoring the tastes in her mouth. “Mmmm. If you could just come back in 10 with a cigarette.”

“Just 10? I don’t know what you see in that dessert.”

Rinda snapped her eyes open and saw the devilish gleam in Bastien’s grey eyes. She laughed before setting her ice cream down. “Hey, this is actually important. Henry, can you please give me and Mr. Lykel 10 minutes to talk work stuff?”

Henry rolled his eyes but walked to the other side of the room. Rinda waited until he was out of earshot before speaking. “Rhetorical question, since you probably can’t answer this. Has anyone from the Royal Guard taken the palace library’s blueprints out of the archives?” The hair on the back of Bastien’s neck rose, but he calmly stared at Rinda.

She quickly continued. “Because of what happened last night, I was looking through blue prints and work contracts for the library.” Rinda gave Bastien a printout of document titles, and several were highlighted. “This is a list of documents that were catalogued in the Royal Archives, but I haven’t found the highlighted ones yet and there’s no record of them being out on loan, getting restored, relocated, anything like that. I didn’t find any electronic versions, either. It’s probably just a clerical or metadata error, or they aren’t being stored in the proper area, but I wanted you to know. Also, I cleared my computer searches in the archives, but obviously that doesn’t mean anything. Oh, and you’ve probably already done this, but someone could check for other notes in the Queen’s favorite books. I leave notes in my favorite books for the next reader, so she might have too.”

Rinda glanced at her handwritten notes. “One other thing, please. What’s a Code Locusta? Does it have something to do with poison?”

Bastien was reading the list when Rinda asked, so she couldn’t see his facial expression until he calmly stood up, that impenetrable mask in place. “Thank you for this. I want to take it over to Mara and let her know about your computer search. Should we all walk back together?”

#bastien lykel #ofc rinda parks #choices trr #a mother's love series

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ennergetics · 7 years

Text

FILLED REQUEST: cloud prince, or the roman holiday reimagining with ha sungwoon

(image credit)

pairing: prince! ha sungwoon x reader genre: fluff summary: You’re a reporter in desperate need of a sensational story. Ha Sungwoon, crown prince, falls into your lap and turns your life around. warnings: none (set in madrid bc i’m cheesy and really enjoyed my stay there! hehe. hope y’all enjoy!!)

PRINCE SERIES: guanlin | sungwoon

ha sungwoon is his country's new crown prince, and if he’s being perfectly honest, he’s not very happy about it

sure, it’s his home, and the country’s involvement in software development has made it one of the richest in the world

but sungwoon had dreams, wanted to be a performer, before his older sister abdicated the throne to start her own business, which is strictly in conflict with being a royal

now sungwoon is under all these different rules of decorum and he feels stifled—he’s always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve, and this role requires an inscrutable mask of politeness and manners

when his family feels he’s ready, they send him off to Europe to meet with their tiny island’s trading partners

and in the first country, sungwoon makes an innocent comment about the prime minister’s choice of tie

his deportment teacher makes a huge fuss about it and sungwoon grows very, very tired

so at precisely 4:56 pm, he slips out of the embassy and quickly makes his way to a nearby department store

sungwoon uses all the money he has on him to buy a new set of nondescript clothes, glasses, a cap, and a box of hair dye

but he discovers right after that there’s no way he’ll be able to dye his hair on his own for the first time in a public bathroom

and he ends up sitting at a bus stop, left with less than a euro in his pocket

when you see him, you mistake him for a forlorn tourist

you’ve been having a shit day; your best friend and editor-in-chief just warned you about an impending paycut and job downgrade if you didn’t submit a good story by the end of the month

it had been too good to be true, working with seongwu as the foreign correspondent for his lifestyle magazine

fine, you haven’t written a good investigative article since your exposé on that one museum, but writing for PRODUCE is a lot harder than you’d thought

the only way to remedy a bad day, you think, is to do a good deed

so when you hear the lost-looking stranger’s stomach grumble in the silence at the bus stop, you offer him half of the sandwich you’d taken out for home

“I don’t need help!” he says, his voice panicked

and he has a wild look in his eyes, and you back away slowly

but he looks clean—his nails are manicured, for god’s sake

“are you sure you’re okay?” you say because you’re determined to be kind and there’s nothing he can do about it

but he doesn’t have a bathroom to do it at bc public bathrooms are too small and it’d be conspicuous

he gives you an odd look

“you don’t know who i am?” and then he grins, his smile so radiant your breath catches, annoyance forgotten

“no??”

he bites that plush lower lip and asks for a small favor

and that’s how you both end up at your tiny apartment

he’s in the bathroom and you’re messaging seongwu and jisung—the former is your boss, the latter your photographer partner

and seongwu sends you a lead he suggests you check out

i hear crown prince ha sungwoon is in ur area. cant find any recent pictures but here are some pics from when he was a kid

he’s chubbier in the pictures, but those pouty lips are unmistakeable

you’re crafting a plan as you go to check on him

crown prince ha sungwoon is shirtless in your bathroom intently reading the hair dye manual included in the box

“have you never done this before?” you say raising a brow

he huffs and admits he hasn’t

you end up googling a how-to video because he doesn’t have a phone on him

he’s sitting in your tub with his arms crossed and you’re watching the guide, texting jisung at the same time

i have a plan

his stomach rumbles right as you close the messaging app and his ears go red

sungwoon borrows your pink bathrobe and eats your cherries while you toast him some bread

“what should i call you?”

sungwoon mutters something in reply that you don’t quite catch

“did you ask me to call you ‘daddy?’”

“I sAiD CLOUDY!!!”

later he’s back in your tub, your hands gently massaging his scalp to get the dye in

and he moans softly once, his eyes going wide

“cloudy, is this turning you on”

“I HAVE A SENSITIVE SCALP…unless you want me that way, baby”

you feel 98% embarrassment and 2% attraction so you splash him with the water before leaving him to finish up

when he comes out his hair is a boring shade of brown, and you look him up and down

“well, you blend in aside from—“

“i’m taller wearing shoes, okay!!” he says, standing up straighter, before glancing at the door with a worried expression

you sigh, shrugging, and say, “do you have any money on you?”

and he shakes his head no, so you offer him your place to crash for the night

you’re texting jisung, letting him know where you’ll go so he can take the photos for your soon-to-be-written feature article about an unsuspecting ha sungwoon

and you startle because sungwoon’s asleep in your bed beside you???

but he looks exhausted, his body shaking slightly in the cold because he hadn’t even tried to take your blanket

so you tuck him in before sliding in next to him, your limbs touching because your bed is small

you wake up to someone singing in the kitchen

ha sungwoon is wearing your apron and making you an omelette

he beams at you when you eat it, saying, “it’s perfect, isn’t it? but it’s the only thing i know how to make"

you thank him for breakfast, washing the dishes as you casually say, “i might need an assistant for my blog post today”

which strictly isn’t a lie

so you hand him your never-used polaroid camera and brief him about your itinerary around madrid

when you get to the royal palace he seems relatively unimpressed, if very interested in the art

“there’s no room for such extravagance back home,” he mutters as you’re leaving

“what was that, cloudy?”

instead of responding, he takes a photo of you by the gate

you take a couple of him, too, both because they’re good material and because he’s so interesting to watch

you have lunch at a random tapas place and he’s ordering everything until he remembers he’s on your budget

but you nod at him and he lights up throwing an arm over your shoulder and squeezing you tightly to his side, and you cover up your blush by taking a few photos of him

later you’re eating ice cream while in line for the prado museum’s free hours, and you’re mesmerized watching him eat the ice cream more neatly than anyone you’ve ever seen in your life

sungwoon picks up a copy of the memorable painting list and grabs your wrist, promising to show you the best paintings

it turns out he knows a lot about art??

and you’re sorry you can’t take recordings because the enthusiasm with which he speaks is really captivating

you ask him about it later as you walk the way back to your apartment

“i wanted to take up fine arts, like theatre or music or something, but my parents wanted me in art curation because it’s more fitting for an heir—an heir to our family business, i mean,” he says, his ears turning a tell-tale pink

he bids you goodbye at your door, shaking your hand after you give him one of the polaroid selfies you took together

“there are matters i have to attend to,” he says stiffly

and you laugh, shaking your head and pulling him into a tight hug

“you’ll need a better poker face for those, sungwoon,” you whisper in his ear

he’s back at the embassy when he realizes he never told you his name and you never mentioned yours

the next day, sungwoon’s at the press conference, and he sees you with a media ID on

it takes all the self-control he’s learned the past few months to keep from freaking out in public

later, you approach him, biting your lip as if you’re nervous, and sungwoon tries not to remember how you’d looked in the fading light of day the night before, the flutter he’d felt in his heart

“before you say anything, hear me out,” you murmur, and sungwoon nods with his brows furrowed

you hand him a small envelope with a fond smile on your face

“from PRODUCE publication, a present for the new crown prince”

sungwoon opens it afterwards and it’s a memory card with a post-it attached

‘the only other place these are recorded is my memory’

and he looks up the online publication but the days pass without anything about him being written besides a short note about his coronation

he reads every single article you post, and he hears them all in your snarky voice and finds himself missing you terribly

but of course he won’t contact you because he’s supposed to be far too busy for that sort of thing

still, when he’s back home, he orders a subscription for the print edition of PRODUCE

and it gets delivered to his place with a note scrawled all over the first page, in the same handwriting as the post-it he keeps in his wallet

‘guess where i’m going to be stationed?’

#ha sungwoon #wanna one #wanna one scenarios #wanna one imagines #ha sungwoon imagines #sungwoon #sungwoon fic #cloud prince #mine #bulletpoint fic #bps: prince au #w1 #[ yes my headcanon sungwoon loves art LEAVE ME BE ]#[ i take requests !! ]#[ also i'm queuing this for my bday hehe happy bday to me ~ ]#POCKET PRINCE #mywriting

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maychorian · 7 years

Text

Weekly Voltron Fic Recs #42

Please be aware that I am no longer noting Season Three spoilers.

Rules: You can find past weekly rec lists here, and non-list recs in my general fic rec tag. Also follow @maychorianrecs for individually tagged posts, the easier to search and reblog. This is stuff I like, and I have a huge bias toward Lance, hurt/comfort, and general fluff, in that order. Gen unless otherwise noted. Please comment on the fics if you read and enjoy them!

Unknown by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 17,643 Author’s Summary: As Shiro enters his fourth year at Hogwarts, there’s a lot he doesn’t know about his future. As he tries to figure out what he wants and what he needs, Professor Coran comes to him to ask for a favor: to help tutor one of the first years in Transfiguration. Shiro agrees, and sets himself down a path he’d never expected for himself. A remix of Unafraid by Buttered_onions My Comments: Absolutely delightful Harry Potter AU in which young Shiro gradually gathers a small flock first years who adore him to tiny bits. I love how protective Shiro becomes almost the instant he meets each of these adorable kids. Matt and Allura are fantastic as his supportive and mischievous best friends, too.

The Blue Paladin by CalicoPudding Words: 2,680 Author’s Summary: He didn’t ask to go to space, not like this anyway. And sure, it was fun and exciting and new when they first arrived, but it’s clear now that they can’t just go back home. They’re Voltron, the defender of the universe. And they’re fighting a very real threat. A threat that could kill them if they aren’t careful. My Comments: Lance is not dealing with his homesickness, and then Blue’s rejection makes it a whole lot worse.Thank goodness for Pidge and Hunk chasing him down and refusing to leave him alone.

Day 5: Insomnia by GemmaRose Words: 1,806 Author’s Summary: Without a regulating light cycle, the average human circadian rhythm settles to a 22 hour cycle. Going under that is… difficult. My Comments: Poor Hunk has a rough time adjusting to space. Good thing his team notices and won’t let it continue.

Thrall Song by ElementKitsune Words: 1,709 Author’s Summary: The name is Takashi Shirogane. (that’s the first thing you’ll forget) OR Shiro gets captured by the fae. (It’s an experience) My Comments: Surreal, dreamlike fantasy AU where it’s the fae who capture and use Shiro instead of the Galra. Good thing the team is there to save him.

You do not Need to see our Identification by The Curator of The Sands (GrimRevolution) Words: 6,886 Author’s Summary: She was looking for information so she went alone. She didn’t come back that way. She almost didn’t come back at all. My Comments: Really fun way for Pidge to meet up with Matt, both in the middle of their own mission on a base. In the melee, Pidge gets injured and Matt gets her back to the team. Lots of actions, lots of feels.

A Long Rain by Bandity Words: 3,467 Author’s Summary: It’s a search and rescue mission and Lance is happy to be out in the rain, but he really doesn’t understand why Keith hates it so much. My Comments: Oof, this is quite the double whammy, with Lance getting physically sick and Keith struggling with PTSD in a major way. They both need to get out of the rain.

If I Can Live Through This by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 6,804 Author’s Summary: There are some problems Shiro can’t go to the team for, for a variety of reasons. But for those times, there’s Sam and Matt. A direct sequel to Beast You’ve Made of Me My Comments: Great installment for a fantastic series. Love Sam and Matt being supportive of Shiro when it’s difficult, and especially when it’s difficult for him to ask.

The Opposite of a Furry Little Problem by Omnicat Words: 1,412 Author’s Summary: Shiro isn’t Shiro, he says. Shiro isn’t safe, he says. The space mice will decide that for themselves, thankyouverymuch. My Comments: Ahhhh, so adorable! The space mice decide that even if this isn’t quite Shiro, he still needs company and comfort. I want more fics like this.

Waiting for the Dam to Break by saababa Words: 14,702 (3/?) Author’s Summary: It took a whole month to track down the Galra ship that had captured Lance. A whole month of frustration, guilt and dead-end leads before the remaining paladins could launch their rescue. It only took a month for Lance to lose his mind. My Comments: Ooh, great aftermath fic. Intense so far, with wonderful characterization and a lot of emotion. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

The Helpless Dark by Bandity Words: 2,149 Author’s Summary: Lance is trapped and awaiting rescue, but he’s not as alone as he thought he was. My Comments: Oh, golly. Lance with children is always a treat, and we get hurt Lance on top of it, trying to keep a tiny alien calm while they wait for help. Lovely comforting with Hunk later, too.

Can’t Touch This by SerenePhenix Words: 1,777 Author’s Summary: No one touches the mice. No one. Author’s Summary: That monster hurt the space mice, holy crap. D: I get kind of desensitized to human characters getting hurt in fiction, so somehow this is worse. No worries, though, there is vengeance, and lots of concern and love at the end.

Stick Like Glue by Arisprite Words: 6,895 Author’s Summary: An uninhabited alien forest calls to Lance for exploration, and who better to ask to come along than Keith? So, maybe everyone else said no first, but Keith and Lance are actually not having too bad a time. Add in some jewels, glue, and a giant monkey, and we’ll see how it goes. My Comments: Really fun adventure fic with Lance and Keith getting into and out of trouble and actually enjoying each other’s company. I love seeing their friendship develop, despite all the bumps along the way.

Don’t Worry About It by genericfanatic Words: 3,949 Author’s Summary: 5 times Hunk told Lance not to worry about it and one time he should have worried. My Comments: Warning for attempted suicide. Oh gosh, this was a rough read. If it hadn’t been for the second chapter I don’t think I could have taken it. But I loved protective Hunk doing his best to heal and support his emotionally wounded friend.

01001000 01100101 01101100 01110000 by The Curator of The Sands (GrimRevolution) Words: 1,226 Author’s Summary: It wasn’t even her voice, wasn’t hers and was wrong, it was wrong, it was wrong, wrong, wrong. One foot moved forward. No, no, she didn’t want to, she didn’t want to she didn't— Walk. She walked. My Comments: Really intense fic with Pidge being mind-controlled, then feeling a complete loss of control and autonomy afterward. Lance tries to help and does his best, but it’s a rough time for Pidge and nothing is really fixed by the end.

Ship to Wreck by Engineer104 Words: 3,544 Author’s Summary: It’s always the same. Katie Holt loses her family. Pidge Gunderson emerges to get them back. This time, she sets sail for the New World. My Comments: Really fun AU with Team Voltron in the Age of Sail. I loved all of the character choices and the richness of the descriptions. Just need more, that’s all.

The Cost of War by heroami Words: 1,257 Author’s Summary: And then it hit Lance just how young Pidge really was. Kids her age – our age, a voice which sounded a lot like Hunk, reminded him – should be worrying about school and their first kiss. Not whether or not their friends would survive the day. My Comments: Sweet, heartachey missing scene set after Return to the Balmera. Pidge is having trouble processing and she goes to Lance, even though they’re not quite friends yet. Fortunately, Lance welcomes her in with open arms. Love that platonic cuddling.

All the Stars Go Dark by nightwalker Words: 33,330 Author’s Summary: The Garrison was abandoned. Shiro didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d known when he started out that nowhere was safe anymore, and he’d had no reason to believe the Garrison would be any different. But he’d held onto that hope in the face of all evidence. My Comments: Hoo boy, this fic is a non-stop thrill ride. I knew I was going to enjoy it, and I REALLY did. Shiro coming back alone to the Garrison to search for survivors (and his brother) after a year of zombie apocalypse is already a tense scenario, but then once he actually MEETS those survivors, and then all the twists and turns, the things that are eventually revelead, and even the ending, oohhhh man, non-stop rollercoaster from start to finish. Definitely some horror, mostly because of what people do instead of zombies, but Shiro is going to take care of these kids he found surviving in the desert NO MATTER WHAT. I really, really enjoyed this fic.

the weight grew golden by uraa Words: 7,698 Author’s Summary: Through the window, Takashi saw a head of unruly black hair, golden skin and soft dark eyes. Oh, he thought. Even from a distance, he could tell. My Comments: What a gorgeous fic. This isn’t quite my childhood, but close enough for the nostalgia to be pretty overwhelming. I could really feel the weight of that summer heat, and the joy of a summer storm. Shiro’s instant adoption of new neighbor Keith was adorable, and it was also fun to see them both hanging out with the Holt siblings. What a lovely group of kids.

Fever Days by Bandity Words: 2,280 Author’s Summary: Keith was always good at being alone. A fever didn’t change that. My Comments: Poor Keith. Good to see the others taking care of him, especially after he starts hallucinating about Shiro. I especially loved Lance in this, supportive but willing to call Keith out when he’s doing something harmful to himself.

Snow Drop by Bandity Words: 3,420 Author’s Summary: A storm is raging and Pidge fights to get an injured Lance to safety. My Comments: Fantastic Pidge and Lance friendship. They both have to work together to get each other out of a very dangerous situation. The cuddling at the end was lovely.

Alsanum by Lobo_Loca Words: 11,841 Author’s Summary: [“Alsanum?” Lance asked. “What’s that?” “Our biggest festival, which celebrates the lights the goddess Alma bestowed upon the first Alteans. Five nights of lights, food, and games to remind us of the gifts we’ve been given,” explained Coran.] In need of a break from the war against the Galra, Coran suggests reviving a traditional Altean light festival. The Paladins team up with Coran to put on the festival, and decide to surprised Allura while they’re at it. My Comments: I adore all of the thought and creativity that went into the building of this fic. It’s lovely to see the team enjoying a holiday together and sharing their cultural heritage, and there’s the bonus focus on Coran’s grief for his lost family. Bittersweet and lovely.

And live inside each scene by Resamille Words: 1,292 Author’s Summary: “Well no,” says Lance over the comms. “Most people don’t intend to get shot.” My Comments: Ouch, poor Pidge. Good thing Lance and Keith are there.

Day 3: Blood Loss by GemmaRose Words: 1,496 Author’s Summary: In Which Zarkon Is Injured And Alfor Refuses To Give Up On His Friend. My Comments: Strong warrior friendship, holy crow, look at it. It feels so true to them now, and that’s the weirdest thing.

Previously Recced Fics That Updated:

As Color Fades Away (110431 words) The Ones Who Were Left Behind (38405 words) The Machinations of Perception (42846 words) The Wounds We Heal, and Those We Don't(13386 words) Scattered (64148 words) Truce (171597 words) Water and Blood (23759 words)

#voltron legendary defender #weekly voltron fic recs #fic rec #vldgen

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artificialqueens · 7 years

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A Different Kind of Art (Sashea) [Part ⅔] - May

Being the digital art curator at a gallery is never easy, especially when inspiration is nonexistent, no one takes your art seriously and you start to get attached to the talent you’ve sourced.

A/N: Here’s part two where the drama starts to thicken ;) Thanks to Scoobert for betaing, and I hope you guys enjoy this part.

Sasha’s phone meeting with Shea Coulee had gone well, Shea seemed up for the idea, but hadn’t been able to talk at that moment. As Aja had predicted the dancer was performing in the spring festival, and had been just about to go onstage. Sasha had offered to call back, but Shea had told her to come down the festival, which Sasha had been only too keen for - any excuse to watch Shea perform, she thought.

To Sasha’s great relief, the wind had died down, but a chill still remained in the air, despite the bright sun hovering overhead. Grateful for her long coat, which she pulled close around her, she consulted her phone, which told her the park where the festival was located was a short walk away from the gallery. Deciding the exercise she’d get from the walk was better than taking the subway, she set off in the direction of the park.

Before she knew it she was there, making her way though marquees and stalls that sold jams and fruits and all kinds of arts and crafts. Trying to figure her way out of the market section of the festival didn’t take too long, the noise coming from the other end of the park was inescapable, and though the sun was momentarily hidden behind the festival seemed a bright place. Shea had mentioned her troupe was going to be performing, and Sasha figured they were nearing the end of their act, so she leaned against a nearby tree to watch the performance unfold.

There were a couple of watchers scattered around, most giving the dancers onstage a passing glance before returning to their conversations, bubbling to see the rest of the festival. Sasha felt a pang of sympathy for the dancers, she knew what it was like to have her work skimmed over, or skipped because more important things were ahead. Although those who were watching were enraptured, and rightfully so. The performance was different to those that she’d spent the morning watching. Even through she was out of a darkened, flashing club and with another group of performers, Shea was still the star, but there was an element about it that seemed a little more subdued. The nightclub performances were raw and sensual, but the way the dancers moved held a timeless grace to them.

For the first time in a long time, Sasha’s fingers itched to grab her stylus and start drawing, so she made do with a napkin stolen from a food truck and a biro she’d found in her pocket. As Shea swayed onstage, Sasha’s pen told the story of her dance through the curving lines, and the subtle shading at the corners of the piece. As the music swelled to an end, Sasha looked at the napkin critically. It might not be the best, but it was more than she’d had to work with over the past few weeks. Stowing the napkin and the biro back in her coat pocket, she made her way over to the side of the stage where Shea had told her to meet, the girl in question undoing her high ponytail and shaking her hair out down her back. Sasha took a deep breath in to calm her nerves.

Shea noticed her before Sasha had time to say anything, a questioning look on her face as she walked over, confident, yet still open and friendly. “You must be Sasha,” she asked, “or else it’s not really what you do to loiter around backstage after a performance when you weren’t even in the show.” Sasha laughed weakly. “Yes, yes I am Sasha,” she said, her voice a lot more even than she felt. Normally Sasha was a pro at these kind of meetings, contacting the local artists but for some reason with Shea’s cool, calm face with one eyebrow slightly perched in front of her, she felt frazzled. “We spoke on the phone earlier, I wanted to ask you if you’d be interested in performing at the gallery for the digital art department’s exhibition,” she started. “We want to showcase local talent and show that digital art and even modern art can have many forms and-” Shea cut her off. “Want to go get coffee while we talk?”

The two of them wandered through the park, through the booths and the stalls, hands clutched around large paper cups holding steaming caffeinated drinks. Shea had kept shivering, and despite her protests that she was absolutely fine and didn’t need anything, Sasha had shed her long coat and given it to the taller girl, even though now it was her who was wincing at the bite of the wind through her turtleneck. They’d ended up walking to a corner of the park that was secluded, an oddity at a time like this. There wasn’t a lot in that corner, the earth was dry and dusty rather than springy, and the single bench was covered in obscene carvings and old wads of gum. Objectively, Sasha could see why this little area was bordered by a large white marquee, so no one would see this ugly side to the city.

Nonetheless, the two of them sat on the bench, their initial conversation of the gallery and the exhibition had run its course before Sasha had even been able to pick up her latte, Shea was excited, and would definitely be there. The conversation had moved on now, to something different, not between two potential work colleagues, but between two potential friends.

Everything had been going brilliantly, the two warmed from laughing despite the cold. Sasha felt giddy, finally someone else was there to talk to her about the world with a similar eye to her. An hour passed, and then another half, and the two were close together now, for warmth, Sasha reasoned, that was the only reason why. There needs to be a storm, Sasha thought, something that can break this weather and get everything back to normal.

The conversation had lulled a little bit, and Sasha knew at some point she’d have to stand up and leave, go back to the gallery and her office, and start firing off emails, scrambling together an exhibition for the coming month. She was drawing up a to-do list in her head, people needed to be emailed, people needed to be paid, spaces needed to be cleaned. And hell, she had to actually draw something. The list was coming together in her mind, and as her schedule began to lay itself, she turned to Shea.

“So you’ll be able to make rehearsals right? There’ll be a couple a week, and I guess you’ll need to choreograph something, I’m not really a dancer, so I wouldn’t know,” she trailed off, Shea looking at her with a slightly quizzical expression. “A couple a week? Like more than one?” “Well, yeah, it’s a reputable gallery, and just because we’re a small department doesn’t mean we don’t want to have a kickass exhibition,” Sasha responded. “I’m not going to have the time, I’m sorry,” the taller girl responded, “I made the commitment to the festival-” “I mean, we’re still a pretty big department, and in one of the best galleries in Brooklyn,” Sasha bit back, stung a little that Shea would think herself above such an exhibition, assume that only one rehearsal would be adequate for the department. “Sash, it’s not that I don’t want to do it,” responded Shea, setting her mouth defiantly, the nickname she’d spontaneously chosen making Sasha melt a little inside. “I’m just so busy with the performance, and I made a prior commitment to the troop, it wouldn’t be fair.”

Despite Shea’s apologetic smile Sasha felt a brief flash of annoyance behind her eyelids - odd, since Sasha usually considered herself a calm and chilled person. “Well yeah I guess,” retorted Sasha, wincing at how whiny her voice sounded, “but this would mean so much to me, and the gallery.” Shea narrowed her eyes, apparently taking offence to Sasha’s tone. “And no offence Sasha, but you are literally no one to me, we literally just met. And yes, you seem like a pretty cool person, and I’d love to support your gallery, I’m not going to blow off my friends and people I committed to long before you.” Sasha was speechless, the annoyance in Shea’s voice resonating hard somewhere deep inside her, sparking an anger she herself didn’t even know she held “Fine,” shot back Sasha. “I’ll find someone else. New York’s pretty big - you’re not special because you can dance.”

Shea rolled her eyes, and Sasha chose that moment to push herself up from the bench, hoping her shaky movements weren’t betrayed by a tremble of a limb. “I guess I’d better go then,” she continued, fighting the quaver that threatened to poach its way into her words. Sasha hated fighting people, especially people she liked. But for some reason she couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the lean girl remaining seated, regal features set and motionless like a porcelain doll.

She stormed off, the turn of her heel kicking up a little patch of dust that had previously been packed into the earth. She wound her way through the marquees and stark white tents, willing herself not to do something like cry, or run back and throw herself down and apologise. She was strong, but she could feel Shea’s eyes burrowing into her back as she left the park. She picked up her pace.

Sasha’s storming off slowed down considerably about a block away from the park, due to the panic, lingering anger and shame she was feeling and also somewhat due the fact she hadn’t done any exercise since she’d graduated high school. Her thoughts clouded around in her head, too many questions all being asked, and for once, her logical mind wasn’t able to pull any reason for anything that had just happened, everything was blurring too fast, too together, unable to yank any cohesion from the tight knit tangle in her chest and her brain.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she had been affected the way she was. She wanted Shea to accept her, and Sasha couldn’t help but feel as though Shea didn’t take her seriously, just another person who thought modern art didn’t belong in a gallery - until she realised Shea concern’s had been perfectly reasonable, and Sasha had charged in like a bull in a china shop, accusing Shea of not caring and unjustly taking her own anger out on the girl. The angry ball of tension that her body had become dissolved into a well of shame, no matter what she did to try to distract herself, the reminder of what she’d said and how she’d overreacted popped out at her like camera flashes on a red carpet.

Thankfully something did float to the surface that didn’t shout Shea Coulee in neon bright screams - she needed to email the board of executives to tell them about their current project. Her gratefulness at having a distraction from the dancer waned almost immediately however, as the hundred other little tasks she’d been planning started bobbing to the surface of her mind, like the scummy flotsam of a polluted harbour. Knowing she’d never remember everything that was coming to her mind, she patted her hip absentmindedly, searching for the biro that she knew was in her pocket before realising Shea still had her coat.

+++

When Sasha arrived back at the gallery, once again taking the groaning elevator and passing the leaky and creaking water pipes ornamenting the basement corridors, Aja was on the phone, debating something in a muted tone. Sasha could tell it was something important the girl was discussing, by the fact she was bolt upright in her chair, and was twirling the cord of the phone around her finger with an increased urgency. Sasha dumped her bag on a table and took a seat next to it, normally she hated Aja’s dismissal of conventional furniture, but Sasha was stressed enough to break her own rules and follow the younger girl’s habits.

A thump echoed through the office, as Aja’s hand connected with the desk, causing Peppermint to pop her head out of the room she’d been occupying and come out to perch on the table next to Sasha and start scrolling through the emails on her phone. “How’d it go with Shea-” she started, and thankfully was cut off by Aja’s voice raising, and a the beginning of a fiery string of insults from the desk in the corner. “No way, you do not get to say that you bloody good for nothing-” Peppermint plucked the phone out of Aja’s hand, cutting off the rant and preventing the receiver from hearing the main part of what Aja had to say. “I’m very sorry,” said Peppermint, a congenial professionalism to her voice, her mouth tightening as muffled monologue was emitted from the receiver. “Yes, yes, I am aware. Well thank you,” she finished, handing the phone back to Aja. “Yeah thanks for nothing,” Aja spat into the phone.

She slammed down the phone with an angry vehemence. “That,” she said sourly, “was Valentina,” speaking the name with a kind of disgust she usually reserved for country music and furries. Peppermint smiled sympathetically, and Sasha followed - she knew how dealing with the newest member “They’re forcing us to either change our launch date or scrap it altogether,” Aja fumed. Sasha felt as though the bottom of her had been opened up and her insides were falling out. Vaguely, she could hear Peppermint asking why, and she remembered the calendar of events she’d been emailed ages ago that had mentioned the arrival of a soft sculpture exhibition by leading artist Serena Cha Cha that would have its own opening, that had been highlighted as Very Important. Valentina had been in charge of organising the event, and while Sasha had nothing against her, the younger employee had a tendency to have everything done exactly the way she wanted, no matter what she had to do, or who she had to twist around her finger.

Aja was just finishing up a rant when Sasha returned from her dissociative fog “Apparently our event will be too loud, and they’ll be disturbed all the way up in the fucking main gallery,” Aja fumed, before beginning to say exactly what she thought of Valentina. “A week before the event? That’s deliberate sabotage!” continued Aja, and Peppermint put a hand on Aja’s shoulder in an attempt to calm the younger girl down. “I’m sure it’s not sabotage,” she said, although her mouth was set in a thin line. “I’m sure it was just a coincidence, the launch isn’t completely over, we’ll just have to rethink what we’re doing.” Peppermint nodded. “Well, at least we have Shea Coulee performing, that’ll draw people no matter the date we put on the flyer.” Sasha’s blood ran cold, and she realised that she had completely, royally fucked up. “About that,” she began, already envisioning the disappointed reactions the others would display when she told them what had happened at the park. “I may have blown that chance.”

#sashea #shea coulee #sasha velour #lesbian au #au #may #rpdr fanfiction #submission #a different kind of art

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alexstrick · 7 years

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Introducing CoachBot: Your Personal Language Taskmaster

For languages that aren’t new, I often feel like I’m stagnating and get bored when I reach the intermediate levels. This can reflect a lack of materials from which to study (as was the case with Pashto when I first started studying it) or — more commonly — a surfeit of materials. This creates a kind of choice paralysis where the number of options means I’m far less likely to sit down and pick one of them. (In a similar way, I'll sometimes choose not to watch any of the in-flight entertainment because there are too many choices to pick from.)

Studying a brand new language is (almost) always fun: you’re making quick progress, everything is new so you still have that nice-and-shiny feeling, and you feel like you’re really on your way to success. Continuing that study after two to four years of effort is a little harder. Like with any longer-term project, you start having to find ways to remind yourself of why you’re even working on it in the first place. It can often feel like you’ve lost that original magic somehow, even to the extent that you question whether you actually want to learn the language.

It is useful to address some of these issues ahead of time. That way, when you hit a period of less energy or motivation, you have a pre-formulated plan of action (made by you when you weren’t consumed by whatever mood is dominant). For me, this takes the form of making lists of suggestions to my future-self. I have pre-made task lists for:

When I’m travelling

When I’m feeling sick

When I have no time to study

When I have oodles of time to study

When I have lots of energy and enthusiasm for learning

When I have no enthusiasm for learning

Try to have at least 10 or 15 tasks in whatever lists you do end up creating. Maybe save a few pages at the back of your language notebook to list these tasks. This way, you always have them handy. It helps to have a good amount of variety in the tasks you pre-assign to yourself.

I keep lists as described above, but they weren’t as effective as I'd hoped. I’d glance at the tasks, feel only a limited enthusiasm for the options available and then put the list to one side. I needed a different solution.

I happened to be teaching myself to program/code at around the same time, so I thought this might make an interesting practice problem to try to solve. (I was studying Python and so I found a way to make a web app that uses that to connect to Flask.)

CoachBot is the free tool I designed to solve the problem of study choice paralysis for language-learners. It’s still only a prototype, but I'm soft-launching it here now since I imagine it might help those reading who are in similar situations.

CoachBot gives you a task that you can complete within a specific time-frame. If you have only 5 minutes, it'll pick a random task from the database that I curated and wrote myself. Have an hour? It'll suggest a different kind of task. If you don't want to do a particular task that it suggests, just click a button to get a new one.

These are the kinds of tasks I suggest when working with students one-on-one. They’re also the kinds of tasks I had written down in my lists. As of writing, there are 386 unique tasks in the database, which means that the suggestions are far more varied and creative than anything I was previously using.

I’d suggest you use it as follows: if you ever feel like you don’t know what to do to keep going with your language studies, open up CoachBot, pick a time corresponding to your needs and do whatever it tells you to do. When you’re done, make a note of what you did and how long it took in your learning log. Consider doing another session.

I’ve been using this for a few weeks already and can attest to its value. One of the key benefits I’ve found is just in getting started. Sometimes I’ll only need to do a five-minute task before I realise that there was something else that I wanted to read or study and then I’ll get busy working on that.

There are lots of features that I hope to build in for future versions. I want to include user accounts and tracking of how much time you spend on the different tasks. I want to sub-divide by language skill (i.e. which skill is being trained) and eventually to build in some kind of guidance and interactivity to how the tool functions. But for now, use it as it is: get some studying done by outsourcing the choice of what you’ll be studying.

There are more details on the website itself. You can click through to the project’s roadmap where you can see an updated version of features coming soon. You can also make suggestions for tasks that you’d like included in the Bot and/or specific features you’d like me to build as part of the project.

[Special thanks to Alex, Ian, Kevin and Peter for patiently answering my questions while I was building this initial prototype].

#languages #coachbot #coding #productivity #pythonsideproject

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rajon007 · 7 years

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All you need is data

Interview Jan Kratochvil / Simon Denny for Rajon 5

I read in the interview of Hans Ulrich with Julian Assange about his concept of three types of history: First, knowledge, like how to refine oil for instance or how to make a plastic bottle and so on, which are maintained and sustained by production, economy around it. Second, historical records, telling us various stories from the prehistory till today, being always present, slowly disintegrating or being reinterpreted, thus manipulated, but without an existing intention to get rid of them. Last type is something people put lots of energy and economic power to willingly destroy it or keep it as a secret. The last type is obviously something Assange is interested in. In your case it’s more complicated I would say, even though you were working with Snowden files, these leaked informations are not the single core of your interest. Compiling past and present, even if past means yesterday and present possibly could be perceived as tomorrow. So what highlights topics of interest for you work? First of all thanks for the careful questions - they are complex, so my answers might also be. I hope you'll forgive that! Secondly I love that interview, its my 2nd favorite Assange and my favorite Obrist interview. I also read in the "When google met Wikileaks" book that it was an interview Assange also felt very happy with. I am very interested in the way organizations, particularly tech-related organizations, present themselves to each other and to the world. I'm interested in the language they use and the information they prioritize, as well as they way they use images, objects and systems in service of these priorities. This usually involves telling stories of some kind. If we want to relate it to your interpretation of Assange's three histories, maybe this activity relates more to the second and third kind of history you identify here. We could also say most tech companies implicitly or explicitly have claim on the first kind here too. I guess if I had to choose, I am most interested in your/his second kind of history. I feel like the kind of history-storytelling my exhibitions hover around and frame is about imaging the way we might see recent history through characters from the present. So in more concrete terms, my exhibitions often involve picking a organization, a practice or an individual, and reiterating or recontextualizing an existing story through them. With the Snowden-related material, I chose a Creative Director to recast as an artistic master in a longer lineage of state-commissioned images, using themes and aesthetic memes to unpack the value systems that might be found in the intelligence community's visual choices. In my Serpentine exhibition, Products for Organizing, I played many voices against each other, trying to visualize the relationship between a marketing-oriented view on the history of hacking and how that might be used to service commercial and governmental organizational innovation. In both cases histories of a present were told from a biased position. As you say I compile recent history and kind of posit a view on the present and past that demonstrates its interests.

Tell me more about this always present durational aspect of your work. Passage of time around us is super fast nowadays and iOS6 (was it 6?) with skeuomorphic design already looks like an antiquity when you’re using iOS9. More subtle changes in UI like the change of the typefont in case of Apple from Helvetica to San Francisco is less visible for most of costumers, still you reflect on it. What does this timeline you’re creating actually saying besides the obvious? I believe in design as a time-stamp. I think objects, graphics, fonts and GUI's capture a moment in a very rich way. Popular interfaces to communication carry something of a worldview and a representation of what's possible and what's important at a certain moment. In this way Tim Cook's decision to have a custom typeface not a modernist classic as the universal system font of one of the world’s most dominant platforms says something about the world in 2015. Maybe this could represent a look inwards for the powerful tech giant? The fact that iOS was skeuomorphic also says something about 2007-2012. Maybe we were learning to use and carry touch screen portals or learning to want them. Environments you’re forming holds the essence of some utopian repositories of knowledge. Very specifically selected knowledge. Do you relate to some ancient utopian urban plans and structures? I mean, besides the Tower of Babel. Thinking about New Atlantis, De Civitate Dei, Moore’s Utopia, Civitas Solis, Civitas Veri and so on. In other words, is there a long-term political ambition behind organising all that data into exhibition set-ups? (Funny thing is that you’re mentioning in youtube guided tour through “Babel”, that the idea of a tower came from the curator, so I’m just not sure if it’s something you would yourself find interesting or if it comes out of a process of preparing the show with another person). Yeah in this case, the babel commission really came out of a conversation with Daniel Birnbaum and Hand Ulrich Obrist, along with Luma, where me and Alessandro Bava worked on researching and reinterpreting not only the tower of Babel but also a history of radical exhibition making and design at the Moderna Museet. So that was really a very group-authored thing - which also involved performances and poetry crated by Simon Castets and Giovanna Olmos and many more people. So while it was an amazing project that I am really proud of, and I took it in directions close to my personal interests where it made sense, it was also about learning from other voices and approaches, and the Babel proposition was one of those things that originated with another voice.

Can you please elaborate more on the question about the tower. i’m interested in a way how you think about those specific set-ups of your work with changes and differences you’re making for different shows. do you consider those changes (for example different statues in exhibiting dotcom project etc.) to be a result of some specific system which develops the narration or are those mostly random? and what about reiterations of projects in different context: “venice” in kunsthalle vienna for instance?

Changes to how my material is presented in different situations aren’t random Exhibitions appearing in different venues are also not based on a system of rules that carry across every presentation. I look at each exhibition opportunity as it comes up and think what fits best, within what’s possible in terms of time and resources and also what the situation demands or proposes. A group show with a curatorial voice is not the same as solo presentation. With the Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom this was kind of written into the work – in that case, the reiteration was kind of a system. Each time the show is made, the host institution and I gather material as best one can, according to the list of confiscated Dotcom possessions. That always reflects a budget, time, ingenuity, and effort – all sorts of factors that change from place to place. The contrast with what it would be to present the “real” collection is always huge. But this discrepancy is folded into the logic of the project, where the gap between the crazy value of Dotcom’s collection is always underlined. He is a very wealthy man and his business and lifestyle have always been about performing material success to a certain extent. Art budgets from New Zealand to Austria cannot match this, at least not within the framework I have been able to create. That is part of a work that is about articulating copies and placeholders for value. With my Venice project’s sister participation in a group show at the Kunsthalle Wien it was also a lot about what the curator Nicolaus Schafhausen was interested in and what worked within the constraints of what he had in mind. It was a much more general presentation, with less of the pointed tensions of the presentation in Venice emphasised – but that’s what the show seemed to require. So its different in each an every situation. But that doesn’t mean what is presented is random. What about the idea of constructing repositories of knowledge? how could this gathering of data work much later when those informations are not current any more? just basically if you’re thinking about it as a statement of here and now or if you think about a universally usable system of data distribution and interpretation.

I think this relates to your question earlier about design for me – what about when design ages and looks out of date? For me this question about data and relevance of events and data of another time is the same. We value cultural objects of the past that contain beautiful reflections of the place/time they were created in. The logic of those objects becomes a summary of what is important to the people/forces that made them. Reflecting current events and ideas and the way things change for me is about that entering into the presentations I make. If something has a strong resonance now it will be valuable in some way in a future that cares about the past. Do you write? I mean in terms of essayistic format. (Haven’t found anything, but it could be really interesting). Unfortunately not so much. Most of my writing is inside my artwork - I very often write or contribute significantly to press releases and wall texts/didactics. There is also increasingly a lot of text annotation on sculptures and paintings, which I have been co-writing with Matt Goerzen. More long form essays are something Ive not really had the time to write up until now. And its a craft I don't really know, nor have I worked on. You were saying once that visitor can interpret your work in his own way, obviously, that one can interpret it either as a serious political/ economical critique, and also just as a parody or some kind of nostalgia-aesthetics joke. Well, Simon, tell me please, where is the boundary in between joke and critical work? That’s obviously a quite an issue in realm of “post-postinternet”. With an obvious example of Hito Steyerl and difference in between her original documentary work, her essays, lectures and…for instance Factory of the Sun. I think I would define my terms a bit here before I comment on this. I think ultimately the viewer always completes the artwork in the act of experiencing it, which is a conventional assertion in contemporary art, right? I also would say that I find the tone of other artist's work addressing similar topics is often divergent. I am a fan of Hito Steyerl, I think she does an amazing job. I don’t read humor in her work as something that obscures critique. I also see her work as something that contains critique as a central structural element. Now to the question whether my work is a joke or not I would firmly say no it is not. I think any kind of exploration of a topic can involve humor, or elements that propose unlikely assertions. That doesn't necessarily follow that the whole endeavor is therefore a joke. It’s just a language of exhibition making that has a range to it. I am always a fan of the material I use in my work though - and if any humorous elements emerge its always out of playful admiration rather than anything close to sarcastic critique.

Simon Denny (b. 1982 in Auckland, New Zealand) is an artist working with installation, sculpture and video. He studied at the the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and at the Städelschule Frankfurt. selected solo exhibitions include: Serpentine Gallery, London (2015); MoMA PS1, New York (2015); Portikus, Frankfurt (2014); MuMOK, Vienna (2013); Kunstverein Munich, Munich (2013); and Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2012). In 2012, Denny was awarded the Art Basel Statements Balouse Preis. Selected group shows include: After Babel, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2015); Europe, Europe, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2014); Art Post-Internet, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2014); Speculations on Anonymous Materials, Fredericianum, Kassel (2013); Image into Sculpture, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2013); and Remote Control, ICA, London (2012). Denny represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and was included in the central curated exhibition in 2013. He participated in the 13th Lyon Biennale (2015), Montreal Biennale (2014), as well as the Sydney Biennale and the Brussels Biennale (both in 2008).

#simon denny #rajon

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topicprinter · 5 years

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Hey, you might remember this post I made over a week ago about making my first sale on www.workshoptactics.com.What is your product?With endless, lengthy and complicated design and team workshop exercises out there, and tonnes of terrible ineffective meetings: Workshop Tactics is a simple, curated set of Agile workshop exercises to help your team get stuff done effectively.What motivated you to start?As a digital designer, I wanted to create a physical product that solved a problem I kept seeing. People who know how effective a good workshop is, don't know which one to run, or when. I wanted to leverage all of my design, website, marketing and research skills and go out and do it for myself.How long have you been working on it for?I've been working on Workshop Tactics since December last year. It started out as a website, which I scrapped. I believed having something physical would reflect the offline nature of a workshop. Writing the content has been the most time consuming aspect.What's your one year and five year plan?In 6 months, I hope to either have created a successful Kickstarter - and sold 1000 copies. In 5 years, I hope to be in the back pocket of every great digital product team in the world.What have been your most memorable positive and negative experiences?The most memorable experience was unboxing the prototypes. I was physically shaking with excitement. This thing that existed on a screen for so long was about to become real! Seeing the delight on people's faces as they looked at them was a great feeling too. The worst experience has been the long slog its taken to get here. Looking at online competition and other great resources and constantly battling the doubtful feeling of "why bother, this has already been done really well". - but it's not been done by me!Advice I would give myself if I was starting out againSeek feedback earlier and more often. Don't be afraid of the telephone. Speak to people! You'll learn more than you could ever dream.The following is a fairly in-depth story of how I got to where I am now, which is now planning my kickstarter campaign, with 70 dedicated customers with a mailing list of only 240.So how do you grow a mailing list from 0?You grow it to 1, then you grow it to 2, then 3.This is clearly garbage advice, but there is some truth to it. So what am I getting at? One of the most important things I learned was from reading Seth Godin’s “This is Marketing”. He talks about finding your smallest viable market. Sell to one person, and grow from there. You need to treat your mailing list in the same way.So how did I sell £1400 of product in a week from a mailing list of 200?1. Do you know what specific problem you are solving?This product solves a very niche problem in a niche sector of the software development industry. Being niche means you can laser focus on a problem. Chances are if you are solving a problem for one person, you are solving it for many. The problem I was trying to solve was there is too many workshop resources out there to choose from, and it’s not clear which you should do or when. So my product curates the best workshops, and tells you why and when to use them. Problem? Too many over complicated workshops. Solution? A curated set of simple workshops.2. How do you find out if people would buy it?The solution is simple. Make it so people can actually buy it. I created a landing page with a mock up of the product (a set of cards). The name and brand were also a part of this test. It needed to feel like it was real. I spent most of my time honing the content to make sure the proposition was as clear as possible. I spent in total £400 on LinkedIn ads. This allowed me to test which marketing message was most effective, as well as what landing page copy was most effective. But how did I know if it was effective or not? I didn’t enable people to buy the product. So what did I do instead?3. How do you know if the idea is “validated?”I got a staggering 20% conversion rate. The thing I measured? Email sign ups with the sole intent of being notified when the product would be available. An email sign up told me two things:There is intent to purchase.They are willing to wait to find out when they can buy it.This gave me confidence I had an idea that would sell. How did I know this really telling me my product idea was validated? Anything above 5% is extremely good. But it’s not an exact science, this data only gives you a steer. There were other things I had yet to learn. How much would people pay for it? Would people actually find the product useful in reality?4. How did you go from 20 to 200 subscribers?During this time I also tweeted to my peer group (500 followers) and LinkedIn connections (900). This grew my list to nearly 100 subscribers! Why didn’t I do this in the first place? Because I wanted to validate my idea with strangers. Based on all this data, I knuckled down and made version one of the product. I knew the time I invest now wouldn’t be wasted. But how would I find out if what I was making was any good?5. Learning is the name of the game, but how do you learn without a product to test?I was already aware of my target audience, as I work with them every day as a consultant. It would take some time before I could get a physical version of the deck out, but I wanted to make sure I was starting off on the right foot. I created a short survey that asked my subscribers and peers what their expectations of the product was. What they were already using, and what their biggest problems are.The responses I got gave me valuable insight into my target customer. Those that filled the survey also expressed interest in trying a free prototype of the product in exchange for more feedback. Creating this early connection with my audience was key. They will later become my advocates, ambassadors and evangelists of the product. Word of mouth is king.6. What has product development got to do with growing an email list?I wanted to make sure I had enough people interested to send something to. With an MVP, it’s entire purpose is to answer high risk assumptions about your product. What’s the biggest assumption I have? That people would actually use it, and find it useful. The other big assumption? That I had an audience for my product. Instagram was a longer test of finding my audience. So there are two tracks of development. Product, and audience.How much did I spend on making the prototype? For the price of learning, it cost £300 to send 30 decks to my subscribers. I skimped on quality, because all I was concerned about was the physicality and the content. I had to create something that functioned to that level.Why didn’t I just send out a PDF? I could’ve done, but the other thing I wanted to learn is if people valued having it as a physical object. That was another assumption I was testing.What happened next? I saw people were tweeting about it, which felt really good. I really started to believe I was on to something. But the nature of the product meant it was hard to get immediate feedback. I had to wait a little while for people to have the opportunity to use it.It would be a few weeks before I started to hear feedback. I had to chase a lot of people. 10 of those 30 I never heard from. However, those that sent me feedback, and those who I spoke to over the phone gave me such ground breaking feedback that I had a clear plan of how to improve the product.Pro-tip: The purpose of an MVP: Minimal effort for maximum learning. If you aren’t learning from an MVP, you’re doing it wrong. Treat your instagram like an MVP.7. How did my email list magically double?When I wasn’t working my job, or working on the product itself, I was working trying to grow my audience. Can I tell you a secret? There is no such thing as magic. It took a lot of work. A friend introduced me to using Instagram for marketing, but I dismissed it. The whole hashtag chasing, selfie taking culture wasn’t for me. But as I dipped my toe into it, I found out where my niche audience was hanging out. Hashtags are kind of a miracle when you find the right ones.I created a tonne of content, experimenting with different hashtags until I found what worked. Making all the content and scheduling it was a life saver, it also gave credibility to the brand I was growing, to be active on social media. I created content that I believed would give value to my audience. Not random arty photos of any old bollocks. Actual tangible advice, step by step exercises, quotes that genuinely tried to change perspectives.Were my posts performing? In the first couple of weeks, no. But as I zoned in on the right hash tags, and learned what content was resonating - I started to find my people. Those people lead to even more wonderful things. Because of Instagram, I was invited onto a podcast about my products niche, which gave me another marketing platform.8. Where are you at now?By now, I had 140 Instagram followers, 100 twitter followers and 240 email subscribers and 30 alpha product users. Whilst the numbers are small, I knew that every single one of these people had some interest in the product. That’s why when I put the beta product for sale, I got 44 sales in a week. I sold 44 of something that didn’t exist yet. Why did I do that? Firstly, I wanted to test the price. It turns out, the price was just about on point. Secondly, I wanted to test if people would ACTUALLY buy the product. And because they did, they funded the second print run of the deck, which meant I could print it at a higher quality, and also spend money on the unboxing experience. The revenue from the pre-orders versus the expense of 44 decks (boxed and shipped!) meant the beta trial cost me £120. That’s pretty good value for learning! I also now have another 44 future advocates of the product (if it does what it promises).9. What’s next?Now I’m working on finalising the product before it’s delivered to my first paying customers. Learning is still the name of the game. I’m still honing how I market the product, who my core user is and what their needs are. The more I learn, the better I can make the product. My goal now is to have an interview with every beta purchaser and listen to them as intently as possible. To learn what their hesitations were, what value they got the most from the product, how they'd improve it, etc. The next move is to the leverage my growing email list, my personal contact list and create a kickstarter to hopefully send my product into the stratosphere of my niche industry. I'm at a crossroads now where Kickstarter seems like an obvious route, but it might not be necessary if I carry on with my current trajectory of building, measuring and learning.Thanks for reading!

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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jessicakmatt · 5 years

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SubmitHub Founder Jason Grishkoff Talks Blogs, DIY Promotion and Artist Discovery

SubmitHub Founder Jason Grishkoff Talks Blogs, DIY Promotion and Artist Discovery: via LANDR Blog

Promoting your music effectively on a DIY basis is tricky.

Watching big artists pour thousands into massive campaigns can make the limitations of a low budget seem hopeless.

But there are some tried and true techniques that all artists can take advantage without breaking the bank.

One of the most effective is submitting your music to playlists and blogs to share with their audience.

Reaching out to them properly used to be a big job in its own right. That’s why Indie Shuffle founder Jason Grishkoff created SubmitHub to streamline the process.

We sat down with Jason to talk to about the blogosphere, DIY music promotion and the future of artist discovery.f

Q: Hi Jason. Like many musicians, I have vivid memories of sending hundreds of cold emails to music blogs hoping for a post or review. It was difficult, tedious and I barely ever got a response.

SubmitHub seems to have eliminated all that while simultaneously rescuing curators from the endless pileup of pitches in their inbox.

When did you realize the blog submissions model was broken?

I started my music blog Indie Shuffle back in 2008-2009.

At the beginning I was just finding songs I liked on BitTorrent websites and I really had no idea there was a blog culture.

But I quickly found myself on Elbo.ws, which was kind of the precursor to Hypem.

There was a really nice community of other blogs there and we’d exchange tips on how to generate more traffic and get more awareness.

When Hypem took off and Indie Shuffle got added I started to get emails from musicians, managers, publicists and record labels.

And I thought, “hey this is cool, they’re just sending me music to put up on my website.”

But a couple years later it got out of hand. I was receiving hundreds of emails a day.

And so I set up a fake submissions address and just said I can’t deal with it anymore. It’s all rubbish, nothing’s personalized and everything was getting lost in the BCC lists.

It was clear that people didn’t want to build a relationship. They just wanted to use me to get on Indie Shuffle. And I wasn’t even really making any money as a blogger. Not enough to do it full time.

That was 2013. 2015 was when I started SubmitHub. I think the idea was spurred by the fact that Indie

Shuffle was no longer a viable business for me to be employed by and I had to come up with a different idea.

I was playing around with all kinds of different business ideas that weren’t very inspiring and I was still faced with this problem of a completely overflowing inbox.

So I decided to try to tackle that with a smooth blog submission system.

Q: One reason blogs became as influential as they did is the success of aggregators like Hype Machine. How do you view the legacy of Hype Machine in formalizing the blog system?

Don’t get me wrong, Hype Machine was great for blogs. I don’t think Indie Shuffle would be where it was without it.

And it was incredibly influential for a time. I definitely heard stories of record labels where every Friday they would sit around to discuss the popular chart on Hype machine.

But in my mind a lot of of its success was due to the fact that you could game it. If you were a publicist you got pretty good at figuring out the formulas and how to get ahead on it.

And since the blogs had stopped paying attention to their submissions, they just started watching what other bloggers were posting on Hypem.

And from there it just became a rehash of the same music. Even when I wanted to find new music, I would go to Hype Machine. As a blogger on Hype Machine! It’s kind of ironic.

A couple of my writers were still responding to publicists, but in general small independent acts rarely got a chance to get any sort of coverage.

When I enabled SubmitHub and starting paying attention to submissions again I thought, “wow this is back to the origins of why I was music blogging in the first place.”

With SubmitHub you finally have the bloggers actually listening to everyone’s music. It doesn’t matter if you are represented by a massive major label or if this is your first ever single.

Your song has just as good a shot as anyone else’s. What that means is that the bloggers aren’t paying attention to what any other blogs are posting nor are they paying attention to what hype machine’s posting.

They’re all just focused on the fact that they’re all getting 20-50 submissions per day in their feed, and that’s what they’re paying attention to.

Q: SubmitHub does an amazing job of balancing the needs of both curators AND artists. Did the ideas behind the platform come more from the perspective of one side or the other?

It was a natural progression for sure. It’s been about three and a half years since I kicked off SubmitHub and what’s cool is that I’m the only developer.

It’s been about three and a half years since I kicked off SubmitHub and what’s cool is that I’m the only developer.

Our team is still really small. As the guy who does all the customer support and all the development I can see exactly where people’s pain points are what the users’ issues are.

For example, a very common complaint that would come up is that the genres didn’t match well.

People would say, “I sent this person a hip-hop track but they’ve never posted hip-hop, why are you telling me to send to them?”

And I would say well, I’m not telling you to send to them—they said they like hip-hop and it’s your decision ultimately.

Ok so that’s a bit of a problem, People are obviously frustrated so I’ll try to solve it.

So I’d go in and ask well how much do they like hip-hop? Sometimes even if these blogs have hip-hop enabled you probably shouldn’t send them that, but here’s a blog who totally loves hip-hop based on their history.

Taking this kind of information and trying to solve the pain points for the artists was definitely part of that progression.

Q: Music promotion platforms that rely on paid transactions from artists are sometimes viewed with suspicion. How do you balance bloggers’ and artists’ expectations with a sustainable business model?

As they should be! [laughs] This actually gets to something about SubmitHub that I feel like has been taken out of context in the past.

People have asked me why bloggers like SubmitHub and I say besides the fact that it makes their lives a lot easier, they use it because of the money!

People jump on that but it’s part of the reason that I rolled out the monetization component.

If SubmitHub existed without any sort of premium and I was a blogger on there getting 50 submissions a day, I would have almost no incentive to actually check them.

My only incentive would be that there’s potentially good music here that I could share with my audience. But for 99% of these curators, that audience isn’t generating them any money.

So premium credits are really a way of keeping bloggers engaged, active and feeling like it’s actually worth their time to spend 2 hours everyday going through these submissions.

The money is a small amount. It’s anywhere between $0.50 and $1.50 USD for each submission.

SubmitHub keeps what’s left and at the end of the day if you’re going to argue that $0.50 is payola well…[laughs]…it’s hard for me to counter that if you’re really stuck on the idea that it is.

But that’s the basic rule of the platform. Anyone on SubmitHub absolutely cannot have any form of payola. They get kicked off if we catch them and we’re always running sting operations.

Q: SubmitHub offers connections to everything from traditional music blogs to Twitch streamers. What are your insights on which channels will become the most important for DIY promotion?

Well everyone is still talking about independent playlists.

I still get Indie Shuffle emails and they’ll email me asking to be on my Spotify playlist. And I’m like, “hey I’m an OG blog! And you want to be on my Spotify playlist?”

But I think it’s becoming increasingly hard for them to stay relevant because of how many fake playlisters are out there.

For myself I still really see the value in a Hype machine campaign. I would filter SubmitHub to hit every single Hypem blog I could and start out with a premiere request.

Even if your goal is to get on Spotify playlists the blogs still matter because the Spotify editors pay a lot of attention to them, especially Hypem blogs.

In the end though there’s no one clear path to success. To reference Chris Hillard’s recent quote from a piece on Pigeons and Planes, there still isn’t a formula that can find an artist before the formula does.

If you’re doing a promo campaign today SubmitHub can help but you still need to tell your friends, your family and hit it from as many angles as you can.

All I can say is that if someone offers you placement for money, turn the other way. No matter what, even if it looks good.

There’s a reason that’s illegal in the radio industry!

Q: Any other advice for artists promoting their own music aside from using SubmitHub?

Not being an artist myself, you’ll have to take this with a grain of salt, but today’s state of music allows listeners to dive into their specific niche.

Your strategy should be to find a niche of listeners people who care about your music and are focused on that, rather than looking for some runaway success.

What is my music? Is it ambient drone? Is it christian soundtrack music? Whatever. You can get in on that and really focus on that.

Q: What’s next for SubmitHub?

We’re working on multi-language support which is incredibly exciting. I’ve got a translation system I’m working on that will help me get the whole entire site into 10 or 20 different languages, which could open things up a lot.

There’s also the Hot or Not section. It’s a feature for artists to rate other artists. I coded it just for fun over christmas and it’s totally taken off.

We’re up to 3000-4000 ratings a day, so I’ll be giving that a bit more attention to see it where it goes.

It’s like a whole different product within SubmitHub, but people really like it!

The post SubmitHub Founder Jason Grishkoff Talks Blogs, DIY Promotion and Artist Discovery appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/submithub-interview-jason-grishkoff/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/186053321819

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