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optimistic-dinosaur-nacho · 4 years

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Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader

Warnings: None

Summary: Being Johnny’s girlfriend, after what he did and what happened to you, he can’t leave you alone anymore

Authors Note: This was from my Wattpad book that hasn’t been released yet and so I thought I could do a few on Tumblr I’m not good writing stories yet but I’ll get there

"I think that was a success," Johnny says, his arm sliding behind her back as he leaned down and kissed her head. Y/N smiled, "Every date we have is not bad, they're always a success." He smiled proudly, "You can thank your awesome boyfriend for that."

Johnny Storm, he's her boyfriend. The Human Torch, she'd expect him to have his way with her before he heads off for another girl but he stayed with her. He loves to have Y/N around. Especially his sister, Susan. Her husband, Richard also liked to her in the Baxter building. Y/N never treated Ben like the others out there when he first became solid rock.

Most of the people in the city would die to be in the building, but Y/N was just happy to be there like she didn't know they were superheroes.

She wasn't crazy about it, she treated them as if they are human beings, which they are and they loved her for that. Everyone else treats them as if they're their new rulers or whatever, treat them as celebrities.

Y/N started dating Johnny a month after he got his abilities. Of course the team would always find a way to protect her.

"Did you want something or do you want to go to bed?" Johnny asked, Y/N looks over to the kitchen. "I want to lay in bed. Also, it's freezing in here," Y/N rubbed her arms. Johnny laughs lightly, "Let's get you into bed then."

Johnny scoops her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom. She got into comfy clothes and she got into bed with him. His hand gently touched her shoulder, "You aren't kidding, you're freezing. Come here." His arm goes over her and he pulls her into his bare chest.

The warm feeling on him was just like being next to a fire.

The two fall asleep in each other's arms.

Reed rushes through the building after a breakout of a huge explosion on the news. He runs by Susan, "Where's Johnny?" He asked. "He might be in his room!" Susan rushed to get her suit on while Reed runs for Johnny's room.

Opening the door, the hallway light shines into the small dimmed room with Y/N in Johnny's arms. Reed sighs softly at the two and the sudden light shining on Johnny's face caused him to wake up. His sleepy face altered when he spots Reed in his suit. "What's going on?"

"There's a breakout in one of the buildings. We got to go."

Johnny looks at Y/N who was sleeping and gently got out of bed. He tucked her in and followed Reed. "Do we know who it is?"

"No, not yet, we do."

Susan, Ben, Reed and Johnny all rush out to the break out in the city, leaving Y/N in the Baxter building alone.

Ben was catching the cars that were flying across the bridge from the rival, Reed was quickly holding the car that was hanging off the bridge before Ben comes over and helps him up. "We need to keep this guy off the streets, he's gonna toss everything out of his way. If he reaches to the city, everything would be pretty."

The two men jump when Johnny flies over to the rival and swings towards his face. The man catches his fist and smiled, "The Human Torch."

Johnny grits his teeth and he goes up in flames, the singe on his hand never burned from the heat of Johnny's fist. "I don't work like that," The man grabs Johnny by his throat with his other hand and throws him against the car's window.

Susan runs up, "Johnny!" The man turns and lifts up a car and throws it at her. She raises her hands up and uses her shield to block the car's impact. The man laughs, "You are all no match for me. The Fantastic Four will fall at our feet. You all will--" The man falls to the ground when Johnny comes up behind and hits him in the back of the head.

He drops the bar on the ground, panting. "You all what?" He asked. Reed comes up to the man who was staring at the heroes before him, before Reed tugs him up and jerks him forward.

The man laughs. "Who are you?"

The man continues to laugh as he looks over to them, "You're just wasting your time on me when you should be somewhere else. I'm useless to you guys anyway."

"What do you mean?"

The man turns to Johnny, "Like I said, the Fantastic Four will fall at our feet."

"Who's our? Who do you work for?" Reed asked. Johnny looked over to the Baxter building. "Y/N."

Susan realizes what the man meant, "Johnny go to her, now!" Johnny goes up in flames and flies up.

I woke up to a cold room and turned over to see no one in bed. I sat up, "Johnny?" I walked out of the bedroom to a complete empty penthouse and lab. I rubbed my eyes and looked over to the window.

"You know..." Someone spoke, I gasp as I turned around to see a man, "I never thought I'd be up in this building. The Fantastic Four," The man looks around the room, "Such a great team. But you know, sometimes teams would have to come to an end." He steps into the light and I saw the huge scar on his eye.

"And today is the end of the Fantastic Four," He walks up to me and grabs my throat, I choked. "Your precious team isn't on their way here, because they're busy right now on the Brooklyn Bridge." The man and I glance over to the bridge that was smoking.

"So, it's just you and I."

"Think again," Johnny spoke. The man turns to see Johnny stand behind them. The man's smile rose, "Ah. Look who's here to join the party."

"Let her go," Johnny says.

The man pouts, "This is just half of the fun, Mr. Storm." He held me up higher as I grasped onto his wrists and tried to pull him away. "We can no longer wait for your team so we'll just have to..." His hand tightens around me throat and I gasped.

"Let her go!" Johnny flies forward and pushes the man back, up in flames he punches the man over and he lets go of me. I coughed as the man and Johnny began to fight around the lab, glass shattering and monitors sparking.

I slowly stood up and saw Johnny get shoved into the wall, "Jonathan!" The man throws his arm out to me and I felt a force push me back through the glass and hitting a monitor behind me.

Johnny watched as he sees Y/N fly into the generators and hits the ground, not moving. "No!" Johnny used all his strength to pull the man's arms away from him and kicks his leg, getting the advantage to whip behind the man and throw him over into the floor.

"Johnny!" Susan runs over and the man crawled against the ground. "You'll... fall... you all... will..." He wheezed, Susan held her hands up to wait for some movement of an attack before Johnny kicks him across the face.

Panting, he turns to Y/N and Reed. Her body on the ground as Reed was looking at her. "Y/N!"

The ambulance siren goes off.

Y/N was pulled into the hospital. No any signs of anything that they proven she was alive. The medic in the back opened her left eye to show the clouded star-shape form in her eye. "She has a cataract form in her left eye, the right one's clear." The man flashes the light in her eyes. Parts of her arms and hands were burn from the voltage from the machines she crashed into.

Her head was their main priority, there was a bleeding to her head and they're guessing she might be close to death if that machine she hit was high voltage.

An hour had passed and Johnny sat outside in the lobby along with Susan, Reed and Ben. All four of them waiting on the news for Y/N. His sister rubbing his shoulders as he was leaned forward holding his head. "She's gonna be okay, Johnny."

"It's my fault..." He says.

Susan looks at Reed. He looks down a Johnny, "Johnny, it wasn't your fault. None of us would've gotten there sooner. And where she was, she was safe. We didn't know what was gonna happen."

"Either way, we all screwed up," He says.

The doors open to the doctor causing all four of them to look over, Johnny standing up. The doctor sighed, "There's no other way to put this through."

"Is she okay?" Johnny asked, "Can I see her?"

"Johnny," Susan softly says.

The doctor looks down at the woman, "Miss L/N is suffering from a traumatic head injury. With that, she'll be in a coma. I'm sorry," The doctors says, "Other than that, she was lucky to not die on the spot from high voltage in the building, but she has burns and a cataract in her left eye so she'll have blurry vision in that eye."

"Are we okay to see her, now?" Susan asked, standing up with Reed as she gently grasped Johnny's arm.

The doctor nods, "You're all welcome to be in there." The doctors takes the four to the room, the room was dimly lit and the sounds of the heart rate monitor beep every few seconds as Johnny was the first to meet his girl in the bed. He sits down next to her.

Susan and Reed sit on the other side of her bed while Ben stood at the end of her bed. "You can talk to her, Johnny," Susan says.

Johnny looks over to his sister and shakes his head, "It's not the same." That's what all he said to them. No one else spoke but listened to the even beeps of her heart monitor going off in the room. An hour later, Johnny was the only one left in the room.

His head rested on her arm, the small roughness of her skin from the burns of the incident he placed kisses on earlier. He pulled away from her arm and looked at her. Tears began to form in his eyes, "I don't know how long you'll be stuck in this..." His lips pierced together before he licked his dried lips, "But I want you to know, that I love you... so much. I planned to propose to you in a few months. I don't know if I should give you the ring now or not, but..."

He looks down to his hand on his lap, playing with the silver band with a diamond on it. "I'll let you choose the day." He placed the ring on the stand next to her bed, the light shining on it he sniffled.

Grasping her hand one last time, he turns to the light beside him that was flickering. Thinking it was just a small problem, he stands up and walks out of the room, giving her a kiss on her forehead and closed the door to her room.

Her fingers twitched and the lamp flickered once again. The small sparks coming off her fingers as the light cuts out and she lies there in darkness.

Two days later. . .

The news on the television was on as the sounds of scrapping and chewing. Susan walking around the kitchen to make her some food while Ben was eating a huge bowl of cereal while Johnny was picking at his, sadly taking small spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth as he stared down at his bowl.

Susan glanced over to Ben who looked at her as well, both looking towards the human torch at the table, staring at his bowl.

Susan turns away and pulls something from the cabinet. "Are you gonna visit the hospital today, John?" She asked, the small silence made her turn around to at least make him look at her and respond.

He shifts now, finally taking a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. She forgets what she said and turns away, just best to leave him alone. The silence grew and Johnny saw the incident from two days ago on the news.

"The incident in the Baxter's building, a man named Dennis Baldric and Jack Killian were both arrested on that day. One victim who appeared to be in a come due to a traumatic head injury, Y/N L/N, the Human Torch's loved one who was--" The loud screech of a chair being pulled out was the movement of Johnny standing up and dumped his cereal into the sink before storming into his room.

Susan flinched at the sound of his door bang. Ben looks away from his door and looks back at the TV.

Sighing, she continued to make her breakfast.

Y/N still lied still in her bed as the heart monitor beeped throughout the room. The nurse recently checked up on her before leaving the room with the lights on for guests who may come. The light flickered once again. This time, it buzzed loudly. Her heart monitor began to beep rapidly as well, her body twitched. Fingers giving off electric bolts and her chest bounces up as if someone used a defibrillator and shouted, "Clear!" Her chest jolts up and the heart monitor makes a continuous beep, her body falls back to the bed and the light's bulb had finally popped.

The hospital lost its power as well.

Susan was on her way to check on Y/N since Johnny was too upset to go. Flowers in hand, she began to walk up to the hospital, nurses and doctors began to rush around. Worriedly, Susan rushes in. The front desk had a woman speaking towards the visitors, "Excuse me? What's going on?"

"The power went out around the hospital, we're still allowing visitors for the patients but we're more worried about the patients who need help, right now, they're working on our generators. You must be Susan Richard."

"Yes, I'm here for Y/N L/N."

The woman nods, "Go on right ahead." Sue rushes to the woman's room, doctors and nurses rushing pass her as she reaches the floor to Y/N's room.

She opens the door and closes it without glancing at the bed yet. She peaks through the blinds on the door and turns to the bed. Sue gasps and the flowers in her hands fall to the ground as she looks at the empty bed.

The sheets were shuffled as if someone moved her. The nurse would've told her if they moved her to another room. A hand goes over her mouth as she quickly pulls out her phone.

"Hello?" Reed asks.

"Reed, I'm at the hospital and--"

"Oh, okay, how's Y/N? Wait, what's going on?" He asked, Sue looks at the bed again to see if she was dreaming it but Y/N wasn't there. "Y/N's gone, I'm in her room and I don't see her, I don't know if they moved her but they should've told us and--"

"Wait, she's not there? As in, not in the bed? Is she awake?"

"I don't know."

Johnny sat in his bed, hands in his hair as he tugged on them. He hears the small outbursts in the other room.

"Wait, what's going on, Sue?"

Johnny tilts his head, "She's not there? Have-Have you checked the nurse to see if they moved her?" He hears Reeds voice. "Sue, you're saying she's not in bed? Is she awake?" Johnny's head shot up as he jumps out of his bed and grabs his leather jacket. The sound of Johnny's door being pulled open, Ben and Reed turn to the man rushing out.

"Johnny!" Reed calls, he turns around the corner to see the elevator doors close. Reed goes back to the phone, "Johnny's coming, we're on our way."

The top part of the building was abandoned and it was mostly falling apart. The doors were old and the windows were completely dirty. The lights flickered as the woman in the hospital gown limps down the hall, whimpering.

Her hands twitching to the sparks in her hands, flinching every now and then to the sudden action. Y/N stumble over something and falls onto her knees, she sobs.

Johnny pushes into the room to see Sue and a nurse talking to each other. "Can you find ways to get into your surveillance cameras?"

"Mrs. Richards, we're already on the power, once it's back online we can go through them--"

"Where is she?" Johnny asked, the nurse turns to the man. "We don't know."

"Is there any way she could get out?" Sue asked as Johnny turns away in frustration. "We have security and our staff would know if someone was leaving the hospital or taking anyone without having those patients checked-out."

"So, she's still in the building?" Johnny asked.

"Mostly likely, yes." Johnny got the answer and rushed out of the room. "Johnny!" Sue follows him out and runs int Reed, "Sue, woah, what's going on? Where's she?"

"She might still be in the building, where did Johnny go?"

"He went to the elevator," Ben says, Sue and the men follow her to the elevator. They look up to the numbers up top. "He went to the top floor."

"Isn't the top floor abandoned, though?" Ben asked, Reed hits the button, "It's empty but a good place for someone to hide, someone to be alone in."

The elevator dings.

Johnny steps out of the elevator and looks down the hall to see the lights flicker. "Well, that's not creepy at all." He walks down the hall slowly and carefully. "Y/N? Are you up here?" Johnny looks into every room, he passes by. "It's Johnny. Your boyfriend," He flinched when the light above him shatters and he crouches down and covers his head.

He shrugs off the glass, "Y/N?" He calls.

At the end of the hall, he sees a shadow. A similar figure and his shoulders drop. "Y/N..."

"Jonathan?" Her soft voice echoes. He smiles to her voice and began to rush up till she held up her hand.

"No! Don't come any closer! I don't wanna hurt you!" She shouts, Johnny stops and makes a confused expression. "Y/N, baby, you're not gonna hurt me."

"No, I'm..." Y/N looks at her hands and the two noticed the volts in her hands, the bright blue sparks emitting from her fingertips. They run through her veins. Johnny stared in awe, "Y/N, it's okay."

"Am I okay?" She asked, she was on the edge of tears. Johnny slowly took small steps, "It's okay. We're gonna figure it out."

Johnny held his hand out, "It's okay."

Y/N slowly stepped into the hall, Johnny smiles, "That's it." She slowly walked up to him, "It's okay. I'm here." Once she reached to him, she pulled him into a hug. His arms wrapping around her just as tight as she was doing, he nuzzled his face into her hair.

Sue, Reed and Ben stood at the other end. "She's awake," Reed says. The three walk up to the couple, Y/N was pulled into a group hug. Still holding onto Johnny, she muttered, "Yes." Johnny and the three pull away. "What?" He asked.

Y/N reached down and laced her fingers with his, he glanced at her finger to see the diamond ring. "Yes." Johnny smiles down at her and lifts her up into another hug. The three smiling at them before they gave hugs separately to the two.

After a day, Y/N was brought back home. In the bathroom, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body before standing in the mirror.

She leans forward and reaches for her left eye, the blurry vision wasn't as bad. With the abilities she has, it was slightly healed. Every now and then, being around outlets and cables, her left eye glows bright blue due to the cataract in her eye.

Every now and then, Johnny would gaze into that eye. It was bad to the point it was scary for children, it healed but it felt like it was just a scarring in your eye and you could barely see it unless you've shined a light into your eye or she uses her power.

This was just a spark of hope.

Thank you for spending your time on reading! I didn’t really have much time to get some details in or anything, I’m not really good but it’s something I wanted to show off to you guys and show you what comes next in the future!

Not sure if I should take requests, but if you want send them in, maybe I’ll give it a try.

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

TAGS:

I wanted to tag a few people who are really good writers or beautiful people! You guys don’t know me, some do but it’s something nice to do! Keep up the good work! Hope your guys days are doing okay!

@jtargaryen18 @definitelycurtiseverett @chris-evans-imagines @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @luvinchris

#chris evans #captain america #johnny storm #johnny storm x reader #fantastic four #cevans #chris evans x reader #marvel #steve rogers

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ineloqueent · 4 years

Text

Starstruck: Part 14

Brian May x Fem!Reader

This is Part 14 of a multi-part fic. Click the links below to read the Masterpost, the previous part, or the next part of the fic :)

Masterpost / Part 13 / Part 15

Summary: When studying at Imperial College in the 1970s, your path is crossed by a beautiful boy as much in love with the stars as you.

Warnings: angst, mentions of drinking, swearing

Historical Inaccuracies: N/A :)

Word Count: 4.5k

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

My birthday had been an absolute disaster, to say the least.

It hadn’t started out as a disaster, waking up with the morning sun warming my face. I normally hated to be woken up that way, because it meant that the dawn had broken into a new day when I’d only just managed to fall asleep. My thoughts kept me awake most nights, and when on a rare occasion they left me alone, the sounds of parties or sloshed band members took up the torch.

But I’d fallen asleep before the dawn on my twenty-seventh birthday, and had awoken with a rather lovely girl in my arms. Sure, I’d woken up with lovely girls before, but that had usually been after a drunken round of bedroom pleasantries, ones that became very much unpleasantries as soon as the night came down.

This had been different.

For one, I hadn’t taken her to bed, but for another, what had been beautiful in the nighttime remained so in the light of day.

She, usually alternatingly vibrant with talk and reserved with intelligent pensiveness, had seemed almost subdued where she lay in my arms. Her hair was messy, no doubt from my lack of usefulness as a pillow, and her lips, subtly pinkened, looked powder soft where her face was nestled against my chest. I felt afraid to move; she looked delicate in her unconsciousness, and my clumsy hand would only shatter her.

Yet I longed to touch her cheek.

Strange, this longing.

From my chest it ran to my fingertips and toes, and stole my breath away, like a thief who’d noticed that I’d purposely left my doors unlocked. Purposely, because I wanted this— I wanted to touch her cheek, to hold her in my arms. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wanted something so terribly, yearning taking over the few thoughts that did not concern themselves with my general fears of failure in life.

And I wanted to hear her laugh, all the time, because, god, that laugh. I wouldn’t mind kissing her laughter away, stopping only to hear it again.

When I spoke, she listened, listened like she truly wanted to hear what I had to say, not like she was just being polite and waiting for me to finish so that she could leave and get on with her day. No. when I talked with her, my words were light and they flowed that way, stories I’d never told anyone spilling from my tongue as though I believed I had it in me to continue to trust her, forever. As though she and her familiar presence would stay with me forever, would always be there to welcome me home.

But I’d just about ruined it all only a few hours later, in telling her the only truth I’d ever feared to tell her— the truth that would push her away if she chose not to come with us on tour. And of course she’d said no, because her whole life was in London, in the city, and neither I nor anybody else had the right to take that from her. Deep down, I’d known that she would say no, but my naïve and wasted heart had still tried to convince me otherwise, and so I’d asked her.

Now there was nothing to do but to leave and to bury whatever nonsense I’d been carrying around my head for the past few years.

Years I’d spent gazing at her, first from afar, and then from such a closeness that when a sigh escaped her lips, it brushed mine. If anything had been meant to happen, it would have happened by now.

And now, as I gathered my things from around my bedroom at Ridge Farm, it was too late. Six weeks had gone by, and six weeks had brought me as close to her as I’d ever get.

Soon, this would all be a memory. A sickening memory and a fever dream that would keep me awake for many, many nights to come, restless and sleepless and full of regrets of not making something happen when I wanted it to, instead of fucking waiting around for some divine intervention to lead into my arms the girl with stars of lovingness in her hair.

I’d have waited forever if I could.

But life goes on. And if you don’t move, the world will pull the rug out from under your feet and let you fall.

I hadn’t moved, I’d waited. The rug had been pulled, and I had fallen.

Wasn’t that what they said about love? That you fell?

Not that this was love, but hell, it might have become it.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

“Cheer up, Brian,” said Roger unhelpfully. “We’re going back to London to record an album, not attend your funeral.”

I continued to drink my coffee in silence, staring out the window. The sky was grey and the weather threatened rain. Just the thing to lift my spirits. Although, I supposed I was being selfish because the summer had been dry of late, and the farmlands needed water sooner rather than later.

But though the light outside was dim and the indoors were subsequently dark, there were no stars, no little pinpricks of light, to penetrate the gloom. At least in the night, I had that.

What would it be like if we could see beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, see the stars, during the day? she had asked me once.

I hadn’t said anything.

It’d be like looking into your eyes.

That was what I had wanted to say.

“Oh, Roger,” Freddie said, almost despairingly. “Can’t you see, darling?”

“No, Freddie. It’s all smudges and shapes.”

“You really must get that eyesight of yours sorted out. How can you even see the drums? No wonder you keep falling a beat behind.”

“That’s ridiculous. I could play the drums in the dark and you know it, Fred.”

“Brian?” John’s hand fell to my shoulder.

“Hm?” I looked up from my coffee.

Deacy was frowning.

“Are you quite alright, lovie?” asked Freddie, sweeping around the kitchen counter to sit down across from me. Roger wriggled the coffee cup from my grasp before pouring me another mugful, his expression far too concerned for my liking. Attention wasn’t something I relished. Particularly not when it involved having my picture taken. I took all the pictures, I didn’t look good on camera. I didn’t look good being looked at. It was a wonder I’d made it this far in the world of stage business at all.

“You’re moping,” Freddie remarked when I again neglected to answer.

“No, I’m not,” I muttered finally, figuring it would put him off.

An absurd notion, really. Nothing in the world put Freddie off.

“You are,” he insisted. “You’ve been moping ever since your birthday. You were fine in the morning, but then cranky in the afternoon and every day after.”

“On and on like a broken record,” Roger put in. “If I’d had wanted a broken record, I’d have scratched one myself, not asked for you to bloody become one.”

I sighed, feeling too tired to make a proper reply. Perhaps all those nights of staying awake were finally catching up with me.

“You’re all just as blind as Brian himself,” John tutted, passing Roger a couple of sugar packets so that he could get his one-and-three-sevenths.

Freddie narrowed his eyes at me, crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, as though he knew exactly what my problem was. He probably did know. I wouldn’t put anything past him. “Ah. So what now?”

I sipped my coffee. “So, what? We’re leaving, her life is here, ours is out in the world of never staying the same place twice—”

Roger smirked. “I see.”

“Said the blind man,” Deacy laughed.

“See what?” I snapped. “What is it you all claim to see? There’s nothing to see.”

“Darling, no one mentioned Y/N, and yet you jumped to the conclusion that we were talking about her. I’d say it’s all fairly obvious.”

My fingertips brushed the side of my nose in a nervous habit I’d had for years. It always seemed to make an appearance at the mention of one name in particular.

“And there’s the nervous tic,” Roger tapped the side of his own nose, and I hid my hand under the table.

“I was the same way around Veronica,” Deacy said with a smile, stirring his tea. “Any mention of her and my legs turned to custard.”

Roger snorted.

“We know, Deacy,” said Fred. “We were there.”

“Mmyes. I seem to quite forget the world around me when I’m around her.”

The conversation seemed to refocus on more unpleasant matters as all three of them stared me down.

“So did you tell her?” said Roger.

I sighed again. “Tell her what.”

“Not moping, bollocks to that,” Roger muttered. “Did you tell her how you feel?”

“No.” That was all I would allow myself. One word on which to dwell. No more. I would not dwell.

“We’re leaving, and you asked her to come with us, but you didn’t tell her?” Freddie leaned toward outrage.

I set down my coffee cup, a sudden anger slipping into my hands as the porcelain smacked the tabletop just a little too hard. The coffee sloshed over the cup’s sides.

“She said no, in what fucking world would I tell her?”

“In a better one,” remarked John.

“Oh, shut up,” I seethed. “You all act so superior, like you’d have done any better in my place.”

Freddie’s expression had turned sour. “You’re the one who’s acting superior!” he cried. “All moody and ooh, poor me, I’m the only one who’s ever had to cope with such a terrible thing as this.”

“Piss off, Fred,” I growled. “You’re dramatic enough for the four of us.”

“Says you! Pull yourself together, Brian. We wouldn’t be here arguing if you had.”

“Both of you, pull yourselves together,” Deacy berated. “We haven’t even begun recording yet and you’re already neck and neck!”

“Oh that’ll be fun,” I muttered.

“Not really, if you’ll be pining after some girl the whole time,” said Roger. “Should’ve tried that when you were writing songs instead.”

At that I stood up. “Some girl?” I scoffed. “Oh, don’t be so fucking ridiculous! Roger, she’s the only reason we’ve got our manager, she’s the only reason we’ve had this place to clear out heads and write our songs, and she’s the only reason I’ve written nearly four songs for the bloody album and not just two and a half.”

Not one of them said anything.

Then Freddie shook his head slowly. “You’ve got to tell her,” he said. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

Drained of energy, I sank back into my chair. “And yet, it’s been going on for years.”

“Years?” said Roger disbelievingly.

I gave a rather pathetic shrug.

“Years?” he repeated. “You’ve been fucking pining for her, for years?”

“Yes, Roger, years,” I said mockingly. “Why do you think I wrote ‘White Queen’?”

Roger’s mouth fell open. “You— you wrote ‘White Queen’ for her?”

“Brian,” Freddie’s expression was contorted, “that was in ‘68.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling my chest tighten. “Why is that so hard for you all to understand?”

John shook his head. “Not for me, it isn’t.”

I looked over at him questioningly, a dull ache that made me wince spreading beneath my skin.

He glanced at us each in turn, then smiled pityingly.

“None of you have ever been in love, have you?”

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

“I’m not in love,” I’d spat, my anger replenished.

Love, such a fickle thing. You expressed it too often and you were deemed careless, in-genuine. Too rarely, and every sign of sadness was dubbed heartache. Was it so wrong to simply be sad for the sake of being sad, to feel empty instead of restful when you closed your eyes, to feel your spirit leave you a little with each breath on a rainy day?

What am I going to tell my father?

That was what was bothering me at the moment, not her. Not Y/N.

I touched a hand to my cheek, feeling the warmth that flushed the skin there.

God, I couldn’t even think her name without my shoulders tensing or my face colouring. It was like I was back in the body of my fourteen year-old self, skinny and awkward and shy and riddled with holes of innocence that experience had yet to fill.

How was I going to tell my dad that I was giving up my perfectly good chance at a stable career for a full-time gig as the guitarist for a band that was barely known?

But there was no changing my mind now. Not because it was too late to re-register as an astrophysics student for the start of term in autumn, but because I was tired of neglecting my dream. Could I not have more than one dream? Why did everything always have to be so single-minded?

I loved music, I loved feeling the melodies form beneath my fingers, drawn from nothing by my imagination and the thin air. I loved working with Freddie and Roger and John, I loved what we became when we were Her Majesty, Queen.

I wasn’t willing to give that up. I realised that now.

And so I avoided Y/N for our final week at Ridge Farm, because she made me want to change my mind.

For the first time in months, I missed her Thursday night guitar lesson again.

Then the sun rose on our final day in Surrey, and as I opened my eyes to the sunlight despite having only just fallen asleep, a sickly feeling skittered about in my stomach, the wings of butterflies fluttering against my abdomen.

I’d spent the entire night thinking about the fact that after today, I would probably never see her again.

I sighed, closing my suitcase and sparing the room a final glance. I had not slept much here, but still I had dreamt, faraway sentiments that would never be requited.

I pulled on my jacket and smoothed down the velvet, squinting at my reflection in the small mirror that hung on the wall above a nondescript dresser.

I didn’t look particularly tired, though I might have felt it. Sure, there were smudges of shadow beneath my eyes and little bits of stubble clung to my jaw, but my shoulders did not sag, and tanned skin and rosy cheeks had replaced my usually pale complexion, my hair bore little streaks here and there that were lighter than the rest.

In a way, Ridge Farm had refreshed me. The quiet of the countryside had eased the tension etched into my muscles by the rush of city life, and I’d enjoyed being able to see the stars properly at night.

I’d enjoyed watching them with Y/N.

Who would watch the stars with me, and indulge my silly ramblings?

Who would stand up for me even when my opinion was ridiculous, or tease me when it was perfectly sound?

Who would leave me with a theory or a quip that would resurface in my memory when I felt uninspired or glum? Who would leave me with something to smile about when darkness hovered too close at the edge of my vision?

Who would be there to banish it all from my wretched mind?

With each thought, I felt dizzier at the prospect of just leaving, without… Well, without anything.

She deserved to know, didn’t she?

And yet, I deserved to keep my secrets, did I not?

I could allow myself a little dignity, at least.

What would I tell her anyway? That she both grounded me and made me feel like I was flying? That I would take her with me to space if I was to go alone, because I didn’t want to be alone if it wasn’t with her? That I felt my soul became made of stardust when she walked into a room?

People didn’t say such things, and without saying such things, I couldn’t tell her what it was— whatever it was— I felt for her, if I felt anything at all. It was hard to tell whether her presence terrified me or comforted me. I didn’t understand how I felt about her, really, and that was my problem.

“Brian!” Freddie shouted for me like it wasn’t the first time he’d called.

“Coming,” I muttered to no one but myself. I picked up my suitcase by its wooden handle and slipped my socked feet into my wooden shoes. I looked about once more, then went into the hall, closing behind me the door to this part of my life.

Mistress Melancholy settled herself into my bones, and she unpacked her bags, here to stay.

Down the stairs and into the living room, and there they were all standing.

Freddie and Roger and Deacy and Veronica and John Harris and Crystal and Heather and Mary, and… And Y/N.

Take my breath away, why don’t you?

But her parents and her brother were there too, and I squared my shoulders as I approached. Her dad had only warmed to me as of late, and if he took even a singular glance at the expression on his daughter’s face as I made my way toward her, he would have been right to throw me to the ground in a blind rage.

She did look tired. Beautiful, but tired. Mouth set grimly, her shoulders stiff.

Yet, the sparkle in her eyes had not dulled. And she shone, even in her weariness.

My evening star.

Our two roadies, Mary, Heather, and Veronica were the first to say their goodbyes and go outside to savour the last of the country air, Ronnie carrying little Robert in her arms. Roger would first ferry Crystal, Roadie-John, Freddie, and myself to the train station, then return to take himself and the others back to London via his beloved Alfa.

Hugs and kisses and generally well-placed sentiments of gratitude and affection were shared all around, between thanking Y/N’s parents for their hospitality and telling Y/N that she would be sorely missed in the days to come.

Freddie, Rog, Deacy, and I stuck around to say our own final goodbyes, with Y/N’s parents naming us family and welcome at any time, and everyone reminiscing about our time at Ridge Farm.

Y/N was mostly quiet, and I was silent altogether, my eyes only leaving her when her gaze flicked in my direction.

I wondered what she was thinking, if she would think of me, as I would think of her, when I was gone.

Roger excused himself to go to the car, no doubt fearing that the others would have trashed it in his absence.

“You’re in love with that car,” I said, sighing.

Roger shouted, “BETTER THAN WITH YOU, you nErD!”

Then Y/N laughed, and upon instinct, I smiled.

How lovely it felt, to smile. I should smile more often.

“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t get up to other things out there,” said Freddie, going after Roger. “Au revoir, darlings!”

“Au revoir,” Y/N’s parents responded.

Deacy left as well, offering a smile as a parting gift.

I cleared my throat.

“Thank you again for having us, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews,” I said, and when Mrs. Andrews held out her arms to me, I embraced her.

“Anna, dear. Please call me Anna,” she smiled as radiantly as her daughter. “It was so lovely to have you here.”

Then, to my surprise, Y/N’s father addressed me. “And I’m Sebastian to you, son. You’re in good company. No need for formalities.”

“Well, thank you Mr.— Sebastian,” I cringed.

“Brian,” Frank nodded to me, and I returned the gesture.

“Frank.”

Then, before I realised what was happening, the three eldest members of the Andrews family had left the room.

Y/N and I were alone.

I racked my mind for anything, for what to do, what to say, but I came up with nothing when she smiled at me.

She turned my mind to a puddle.

“Time to go, I suppose,” she said.

“Yeah,” I murmured, unable to take my eyes from hers, “I suppose.”

She felt so far away, as though I was already gone and it was too late to reach for her.

And still, I said nothing, for what could I say?

“You’re the reason why I play, you know,” she said.

I furrowed my brow. “What?”

“Guitar. I never would’ve kept going if I hadn’t seen you perform. I was so close to giving up. But, and sorry to be sappy,” here she gave a little laugh, “you inspired me.”

I inspired her? Now here was a reversal of roles. ‘White Queen’ was hers, and so was ‘‘39’. It was all hers.

“Did I really?”

She laughed again, and I had never heard a lovelier sound, even if she presently was laughing at me. “You’re too modest, Brian, and you’re insanely talented. I’ll never be that good, even if I were to practice every minute of every day.”

Her words tore at my heart. I had never felt so… so appreciated, so admired, so loved.

“If you keep playing,” I said, “I have no doubt you will be better than me. Easily, in fact. I’m not exactly the world’s most technical guitar player.”

She peered up at me beneath her eyelashes, her lips parted softly.

I couldn’t stand it.

I reached for her, tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. My touch lingered on her skin, and I found myself drifting toward her. She held a pull over me that gravity could only have dreamt to replicate.

Then, realising the intimacy of what I’d just done, my fingers curled into my palm and I stepped back.

“Brian—”

I would not dwell. And I would not stay around to hear her ask me to leave.

“Until next time, Y/N.”

And that would have been that.

Except she just had to say my name again, didn’t she?

“Oh, dammit, Bri. Come here.” Her hand brushed my shoulder. I pulled her into my arms.

Her heartbeat fluttered against my chest, and I missed her already.

I didn’t— I couldn’t— hug her cautiously this time, the way I normally did, gentle and only just there, driven by the fear that she would disintegrate beneath my hands. This time, I embraced her as though it were the very last time, because it might very well have been.

And then words slipped from my lips, my heart in control of everything and my mind tossed out the window.

“I don’t think I can stand an entire summer without you,” I said. She nestled further into my embrace, and despite everything, my heart soared.

“Not an entire summer,” she replied. “Just half.”

“Y/N,” I hummed pathetically.

“Bri.” She too sounded anguished.

“May I come see you? Just me?”

She said nothing, only held on to me, and really, what more could I ask of her?

“Or let me take you out,” I murmured. “Somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere you want to go.”

“Anywhere?” she whispered.

“Anywhere,” I whispered back.

“I’d love that,” she said, and my breath caught. She’d love it. “Soon?”

I drew back from her, to see if the expression on her face was as genuine as the sound of her voice.

It was.

“Soon,” I promised, and I did not lie. I was already planning my return.

And then I leaned down, the thrum of my pulse far too loud in my ears to listen to reason.

I kissed her cheek.

Briefly, but kiss her cheek I did.

“Bri,” she sighed, and her hands wound around mine.

“It’s difficult.”

She looked puzzled, but I didn’t elaborate.

It’s difficult. To leave you. But I must.

Mustn’t I?

I took my hands from hers and made for the door.

It’s not too late. You can still turn back.

Can I?

Could I?

No. I would not take her life from her in this way.

“Goodbye, beautiful,” I said.

I will not take her life from her, I will not take her life from I will not take her life from her—

Oh, but I wanted to be selfish.

For once in my life, I wanted something so badly that I couldn’t let it go.

I wouldn’t let her go.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You touched your cheek.

He was gone.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

And then he wasn’t.

In the doorway he was standing, the sun his backlight, a fallen angel who was still very much an angel.

“Come with us. Come with me,” he sighed wistfully, fingers wrapped around the doorframe so tightly that his knuckles turned to white.

You had rarely seen such raw emotion in your life, never known desperation so pure, outside of yourself.

But here was Brian, hanging onto the door as though it were his last hope to remain standing, and gazing at you like you were his only hope at all.

“You’re my best friend,” he breathed.

And then abruptly, it all became very clear to you. Utterly simple.

You wanted to go with Queen, with Brian, and staying behind would only mean once more sacrificing your own happiness in the pursuit of pleasing others.

Brian made you happy, damn it, and you were tired of hopelessness. You wanted to be happy, and for once, you wanted your own happiness enough to realise what it was you had to do.

“And you’re mine,” you said.

Mine. No more than a word, and yet it brought such a sense of belonging, a swell of warmth through you that could have outshone Sirius in all its glory.

Brian’s face broke into a smile, and involuntarily, so did yours.

He knew, even before you’d said it, that you were coming with him.

And when you returned to the living room ten rushed minutes later with your suitcase packed, your parents were there to kiss you goodbye, even if your dad did so reluctantly. But you explained hastily what it was you had to do, and promised that you would explain in further detail as soon as you could. You were an adult; this was your choice to make.

The truth was, you had no idea what came next, not in terms of school or residence or anything at all, but what did it matter? This was the adventure of a lifetime, to run away to god knew where with a rock and roll band, and if a little of spontaneity was to dictate your life for a while, then so much the better. After all, what was adventure without an element of spontaneity?

You ran out into the sunshine of the late afternoon, and Brian was there to take your hand.

The others gave a raucous cheer as the two of you appeared in the driveway, whoops and claps echoing around the courtyard to be met with recklessly happy laughter from you, from Brian.

It would seem you had always been part of the plan.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

taglist: @melting-obelisks @sgt-stardust-killerqueen @hgmercury39 @topsecretdeacon @joemazzmatazz @perriwiinkle @brianmays-hair @im-an-adult-ish @ilikebigstucks @doing-albri @killer-queen-87 @n0-self-c0ntro1 @archaicmusings @cloudyyspace @annina-96 @themarchoftherainbowqueen @annajolras

Masterpost / Part 13 / Part 15

#tina's writing #starstruck #brian may x reader #queen #fic

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kenzieam · 3 years

Text

The Blue Plate Diner - Chapter Two

@jewels2876 @moonbeambucky @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @iammarylastar@captstefanbrandt @badassbaker @pinknerdpanda @oliviastan17 @mizzzpink

I know I’m forgetting people, sorry. If you want in, hit me.

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Rating: M

Warnings: Language, general nuttiness, smut, major angst, drama

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FEEDBACK IS LIFE, Y’ALL!

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Years after leaving, Bucky returns to his hometown a successful lawyer, there only to clean up his recently deceased mother’s affairs, but hoping despite himself to see her again; Levka Riel, the girl he wanted all through high school and could never have. But their parting was anything but sweet and old wounds have festered for years in the shadows. Even if the truths in their past are revealed, has it been too long to repair the damage?

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** I feel the need to clarify, in case there’s any confusion as to how Bucky and Lev could honestly have had NO contact in almost a decade... this story takes place before cell phones were the extension of our hands that they are today, before the Book of Faces and social media ruled all, when it truly possible to leave a town and not be kept updated on old school-mates and neighbors and the only way to contact most people was by landline or the postal system.**

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BTW, this upcoming chapter is a doozy. Lots of shit gets exposed, heaps of steaming lies and truths and rattling skeletons in closets. This chapter exhausted me and that’s why I ended it where I do, I couldn’t take any more and needed a break.... Enjoy.

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Seven years later, and she was staring at him in her diner like he was a ghost and going out of her way to avoid him in their small, small town.

And not once had she answered the letters he’d sent her, the ones begging for her forgiveness, begging for another chance.

Bucky needed to get out, the house was suffocating with only his thoughts for comfort and he decided to grab a few groceries, not that he was planning on staying much longer but dining at The Blue Plate was hit or miss; if Lev was there, she either left or traded tables with Hattie, leaving the old woman to serve him, the only thing sharper than her mind being her acid tongue, as Bucky’s presence meant disruption and he was tired of that disappointment; Lev smiling and happy, joking and laughing with regulars only to see her face fall when she saw him, regardless of how nonthreatening he tried to be.

Old time country music wheezed through scratchy speakers as Bucky entered the main grocery store in town. It was sadly out of date to his eyes, the old turnstile checkouts, the floor faded and scuffed with thousands, perhaps millions of footsteps over the years. But it was well-lit and clean, the selection not entirely lacking, and Bucky busied himself trekking slowly up and down the aisles, finding old brands he hadn’t seen since he was a child, somehow still magically in business and apparently only supplying mom and pop locations. There was not an ‘organic’ sticker in sight and Bucky was humbled by the produce section, small and tidy, lacking any of the vast variety he’d come to expect at the supermarkets he frequented back home.

Turning from jams and jellies into the soup aisle, he stumbled to a stop, eyes wide and disbelieving.

“Lev?”

Lev lifted her head from the can she was studying, alarm already rising in her eyes. She glanced over her shoulder at something before finally choking out a strangled, “James, hi.”

How he wished she would call him something else, ‘James’ was obviously meant to keep distance between them, distance he ached to close.

Fumbling for more, Bucky said the first thing to come into his head. “Chicken noodle? I remember eating that every night I was home alone after school.”

“Didn’t your mother cook for you?” The implication that Doris Barnes would never serve something so common as canned soup hung in the air and Bucky wondered, for the umpteenth time, why Lev was so bitter about the old, dead woman.

“Not when she was working double-shifts.” Bucky answered. In truth, much of his adolescence was spent caring for himself, his mother working her hands to the bone to keep their household afloat.

“Oh.” she began, a faint flush beginning to color her cheeks. “I-”

“Mom? Can we get mushroom too?” A new voice interrupted, a child’s voice and Lev inhaled sharply, head snapping to the side.

Bucky’s gaze fell on a young girl, maybe six or seven. A battered ball-cap covered her head and both knees were missing in her jeans, a series of band-aids adorning her fingers.

When nobody spoke, the girl offered a tentative smile. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Bucky breathed, staring down at her, entranced. Although he’d suspected Lev and Steve would have started a family, he’d not known for sure.

“We have to go.” Lev announced abruptly.

“What’s your name?” Bucky asked, extending his hand, which only seemed to ratchet up Lev’s anxiety.

“Meadow, what’s yours?” She replied, grasping his hand, and giving it a shake.

“Meadow, that’s beautiful. I’m Bucky.”

Lev reached for Meadow’s other hand, pulling the child away from Bucky’s reach. “C’mon, Med. We have to go.”

“Say hi to Steve for me,” Bucky continued; realizing in this moment that he needed to give up and drop the torch he’d carried for so long, the proof was literally standing right in front of him. “I always figured you two would settle down together, he’s a lucky guy.” The words cut his throat, burned his tongue as they passed.

Lev recoiled like he’d slapped her, eyes wide then narrowing with unexplained fury. “You bastard.” She hissed roughly and, before Bucky could ask what the problem was, he’d just complimented her for Christ’s sake, Lev took a step forwards and hit him, slapping his cheek hard enough to sting.

“Fuck you.” She growled, so low Meadow probably couldn’t hear then whirled away, dragging her daughter behind her.

WHAT THE HELL HAD JUST HAPPENED?

Bucky touched his cheek, quite literally struck dumb and tried to sort out what he’d said that had been so horrible.

He was still puzzling it out when he approached the checkout and laid his chosen goods on the turnstile. The cashier was one he recognized from years ago, now greyer and with thicker glasses. She eyed him, unimpressed.

“That you that upset Levi Riel? What did you say? She lit outta here like the devil was after her.”

Great. Not only had he hurt Lev somehow, but everyone had seen it too.

“Nothing, I just congratulated her on her family, told her Steve’s a lucky man.”

The woman sucked in a breath, shaking her head as she started ringing through his groceries.

“What? They were together all through high school, I just assumed-”

“Steve Rogers is dead.” The woman replied bluntly, eyeing him again. “Ain’t you Doris’ boy, weren’t you best friends with him, didn’t you know he’s gone?”

Bucky staggered, feeling like the woman had just kicked him in the chest. No, he’d not heard that Steve was dead and no one, his mother included, had seemed to care enough to tell him. “No… what happened?”

The woman’s face softened slightly. “Well, you’ve been away.” And you’ve never bothered to come back and visit your mama until after she died, her eyes reproached. “The Rogers boy was killed ‘bout four, maybe five, years ago, hit by some looky-loo out on Route 4. He was helping pull some woman outta the ditch and got crushed against his own tow-truck, peeled him open like cheese on a cheese grater I heard.” She shook her head sadly. “Hit the girl hard, young as she was with that baby to take care of all alone. Damn shame.”

Bucky was silent through the rest of the checkout, his mind jumbled and tangling on itself. Steve had been his best friend and he’d not known the man was dead. Sure, they hadn’t talked since that last time Bucky had come home, nearer to eight years ago now, but he’d loved the man like a brother, even as he’d hated him. Any amount could have been on the credit card carbon he signed, he barely looked at it as he passed it back to the woman, barely remembered the drive back to his mother’s.

No longer hungry, he put the food away and walked upstairs into his old room, sitting down on the bed and pulled an old picture frame off the bedside table. Faded and crinkled, he nevertheless could see it clearly.

He and Steve, thirteen, perhaps fourteen, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, grinning ear to ear after winning their baseball league’s championship game.

Brothers in everyway but blood.

But no more.

The tears came hot and fast and, for a time, Bucky let them take over.

Later, throat raw and eyes burning, Bucky stood and stormed into his mother’s room, began to tear through the drawers.

There had to be something, somewhere, something that showed his mother hadn’t completely forsaken him; a newspaper clipping, the funeral service leaflet, anything to show that the old woman had in some way acknowledged the boy who’d called her his ‘other mother’, even if she hadn’t bothered to inform her real son of his best friend’s passing.

He turned to the closet and ripped the doors open, pushed the hangers from one side to the other, the metal screeching and groaning before reaching for the shelf above, knocking a few hatboxes askew and blankets to the floor before his hands closed on a shoebox with some weight to it.

Frowning, he pulled it down and flipped off the lid, stared inside at the contents for a moment unable to process what he was seeing.

A stack of letters, all opened. The top one was addressed to him, the name on the return address taking what was left of his breath and sanity away.

Levka Riel

With shaking hands, he pulled the stack out, setting each one back down onto his lap as he read their addresses.

James Barnes

Levka Riel

James Barnes

There were over a dozen letters in front of him, all opened, all read, all addressed to either him or Lev. He hadn’t been sure of Lev’s address, she’d moved since graduation and he wasn’t home long enough that one time to learn it, so he’d mailed all her envelopes to his mother with a note requesting she pass them along. He assumed the same was true for Lev, that she too, not knowing Bucky’s dorm address, had entrusted his mother to send on her letter to him.

And she’d done neither.

Bucky set the box and letters aside, scrambling to his feet and into the bathroom, spewing the contents of his stomach into the toilet, retching until he saw stars, until long after his stomach was empty, and he was just spitting weakly.

WHY??

WHY HAD HIS MOTHER NOT GIVEN HIM LEV’S LETTERS?? WHY HAD SHE HELD BACK THE ONES FOR HIM??

WHY HAD SHE ALWAYS SAID NO, EVEN WHEN HE’D ASKED IF SHE’D HEARD ANYTHING FROM HER, IF LEV HAD ANSWERED HIM?

Oh god, what had he missed??

Breathing raggedly, a deep, heavy sense of dread clawing in his belly, he returned to the bedroom and gathered the letters, collapsing to sit on the bed. He chose the most dated, the one wrote perhaps a month, maybe six weeks after he’d left that last time.

Bucky,

I’m sorry for all the horrible things I said to you that morning, I’m so sorry for the way we left off.

I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to write this letter, but I want you to know, you deserve to know.

I’m pregnant and I know it’s yours.

Steve and I always used protection; that night at the party, you and I didn’t.

I’m scared, Bucky. I’m not ready to be a mother but I can’t bring myself to even consider getting rid of it.

Please write me back as soon as you get this, I don’t expect you to drop everything and become a father, but I need to know what you want and that you’ll help in some way.

Lev

His heart cracked with an audible noise and, while he thought he’d used up all his tears earlier crying over Steve, a fresh wave came, burning hot trails down his cheeks. Hands trembling, he opened the next one she’d sent.

Bucky,

I haven’t heard from you yet and your mother swears she sent my letter to you.

I’ve told Steve and he knows he’s not the father, but he’s offering to help me with whatever money he can get, but you know as well as I that jobs in this town aren’t great, isn’t that why you left?

I need to know what you want. Do you want to be in your baby’s life?

Are you mad at me? This was an accident, but it makes me sick to think about terminating it.

Please write me, I’ll give you my phone number as soon as I can afford to get a line hooked up.

Lev

It continued, each letter, each word slicing deep.

James,

Why won’t you answer me?

I heard her heartbeat yesterday at my doctor’s appointment.

That’s right, it’s a girl.

I’m keeping her and I still hope you’ll want to be in your daughter’s life.

Lev

P.S. – My phone is finally hooked up; my number is 977-541-0201. Please call me.

Until the last letter, the one that truly broke the remainder of his heart.

James,

She’s here.

I’ve named her Meadow Grace Riel.

Your silence is answer enough. I get it, you want nothing to do with the child you helped create.

I just wanted you to know that she’s here and she’s safe.

I won’t bother you again.

Lev

The letters fell to the bed and he dropped his head into his hands with a sob. He cried so hard he could hardly breathe, until his lungs burned in his chest and what air he managed to get rasped in his throat.

I’ve named her Meadow Grace.

Meadow.

He’d met his daughter today and not known.

It all made sense now, the fearful and angry looks from Lev. The way she’d tensed in the grocery store when their daughter approached him. The way she’d looked so hurt, so betrayed and broken when he’d implied that Steve must be so proud of his family. Like he couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge his own child, like their past had never happened.

What could she be thinking now? How cruel and heartless, how much of an asshole did she think he was?

His fingers brushed over his letters, the ones he’d written to Lev. After he’d gotten over his hurt, his wounded heart at their parting, he’d written to her, apologizing, and asking for another chance. He’d tried again and again, varying the words but keeping the message.

I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

His mother had read these, read his contrition and kept them to herself.

She’d known about Meadow, she’d known about Lev being pregnant, and she’d done nothing!

Except lie to him when he asked if Lev had tried to contact him.

What sort of monster had raised him?? What possible excuse could she have had??

What hell had she put them both through? Had she spoken to Lev, acknowledged her granddaughter in any way? Helped even though she’d kept him in the dark?

He couldn’t think about that now, he’d go crazy if he did.

He needed to see Lev, to try and explain what he was still too stunned to believe but held so concretely in his hands.

Half-falling down the stairs, he stumbled into the kitchen and reached for the local phone book; flipping in open and scanning the pages madly.

He would have done this far sooner if he hadn’t been sure of Lev simply slamming the door in his face, but he needed to see her now, to explain what he’d just found and beg for another chance, even if this hadn’t been his fault, even though he was just as much a victim of his mother’s cruelty as Lev and her…. their daughter.

The thought brought him up short.

He was a father.

He had a child, a daughter, one whom he’d missed out on everything in her young life.

Fresh rage swept over him, a new tidal wave of fury unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, sharpened by betrayal. His mother was supposed to love him, not hurt him and hide things and then, on top of it all, go off and die before he could learn said truth and confront the old bitch.

Dropping the phone book, he turned and barrelled back upstairs.

It didn’t take long; he took no time to be careful or preserve anything of hers.

Anything personal, pictures and notes, were tossed into the firepit in the backyard and lit ablaze. Anything else of hers, clothes, jewelry and knick-knacks, was thrown carelessly into garbage bags and left at the back gate for Percy and Hank to pick up tomorrow on their weekly garbage day.

The furnishings and other impersonal elements he left as is, controlling his voice long enough to call Duke Hanover and start in motion the process of selling the house and its contents.

He couldn’t stomach the thought of keeping anything of that old witch’s and the problem he’d been struggling with since learning of his mother’s death, what to do with his childhood home, was now solved.

He would take the money; it was all that was worth anything to him anymore.

Next, he gathered his few things, what he’d brought with him and what little he still wanted to keep from his old room, and checked into a hotel, collapsing on the bed, and falling into a deep, exhausted stupor.

He woke the next morning with a scratchy throat and aching muscles; apparently tearing through your childhood home and throwing away everything personal was a physical workout as well as an emotional one.

The horror and dread, sorrow and agony appeared not long after and Bucky lay for a long time, on his back and staring at the ceiling, helpless to stop the memories from slinking back in, coiling their claws around his mind again.

Bucky stirred, feeling the beginnings of a headache. He’d drank enough these last two years of college to recognize a hangover when he had one, and this felt like a doozy. The next thing he felt was pleasantly sore muscles, faint twinges of scratches on his bare skin and he chuckled low in his throat, burrowing his face into the pillow.

He’d gotten lucky last night, as well as shit faced.

The rest of the story hit him then and he remembered just who he’d spent the night with.

Finally.

Levka Riel.

The girl he’d wanted his whole life.

Simple good luck had brought them both to Wayne Templeton’s party last night and Providence had taken over from there. A rush of heat went through him as he remembered, the sounds Lev had made, the way she’d clung to him, the breathless promises, and declarations he’d groaned into her throat as he’d moved inside her. It had been magic last night, the culmination of fate and Bucky’s mind began to run with possibilities.

Lev could move back up with him, they could get an apartment off-campus. She could enroll too and start building a career for herself.

He would do anything for her-

Lev stirred at his side, sighing and stretching. She lifted her head, her hair a tangled mess and peered through it towards him.

“Hey,” Bucky whispered, ready to roll over and pull Lev towards him, snuggle down into the sheets and enjoy this pause from their chaotic lives.

“What the hell?” Lev murmured, head snapping to stare down at the pillow, then at the walls and the tangled sheets around them. She all but leapt off the bed, fighting the sheets that entwined around her struggling limbs.

“Lev?” Bucky sat up, not caring to cover his own nakedness.

Lev’s eyes landed on his cock for a beat and the last mysteries of what had happened fell into place. You did not wake up naked and sore and dripping next to a similarly unclothed man without there having been some action beforehand.

“Oh god.” She whispered, backing away. “What did I do?”

“Lev?” He was staying frustratingly monosyllabic, but his mind was a torpid mess, trying to process what he was seeing and hearing. Shouldn’t she be happy like he was? Hadn’t they just spent the most incredible night together?”

“Get out.” She demanded, holding the sheets up in confused bunches to cover herself.

“What are you talking about?” Bucky stumbled for words, recognizing the shadow of the ghoul around the corner and desperate to fight it off. “We just had a-”

“It was a mistake. We were drunk.”

“NO. It wasn’t a mistake. I love you, Lev. I always have!” He had to lay it all out, make her see.

“You hardly know me! You’re just Steve’s creepy friend! Is that why you were always hanging around, you thought there was something between us?! Steve is my boyfriend, not you!!”

Realization crashed over him like ice water.

She didn’t feel the same way, she never had.

Whatever he’d thought he’d seen in her lingering glances, her tentative smiles had not been reciprocation of his own devotion, but the hesitation of fear and discomfort.

She didn’t love him; she didn’t even like him.

He had been so stupid. So misguided, laughable really.

Rage replaced the cold fingers tickling his spine, turning his blood to fire.

“You fucking slut.” He growled. “’Steve is your boyfriend’? Then why are you sleeping around at a party like a GODDAMN WHORE?”

The fury in his voice made her stop, stare at him with the start of fear in her eyes and it only inflamed Bucky more. Never, ever, would he be angry or out of control enough to hurt Lev, his love for her was too strong, flowed too deep and the way she was eyeing him warily said as clear as day that she didn’t know him at all, she thought he was just as ham-fisted and brutal as the rest of the assholes in this town.

“Fuck you.” He snarled, reaching for the nearest item, a half-full can of beer and throwing it at her. He’d been a hell of a pitcher in his junior baseball league and the can would not hit her because he didn’t want it to, but his anger made sure it hit the wall close to her head, as a warning. “Fuck off, you goddamn piece of trash!”

With a choked sob, Lev stumbled from the room and Bucky, the tremors in his body rapidly morphing from of fury to sorrow, followed not long after.

He’d gone home, holed up in his room until his plane ticket came due, then left this piece of shit town behind.

Until now.

Tears burned hot on his skin and he choked a fresh sob, pulling himself into a sitting position on the hotel bed. You’d think he’d have no tears left after the last few days, but his sorrow and hurt seemed bottomless and Bucky cried until he could hardly breathe, his throat swollen and hindering his air.

He needed to make this right, he had to apologize to Lev. He’d been on his way to doing just that when the rage of his mother’s betrayal had side-tracked him yesterday.

A half-hour later he’d found Lev’s address in the phone-book, managed to choke down some black coffee and was standing in front of a small bungalow, in need of some paint and TLC, Pandora’s shoe-box in his shaking hands.

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #au bucky #au bucky barnes #au bucky barnes fanfic #au bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes drama #au bucky drama #bucky and lev #bucky and levi #the blue plate diner

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insomnia-productions · 4 years

Text

UAF Secret Santa

Merry Christmas unreasonably attractive fandom! This is my Secret Santa gift to @herenya-sedai. You asked for Post-AMOL Mat dealing with a daughter who can channel, and, wow, did that open up a can of worms in my brain. I hope you enjoy this fic! It’s also on AO3, if you have a preference for platform <3

Nora, Nora

The first few months are the hardest. He sees them in the gardens, in the halls, in unfamiliar Seanchan streets, grey dresses swishing around thin ankles, silver bands making red rings around gaunt necks. They walk with their eyes lowered, lips pale and thin, betraying no emotion, followed, always, by tall pale women with cold faces, silver bracelets glinting under the harsh sun. Some of them are dark, others pale, some willowy and tall, others short and homely, but he sees one face on all of them: dark eyes, lips quirked just so, mouth opening to berate him, most likely, with the words of a harried mother despite the fact that she was the youngest of them all, always in such a hurry to grow up, growing up too fast, burning too bright until she burned out—

He left all that behind when he came to Seanchan, but it clings to him, still. His days are wide open and empty; Tuon has crushed the rebellions against her, but Seanchan politics are a web rivalled only by the White Tower itself and she spends her days fixed firm on her throne, Min rarely released from her side. There are no more battles to be fought. Mat feels himself fading, drifting into the background, a small piece of the scenery. He spends long hours wandering the city, studying the winding streets, acquainting himself with the taverns, memories flitting in and out of sight. Sometimes he drifts into an alley, or an alcove, or a dusty bazaar, and stands there for hours, dreaming of lives lived and long passed in this strange empire.

In his wanderings, he learns where they are kept. It’s a dark room, deep underground, walls studded with pegs holding gleaming bracelets. The new ones huddle in quivering groups on the cold floor. The old ones lie alone, eyes blank and dull, breaths so shallow they could almost be dead. It takes him a week, even with his luck, to find a way in: a tunnel from a bygone Age, forgotten by everyone in this generation, perhaps, but not by the men in his memories. He doesn’t use a torch, the first time, half-afraid of being caught, and as he creeps slowly through the dark, he wonders what Tuon would say.

He can’t do much. There are so many of them. He brings them sweetbreads and kaf, and it’s not enough. He brings them balms for their wounds and wine for their souls, and it’s not enough. He brings them stories of the outside world, of hope, of home, and it’s not enough, never enough. Most days, as he slips back into the darkness, he thinks all he can bring them is more disappointment.

On the third day of the eighth month, he lets one go. It is a foolish idea and he is not, contrary to popular belief, a fool, but she’s so young and scared, still with a spark of defiance in her large, dark eyes as she sits, unattended, in the garden, waiting for her sul’dam to collect her, and he’s done it before, knows how, and when he unlocks the necklace she smiles—

They catch her before dusk. They do not put the silver band back around her neck. When they are done with her, she has no neck to put it on.

Tuon is silent in court. She lets the girl’s sul’dam make the decision, and gives only an imperial shake of the head when asked if further inquiry is needed. Her eyes remain fixed on the girl throughout, never straying.

In the night, she comes early to the room they share. She sits there in bed, thin blankets pulled around her waist, back straight as the mast of a ship despite how large her stomach has grown, almost half her own size, it seems. It’s the first time he’s seen her by moonlight in weeks.

“Never do that again,” she says softly. “Remember that I will soon have my heir. I can kill you now, if I wish.”

Mat looks at her. He almost can’t see her eyes in the darkness. “Egwene told you—”

“The Amyrlin Seat was mistaken.” An edge of frost coats her words. “I know how to protect my people.”

“That girl wasn’t dangerous. She was barely a woman. In the Two Rivers she might not yet be allowed braids.”

Tuon’s voice softens, but her eyes are hard and cold. “You have a kind heart, Toy. I will forgive you this time.” Hard and cold—the eyes of one who was born with a crown already fixed on her head. “But never again.” She holds out a hand for him.

“Never again,” Mat echoes, and goes to her.

He passes the tunnel, sometimes, and there is a catch in his step before he keeps walking.

It’s raining the day everything changes—but a pleasant rain, if there is such a thing. It’s the kind of rain that reminds him of summer afternoons spent splashing through the creek, tearing newly bloomed wildflowers from trees, sticking them haphazardly in Perrin’s hair because the stems slid so smoothly between his curls and stuck. He watches the rain drip off the tiled cover above the window, falling heavily on petals in pink, yellow, and white. He watches for so long that he forgets the bouquet is getting soaked, but it doesn’t matter, because, when he hears the first cries, he jumps so hard he drops it out the window anyway.

He turns around, and there is Min, eyes wide, arms wrapped gingerly around a bundle of white, while on the bed Tuon sobs and laughs, for once too drained to keep composure. Mat walks to Min, takes the bundle into his arms. He looks down at a round face, brown in hue, eyes clenched shut, but he knows they will be the darkest brown. His daughter. His daughter.

It’s so terrifying a thought that he nearly drops the baby. Min catches his eye, grins, takes the child back and hands her off to Tuon’s waiting arms. Tuon looks at their daughter, and then at him, and, for once, smiles.

“You look frightened.”

“I never saw myself as a father,” Mat says, honestly. “I’m— I’m just— the village idiot.”

Min snorts. Tuon’s smile deepens.

“You are the greatest general that has ever lived,” she says, and her voice is so warm. “This is nothing.”

Mat gives her his most impish grin, and turns away before she can see it strain. Not for the first time, he wonders who it is his wife really loves.

Years pass faster than comprehension. Mat steals hours with his daughter like the rarest diamonds, moments between long sessions under locked doors when Tuon and her Court teach Enoura how be an empress. Tuon complains every day that five minutes with Mat undo three days of her work at a time. Mat takes it as a the highest honor.

He teaches his daughter how to dance, how to gamble, how to look at a horse and know how fast and how true it will run. She has Tuon’s eyes, Tuon’s steel spine, Tuon’s imperious voice—but she has his smile, he thinks, and his laugh.

When Enoura is one year old, she says her first word: “Dada.” Mat gloats for hours, and his satisfaction is barely touched by the fact that Tuon does not speak to him for the two weeks it takes before Enoura learns to say “Mama.” Even then, a coat of ice frosts her eyes for several weeks longer. Their marriage is only mended a month later, when Min, having drunk slightly too much, reveals that Enoura’s first word was actually, in fact, “Min.”

When Enoura is four years old, she splashes through a mud puddle half as deep as she is tall, and ruins the dress given to her specially for her True Name Day. She trails back into the palace half an hour later, tugged along by her latest tutor (none of them seem to last longer than a few weeks), face sullen, thoroughly disgraced. Tuon arches a single eyebrow when she sees her, fingers drumming on her knees—which, for Tuon, is the equivalent of pitching a fit. Mat fails to bite back a laugh—Light, but how many times had his own mother given him that same expression?— and is sent out of the room.

When Enoura is six years old, she wanders out of the garden gate and disappears. The Seanchan Empire itself seems to grind to a halt. Servants and soldiers alike are sent out in droves, and Tuon locks herself in a dark room with Min, admitting one courtier at a time, until she is certain that none of them are to blame. Mat finds the hidden spaces no one else can; for once, he is grateful for the memories in his head. He finds her when the sun has almost set, crouched behind the thick creeper plant obscuring a shallow alcove where two abandoned buildings meet. She is crying, and she cries harder when she sees him, and as he presses her to him, feeling relief wash over his bones, he decides that she will never cry like this again.

When Enoura is nine years old, Mat feels his medallion go cold. His daughter is standing behind him when he turns, palms stretched in front of her, face scrunched with concentration. She drops the pose when she sees him looking, blowing a mound of brown curls away from her face, and sticks out her lip. “I’m trying to blow you over.” As if to illustrate, a faint gust of wind drifts past Mat. Enoura huffs. “It’s not working.��

The medallion is so cold—and then it isn’t. He feels a shiver run through his body—part of him thinks it can still feel the thin weaves of Air, saidar spinning nets around him. Spun by his daughter. Mat feels his feet move; he goes to her very slowly, kneels in front of her, takes her hands. His eyes flit around the room; the door is closed, the window is shut and barred, there are no servants present, Tuon is far away in the throne room. No one is here. No one has seen. No one but him. He looks at his daughter, at her bright eyes, large and dark. He thinks of a rainbow stole around too-small shoulders, a thin scar around a thin neck that never quite went away.

“Nora,” he says. “Never do that again.”

Saidar, it turns out, is not something that can be controlled so easily. He learns this as he stands in a room full of broken pots and spilled dirt and flowers that weren’t there five minutes ago, and he screams at his daughter for the first time.

Enoura starts to cry and Mat feels all the air leave his body. He drops to his knees in front of her, gathers her into his arms, smooths a hand over her frizzy hair, feels the little leaves and twigs still hidden amongst the curls from the floral rain she created moments earlier.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, so quiet he can’t quite tell if he’s really said it out loud. “It’s going to be okay. I’m so sorry.”

Slowly, gulping big shallow breaths, Enoura starts to calm down. Mat releases her and draws a cloth from his pocket. Carefully, he wipes her tears away, so that her face is dry. He sits her down with her back to him and picks out the leaves, one by one, until her hair is fit for the royal court. Her eyes stay red-rimmed and fearful, though, and he tries not to look at them, feels them bore holes into him as he tugs her quickly through the halls.

Min jumps when he slams the door open, brows drawing sharply down. Then she sees Enoura and her eyes widen, flitting between them.

“The One Power,” she says slowly. Enoura’s lip begins to tremble. It takes all of Mat’s strength not to let himself have the same response. He nods. He and Min look at each other, and Mat can see his face reflected in her eyes, pale and afraid. Min hugs her arms. “Right,” she says. “Right.”

“Can you help her?” Mat’s voice is strained and hoarse; he has to force the words out. “You were in the Tower before— can you help her?”

Min bites her lip. She looks so sad. “I don’t know. Maybe. I can— we can try.”

“I’m sorry,” Enoura whimpers. Her hand is trembling in Mat’s. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I won’t do it again, I promise!”

Mat grips her hand tighter. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Nora. Don’t let anyone tell you you ever did anything wrong. We just— we need to be careful.”

“Careful,” Min echoes. She closes her eyes, shakes her head, takes a deep breath. “I heard... sometimes, when I got bored, I would talk to the Novices or sit in on their lessons. I might… I don’t remember much, but I might be able to… help her control it better. With luck.”

“Luck is all I have,” Mat says.

The sun begins to set. Enoura sits on the ground, legs crossed, mirroring Min’s posture, hands clutched in Min’s, eyes closed.

“Picture yourself as the bud of a rose,” Min murmurs. Mat sags against the wall as a faint ball of light hovers over their hands and Enoura smiles. “You are the bud and the bud is you…”

“I am the bud and the bud is me,” Enoura echoes.

Mat closes his eyes.

Years pass faster than comprehension. Enoura turns twelve. The palace is abuzz as sul’dam prepare to test their proxies—and their new damane . Mat sits locked away in his chambers, Enoura curled in his lap. She is getting too big for that, now, but even as he begins to lose feeling in his legs, he can’t fathom letting her go, not when he looks out of the window and sees the rows of girls her age all lined up, sul’dam circling them like sharks in the water.

Tuon will know what to do. He tells himself that, over and over, as the clock ticks. Tuon is the Empress, and she is Enoura’s mother, and she will not let their daughter be harmed, will not let her be collared, will not let her be used. Memories flit behind his eyes of a girl in a grey dress, only slightly older than Enoura, eyes wide and frightened as she is dragged into the Court, made to kneel before Tuon, made to face judgement for Mat’s mistake—

He shakes the memories away. Enoura will not be— protecting his child will not be a mistake. It can’t be.

Tuon will know what to do.

He grips Enoura’s hand as they hurry to the gardens. Tuon sits on an elevated throne, gaze unwavering, almost unblinking as girl after girl is brought forward and tested. Mat’s grip on Enoura’s hand becomes so tight that he can almost feel her bones shifting. He takes deep breaths, loosens his grasp, runs a hand through his hair, tries to look calm and presentable. He approaches his wife.

Tuon does not look away from the assembled girls when she says, “What is it?”

“I need to speak with you. Please,” he adds belatedly, as the sharp eyes of her guards swing reproachfully his way. “It’s about Nora.”

“Enoura,” Tuon corrects, as she always does. Her eyes flick to their daughter and grow warm. “It is almost time for you testing, daughter.”

Enoura shivers, pressing close to Mat. Mat looks down at her, and then at Tuon. “Can we speak privately?”

Tuon sighs, but she lifts a hand to the sul’dam and rises from her throne. Pulled Enoura gently away from Mat, she deposits her with the guards and follows Mat out of the garden. Her guards stare after her, eyes narrowed, as Mat leads her away from listening ears, into an alcove sheltered by creeping vines and blue roses. It was in a place not unlike this that Enoura was conceived.

“Tuon,” he says.

She looks at him, half expectant, half impatient. Even now, away from everyone, her back is straight, her hands folded primly over her stomach. As always, though she stands at half his height, she seems to be looking down at him with those cold, piercing eyes. She will know what to do. She will know how to keep their daughter safe. She has to.

“Tuon.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Toy.”

He has to tell her. He opens his mouth. He has to tell her. For Enoura’s sake. For Enoura…

“Tuon,” he says, “Min had a viewing.”

Tuon’s eyes glow as he talks. He is barely aware of his own words; they tumble out of his mouth like rocks making deep pits in his stomach. He tells a story. He has always been good at lying.

Tuon returns to the garden. She sits in her throne, overlooking the rows of trembling girls, some weeping because they are damane, some because they are not. Enoura is summoned. She stands beside her mother and watches with wide, frightened eyes as a silver band is strapped to her wrist.

“Enoura,” Tuon announces, the hints of a smile touching her lips. “My daughter, destined to be the most powerful sul’dam this land will ever see.”

A cheer goes up. Enoura’s head swings around; she stares at Mat.

Mat turns away.

“She will make a fine Empress,” Tuon hums, seated on her garden throne, silken white dress draped so that the cloth falls open to frame crossed legs. Her fingers drum silently against the stone armrest. Mat stands at her side and they watch Enoura instruct her damane together. “A fine Empress,” Tuon muses, “if only she would learn to be stricter with them.” Her eyes flit briefly to Mat, hints of warmth just breaking through. “She has too much of your kindness, Toy. I wish she would display more of that lion you keep so well hidden, too.”

I am not a lion, Mat wants to tell her. I am a fox with a loud bark and silver feet. I am a raven with clipped wings. I am a man trapped in the weaves of a Pattern I cannot comprehend. I am not the memories in my head.

Instead he nods silently, and watches his daughter struggle to keep the pain off her face as her damane again tries, again fails, to pour a pitcher of water. How long before that smooth, blank face ceases to be a struggle? How long before it comes naturally to her? How long before she stops feeling the damane’s pain at all? Enoura glances back at him, eyes large and dark and pained and lost, and he looks away.

It has been weeks since he was able to meet his daughter’s eyes.

Enoura is sixteen years old and sobbing. The full moon gleams in the tears that stream down her face, thin creeks of silver starlight making lines down her cheeks, splashing onto the cold stone of the terrace wall. Mat watches her and feels like weeping himself. In one hand she clutches the silver bracelet, and it trembles in her grasp. The other hand strays to her neck, lacquered fingernails pressing into it, hard enough to leave angry red marks.

“I should be wearing this here,” she sobs. “I should be one of them, I should—”

Mat pulls her close, pressing her face to his chest, muffling her words, eyes scanning the darkness for watching eyes, listening ears. With one hand he smooths her hair, over and over, as he did when she was little. Her curls are not as unruly as they used to be, cut short and flattened by a gleaming crown she used to complain hurt her ears. She doesn’t complain any more. She doesn’t laugh like she used to, or smile, or chatter. Mat wonders how there could ever have been days when he wished she would stop talking, if only for a moment. She is not talking now. Her muffled sobs pierce his ears with every other breath. He holds her tighter.

What can he do? What can he say to help her, to comfort her? There is no silver lining to Enoura’s struggle, only the simple fact that she is alive and uncollared. How much comfort is that, when the price of her freedom is the slavery of women who in any other life would be her sisters?

Tuon once told him that empresses do not love, but Mat doesn’t think that is true. He sees love in her when she smiles at their daughter. He sees it in her eyes when she travels into the city, when she looks out at her people, shining with pride for her empire. He sees love in her smile when they stay up together into the dawn and she calls him a lion, and he wonders if there is any part of him she loves more than the men in his head, and the battles they have won.

Empresses love, Mat is certain of that, but he is not certain how far that love can be tested. He is not certain how love measures up against the world’s most powerful empire, an empire built on slavery, an empire with servitude so deeply ingrained into its culture that the very notion of viewing damane as people is not worth consideration, because it is a notion that would tear the empire apart if given more than a moment’s thought.

Enoura’s sobs fade into shuddering breaths. Mat rests his head on hers and thinks of a girl, not ten years old, making little balls of light and laughing.

“Luck is all I have,” he had said, that night.

He wonders how far his luck can carry him. He wonders if he can trust it one last time. Choices spin through his head and he wishes, for the first time, that the dice would come back and spin, and spin, so that he could know which decision is the right one. He hopes he can trust his luck.

Mat pushes Enoura gently away. Cupping her face in his hands, he wipes away her tears, and tries to smile.

“It’s going to be okay, Nora,” he whispers. “Here is what we’re going to do.”

el’Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran turns from the window as a liveried servant slips through the door. She has to bring a hand up to steady the crown that threatens to slip at her quick movement; it has been so many years, and yet the Crown of Malkier still feels foreign against her forehead. Not that she would trade it, nor what it signifies, for all the world.

“Yes?”

“Queen Nynaeve, two travellers seek audience with you.”

Nynaeve blinks. “With me? Not with Lan— I mean, not with the King?”

“Yes, Queen Nynaeve.”

“And without any notice…” Nynaeve’s hands stray to her braid. “See them in.”

The servant bows and slips back out of the room, and Nynaeve sighs, her frown half of impatience and half of concern. Who would ask to see her, and only her, so suddenly, without notice?

The door opens. Two cloaked figures enter the room, one half the height of the other. Nynaeve’s frown deepens.

“Who are you?”

The smaller figure shrinks back, pulling down the hood to reveal unruly brown curls—some motherly instinct in Nynaeve screams the need to brush this child’s hair—and dark, strangely familiar eyes. But it is the second, taller figure that draws a gasp from the Queen of Malkier, as the hood is pulled back to reveal gleaming brown eyes and a wide, impish grin. Nynaeve’s fingers tighten around her braid. She can already feel a headache approaching.

“Hello, Wisdom,” Mat Cauthon says, insolent as ever. “Could I trouble you for a place to stay?”

#uaf secret santa #wheel of time #wot #wot fic #mat cauthon #can you tell i have Strong Emotions about mat cauthon #the wheel of time #tuon paendrag #nynaeve al'meara #min farshaw #seanchan #saidar #wot spoilers #wot spoiler #amol spoilers #wot a memory of light

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mandos-little-friend · 4 years

Text

A Party, a Promise, and Spotchka

The Mandalorian Fan Fiction

Rating: General

Characters: Din Djarin, Omera, Winta

Relationship: DinxOmera

Summary: After ten years the immediate threat is gone, and Din and the child have settled on Sorgan as a home base, but are still frequently traveling in the search for the child’s people or those that could train him. Some people are not okay with this arrangement. Includes some Mandalorian headcanon of my own making.

Notes: Just posting this here first, I may put it over on AO3 later. There may be more, but I wanted to get this main idea out of my head primarily.

Feedback always welcome.

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

On a cool summer evening on a small, backwater planet, a tiny fishing village celebrated. A band of three played rustic instruments with gusto while many of those gathered clasped hands and stomped feet and laughed. Torches had been set up all around the center of the village adding light to the moons’ illumination and allowing the party to continue long into the night. Poles had been erected on which strands of flowered garland streamed overhead, and tables of homemade food and never-ending pitchers of spotchka were set up at frequent intervals.

In the center of the merriment was the couple of honor, bride and groom dancing together while laughing and waving at their family and friends, like multitudes of newlyweds that came before them. However in this instant the bride was carrying a child unlike the humans of the village – small, green, large-eared. The child laughed and raised his hands in the air in celebration.

Din Djarin stood off from the crowd smiling contentedly as his child was bounced gleefully in Winta’s arms. The girl – no, woman now – was as radiant as any bride should be. She wore a gauzy dress of a rich plum color, which Din had himself purchased for her as a wedding gift. A wreath of flowers in pinks and purples and blues circled her flowing dark hair. The smile hadn’t left her face since the simple hand-fastening ceremony had completed and her bridegroom had swept her up into an ecstatic embrace. They had eaten and danced and drank what seemed to be a krill pond’s worth of spotchka, and all the while Din stood back and watched, only offering nods to the few villagers that felt comfortable enough to approach him. After all, he had no official place in the festivities, while the mother of the bride, equally as radiant, mingled and accepted all manner of congratulations, occasionally giving him a smile and a wave.

Once the latest song of a particularly hectic tempo fell to an end, the musicians took an opportunity to catch their breath and partake of the refreshments. Din watched as Winta gave his boy a squeeze and set him down, the child then running with carefree abandon into a group of adults who immediately began showering him with attention. Winta grabbed a mug off a table and downed it quickly before turning and catching sight of Din. He nodded to her and she stared at him for a moment, the previous smile fading. Finally, after wiping her mouth with the back of her hand she marched towards him, grabbed his wrist and kept walking without waiting to see if he would follow.

Perplexed, he allowed himself to be led past several huts, until they were between the village and the forest far enough away that the sounds of the reception were barely echos. Too far away from the torches, the only light was the weak silvery glow from the moons, however the filters in his helmet amplified the light enough to see that Winta was clearly upset.

“What’s wrong?” he asked trying to reach for her hand, but she pulled away from him. She swayed a moment from what Din suspected was the alcohol.

“You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” she asked sharply.

Din sighed, the datachip in his pocket weighing heavily. “Yes, we are.”

“Momma knows?”

“Of course. We agreed to wait until after your wedding.”

She looked down at her hands that were now clasped together tightly. “She cries, you know.”

Din blinked. “What…? I don’t understand.”

Her head flew up, eyes blazing. “When you leave!” she hissed. “Every time, for two or three nights. She thinks I don’t know, but I do. I’d hate you for it, but then you’d come back and everything would be good again. Until the next time…”

“Winta -”

“She’s had marriage proposals too. At least three. Turned them all down.” He tried to open his mouth but she cut him off. “I’m not going to be there anymore! She’s going to be alone, completely alone, and it’s not fair!”

“It’s not like you’re moving off-planet,” he observed quietly.

Her eyes widened in anger and one clenched fist came up and rapped on his beskar-covered chest. “That’s not the point! She deserves more. She deserves a commitment from you!”

Din gently placed his hands on her shoulders. “Winta, I can only make a marriage vow to another Mandalorian. Either she would have to swear the Creed, or I would have to break mine,” he finished softly. She looked up at him and he could see the tracks of tears flowing down her cheeks.

“We’re not important enough for you?”

“That’s...that’s not...you both are of extreme importance to me. But so is my boy. I need to find his people, and I need to protect him. I’ve sworn it. The best way I can do that is as a Mandalorian.” He swallowed. “Do you remember me explaining dar’manda?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“My Creed is my core, it is who I am. To be stripped of it, to lose my soul…even in service of my heart, it’s unthinkable, profane.” He sighed. This wasn’t a conversation he’d planned to have tonight.

“What if you never find them?” she asked, previous rage gone, now sounding like the girl he’d first met ten years prior.

“I honestly don’t know. I can’t stop looking just because it’s inconvenient for me.” He pulled back and crossed his arms. “When I finally got the nerve to come back here, when I’d felt it was safe enough, I did question if it was the right thing. It seemed selfish to invade your lives after so many years. Your mother and I spoke for a long time about expectations, about what I could offer...and what I couldn’t.”

Winta was looking at the ground again. He reached out and lifted her chin with a finger. “I know your heart is in the right place, but maybe trust that your mother is strong enough to make her needs well known?”

She sobbed and threw her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that!”

He wrapped his arms around her tenderly. “Never apologize for fighting for those you love, cyar'ika,” he whispered to her.

They stayed like that for several moments, until light footfalls and a small cough caught their attention. They both turned to see Omera approach, clutching a shawl around her shoulders against the cool evening air. Flowers of the same color as Winta’s crown were woven through her hair and she was radiant in the moonlight. “There you are,” she said with a smile. “What are you two doing out here?”

“I was just giving Winta a proper Mandalorian blessing for a bright, prosperous future,” Din said and Winta hastily wiped tears from her cheeks.

Omera beamed at both of them. “Well, your new husband is getting worried sick that you’ve changed your mind already.”

“Oh no,” Winta gasped, then giggled.

“Go find him and make sure he knows you’ll never let him go.”

Winta threw her arms around Omera. “I love you, Momma,” Din heard her whisper, then she was running back towards the party with the energy of youth and love.

“So, are you going to tell me what this was really about?”

Din sighed. “She’s concerned about you being alone.”

“Hmm.”

“She says you cry. When I leave.”

“Ah. Can’t hide anything from that kid.”

“So it’s true?”

“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “There’s a...void, at night right after you go, getting used to sleeping alone all over again. But it passes. Nothing wrong with a good cry once in a while.” She smiled up at him in that way that made his stomach feel like melted beskar.

He was silent for a moment, then, “She also said you’d turned down a few proposals of marriage?”

“Oh, she did!” Omera exclaimed. “Well yes, I’ve been turning those down for years. Any single person of child-bearing age is considered fair game around here. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Nothing?”

She shook her head firmly. “Nothing.” She moved closer and put her arm around his waist. “Trust me, if I had only wanted to be married again, I would have done so years before I met you.”

He pulled her in tight, gently placing his helmet against the top of her head. He had a sudden need to feel the silky hair beneath his lips and smell the flowers that were nestled in the tresses. “Omera,” he said softly. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about, eventually, but I suppose now is as good time as any.”

She pulled back and looked at him. “What?”

“You know my Creed is based on the Six Actions?” he asked.

She nodded, hesitantly. “The Resol…”

“Resol’nare. Yes. The Actions include protecting one’s family and clan, and rallying to the call of the Mandalore, the leader, in times of battle.”

Omera nodded, but her face had gone tense. “Are you saying you’ve been called to fight?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “But the Resol’nare demands I be ready and able to go to battle if it should come to that.” He swallowed. “For most Mandalorians a life spent following the Ways of the Mandalore end...abruptly and early.” She frowned at him. He laid a hand gently on her shoulder and continued. “But many do survive a life of battle, past the time they are able to safely contribute.”

He pulled away from her and turned slightly, to gather his words carefully. “A Mandalorian may be deemed unable to fight effectively due to age, or infirmity, or serious injury. They become a liability in battle.”

“And then what?” she asked softly from his shoulder. “Are they rejected?”

“No! Not at all. They are revered for having both the discipline and the fortitude to survive. But there is an opportunity at that time. To be relieved of the duty to serve the Mandalore, if they so choose. They are given full funeral rites, their name is remembered and honored along with those who fell in battle.”

“Wait, you’re not saying they...die?” she said.

Din turned back to her. “Only symbolically. They remove their armor and are released from the Creed. They are not dar’manda but they must leave the tribe, forever. While the physical body still remains, it is as if the soul has already gone to Manda.”

“And does this happen a lot?”

“No,” he said quietly. “Most Mandalorians would rather die than be separated from their loved ones, their tribe, their home. Many, choose to...go out on their own terms rather than become a burden.”

“Oh.”

“But,” he stressed, “most do not have a life outside the tribe. They have no where to go. No one to go to,” he finished, placing a hand along the side of her head.

“Oh!” she whispered and smiled brightly.

He smiled back, and realized just how much he wanted her to see that. Instead he said, “I can’t promise this is something that will happen soon. But I’m nearly fifty. My joints ache most mornings. My back…” He chuckled. He’d lost count of just how many times he’d fallen or been thrown down violently. “But my son still needs me.”

“I know,” she said firmly, taking his hand in both of hers. “I know.”

“And I need you,” he whispered hoarsely. She pressed into him, laying her cheek against his chest. “Some day,” he promised and stroked the back of her hair. Flower petals rained down to the ground. “I can’t say when, but the day will come. Will that be enough?”

“Yes. More than enough.”

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

Mando’a translations:

Resol’nare - Six Actions, the tenets of Mando life dar'manda - a state of not being Mandalorian - not an outsider, but one who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and his soul - regarded with absolute dread by most traditional-minded Mando'ade cyar'ika - darling, sweetheart

#the mandalorian #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic #din djarin #omera #winta #dinxomera #din x omera #mandomera #made up mandalorian headcanon

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eurynome827 · 5 years

Text

Calendar Girl Three - December - Love and The Weather

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 1204

Summary: Steve and Sam join you and Bucky at one of your favorite Christmas traditions.

Warnings: cuteness and fluff

Author Note: Part Three of Calendar Girl - this is my entry for the Marvel Holiday Bonanza Writing Challenge hosted by @devilbat (thank you so much for the one day extension, xoxo) and my prompt was “Let’s see who can catch the most snowflakes with their tongue!“

"Moonlight romances have to take chances That's what I learned with the dawn Love and the weather can't be depended upon" Irving Berlin “Let’s see who can catch the most snowflakes with their tongue!”

You stood facing the sky, tongue out and giggling. Bucky grabbed your hands and tried to scoot you along.

“You’re standing in a parking lot, babe, think we can do this where a car won’t run you over?”

“I’m lucky I have you to look out for me, Buck,” you giggled and scrunched your nose at him, fat snowflakes melting on your face. You slid your mittened hand into his and noticed Steve and Sam far ahead of the two of you.

“BOYS, wait up, I have the tickets on my phone!”

“Well hurry up, slowpokes,” Steve yelled back and you pulled on Bucky to move him along.

Once again you found yourself out of Manhattan and on Long Island, sharing another of your childhood traditions with Bucky. Steve and Sam had invited themselves along and you were thrilled. It was time for Candlelight Christmas at Old Bethpage.

Outside the visitor center, you took a moment to adjust to the darkness as you led the way down the path to the village, lit only with fire pots along the dirt road. The snow had tapered off and once your eyes adjusted the light of the moon peeking through the clouds helped light the way.

Sam nudged you with his shoulder. “So we just wander around in the dark for a while?”

“NO,” you snickered at him, “We follow the path to the village and then you’ll see. You have to get into the spirit of this! Imagine what it was like 300 years ago! AND,” you pushed Sam’s arm, “if you even think of starting up with your old man jokes to these two, I’m going to make sure Santa puts coal in your stocking!”

It didn’t take long to see the torches and fires from the small cluster of buildings at the center of the restoration village. You chattered excitedly and pointed out the carolers in Victorian costumes and the brass band playing cheerful Christmas carols. Dragging Bucky by the arm with Steve and Sam trailing after you both, you smiled at the gentleman tipping his hat and greeting your group with a genial “Happy Christmas!” at the entrance to the general store. Inside Bucky stood still at the sight of the large front room, complete with Christmas tree and roaring fireplace, lit only by the fire and the candles throughout the room. He looked down at you with an understanding smile. “Yeah, I see why you like this so much.”

You stood on your tiptoes to kiss him. “I knew you would.”

Back out on the path and heading toward the village center a group of loud kids rushed past, yelling and shining flashlights in unsuspecting people’s eyes. You made a sound of disgust.

“I hate when people bring flashlights. The candles and fires are plenty of light and it ruins the mood.”

Bucky pulled you closer so he could whisper in your ear. “We would never let our kids run around here with flashlights.”

You shivered, and it wasn’t from the chilly night air. “Never,” you whispered back.

Once you reached the Noon Inn and the bonfire at the center of the village, you pushed the boys toward the fire. “You go get warm and I’ll get the treats.”

“I’ll stay with you.” Bucky wrapped his arms around you, but you gently pushed him back.

“I want you to have fun, not sit here on a line with me. I’ve seen this every year, this is your first time.” He acquiesced with a smile and walked off with Sam and Steve. It didn’t take long for the line to wind through the Inn and you collected the small bags of s’mores ingredients and 4 small cups of hot mulled cider. Stuffing the bags in your coat pockets you stacked the cups and walked out to the bonfire. You saw Sam right away – he had found a great spot. He helped you arrange the snacks on a bench as you asked, “where are the boys?”

“Steve saw the regiment and they went over to take a look.”

“Ah.” Makes sense. “Here, try some cider.” Sam took a big gulp and then sputtered at the heat and you tried not to laugh, “Careful, it’s hot!”

“NOW you tell me! It’s really good, though. Spicy!”

You were still giggling at Sam and didn’t notice Bucky and Steve walking up behind you. You took a sip of cider and answered Sam, “It’s mulled.”

Bucky stepped to your side smoothly and took your cup a little too forcefully. “Mulled wine?” he said suspiciously.

“No, silly, it’s cider,” you took your cup back and leaned up to kiss his cheek. It all happened so fast and before you even thought anything of it, you felt Steve and Sam’s eyes on you.

Trying to smooth over the moment before it became A Thing, you quickly passed out cups to Steve and Bucky and took another sip. But it was too late.

“What was that all about, Buck?” Steve asked Bucky, but his eyes were on you.

“Nothing.” You and Bucky answered in unison, too quickly.

“You guys….” Sam drawled it out, neither a question or an accusation, just a statement floating through the cold air.

“Okay, okay,” you looked at the ground, and then back up at Bucky, “this is all your fault, you know.”

“On several levels,” he replied. So cheeky.

“Guys, no one else knows.”

“Except Bruce,” Bucky interrupted.

“Yes, except Bruce, but that’s only because we needed to know for sure. It’s very, very new, like a couple of days new, but,” you looked away from Bucky to see Sam and Steve staring at you both with saucer eyes, “we’re having a baby.”

It was quiet for a moment, with Steve studying Bucky with eyes that may have been a little shiny – it was hard to tell in the firelight. Steve stepped forward and enveloped you and Bucky in a hug. “Congratulations, you two.”

You let yourself be held between the two big men, feeling your heart grow three or more sizes on this cold almost Christmas night. It was only a moment of this before Sam had to fall back to his usual jokester self.

"Slipped one past the goalie, Buck?"

You couldn’t help jumping in.

"Nope, we pulled the goalie at Halloween. This was an empty net goal. In the first period. Either I'm really fertile or he's really potent....or both?" "Doll...." Bucky was a mixture of embarrassed and proud and it was intoxicating. You wound your arms around his waist. He placed a protective hand over your stomach.

“So we’re obviously terrible at keeping secrets,” you teased.

“Well, we won’t say anything, right Sam?” Steve looked over at him.

Sam looked up from his phone. “Oh, we’re not supposed to tell anyone?”

You, Steve and Bucky glared at Sam. “It’s okay, I’ll just text Nat back and tell her not to tell anyone.”

Well, the New Year’s Eve party was going to be VERY interesting.

#saramarvelholidaybonanza #calendar girl fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you

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xathia-89 · 5 years

Text

Mafia AU Part 3

Money was clearly the least of Shingen's worries. At every point during our trip out that afternoon, I doubted that I had genuinely seen anything with a price tag on it. It simply wasn't a worry to him, no amounts were ever given as he would just hand his card over without hesitation. The dress was gorgeous, and it was never anything I would even consider being graced to wear in my lifetime. It was merely out of my grasps. The shop assistants had been a little put off at first with their help, the owner then came down to make a fuss and intervened as Shingen loudly mentioned about nothing flattering me and it being a disappointment that we would be going elsewhere. The stylists had taken every effort to make me look like a suitable princess to fit in the dress with my hair and makeup. It was an entirely new world of glamour and appearances, and I didn't feel like it was the world I was destined to be in. I was openly welcomed and presented as Shingen's name naturally seem to attract the attention of everyone. It was a celebration of a new machine for the specialist hospital nearby. The money had been raised allowed for a new treatment of cancer from what I could gather, I wasn't allowed to venture far from Shingen. My arm was constantly around his, and the only exceptions I had found were when I left for the toilets (though Yukimura had been my escort across the room for my supposed safety) and when Shingen decided on a couple of occasions, it would be best to leave me with Sanada instead of dragging me into a conversation. It all resembled a ball in a fairytale. Shingen was playing the role of the prince, and I was getting enough dirty looks to remind me that I was the girl out of place. I wasn't meant for the high society like this as I was quietly stood at the edge of the room with a very grumpy looking Yukimura. Shingen had mentioned the possibility of dancing, but I hadn't even had the chance to open my mouth to ask yet, and his right arm told me that he didn't do dancing, so I simply had to watch everyone else have a good time. Then in the middle of the dancing crowd, I swore I saw my brother's face. It was a fleeting moment, but enough of expression for me that Shingen excused himself to return to my side. "I know you've seen someone you recognise princess," Takeda casually kissed the back of my hand for my attention, before sliding his arm around my waist and bringing my body flush against him. "You have a terrible poker face."

"You're using me as bait," I accused him, trying to keep my voice low as to not make a huge scene and put a lot of innocents in danger. "You've used me to drag them out to come to you on your terms, and to show me off like a trophy." My body was pressed closer to Takeda. His voice low in my ear, to anyone who didn't know, it was two lovers talking privately in public. "Do I need to remind you, princess? I can easily condemn you and them instantly if you don't keep behaving," he was warning me. I was toeing the line on my behaviour. He had all intents and purposes of sweeping me through the dance floor, glancing over for an opening to swing me into the masses so he could figure out where the enemy had placed themselves. The sound of guns being fired and glass breaking everywhere had the masses screaming, and throbbing around us. Shingen was standing firm in his position, and glaring at someone over my shoulder. I couldn't physically turn my head, Takeda was trapping me with his. I was shaking as the flashbacks were beginning from my first gunfight. The wound itself was still scarred on my shoulder, it had healed as neatly as it could, but I had insisted on straps on the dress I was wearing to cover it. The compromise had come in the form of a one-shouldered dress. I was digging my nails into Shingen's suit, desperate for the chaos to stop. The burning of my skin, the agony at packing it out and then forcing myself to act like nothing was wrong with me while I kept moving on until I was enough cities away and several days had passed that I was confident enough to attend an emergency department. I realised far too late that I was also being used as a human shield by Takeda. I heard footsteps crunching on broken glass from dropped champagne glasses, and they were approaching us. I wanted to see what was happening, but then I was faced with Masamune's shocked face coming into view as I looked over Shingen's shoulder. I could only make the assumption that Nobunaga was the one in the opposite direction. The men all stopped at a nod from Date, silently confirming something. I was struggling to keep breathing. I wanted to break free from Takeda's hold and escape the situation, but I could feel all the muscle under his well-tailored suit. His grip on me was firm, and my feet were burning slightly from standing still in such high heels as I started to rock my weight in an attempt to alleviate the feeling. "I thought you were more honourable than this Shingen, but I stand corrected," Nobunaga confirmed his presence verbally to me. "It's a coward's move to uncover a woman who wants to stay hidden and force her to attend to get your own pleasures. I knew where she was, I have ears everywhere, but then you seemed to get someone to turn on me to get that information." "It meant I got you crawling out of the works, Oda," Shingen was tensing up, his arms prepared to throw me somewhere possibly. "Though I'm surprised you haven't brought the puppy with you, I thought he would be desperate to catch a glimpse of her." His laugh gave away the part that he didn't believe we were siblings. Most people didn't, brown hair and brown eyes were the only things we had in common with our appearances. "I think they've been lying to you all along Nobunaga, I think they're secretly married, but they like to play with everyone. Though she's a great bed warmer, so supple and divine." I froze up and blushed bright red before I was tossed aside. I landed ungracefully and sprawled over the dance floor, but before I could do anything, Yukimura had hold of me and was dragging me away from the chaos of gunfights. I was being used as a human protector, the theory being that they wouldn't shoot at us for fear of hurting me again. As soon as the backup arrived, I was ushered straight into a waiting car before someone knocked me out to ensure I wouldn't make a scene. Shingen was looking concerned as I opened my eyes. My head was pounding as the slightest expression of relief was replaced with a hardened mask. Then Sasuke was shining a torch in my eyes before I could swat him away. I slowly sat up with the help of Sasuke, who now had the torch tucked behind his ear. I was blinking the room into focus, looking at the floor first as I realised that I wasn't in my 'room' and then looked up to see the massive flat screen TV dominating the room, and playing newsreels about an attack on Takeda and the mystery woman on his arm. It was all trash level celebrity news, but Shingen seemed to have them eating out of his hand. Then a clip of the red-headed male, saying that he and 'his fiancée' were perfectly safe, just shaken for their troubles and he would appreciate it if we were given some space. "Fiancée?" were the only words I could croak out, and soak up in the middle of my headache. "Of course," Shingen then gestured to my left hand. A flawless diamond was the centrepiece of two twisted bands, a platinum metal and tiny diamonds decorating one of the bands. It was pretty and highly expensive, I could already tell that from the way that the jewels were catching the light. "It looked like something that would sit well with you," he shrugged casually, but it was clear that he had put at least the smallest amount of thought into it suiting me. "It means you have to start appearing with me at these events, and that you can't just walk away now." His smile was calculating. I had tried leaving everyone behind, to live a normal life. Escape from the whole state of being told what to do and how to live, and have the constant breath of not being caught for fear of the police. Then this man had taken it upon himself to drag me back out of my hiding hole for his own gains, and enticing my brother's emotions. The only way that Shingen was going to stop was when Nobunaga was in jail, and all of his 'generals' were working for him or with Oda. He was playing a dirty game, and I was the bait for the trap that had now been set. Now, I was in the middle of a web that I never had a hope of escaping. Yukimura disturbed me, tapping me on the shoulder once Sasuke had completed his checks to ensure no concussion I assumed. I was quickly losing the will to fight everything, and in a slight state of shock as well at learning such big news. I was still in the previous night's make-up as I was left alone again in my room. It was my priority to get that off and showered before maybe looking through Netflix for a series to binge watch in bed. Shingen was ready to blow the door off. He had been buzzing the intercom for ten minutes to get Natsuki's attention as he forcefully unlocked the door. She had her chances, she had never responded in such a childlike manner before, but the man was going to make sure it never happened again. The scene before him was nothing like what he expected. The woman was fast asleep, headphones on and her laptop playing a movie of sorts as he slowed and softened his footsteps. Now that he was close up, the strain of the past ten days were showing on the female. Her skin was pale, and the bags under her eyes were more like suitcases while she was clutching at a stuffed teddy bear while deep in her sleep. She was exhausted and had nowhere to go as sympathy began to creep in. Natsuki was just a pawn, a means to an end. He forgot that she was a person too as he stroked her cheek gently. The wound on her

shoulder was still a mess as he looked at the dropped strap of her top, she had insisted that something covered it when the dresses were brought out during the shopping trip. He trailed a finger over the rough skin before Natsuki squirmed a little in her sleep. Takeda paused, before taking her headphones off and moving the laptop so she wouldn't roll onto it or push it off the bed. He had been coming down to tell her to do her job as his PA, and organise various things, but she needed the rest. Just today, that was all he was promising to himself was that he would give her before closing the door in time for Kenshin to come storming down the corridor. "She's asleep," Shingen stated. "That's never stopped you doing things before," Uesugi scoffed and narrowed his eyes at his associate. "You're getting soft in your old age," he accused the man. "Maybe so, but if it means she warms to me, and then it'll be easier instead of fighting her constantly," the redhead shrugged before walking back towards the living quarters. I was 'allowed' out every couple of days. Mostly to accompany Shingen on a lunch date where the press would definitely find us now of the most well-known playboys was officially off the market. I was the centre of the trash tabloids, wanting to know how I had done it effectively. So many cafés and restaurants had been employed to keep them away, but servers would freely talk once we had left. My name was given out pretty quickly, but it was never a surname at least. I was being used to convince clients to sign deals with Shingen's firm now as well, which left me with a slimy residue. It made him look more reliable to the business world. He was able to manage a personal relationship to the extent of an upcoming wedding. I had to be spotted doing the usual preparations of course. Coming out of bridal shops, with Yukimura or Kenshin as 'bodyguards', speaking to suppliers, private booked sessions to taste cakes and sample food. We were even looking at where to hold it. I was still trying to get my head around this. I was getting married, because someone else had decided it, and it was all because my brother had decided to get involved in gang activities. I had never felt so much like a puppet on strings until one night as Shingen handed me yet more brochures on where to get married. I glared in response, but he raised his eyebrow. Reminding me of his original promise of outing me to the police before I retreated back to my room to flick through them. My only saving grace was that I had no budget, and I was getting determined to try to break Shingen on how much money I was planning on spending for this sham. I was shown to the living room one evening by Sasuke and noticed that Kenshin was suspiciously absent, while Yukimura and Shingen were both dressed incredibly casually and sprawled out on the sofa in various positions while yelling at the TV. I was surprised to find that they were battling as NHL teams on the screen, and Shingen was immediately distracted by my presence, allowing Sanada to take the game victory. "Kenshin decided he had work to do, so we needed another player," Sasuke said, looking a little embarrassed. "And I remembered that when you didn't understand something during tutoring, we'd play games like this to get formations into your head so you'd remember the equations." "Sure," I weakly smiled, feeling very exposed as Takeda handed me a controller with a wink, and I sat next to him. "Seriously?" Yukimura was glaring at his friend as I shot past their goalkeeper for what seemed like the millionth time that evening. I was now sat comfortably on the floor, and the pizza had been ordered while I kept out of their alcohol cabinet, though Shingen appeared pleasantly buzzed on the sake as he knew I could take the others on by myself. "You said she was good, not that she would obliterate us," he scowled. "Stop being a sore loser Yuki," Takeda teased, prodding his underling as a brother would. "And appreciate the fact that we don't have to skip out on gaming time if Kenshin disappears again." A cough at the door brought a violent shiver up my spine, as the three men turned their attention to the addition. I kept my head down and my gaze away from it all as I heard Shingen move. "What is she doing out?" Uesugi was pissed by the sounds of things. "You skipped out on games night, so we substituted you," Takeda was smooth as always. "No one's let her out of sight all night." The heterochromatic made a noise of disgust, and my chin was roughly grabbed as he forced my head up. The sudden move had surprised me, and I was trembling under the intensity of his gaze. The man was terrifying me, I wasn't sure if I was even going to be let go and live in the moment. He scoffed and dropped my chin as though I was a piece of dirt. All I could do was scramble around and 'escape' from the domineering male, dashing in a flash to get some comfort from my bed in my room. My eyes squeezed shut as I curled up under the blankets, desperate to block the world out.

#shingen takeda #Ikémen Sengoku #ikemen sengoku #yukimura sanada #Sasuke Sarutobi #kenshin uesugi #modern au #mafia AU

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

youtube

LIZZO FT. MISSY ELLIOTT - TEMPO

[6.75]

I suppose this would be an Allegretto...

Alex Clifton: This is a dream combination -- not sure how these two hadn't worked together before. I now judge high-energy songs on whether or not they'd be good to run to (weird metric but it's been working so far) and the beat on "Tempo" is a winner -- easy to keep pace to, easy to dance to, easy to get stuck in your head. I'm also delighted that we have a song with the lyric "thick thighs save lives." I'm not as in love with this as I was with "Juice," but Lizzo continues to sound good as hell. [7]

Stephen Eisermann: At this point, I'm starting to wonder if Lizzo will ever release an objectively bad song; her track record is pretty flawless. I first heard "Tempo" in the car while dancing at my sister's wedding reception this past weekend. My sister has always been curvier, and it was a big concern for her on her wedding day, but she seemed as confident as I'd ever seen her Saturday -- that is, until this song came on. Gone was the quiet confidence of my sister dancing politely to "Suavemente," "El Sinaloense" and "La Negra Tiene Tumbao" and instead out came a whole new Liz, one who was twerking in the center of her dance floor while all of my Mexican Catholic family watched, shook, wondering what happened to the self-conscious girl of before. But that's what Lizzo does, constantly. She takes a hot beat and empowers you, either with some feel-good rap or, as is the case here, some good provocation. Even if Missy's verse feels incomplete, it doesn't matter, because Lizzo came to play and it's hard to hate on confidence that sounds, feels, and looks this good. [8]

Katherine St Asaph: I don't dance, and any confidence boost the lyrics might provide slams fatally against the fact that the external world views my body as a collection of misshapen, unsightly, useless parts, an awareness I can't just turn off. (Which is the case for every song like this.) This song isn't for me. It doesn't help that the "When Doves Cry" guitar squall and Missy's verse, where she turns into Chingy, completely overpower Lizzo's subdued verses, which isn't supposed to happen at all. [3]

David Moore: The way Missy Elliott finds a little flicker of an idea and kindles it into a blaze of inspired silliness is always a thrill, but here it serves the counter-productive purpose of revealing the weakness of the rest of the track -- Lizzo's enthusiasm and ebullience can't hold a candle to Missy's lark. [6]

Alfred Soto: It's not twenty seconds old before "Tempo" blasts us with a distorted funk riff and the too long gone Missy Elliott. Nothing's changed -- "twerk skills are legendary" you knew. The chorus flickers, disappears. Chorus? Who needs one when Lizzo and Missy compete for sound effect attention? [7]

Tobi Tella: This collaboration feels epic in the same way Christina Aguilera and Demi did, a symbolic torch passing from old-school to new-school from two similar artists. Lizzo has Missy's classic swagger and flair, and the fact that she hasn't lost any of her uniqueness as she becomes more and more mainstream is truly something to be commended. This bangs as hard as anything she's ever released, and hopefully it becomes our generation's body positivity anthem over some more questionable songs... [8]

Katie Gill: I am always here for a bonafide ass shaking song, especially when it starts off with such an amazingly fun guitar riff like this one. The song is a beautiful cacophony and plays with sound in such a fun way, shifting from that minimalist beat to air horns & sirens, only to almost IMMEDIATELY drop back to the beat. And it's clear that Missy is having a blast, making the most out of every 'r' she gets to roll. This song is pure unadulterated fun, an ass shaking song that knows exactly what it is and spends the right amount of time crafting everything to near perfection. [8]

Iris Xie: Never thought I'd be so happy to hear "Truffle Butter" again, but I like "Tempo" and its version of that pinging synth more. "Tempo" takes that initial synth and layers it underneath with a heavy bass and a stop-start militaristic rhythm that makes the atmosphere simultaneously warm and domineering, and Lizzo's command is ice cold, casual, and driven. She's absolutely done with anyone telling her she can't command the dance floor, and whoops, she now is! The verse that starts with "pitty-pat" and ends with "cat" winds up your dance moves and is pretty much twerk material. But Missy, that sweet deliverer of unflinching vision, sonically grabs the theme of the song and busts out all the 'rrrs~'. But then she becomes very rude in the best way, and creates her own equivalent of a feature stage at 2:05 by changing it to a melted stadium band that sounds like the equivalent of lightning charging, with a brief drum clatter solo that sits with you long after it comes back to Lizzo dictating you to fuck it up to the tempo. But most importantly? The entire sentiment of the song is for any big girls (and anyone who identifies with those sentiments) who have ever felt really bad about moving on the dance floor -- it was never your problem, it was always the boring-ass "slow songs." And if that's really not one of the best ways I've ever heard about taking up space in clubs that can be hostile to those who don't have normative bodies, I don't know what else is. [9]

Jonathan Bradley: Eight bars of Missy rhyming tongue trills is worth the admission, but this beat isn't fucking anything up: the bass knocks but it doesn't move. A modulating arpeggio sounds like a placeholder waiting for the finished edit. Lizzo matches the effort; her last appearance round here underserved her personality, but here it's like she's waiting for a reason to show up. What she does offer are some very rote verses and a chorus that isn't sure it's not a verse. It's quite demure, even if you don't start to think on how unrestrained Missy could be in her heyday. [5]

Joshua Copperman: You know that old friend you had in high school that was into the same kind of music you were into? You said you'd stay in touch but grew apart from them because they were in a different, faster crowd than you? That's Lizzo. Her BJ Burton "artsy-fartsy phase" spawned some stellar, aggressive music, but her major-label music is more fun and positive to somewhat mixed results. Oak (of "Pop &" fame) made a manic beat more reminiscent of those early days, but the actual content is light enough to make room for cat puns including "prrr me a glass." It's a shame she won't go back to that earlier, more raw music when rappers like Cupcakke balance the high-concept antics with brutal honesty, but it's clear that's not what Lizzo feels like doing. That artsy phase increasingly feels like something she overcame than something she plans on revisiting. You occasionally hear back from that high school friend, but it's clear that they were never going to be the person you wanted them to be. But it's better to accept that because they're happier and freer the way they are now. They should really put away the guitar, though. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Two overrated artists release a song that sounds exactly like you'd expect? I find the fireworks and beat switch fake-outs more exciting than the vocals. When the song ends, I'm left with... nothing, really. Lizzo's recent singles have all been ordinary crowd pleasers, the sort of standard we should have for solid stock music. "Juice" felt like Facetuned Prince. "Tempo" is similarly watered down. [3]

Nortey Dowuona: *incoherent babbling* Lizzo going in *MORE INCOHERENT SHRIEKING* Missy going in *GLEEFUL HOWLS OF TORMENT AND JOY* A small Afro was found on top of the MSNBC offices yesterday. *sounds of confusion and slight annoyance* [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Lizzo #Missy Elliott #rap #hip hop #pop #music #music review #writing

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thestreamofconsciousness777 · 5 years

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Men of Nin’e·veh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it because they repented at what Jo’nah preached...

“The pronouncement against Nin’e·veh: The book of the vision of Na’hum the El’kosh·ite:

Jehovah is a God exacting exclusive devotion and taking vengeance; Jehovah is taking vengeance and is disposed to rage. Jehovah is taking vengeance against his adversaries, and he is resentful toward his enemies.

Jehovah is slow to anger and great in power, and by no means will Jehovah hold back from punishing. In destructive wind and in storm is his way, and the cloud mass is the powder of his feet.

He is rebuking the sea, and he dries it up; and all the rivers he actually makes run dry. Ba’shan and Car’mel have withered, and the very blossom of Leb’a·non has withered.

Mountains themselves have rocked because of him, and the very hills found themselves melting. And the earth will be upheaved because of his face; the productive land also, and all those dwelling in it.

In the face of his denunciation who can stand? And who can rise up against the heat of his anger? His own rage will certainly be poured out like fire, and the very rocks will actually be pulled down because of him.

Jehovah is good, a stronghold in the day of distress. And he is cognizant of those seeking refuge in him.

And by the flood that is passing along he will make an outright extermination of her place, and darkness will pursue his very enemies.

What will YOU men think up against Jehovah? He is causing an outright extermination. Distress will not rise up a second time.

Although they are being interwoven even as thorns and they are drunken as with their wheat beer, they will certainly be devoured like stubble fully dry.

Out of you there will actually go forth one who is thinking up against Jehovah what is bad, counseling what is not worth while.

This is what Jehovah has said: “Although they were in complete form and there were many in that state, even in that state they must be cut down; and one must pass through. And I shall certainly afflict you, so that I shall not afflict you anymore. And now I shall break his carrying bar from upon you, and the bands upon you I shall tear in two. And concerning you Jehovah has commanded, ‘Nothing of your name will be sown anymore. Out of the house of your gods I shall cut off carved image and molten statue. I shall make a burial place for you, because you have been of no account.’

“Look! Upon the mountains the feet of one bringing good news, one publishing peace. O Judah, celebrate your festivals. Pay your vows; because no more will any good-for-nothing person pass again through you. In his entirety he will certainly be cut off.”

One that does a scattering has come up before your face. Let there be a safeguarding of the fortified place. Watch [the] way. Strengthen [the] hips. Reinforce power very much.

For Jehovah will certainly gather the pride of Jacob, like the pride of Israel, because those emptying out have emptied them out; and the shoots of them they have ruined.

The shield of his mighty men is dyed red; [his] men of vital energy are dressed in crimson stuff. With the fire of iron [fittings] is the war chariot in the day of his getting ready, and the juniper tree [spears] have been made to quiver. In the streets the war chariots keep driving madly. They keep rushing up and down in the public squares. Their appearances are like torches. Like the lightnings they keep running.

He will remember his majestic ones. They will stumble in their walking. They will hasten to her wall, and the barricade will have to be firmly established. The very gates of the rivers will certainly be opened, and the palace itself will actually be dissolved. And it has been fixed; she has been uncovered; she will certainly be carried away, and her slave girls will be moaning, like the sound of doves, beating repeatedly upon their hearts. And Nin’e·veh, from the days [that] she [has been], was like a pool of waters; but they are fleeing. “Stand still, YOU men! Stand still!” But there is no one turning back.

Plunder silver, YOU men; plunder gold; as there is no limit to the [things in] arrangement. There is a heavy amount of all sorts of desirable articles.

Emptiness and voidness, and [a city] laid waste! And the heart is melting, and there is a tottering of [the] knees, and severe pains are in all hips; and as for the faces of all of them, they have collected a glow [of excitement]. Where is the lair of lions, and the cave that belongs to the maned young lions, where the lion walked and entered, where the lion’s cub was, and no one was making [them] tremble? [The] lion was tearing to pieces enough for his whelps, and was strangling for his lionesses. And he kept his holes filled with prey and his hiding places with animals torn to pieces.

“Look! I am against you,” is the utterance of Jehovah of armies, “and I will burn up her war chariot in the smoke. And a sword will devour your own maned young lions. And I will cut off from the earth your prey, and no more will the voice of your messengers be heard.”

Woe to the city of bloodshed. She is all full of deception [and] of robbery. Prey does not depart! There is the sound of [the] whip and the sound of the rattling of [the] wheel, and the dashing horse and the leaping chariot. The mounted horseman, and the flame of [the] sword, and the lightning of [the] spear, and the multitude of slain ones, and the heavy mass of carcasses; and there is no end to the dead bodies. They keep stumbling among their dead bodies; owing to the abundance of the acts of prostitution of the prostitute, attractive with charm, a mistress of sorceries, she who is ensnaring nations by her acts of prostitution and families by her sorceries.

“Look! I am against you,” is the utterance of Jehovah of armies, “and I will put the covering of your skirts over your face, and I will cause nations to see your nakedness, and kingdoms your dishonor. And I will throw disgusting things upon you, and I will make you despicable; and I will set you as a spectacle. And it must occur that everyone seeing you will flee away from you and will certainly say, ‘Nin’e·veh has been despoiled! Who will sympathize with her?’ From where shall I seek comforters for you? Are you better than No-a’mon, that was sitting by the Nile canals? Waters were all around her, whose wealth was [the] sea, whose wall was from [the] sea. E·thi·o’pi·a was her full might, also Egypt; and that without limit. Put and the Lib’y·ans themselves proved to be of assistance to you. She, too, was meant for exile; she went into captivity. Her own children also came to be dashed to pieces at the head of all the streets; and over her glorified men they cast lots, and her great ones have all been bound with fetters.

“You yourself will also become drunk; you will become something hidden. You yourself also will seek a stronghold from [the] enemy. All your fortified places are as fig trees with the first ripe fruits, which, if they get wiggled, will certainly fall into the mouth of an eater.

“Look! Your people are women in the midst of you. To your enemies the gates of your land must without fail be opened. Fire will certainly devour your bars. Water for a siege draw out for yourself. Strengthen your fortified places. Get into the mire, and trample down in the clay; grab hold of [the] brick mold. Even there fire will devour you. A sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust species. Make yourself heavy in numbers like the locust species; make yourself heavy in numbers like the locust. You have multiplied your tradesmen more than the stars of the heavens. “As for the locust species, it actually strips off its skin; then it flies away. Your guardsmen are like the locust, and your recruiting officers like the locust swarm. They are camping in the stone pens in a cold day. The sun itself has but to shine forth, and away they certainly flee; and their place is really unknown where they are.

“Your shepherds have become drowsy, O king of As·syr’i·a; your majestic ones stay in their residences. Your people have been scattered upon the mountains, and there is no one collecting [them] together. There is no relief for your catastrophe. Your stroke has become unhealable. All those hearing the report about you will certainly clap their hands at you; because upon whom was it that your badness did not pass over constantly?”

-The Book of Nahum, NWT

Iraq's Nineveh Province Declares State of Emergency Following Flash Flooding

#Jehovah #God #Nahum #Bible #Scripture #Prophecy #Jacob #Israel #Judah #Nineveh #Assyria #Egypt #Nile #Ethiopia #Libya #Iraq

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daily5sosupdate · 6 years

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The Australian pop-rock quartet's third album is finally here; we toast it with a salute to the hits and fan favorites.

One of the best things about music is how the same band can be loved in so many ways by so many people. How cool is it that two fans can be connected by a shared love for a band, and yet have completely unique views on which songs or albums are their best work? Given the same material, you can form the same bond but in a new way.

I discovered 5 Seconds of Summer back in 2013 on the Take Me Home tour when my friend and I had front row tickets to see One Direction, and even though Harry Styles literally winked at me -- the closest thing I’ve ever had to a spiritual experience -- I left talking about four dorky Australians that stole my heart.

I appreciate each of their releases for different reasons, but I’ll always feel the strongest emotional connection to the songs I heard at those first shows. Without them, I might not have been paying attention to hear the increasingly impressive tunes that were to follow. “Youngblood,” the second single and title track from their brand new album, ranks very high on my list. “Lost Boy” deserves to be heard again live, and whoever decided they should cover “Teenage Dream” all throughout 2014 deserves a raise. With all of this in mind, I attempted to choose my top 10 favorite 5SOS songs and trust me… it’s harder than it looks.

10. “End Up Here” [5 Seconds of Summer, 2014]

Sometimes you just need a good power pop song in your life, and “End Up Here” is definitely that song. Of course it's pure catharsis when Bon Jovi sings about living on a prayer, but it’s truly incredible how four Australian kids singing about loving "the song about living on a prayer" gives the same reaction. We put so much pressure on bands to always be creating music that means something deep, but sometimes you just that blissful rush of fandom. Play this song on summer road trips and let it soundtrack the ride away.

9. "Beside You" [Somewhere New EP, 2012]

If you really want to experience this track, find a live acoustic version. You don’t get the full effect of the group’s harmonies unless you’re hearing it in its raw form, which reminds you how rare it is to find a non-boyband band where each of the members is equally talented vocally. “Beside You” was released on both the Somewhere New EP and their self-titled debut album, but I’ll never hear it enough for my heart to not break upon hearing, “My heart wants to come home…”

8. "Long Way Home" [5 Seconds of Summer, 2014]

I have a soft spot for any song that belongs in the end credits of a typical teen movie. “Long Way Home” fits the “this summer is the last time we’ll all be in the same place, so let’s make the most of it” vibe perfectly, without being cheesy. The acoustic guitar is just prominent enough to give the song a nostalgic feel, but it still feels fresh and fun. Roll the credits.

7. “She Looks So Perfect” [5 Seconds of Summer, 2014]

Were you really a 5SOS fan in 2014 if you didn’t have at least one family member ask about the band that sings about American Apparel underwear? This song kicked off the band’s meteoric rise from being known within internet circles to heavy rotation on top 40 radio and 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It also helped bring pop-punk back to the mainstream, allowing 5SOS to promote other acts on a scale that otherwise may not have been possible. This song deserves a place on this list not just for the moment in time it represents, but because it has one of 21st century rock's best choruses.

6. “Outer Space/Carry On” [Sounds Good Feels Good, 2015]

There aren’t enough words to accurately sum up this song. Each half is a work of art all its own, coming together to close out the band's sophomore album on a hopeful note. The “Outer Space” half is heartbreaking, painting a picture of a relationship that can’t work unless it’s away from the struggles of life on earth. For a second in the bridge, you start to think their love can survive because they’re in outer space, or a place all their own where nothing else can affect them. But then those last few lines come around and kick you when you’re down. “Love me like you did, I’ll give you anything.” My heart hurts and we’re not even done yet.

“Carry On” comes in and ends things on a better note, reflecting on how time will pass and things will get better. It kind of feels like a premonition for their new album, getting to a place where they can create what they want and regain some energy after years of non-stop touring.

5. “Disconnected” [She Looks So Perfect EP, 2014]

An early favorite, “Disconnected” reminds us of the power in being with people without the distraction of technology. But in a lovely twist, it doesn’t do it in a condescending way that belittles those that genuinely enjoy social media. This song was written with help from Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low, which explains why this song felt so familiar from first listen to many pop-punk fans. When these bands grow up and leave their deadbeat towns, it's on them to assist them to pass the torch to the next generation.

4. “Girls Talk Boys” [Ghostbusters official soundtrack, 2016]

Reviews for the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot were mixed, but feedback on “Girls Talk Boys” was positive across the board. This track was the tipping point where the band started gravitating away from pop-punk and towards their new, 2018-ready pop sound. Though leagues away from their early racket, you can still feel the same energy shining through; it’s genuine growth, not a forced directional shift. Whether you prefer their rambunctious roots or their new, streamlined sound, let’s celebrate the one track between album cycles that opened the floodgates for a new era of 5SOS.

3. “Try Hard” [5 Seconds of Summer, 2014]

I will spend my life championing this song and advocating for it to rejoin the band's setlist, despite reminders that they haven’t played it in four years. “Try Hard” is a true masterpiece, giving us an alternate version of the story told in Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” 16 years ago. The story of two people who were just so different and then yadda yadda yadda, he ended up on stage with her in the crowd at his show. When I hear Luke referencing the girl in the front row, it takes me back to 2009, when I fully believed a Jonas brother would see me at their world tour and whisk me away to a new life where I’d be serenaded with “Hello Beautiful” every morning.

2. “Youngblood” [Youngblood, 2017]

The band’s newest era kicked off with “Want You Back”, which was only a taste of what was to follow. “Youngblood” takes us into a whole new age of 5SOS, less focused on being pop punk and more focused on going wherever the music takes them. Genre is much less defined in 2018; everything is a streaming era amalgamation of so many influences and ideas. This song is the perfect example of what can happen when you jump out of the box you put yourself inside of and see what’s happening outside -- in this case, swaggering tight-grooved pop with EDM inflections.

1. “Jet Black Heart” [Sounds Good Feels Good, 2015]

I don’t want to sound dramatic, but I would literally die for “Jet Black Heart,” a expert-level emo-pop power ballad for anyone still holding on to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge-level angst. Michael takes center stage and shines on lead vocals, giving the track the storm cloud-romantic edge it needed to reach its full potential. If you ever find yourself trying to introduce 5SOS to a skeptical audience, this might be the song to break through the tough exterior to the hurricane underneath it.

#5sos #5 seconds of summer #billboard #press #15 june 2018 #jet black heart #young blood #try hard #girls talk boys #disconnected #outer space #carry on #slsp #long way home #beside you #end up here

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage Review: Behind the Scenes of a Musical Disaster

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That ain’t teenage spirit you’re smelling. HBO’s Music Box documentary Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage reeks of righteous condemnation, judicial indiscretion, and conspiratorial obfuscation. But it’s okay. This is a disaster film masquerading as a documentary, and the found footage makes it all pay off. Director Garrett Price personally opens the film in the voiceover, explaining how the 1999 celebration itself was written to be a comedy, but “played out much more like a horror film.”

Music festivals have come to represent generations. The original Woodstock: an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music concert in the summer of 1969 brought half a million people together with the artists who spoke for and to them in a communal love bond. The organizers lost money, the capacity was underestimated, but the audience came together to share what they had to make the weekend legendary. In December that year, the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont was marred by the pool cues and knives of the security team, the Hells Angels. It was deemed the end of the ‘60s.

Woodstock ‘94 happened at the height of the Grunge Revolution, when Kurt Cobain wore a dress but didn’t shave his stubble, and Riot Grrrls blasted personal dissent with the passion of the punk elite and no one cared if they shaved their legs. The organizers lost money, but the fans and the bands were one unit who achieved the common goal of joy. Woodstock ‘99 happened five years later and enjoyed the accessibility of the mainstream’s greatest unifier: MTV. The organizers made money and 200,000 people attended, but the audience got such a raw deal, even the musicians who played got scared. It is remembered as “the day the ’90s died.”

Opening on the 22nd anniversary of the festival, the documentary deems Woodstock ’99 a disaster. They even call in a guy from FEMA, who says it was worse than Hurricane Katrina and the great flood. Told chronologically, Price, who previously directed Love, Antosha, the 2019 tribute to Anton Yelchin, begins with the excitement of a three-day festival. Held on a former military installation in Rome, New York, the Griffiss Air Base was set up to keep the grounds free of ticketless celebrants.

The security team is exposed as a bunch of amateurs specially trained on which boxes to check in a multiple-choice test, and how to find someone’s personal stash of bottled water in a backpack. “There’s a festival grounds in Germany that was literally built by Hitler,” The Offspring’s guitarist Noodles says in an interview. “It’s a great venue, a lot of fun. The air base was less hospitable than the venue built by Nazis.”

There were nonstop performances held a mile apart from each other on the grounds. One highlighted its mosh pits, the other the dance floor. The biggest electronic artist in the Rave Tent proves his genre’s atmosphere opens doorways to perception. “There is a sixth sense that you develop when you spend your life going to venues,” Moby says in an interview. “We got off the bus and I was like, ‘Something is not right.'”

The film is very generous with behind-the-scenes footage. We are treated to aerial shots of cramped campsites, long ATM lines, leaky Port-O-Potties oozing something that only looked like mud, and $4 water bottles, which sold as much as beer in temperatures over 100 degrees. We are told in advance three people died, 44 were arrested. There were 10 reported sexual assaults.

The lineup for the concert was a mix of hard rock bands, pop stars, and hip-hop acts like The Roots, and ICP. Rapper DMX’s epithetic call and response performance gets special notice. “The Black performer is essentially licensing the people in the crowd to say this word with him,” New York Times’ Wesley Morris says in an interview. “If you got each one of these guys after the show, and pulled them aside and said, ‘is it OK to say the N-word under any circumstances?’ They would, to a person, say, ‘I mean, the right answer is no, right?’”

For returning music aficionados with remnants of the first gathering still in their memories, organizers booked jam bands and a few older acts like Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, and The Who’s John Entwistle. “The ’99 Woodstock seemed like it was trying to relive a nostalgic moment, along with commercialism and capitalism, but not having a real soulful purpose for the show,” singer-songwriter Jewel says in an interview.

As the documentary points out, a lot of the younger attendees had no idea what Wyclef Jean was referencing in his solo guitar performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” They ask one kid, who can’t remember who did it first even though he’s standing directly under a huge stencil of Jimi Hendrix’s name. When Bush’s Gavin Rossdale begins Country Joe & the Fish’s “Gimme an F,” the chanters only seek Amy.

Music is supposed to have charms which soothe the savage breast. Many people think the final word of the phrase is “beast,” and the documentary further blurs the line. The early ‘90s music artists were anti-misogynist, anti-racist, anti-homophobic and radically informed. Happening at the end of the Clinton era, when MTV pitted boy bands and pop girls against nü-metal rockers, a fur-coated Kid Rock could call Monica Lewinsky a ho and pass it off as a political statement.

Toxic masculinity’s dirty sister framed Britney Spears as a “Girls Gone Wild” extra, and magazines like Maxim and FHM encouraged the idea young men could shout “show your tits” to Rosie Perez without getting bitch-slapped, the documentary posits. Only three women were invited to perform at the weekend-long, two-stage festival: Jewel, Alanis Morrissette, and Sheryl Crow. “I’m baffled how it went from the progressive, enlightened values of Kurt Cobain and Michael Stipe to misogyny and homophobia and the rape-frat boy culture that was at Woodstock ‘99,” Moby ponders in the film.

Of course, none of wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t all pre-staged. This is where Price dips into the era’s obsession with paranoia. It was the end of the millennium, the Columbine shootings had happened, and the Y2K bug was coming. It was finally time to party like it’s 1999. “Really, the biggest problem was that MTV set the tone,” organizer John Scher says in an interview.

But he downplays it, like he might have been warned by Cigarette Smoking Man from The X-Files. “There’s no question that a few incidents took place. But if you go back in the records of the police and state police and stuff, we’re not talking about 100. Or even 50. We’re talking about 10. I am critical of the hundreds of women that were walking around with no clothes on, and expecting not to be touched. They shouldn’t have been touched, and I condemn it. But you know, I think that women that were running around naked, you know, are at least partially to blame for that.”

Partial blame is all the rage in Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage. The documentary points out how history paints the original Woodstock like it really was a return to the garden, with peace and love and former flower children having babies to Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice.” But music journalist Steven Hyden reminds us about a group of disgruntled shoppers called “’The Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers,” who didn’t like food prices and burned dozens of stands down.

After Woodstock ’99 grounds started smoking when the candles handed out for a vigil for Columbine victims became torches to burn the place down, the documentary says Rome Mayor Joseph Griffo asked Anthony Kiedis to douse the crowd’s misplaced enthusiasm. The Red Hot Chili Peppers launched into a scorching rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.” History blames bands like Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Rage Against the Machine for the destruction. But really, the artistic decision of that song to those circumstances is a no-brainer. “Smoke on the Water” would have been too easy. “Disco Inferno” would have been too obvious.

The documentary talks with the event’s organizers, as well as performers like Korn’s Jonathan Davis, The Offspring, Scott Stapp of Creed, The Roots’ Black Thought. Wesley Morris and Spin‘s Maureen Callahan put things into perspective. The only person the documentary doesn’t talk with is Fred Durst, the frontman for Limp Bizkit, who became the poster boy for the event’s bad behavior. Oh, they talk about him, though. They talk about him like he’s not there, and because he’s not there they must think he won’t see it. At the height of Limp Bizkit’s set, the singer encouraged the crowd to “Break Stuff.” But let’s be fair, it is the name of their song, and Durst is the guy who told the crowd to pick someone up if they fall, not to grope them.

This is what happens when the counterculture makes money. Everyone wants a piece. Woodstock 99: Love, Peace, and Rage is an even-handed dispenser of blame, and has slices for all. The first in a series of music-based documentaries from Bill Simmons’ Ringer Films, this immersive journey bodes well for upcoming tunes.

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Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage is available to stream on HBO Max now.

The post Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage Review: Behind the Scenes of a Musical Disaster appeared first on Den of Geek.

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sea-and-storm · 6 years

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UNNOTICED: Backstory Drabble

Had a slow work day and decided to spend it writing up a backstory drabble for Ghoa that I’ve had rolling about my mind for the past.. while. Nothing too important for current plot purposes, but it was cathartic to get it written down finally!

Trigger warnings for suicide mention. Nothing too explicit or detailed, but it’s pretty unambiguous what’s being referred to, so it might still make you feel uncomfortable if you’re sensitive to such content. It’s in the paragraph right under the cut, so if you wanna skip it just skip over that and you should be alright! Read with care, friends! ♥

[ SEVERAL YEARS AGO : Kugane ]

For almost all of her life, Ino Ghostwalker had excelled at going completely unnoticed.

Her apparent invisibility had started with her childhood, the middle child of three to two modest Hingan produce merchants. Her father had always focused wholly on her elder brother Takehiro, who would one day take over the family business in his stead. Her mother's attention had been devoted to her younger sister Chifumi, a sickly and frail little thing that had come into the world well before her time and had seemed to stay in poor health ever since. Acknowledgement had been scarce, and affection even moreso.

She had thought that things might change in the summer of her tenth year. A shipment had come in from Yanxia and with it had come a swift and powerful sickness that claimed the lives of her mother and both siblings. As if such a loss weren't heavy enough to bear, the Sekiseigumi had come to their home upon learning of what had happened to confiscate the goods. The sickness had to be stopped from spreading, naturally. Yet they hadn't stopped with only the goods in question. Anything and everything that they owned which they suspected of contamination had been put to the torch. Goods, clothes, personal effects.. Almost all of it had been burned to ashes, leaving them with next to nothing and only the barest compensation for the loss.

But there had been a morbid sort of silver lining in it all, or so Ino had thought. Even if it struck her with guilt to think so, she had thought that perhaps now someone would finally notice her. After all, her father no longer had a business to pass on and no heir to prepare even if he did. No more late nights would be spent nursing a sickly toddler to sleep. There was only her and her father, so surely he would finally acknowledge and cherish her.

She had been wrong, so very wrong. Her father had never recovered from the loss, only continuing to drift further and further from her with each day. Not even a full cycle later, Ino had returned one day to find him hanging in their home. She hadn't even bothered to report it to the authorities. Eventually a debt collector would come for one of the many bills they owed and it would be discovered. The note that he had left behind about "longing to return to his beloved wife and children" would make it apparent that there was no foul play involved. Even if they did suspect it? She had doubted that anyone even remembered that he had another daughter, or that they would recognize her face or know her name to search for her if they did.

Life on the streets had been tough, but had gotten a touch easier when she had found a new home of sorts. She had fallen in with a small gang of other orphans and misfits, banding together to make a life for themselves in whatever way they could. She had learned skills there that would serve her well for the rest of her days: how to sneak about, how to pick locks and pockets, how to sell the items she had pilfered. And for once, for the first time in her life, she had thought that being invisible could be a good thing.

Then Ino had met her.

Newly arrived in Kugane, the doe-eyed Xaela woman had clearly been out of her element. The thief had stalked her through the streets, silently observing her. She had seemed more civilized than the rest of her kind, at least, and she had some money on her person. Ino had watched the Au Ra barter for what seemed to be reagents for some manner of herbalism, and had rolled her eyes when the ignorant woman had allowed herself to be taken in each step of the way by the city's more predatory merchants. Like the sharks of the Ruby Sea, they could smell naivety like chum in the waters and hesitated not to seize upon it.

Ino could have made her move at any time, either "bumping into" her and snatching her purse or cornering her in an alleyway with a knife in hand. She doubted that she would have had to actually use it to get her to turn her coin over. This odd Xaela didn't seem half so cocksure as the others of her ilk that the sneak thief had met, more akin to a quivering little bird than a blooded steppe warrior. It seemed like only a threat of violence would be enough to cow her.

But she hadn't. Even if she had had every chance in the world to rob her blind and go on her way, she hadn't. Instead, she had just kept watching with growing annoyance and dismay as the woman let herself be taken advantage of by each greedy merchant. She gritted her teeth every time she had given them a tentative smile and thanked them before heading onto the next. By the time she had reached the last stall and handed over her last bit of coin, Ino had been positively livid. The final straw had come when she had followed her all the way back to the quiet street corner that the Xaela had decided to claim for herself, no longer having the money to afford even the most meager of lodgings.

Yet when she finally left, she couldn't get the frustratingly foolish woman out of her head. So she had retraced her steps, sticking to the shadows as she went from booth to booth that the woman had visited, swiping however much coin that she could. More, even, if the merchant had been especially vile in their swindling. And once she was done revisiting them all, she had returned to where she had left the Xaela and dropped the full purse in her lap along with a lecture and a demand for her to find a proper place to stay before some ill fate befell her.

It should have ended there with the same stunned, tongue-tied look people usually gave her when she spoke up and they finally noticed her. But it hadn't. The girl had followed her.

At first, it was innocent enough. Despite her exasperation with her, Ino had taught her new hanger-on about the city. Mostly she taught her the most general manner of things, like what was what and who was who and what was where. Now and again, she found herself teaching the other bits and pieces of the tricks that had been taught to her. How to survive in the shadows of Kugane, how to make a life in a city of people that would eat a person alive if it meant they could get even a single step ahead.

Eventually she became oddly accustomed to the company, and every day she would wonder if it would be the last. The girl was growing smarter than she had ever expected, taking to the lessons more quickly than she would have thought from that initial impression alone. She finally seemed to have her bearings about her and enough of an understanding of how Kugane worked that she could have easily made it on her own. Soon she would leave her, Ino was convinced, the same way that people always left her when she was no longer useful to them. The Xaela would be gone, and Ino would be back to being invisible.

Yet days gradually turned to weeks, and still she lingered. Weeks turned to months, and somewhere along the line, Ino had stopped expecting that day of her departure to come. Their being together seemed as natural and inevitable as the sun rising over the waters of the Ruby Sea each morning. Eventually, the months turned them to lovers and that foolish Xaela herbalist had somehow become more precious to her than anything she had ever stolen. With Ghoa, for the first time, Ino was no longer invisible. She felt she was no longer like a ghost, but a living and breathing person.

With her figurative return to life and the odd sense of exhilaration that it had brought with it had come new ambitions. No longer was she content to drift aimlessly and scrape by, but within her was a newfound desire to rise. With that desire came a want -- no, a need -- to finally be seen in earnest, to be acknowledged and respected by not only her lover, but by others.

And so, she had constructed a plan for them to make it big, for both her and Ghoa to rise from petty street crimes to something greater. The opportunity had presented itself when rumors began rippling about the Hingan underbelly of the death of the well-known and respected Hisakawa Mifune. With the man’s death, his family's once prolific drug business had passed on to his eldest son, Hisanobu. Yet no sooner had the mantle passed than had the family begun to fall upon hard times. Rumors swirled about suppliers failing to deliver and customers defecting. Competitors were beginning to barge into their markets and put the long-time staple of Kugane’s drug trade to ruin.

It was only natural that such organizations would rise and fall over time, but there was more to this particular story. After all, Ino had had firsthand knowledge of how said competitors had strong-armed their way in. Those she knew from the street had been running shipments from old Mifune suppliers to this new group in place of their usual porters, to try to keep the move hush-hush. If anyone knew that these weren't simply natural fluctuations in the market but a carefully manufactured power grab, it was her. And she knew how to prove it.

With the help of her lover's potions, she had crept unnoticed into the home of one of the family's prominent suppliers. The man had bemoaned problems from piracy to poor yields, but the ledgers that she had stolen and taken to Mifune Hisanobu had shown the truth: there was no shortage, and that all of the product that he had once sold under agreement only to their family for generations was now being sold at a premium price to their competitors.

The betrayal had been dealt with, and the new head of the merchant's family had seemed much more willing to honor their former agreement. In fact, he had even lowered their prices for a time as a way to show his deepest apology for his predecessor's greed. Once that example had been made, other suppliers that they had had trouble with slowly but surely seemed to be resolving their own issues. The Mifune family’s problems weren’t wholly fixed, of course, but it was a promising start on their return to glory.

But most importantly to Ino, she had accomplished exactly what she wanted. Hisanobu had been grateful for their work, and In exchange had offered them not only great compensation but a more permanent position among their business. The family could always use another set of eyes and ears in the shadows, he had told her. Even Ghoa would have a place among them, helping to produce and develop new drugs for them to peddle.

Things had seemed so perfect at first. Ino finally had everything she had ever wanted: money and success, recognition and appreciation, and someone to share both her bed and her secrets. But she should have known that nothing perfect lasted forever. That wasn't the way this cruel world worked.

It started with her own work for the family taking her away more often, to further places, for longer times. In her absence, Ghoa had been taken under Hisanobu's wing. With him guiding and teaching her as Ino herself once had, the Xaela had begun to develop quite a knack for the more intricate aspects of their business. Under his direction, she was cultivating a cleverness and charm about her that had helped him win over no small number of business allies.

It was clear that she was flourishing, and for that Ino should have been happy. But she couldn't stop the jealousy that swelled inside her like a rising tide every time she thought about it. Every time she came home to find Ghoa in Hisanobu's company. Every time she heard the rumors, passed about too often and too openly not to be true, of the pair of them sharing company as more than simply business partners.

Slowly, that feeling of invisibility had begun to return and Ino had embraced it out of spite and hurt. She took on more jobs and only returned to Kugane when it was necessary, and only stayed for as long as she had to. It gave her the chance to see more of Hingashi, of Yanxia, even going so far as the Azim Steppe on occasion. But it all felt so hollow, like she wasn't even there at all. Once more she was totally unseen, scarcely more than a shadow with a pulse. The name she had been given by the Mifune family as a badge of honor -- Ghostwalker -- now seemed more a mocking insult.

Months more had passed, and at the end of a long stint in Yanxia, Ino had once again returned home. Time to make her reports, get her next assignment, make her preparations, and leave again. Yet this time when she arrived, she had found Ghoa missing. Apparently no one had seen her in a week or so, and no one had heard mention of where she was going. Even Hisanobu was in the dark, distraught at the thought of his precious lover leaving him. That alone would have given her some measure of satisfaction had the whole thing not struck her as strange. Ghoa had it so well here. Why would she leave without a word to anyone..?

So Ino had delved deeper into the mystery and found the truth. She had learned of Hisanobu's viciously jealous wife's plan to have the interfering Xaela captured and sold off like chattel. She had learned where they held her, waiting for her buyer to make landfall and take her far away from them all.

And Ino had decided, for kami only knew what reason, that she couldn't let that happen.

Finding them in the small village outside of Kugane proper had been easy, and sneaking past the first guards at the perimeter even easier. Yet dealing with the last man stationed at the small outbuilding in which Ghoa was held was much harder. Ino was a spy and a thief, not an assassin and certainly not a fighter. But still, after a lengthy struggle, she had managed to kill him.

Upon prying open the crate, the Xaela inside had first pressed herself to the very back of it, cowering in fear. Only when Ino crouched down and cooed words of reassurance to her did Ghoa seem to realize who she was. Those silver eyes widened and instantly set to watering when she saw her, and that look had her chest feeling like someone had wrapped their hand about her heart and squeezed tightly.

Quickly, she ushered the weak Auri woman from her confines and set to their escape. It was slow-going, but eventually the pair had made it out of the village on the road back to Kugane. They hadn’t quite made it even halfway there when Ino’s shaking legs finally gave out from under her and she could go no further.

She had succeeded in killing the guard, but it hadn’t been without serious injury. The man's knife had sunk into her flesh a handful of times in the scuffle, and now the blood that had steadily been leaking from the wounds was too much to bear.

"No, no, no.."

She could hear the panicked whimpering of the Xaela as she dropped down next to her, could feel Ghoa’s trembling hands feeling for her wounds. Her eyes closed for a moment once she felt the twinge of aether washing over them, dim and weak, only for those hands to pull away with a hissed string of curses and sobs. The other had to know as well as she did that she was far too weakened from captivity to even hope to heal such grievous wounds.

"Shhh.." Ino tried to soothe her, reaching up to brush her hand against her cheek. "It's alright."

"Ino," Ghoa gasped, her voice cracking. "But you're--" Another gasping sob wracked her as she crumpled forward, leaning over her. She could feel the warmth of her tears dropping down, landing on her cheeks.

She opened her mouth to try to murmur some sort of comfort, but it was so difficult to summon forth the words. Even if she could, she didn't know what to say. Any time Ino had ever imagined what her final moments would be like, all she could picture were solitude and silence. She was prepared to go as quietly as she lived, to be unseen even in death. She hadn't prepared for this.

Further down the dirt path, she could hear the quiet, distant sound of voices calling out to one another. When she turned her head towards them, she could see the light specks of what she assumed were lanterns. A grimace settled onto her lips as she looked back to Ghoa.

"Go," she rasped.

"I can't," the Xaela sobbed. "Ino, I can't just leave you here. This is my fault. I have to--"

"Ghoa."

There was so much she wanted to say. Don't blame yourself, she wanted to tell her. I feel more alive right now than I ever have because of you. But that was too much. Too many words. She didn't have the strength for them all. There were only a few left in her, and so she had to choose them carefully. She had to make them count.

Ino reached up, carefully pulling the other down until their foreheads were pressed together. She sucked in as deep of a shaking breath as she could manage.

"I love you," she whispered, her hold loosening. "Now go." Her hand gently fell back to her side, and her last word to the other was pleading, desperate. "Please."

For a moment, it seemed like Ghoa would continue to stubbornly linger. But finally, she began to pull away. Though her eyes were losing focus, Ino could see the other’s lips moving. Vaguely, she could hear that she was saying something, but she simply couldn't discern the words. It gave her only the vaguest hint of annoyance that she would leave this world never knowing what she had said. But she suspected that she knew what they were all the same. That was enough. It would have to be.

As Ghoa finally rose to her feet, Ino closed her eyes and listened to the sound of her hurried footsteps growing fainter and fainter. Only some time later did she hear more approaching from the opposite direction, from the men in pursuit of them. Yet steeped in the shadows as she was by the roadside, not a single one stopped nor even slowed. The corner of her lips just barely pulled into a wry smirk at the ironic realization.

For the final time, Ino Ghostwalker went completely unnoticed.

#Restless Seas #Ghoa Mankhad #Ino Ghostwalker #backstory #drabble #tw: suicide mention #damn these FEELS #it's nabi and anchor's fault #they did this to me #blame them

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 3 years

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Mixi on her band's new album, how rock can help out its front women, and diversity in the rock scene

Formed in 2010 by lead singer Alecia “Mixi” Demner, the LA-based rock band Stitched Up Heart is all about carrying the torch of modern rock forward. To do that, Mixi wants the rock scene to be more inclusive of its female frontwomen and to be given the credit they’re due for their hard work.

Stitched Up Heart came to prominence with their 2016 freshman album Never Alone. They signed to Another Century Records after five years of hard work and hoping to have enough gas money to make it to the next venue, and now have been on numerous charts, sitting at #7 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums chart, #14 on Billboard’s Independent Albums Chart, and # 4 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. Additionally, the band has garnered 20 million worldwide streams, collaborated with Sully Erna of Godsmack on their track ‘Lost’, and have three top 30 mainstream rock hits to their name. They’ve since followed up with their sophomore effort, Darkness, which was released on March 31. Produced by Matt Good (Asking Alexandria and Hollywood Undead), it saw them shift from their usual goth metal sound to an experimental electronic sound.

Between putting out the spellbinding music video for their new single ‘Darkness’ off of their sophomore effort of the same name, finding new ways to connect with fans by streaming nightly on Twitch, and planning for a tour that’s been rescheduled for next May, there’s a lot on the band’s plate.

We had the chance to discuss the new single, the fun of being on Twitch, and championing diversity in the rock scene.

In a recent interview, you stated that the rock scene could do much more to help its front women. In your opinion, how can this happen?

There’s a massive difference in how many women there versus how many men there are in heavier music. If you look at any other genre, like pop or country, there are always more women, or it’s at least even. With the heavier side of music, women aren’t as popular as males. I don’t know if that has to do with the music’s angst and aggression, like people want to punch a punching bag or jump in a mosh pit. For some reason, there are not enough women. I feel like there definitely should be more women. The women in the scene are tight-knit, support each other, and lift each other rather than tearing each other down. The unity between the women here is awesome. Radio stations will play two bands with women in it at a time, and there aren’t many options. I spoke with another female artist I know in a metal band, and she said that a label wouldn’t take them because they already had a female-fronted band, and there were festivals they couldn’t get on because they were a band with a girl in it, like, “oh, we have enough girls.” There’s been an astronomical difference in the number of women in the industry comparatively, and it still has a lot of room to grow. Seeing people get nominated for Grammys at this moment shows that there’s hope for females in this industry. It’s not just the guys who can do it. Girls can do it too.

Speaking of inequality in the rock scene, what has your personal experience been like as a frontwoman in the scene?

For us, we’ve gotten lucky. Sometimes it got a little bit creepy, but not in a way that freaked me out. Like, somebody licked my ear once. But that was just weird. Sometimes I would crowd surf, and people would be like, “why would you go and jump in there?”. For the most part, people are respectful and know not to grab things. That’s been my experience; I know everyone is different. Who knows? Maybe we haven’t gotten to the level where you get the extra, extra creepy ones. I think it’s the appeal that we have and the message that we try to send that people understand that it’s not a sexual thing and about getting to know people on a deeper level.

What kind of diversity would you like to see in the rock scene?

POC and LGBTQ rock bands. I think that there needs to be more diversity in general. The world is changing, and I believe that people are starting to realize that and see that. I think things are evolving, and I hope everyone will be welcomed with open arms; guys, girls, black, white, gay, straight. It doesn’t matter. The only thing you can do is keep pushing for what you want to see change.

Let’s talk about your new single, ‘My Demon’. What’s the inspiration and meaning behind it?

It was kind of about how we always pretend that we’re all good and angelic and perfect like everything’s great and we never do anything wrong, but we’re not all the time. Everybody has a little bit of a devil on their shoulder telling them, “you know that’s wrong,” but it looks fun, so let’s do it anyway. (laughs) I think it’s about just being okay with that and embracing the fact that we’re not perfect. It’s okay not to be good all the time. We have our dark and our light, our good and our bad. It’s what balances us.

What inspired you to make your sophomore album Darkness? What can fans take away from it?

The actual album, if you listen to the whole thing… The record that we did before, which is called Never Alone, we just got signed after five years of pushing, and we got a record deal, management agency, and bookings — everything was looking great. So in Never Alone, lyrically, I felt like the world was open like, “OMG. There’s this whole light at the end of the tunnel. You should check it out,” and then darkness happened. And you go through stuff, and life happens. Things don’t always work out the way you want them to, and there are challenges and obstacles. After going through stuff over and over again, I realized, “how do I talk about the deep stuff?” and also bring to light, like, “I’ve been through this before, and I’m not afraid anymore.” I came out alive before, and I can do it again. I have to wait it out and fight through it. It’s about going through dark times over and over and not being afraid anymore.

What was it like to work with producer Matt Good (producer for Asking Alexandria and Hollywood Undead) on your sophomore effort?

Matt is a genius, like a mastermind when it comes to producing, vibes, and chemistry. The producers sometimes become part of the band depending on who we decide to go with and what vision we have for the record. We don’t want everything to sound the same all the time. I had this vision, and we weren’t finding it anywhere else. When Matt and I got together to co-write and see what would happen, it just clicked. He knew exactly what I wanted and exactly what I heard in my brain. It’s hard to translate that unless you’re all on the same page. So when we decided to go with a producer, he was perfect for this record. Asking Alexandria is an amazing band, and I always looked up to them. Hollywood Undead have been around forever, and it’s been pretty awesome seeing them grow as well. Matt is a cool, chill dude, and I’m like, “dude, he’s the biggest producer of all time,” but he’s a very, very talented guy.

I saw that you streamed Dungeons and Dragons on Twitch recently. How else have you passed the time during quarantine?

As soon as I found out the tour was postponed (a spring tour in conjunction with Sebastian Bach that has been pushed to next May), I ordered a pizza. I was going to the gym every day, getting ready for the tour, making sure I was strong enough to go through those sets as much as I could. Then I called up the kitten rescue that I foster with and fostered baby kittens. I’ve had many kittens that I’ve taken care of in a couple of litters and got them to be adopted. The band is a business, there’s no money coming in, and it was expensive, so the business started to go into the red. We had to figure out how to keep it alive. We’re not touring in vans again until we come back, so Twitch was recommended by our manager, who had another band he helped get boosted who rely on touring, and their families can’t survive without it. They found a way to make it help the band. It’s been cool to connect with people. At first, I didn’t really want to do it because of being antisocial, and there’s a lot of computers and technical stuff involved with streaming. We do it nightly now at 6 pm. It’s almost like our own little show. Each of us gets our own little segment. I stream two nights a week, and the other guys do their share. Luckily, we found some sort of pivot and a way to stay connected with everyone, without touring, and not disappear.

What advice do you have for aspiring female rockers?

I would say for anybody, no matter what anybody tells you, no matter how many times you’re going to fail, you have to keep moving forward, and you have to work hard at what you love and follow your heart. No matter what it is, if you follow your heart, whether it’s music or law or working with horses, whatever you want to do, just follow the path that your heart leads you to. Work your butt off and know that’s the right one. Nobody wants to do something for the rest of their life that they don’t love. So follow what your heart tells you to follow and go for it 100%. You have to work hard, take constructive criticism; it’s a vulnerable place to be a musician in the public eye. But no matter what, you have to keep going and not listen to what anybody tells you. No matter what the job is, the choice or path of life you want to go to, people are going to tell you that you can’t, and you have to prove them wrong.

#alecia mixi demner #stitched up heart #2020 interviews

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