#…….it’s been ten years since 1989 came out (essentially)

[placeinthisworld]

im convinced time isn’t real

[cleolinda]

Samsara (Guerlain, 1989 EdP & 2023 EdT)

A sandalwood overdose embellished by ylang-ylang and jasmine. Samsara is the first woody women's fragrance in perfumery. It is constructed over a beautifully crafted sandalwood, used for the first time in these quantities in perfumery. (Guerlain.com)

From Eau de Tati, the back story:

Jean-Paul Guerlain created Samsara in 1985 for Decia de Powell, the woman he loved and who wore the fragrance for four years before it was launched. Jean-Paul took the opportunity to create the perfume for her, as she could not find a perfume that appealed to her. She liked jasmine and sandalwood, in particular, and these were the raw materials on which Samsara was based.

It seems that Gérard Anthony co-created the fragrance, but Guerlain has always loved a good legend. Whether the Sanskrit word "saṃsāra" ("the concept of rebirth and 'cyclicality of all life, matter, existence'") suits the fragrance as a name is a lengthy discussion I'll leave to others.

On the face of it, Samsara is another Guerlain journey into orientalism (stop that!); it's a classic example of loud 1980s fragrance (outdated); it's a benchmark in the Western perfume industry's use of sandalwood (notable). I wanted to write up this one purely because I already had it on hand: when I say "1989," I mean, my mom gave me an eau de parfum sample in 1989. I would have been about ten years old, and I loved collecting little sample vials that gave me too many headaches to actually use—just to keep in my little treasure boxes full of costume jewelry and tumbled rocks and skeleton keys. Apparently I was a magpie, or maybe a dragon. There's only about five molecules left, but as it turns out, that is more than enough.

I also ordered a fresh decant of the current formulation from the Perfumed Court—all they had was the eau de toilette, not the EdP, so this is not a one-to-one comparison. Instead, we have, on one hand, the most aged a Samsara can get, saved since its debut year, and on the other, the lightest, freshest iteration possible. It's lovely, that new EdT. But it's not what I expected at all. A couple of years ago I managed to uncork the 1989 Samsara, and all I got was this incredible note of mingled sandalwood and jasmine—just the richest, smoothest, deepest thing you've ever smelled. But the new one, from my notes: "BUBBLEGUM??"

Powdery fresh floral, rose? Like a living flower that happens to be powdery, not a cosmetic. Very very fresh and outdoorsy, like a garden. The vague idea of sandalwood underneath. Something a bit sweeter coming out, maybe vanilla jasmine. Very light, very easy to wear. Airy, breezy. Sheer.

And then, ten minutes in, bubblegum came out. Motherfucking bubblegum. I had to look up what the old-fashioned Bazooka Joe-type flavor is, because it's not that—there's no tiny twang of clove or wintergreen hiding behind the fruits and vanilla. This is straight-up Juicy Fruit gum. Which involves banana, pineapple, and maybe peach, for a flavor "resembling jackfruit." Now, apparently jackfruit contains "banana oil," aka isoamyl acetate, so I went and googled it on a hunch: yes, it’s in ylang ylang too. Combine that with Samsara's actual peach note (although it smells fresher than the lactone in Mitsouko) and vanilla—

Basenotes.com: Green notes, peach, ylang ylang, bergamot, lemon, iris and orris, violet, jasmine, rose, narcissus, sandalwood, tonka, amber, musk, and vanilla.

—and you've got a powdery-nectar sandalwood bubblegum. It's so good. Two birthdays ago, I got myself a wide-ranging set of essential oils, just so I could see what things smell like individually; the night after I tried Samsara, I started messing around with them, and it's 10,000% the ylang that's bringing the strange fruity note. I rarely if ever see anyone mention the ylang-ylang in Samsara—they always talk about how strong the jasmine is, but I SWEAR TO YOU that this is what it does on me. In fact, twenty minutes in, Bubble Ylang was mostly what I was smelling.

At the same time, the fresh EdT was really, really powdery—you see iris there in not one but two levels of the note pyramid, and orris is just iris root. The classic Guerlains use the ionones of iris and violet a lot; they're in the house accord, the Guerlinade, which I may also try to get a sample of. But the powder is so much stronger in Samsara than I expected. I was promised a sandalwood overdose, and I'm sitting here with Juicy Fruit floating over a bed of irises—like the row of cool dark purple ones we had lining our driveway when I was a kid—at the half-hour mark. According to my notes, I didn't really get ~sandalwood until an hour-twenty, and even that was still blurring into the ylang-ylang. (Apparently these two notes are really compatible; it's the only thing same combination I liked in Chanel No. 5.) That said, it's lovely and sweet and easygoing if you APPLY SPARINGLY. Of the three Guerlains I've tried, this one was by far the easiest to wear.

Which is wild, because supposedly, Samsara is A Sandalwood Bomb, a true big-hair fume of the '80s that will choke you out of a room. And yet, I didn't even get the sandalwood clearly until more than an hour in. There's two reasons for this, I discovered:

One is that I microdose perfume. I always point this out because I want you to understand that if you apply more fragrance than I do, you are not going to get the tame results I do. If you spray Tyrannosaurus Rex all over yourself, there is nothing god or mortal can do for you. I used two swipes of the Samsara sample wand on my left wrist—and it did project a good bit, but it was comfortable. If I'd done the same on my right wrist to balance it out, I would have considered myself good to go for a perfume-appropriate occasion. Maybe if you didn't deploy FIVE SPRAYS you wouldn’t be choking on it, idk idk.

The other reason is that the current formulation of Samsara uses Australian sandalwood—whereas the original used a much richer Indian variety. I was surprised to discover that Samsara has always been formulated as a meeting of natural and synthetic sandalwoods, though. But the current version has a newer synthetic: Javanol. And the thing about Javanol is that some people can't smell it. And I may be one of them. Because there is no reason "an overdose of sandalwood" should smell this modest to me, in the same perfume that is shouting white floral, unless I physically cannot perceive its loudest component. But I'm smelling some sandalwood; that must be the natural oil.

For more on Javanol, I turn to a fragrance I haven't actually tried yet: Escentric Molecules' Molecule 04. Javanol is, in fact, that molecule. The product website explains, it's a synthetic that

retains the radiance and endurance of natural sandalwood, but is sheer and transparent like no sandalwood in nature. “What I love about Javanol is its almost psychedelic freshness,” says [creator] Geza Schoen. “It smells as if liquid metallic grapefruit peel were poured over a bed of velvety cream-coloured roses.” Javanol is like Iso E Super, the molecule in Escentric Molecules 01, in some ways. Like Iso E Super, it comes and goes. The person wearing it loses the ability to smell it after a short while, only to re-connect with it later.

Well, "it comes and goes" may be why I'm not smelling as much sandalwood in Samsara as advertised, I guess—maybe I’m not totally anosmic to Javanol? The company that makes it, Givaudan, says that the aromachemical has

a rich, natural, creamy sandalwood note like beta santanol combined with  some rosy nuances. It can also be used at very low dosage (below 0.1%)  to bring richness and creaminess to all types of accords. With its exceptional low threshold, Javanol™ is approximately 8 times more effective in wash tests than the most powerful sandalwood product. [...] In the quest for the perfect Indian Sandalwood, Javanol™ is probably the most versatile note with its power, radiance, woodiness and rosiness, blending perfectly with flowers.

Javanol blends so perfectly with ylang and jasmine, in fact, that I can hardly distinguish it through most of Samsara's lifespan on my skin (I appreciate a good olfactory chimera, so that's fine). I can also see why you'd reformulate Samsara, already famous for its Godzilla-sized projection, with the biggest, loudest synthetic sandalwood on the market. But the thing is, the Beast of Givaudan wasn't created until 1996. Javanol may be what Guerlain has paired with Australian sandalwood nowadays, but my original sample was made with [probably a mix of synthetics including] Givaudan's Sandalore and the good stuff—20% (!) Mysore sandalwood.

Mysore Sandalwood Oil is a trademarked perfume oil extracted from the Santalum album variety of sandalwood tree (also known as a "royal tree") in the Mysore district of Karnataka, India. The tree species is said to be one of the best varieties in the world. (Wikipedia, the most concise explainer)

It's also the most expensive. But while I'm sure reformulations are a cost-cutting measure, sandalwood sustainability has also become a huge issue; I'm happy with synthetics if it helps the cause. The Australian sandalwood used in the current Samsara seems to be a popular and less-threatened natural option; it's also in two other fragrances I'm trying at the moment, Le Labo's Santal 33 and Tom Ford's Santal Blush. But it's like the difference between tulle and velvet. You can still use it beautifully, but there is a smoothness and a weight that's missing. People say that Mysore sandalwood is "creamy," even sweet, and it is, but not in a dairy or dessert way; it's legitimately this kind of olfactory texture that's so good. By contrast, the scent of Australian sandalwood feels a little harsh in the top of my nose, full of wood grain and pencil shavings, but also lighter. And yet it blends just as well with the notes of the new Samsara, just in different ways.

As for the old—Mysore and Sandalore® were what greeted me when I uncapped my vintage, 34-year-old sample:

oh my god. ohhhhh my gooooood.

That big sweet fruity ylang-ylang immediately bounced right out—how had I only smelled jasmine in the vial before? I'll stop here and tell you a little bit about ylang-ylang, which is not the note I was expecting to go on about, but here we are:

When you hear about "white florals," they're generally talking about jasmine, gardenia, tuberose (you'll remember this one from HYPNOTIC POISON), lily, lily of the valley—and ylang ylang, even though the latter is a showy yellow flower. I truly don't know how to describe the White Floral if you're not familiar with it, especially since I've never perceived any funky "animalic" indole notes. It's just good to me, very rich, very perfumy, and apparently it does, in an aromatherapy context, have a slightly sedative effect; this may be why people talk about "narcotic" white florals. Ylang-ylang takes the woozy richness of jasmine and, uniquely, adds that fruity, slightly spicy, banana-esque note; I'd love to look for the differences between white florals as I try out more fragrances. With Samsara(s), the jasmine doesn't seem distinct to me, serving instead to support the ylang-ylang, and maybe this is why I only smelled jasmine in the vial: it's my skin chemistry, once again, that's playing favorites.

You know what else my skin apparently loves? Expensive vintage sandalwood. The original Samsara skipped straight to the 1:20 mark and—speaking of narcotics—hit me like a tranquilizer dart. I just curled up on my bed and held my wrist to my nose for about an hour. I was like a cat on the 'nip. My God. I had some hand-me-down incense sticks from the '70s when I was a teenager, and I have been chasing that sandalwood high for three decades. This is it. The blanket of iris, the bergamot blast other reviewers talk about (I only got it the third time I wore the EdT), the supporting cast of notes—barely there. Just the gold.

For about two hours, it was amazing. Then, gradually, Samsara grew more and more overpowering, like a rogue science project slowly ballooning out of control. I ended up wiping it off with a little jojoba oil—not washing it off (DON'T WASTE IT!!), but reducing the amount I had on. There's only about two drops, thick as maple syrup, left in that vial, and that's fine.

Meanwhile, every time I wear the current eau de toilette, it disappears after about three hours.

I wish I'd been able to get a current EdP sample to compare the two formulations directly. But you know what? I still enjoy the iris-forward, sandalwood-backward Samsara. It's easy to wear and it doesn't overstay its welcome, which is a good thing for someone with fragrance sensitivities (me). As much as I love the smooth golden Mysore aspect, I'd rather have the option to reapply than be trapped with the Sandalwood That Ate 1989.

Perfume discussion masterpost

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Tuesday, 2 January 2023:

The Darden Smith bundle.

In 1989 I bought my first, and last, Darden Smith album. It was Evidence and actually it was by Darden Smith and Boo Hewerdine. It was fantastic, but I never investigated either artists any further and I was fine with that. Sometimes it just happens, one album by an artist is sufficient enough to carry you through for the rest of your days.

But these days I tend to explore the entirety of an artist's catalog, buying everything by them and listening to them chronologically so I can hear growth, change, whatever over the course of that person or band's career.

This stack of ten CDs you see in the photo above is not the entirety of Darden Smith's catalog. This stack essentially covers his discography from 2002 to 2022 (roughly, I'll break it down at the end of this entry). That excludes his work from his debut in 1986 up to 1993 when he released six albums. I would always rather hear an artist's earlier years than their later years if I have to do an abbreviated catalog study. Quite frankly, I'd rather not even study Smith's career, no offense to him.

Here's how it happened. My brother, the original Mr Catalog Study has been doing one on Smith since last year. He will occasionally post a Darden Smith song on God's Jukebox and it is generally good. But honestly, I'm a hundred years old and I've heard Americana music to death and I'd rather not engage with a new artist (to me) in that genre at this moment in time. I have a dozen other full catalogs to explore that I've not yet heard, so an Americana artist is way down low on my list of catalog studies. Still, my brother's enthusiasm bled over into my mind. And then he told me on Smith's website he is selling ten of his albums on CD for $50. What a deal! In my greedy mind ten albums for $50 is such a bargain why would you ignore it?

I almost hit the buy it now button on Smith's site but then I came to my senses. The last thing I wanted was ten late career albums by an artist who never intrigued me beyond the aforementioned Evidence, which is so good, I pulled it out and began playing last September when my brother bought his Darden Smith bundle.

Well, I was playing Evidence a lot, late at night. Mrs Echo was gone again for a week at a time and I'll often sit upstairs late, playing albums, having a couple of Shiners and evidently, after a few beers from Brew Works, I went home and played Evidence and had a couple more drinks and then...

...I awoke in the morning to a Pay Pal receipt in my email telling me I authorized $50 to Smith. I was so unhappy with myself that I ignored the fact I did this. That was September. Quite frankly I forgot about doing that foolish act until Christmas when my brother came to town and he told me he had to write Smith because it has been four months and nothing has ever shown in his mailbox. Smith himself responded that he has had distributor problems or something, I've already forgotten because I didn't want to be reminded of my failing will power. Long story short, Smith assured my brother his package will arrive shortly. I knew that must hold true for myself, even if I no longer wanted the damn things.

I am so angry with myself, my lack of will power, my greed and my enjoyment of Brew Works/ Shiner Bock. Oh well, now I'm stuck, I'm not buying more Smith, his catalog study will include this stack of ten and then I'm done. I don't need 18 Darden Smith albums crowding my CD shelf. Ten is bad enough.

Starting at the bottom of that stack in the photo above, here are the ten albums:

Deep Fantastic Blue (Plump Records) (released in 1996)

Sunflower (Dualtone) (released in 2002)

Circo (Dualtone) (released in 2004)

Field of Crows (Dualtone) (released in 2005)

Ojo (not on label) (released in 2006)

After All This Time: The Best of Darden Smith (Darden Music) (released in 2009)

Marathon (Darden Music) (released in 2010)

Love Calling (Compass Records) (released in 2013)

Everything (Compass) (released in 2017)

Western Skies (not on label) (released in 2022)

[gucciwins]

Roses and Romeo

Harry and Y/N come back to their hometown after eight years to open up a time capsule they buried ten years ago as high school sophomores. 

Word count: 20,534

A/N: Hello beautiful friends, hope you’ve been well. I’m really excited to share this story. It is a former high school sweethearts to lovers. Thank you to @havethetimeofyourstyles Jill for creating timetravelathon and allowing me to participate. I am very sorry it’s later but I finished!!! I do hope you all love it. 

Also this story is my baby, because i’ve never hit 20k before so this was new and exciting. I just had so many ideas for the story.

please come and tell me your favorite part!

_____

DECEMBER 1989 - SENIOR YEAR 

It's December, and all that is on her mind is how the grass would look covered in snow. The cold breeze, an extra jacket to stay warm, a blanket to bundle up with her favorite person. Safe to say, she can only imagine it because California, specifically Southern California, isn't so keen on giving her this one gift she asks for each year.

A huge smile spreads over her face as soon as she sees her house up ahead. 

It's not huge, but it is perfect for Y/N. She has the best memories growing up in a house full of love and laughter and the most gorgeous flowers. The iris and tulips bloomed extra bright this year. There is never a day her mom isn't fixing the garden. Her mother always makes sure she has fresh flowers in her room; right now, for the week, she has purple tulips. Also makes a lovely gift to take to her boyfriend. Harry always blushes when she brings him flowers. 

It also gets her extra kisses. 

Harry parks right outside but doesn't rush out to open her door like always, so she turns to look at him. He's tapping his fingers on the steering wheel; she patiently waits for him to speak up. 

She'd wait all day if she could; he has a beautiful face, one that she will never get tired of gazing at. She especially loves that curl that flops down over his forehead; as much as he pushes it away, it bounces back as if he never moved it.

"It's Friday, love." Harry begins, "I think you should consider coming with me to a party." 

She pouts. "No, I want to listen to that new record my dad found, and I also have lots to study. Big exam on Monday."

"You're always studying." He groans. 

She frowns. "Not true! Calculus is my biggest enemy. Mr. Leanza is not easy on us." 

"Okay, Miss 101%." He pokes her cheek. 

She huffs and crosses her arms over her chest in annoyance. 

"I'm not going to go just for you to tease me." 

Harry leans over and steals a kiss before she can dodge him. "Let's play a game." He sees her roll her eyes but asks her to hear him out. 

She gestures for him to go on. "I go in and quiz you. Zero wrong out of all the flashcards you have in that bag of yours, and I get to take you with me. I already have parent permission. I'll have you know."

She narrows her eyes at him. Not ever surprised that her parents agreed, they trust Harry. He's given them no reason not to. She's about to tell him, no, but he gives her a big smile. His dimples are on full display, and she finds herself agreeing. 

She mutters a small "okay." 

Harry smiles, knowing how she likes to make him work for it, but he really enjoys finding new ways to win her over. He might have cheated, flashing her his dimples that he knows she can't resist, but he never said he played fair. "Only if I get to drive Nessie." 

Nessie is Harry's classy white 1966 Mercedes-Benz 230 SL. She was never interested in cars, but Harry speaks so fondly of his car that she has come to learn so much about it and loves it just as much as Harry and her father together taught her how to change a tire and check the oil on Nessie. They want to prepare her for anything, and she is thankful because Harry likes to test her from time to time. 

Harry smirked, knowing how much she loves driving. She loves it but does not cave in letting her parents get her a car. Her parents have wanted to get her a car since she got her license at sixteen, but Y/N claims it is too much money to spend.

Her parents tell her they have saved enough for her and her education. It's like raising an only child. They remind Y/N all the time since her brother has graduated university and now lives in San Francisco as an engineer in a growing company. 

Harry has been meeting discreetly behind her back with her parents on gifting her a car this Christmas. Although he fears that having a car will mean less of him driving her around. Meaning they will spend less time together and fewer backseat make-out sessions, but on an upside also means he'd have to help her christen it. 

"Darling, you dating me for my car?" 

"Yes, dearie. I started dating you back in our first year because you had Nessie, not because of those dimples and lame jokes.

"You told me you love them!" Harry gasps, offended. 

"Tell you what you want to hear." She shrugs, getting out of the car. 

"Hurting my feelings, love." Harry now stands in front of her taking her bag from her hand and closing the door behind her. 

"Let's get inside." She pushes him to walk in quickly, knowing her parents aren't home yet and her mom isn't due for another thirty minutes, and she would really love to squeeze in a make-out session. 

"Compliment me, then we can go in." Harry stands firm in front of her, a teasing glimmer in his emerald eyes. 

She reaches up and places her hands on his cheek, planting a small kiss on his nose.  

"You're a dreamboat, Styles." She whispers.

Harry can't help the blush that seems to be taking over his entire face. 

She pecks his lips and skips around him. "Let's get studying, then you can help me pick my outfit for later." 

Harry shakes himself out of the trance she always seems to leave him in. "God knows you need it

JUNE 1998 - SUMMER HOME 

Y/N had always known she was a bit crazy but honestly, deciding on making a 44-hour road trip from Massachusetts to California, where her hometown of Aurora takes the cake. 

Yes, she knows how unsafe it is to be a woman on the road alone, but she saved up for the trip and would be spending the entire summer home for the first time since graduating high school. A plus was that she knows the map really well, having studied it hard like one of her anatomy books. Also, helped that her father quizzed her on what roads and exits she would be taking. 

She's a good driver; her father always told her everyone else is who she had to watch out for. Honestly, she thanked her family for pushing her to drive more, and now she loves being behind the wheel. 

The road was never-ending, taking her where she wanted, and currently, she was aiming for home. 

It's four hours until she reaches home, a home she has not lived in for over eight years. A place that holds her most precious memories as well as most heartbreaking.

She's driving with the window down, enjoying the breeze, knowing the heat will only get worse the closer to home. A car passes next to her; she looks over briefly, taking in the vehicle's blue color. It does look a bit old; as the driver accelerates their speed, she notices that it's a Mercedes-Benz but can't make the model seeing as the driver must be eager to reach their destination now speeding off. If she's honest, those types of cars remind her of one person, and that's how she knows she'll never escape because she finds meaning for them in anything and everything life has to offer. 

The last few hours on the road pass relatively quickly because the next thing she knows, she's parking her Jeep Cherokee in what she used to call her parking. This car has spent nine years with her and runs like a dream. It was a gift from her parents, and at the time, she was nervous about the gesture but really grew to love it. It also came in handy, seeing as she now lives far from home and visits as much as she can. She hopes to make more trips up now that she has residency but knows it will be harder to get holidays off. 

Her parents understand; they do. She's following her dreams and achieving each one, and that is all they could ever ask for. 

Y/N gets out and gets her suitcase; it has her essentials and anything she's missing; she can come out later to get it, well her father will most likely fight her and do it on his own. 

Just as she is about to open the door, it swings open. Her mother doesn't give her any time to react and simply wraps her in a hug. A tight one full of love and happiness, an embrace she will never get tired of. 

"Hi, momma," Y/N murmurs, not at all ready to let go.

"Hello, my sweet girl. It's good to have you home." 

"It's good being here. Feel younger already." 

"Ah, same here. Come inside; I have lemonade served up and muffins because they are your favorite." 

Y/N smiles, knowing how much her mother made sure to have her well-fed always. No matter what she told her, she wanted her with meat on her bones. This also meant anyone who she brought home was given a big meal as well. Telling everyone and anyone they were too thin then proceeding to provide them with a second serving. This was her mother's way of getting into people's hearts through their stomachs. 

Y/N walked into the kitchen and smiled at how nothing had changed. Hanging on the refrigerator were her three graduation photos: high school at seventeen, ready to take the world by storm, at twenty-one graduating with the highest honor from Columbia University, and the last was graduating Harvard Medical school this past spring. She knew the next to join would be a photo of her on the first day of her residency. 

"Your father refuses to take any down; when your brother comes into town, he complains. Your dad shuts him up by telling him to go be a doctor, and then they could talk." 

It warms Y/N's heart that her parents are proud of all the accomplishments she has made. It's been a tough road, but nothing stops her until she accomplishes her goals, and starting her residency is the next stop. 

"Like dad's office is covered full of his accomplishments since entering that job in San Francisco." She jokes, transitioning the conversation away from herself.

"The oldest child always seems to be the most jealous." Her mother reminds her.

After eating a muffin or two, her mom sends her off on a walk, not wanting her to be cooped up in the house on her first day back. She has always loved walking around. It's something she did when her friends weren't able to offer her a ride. Also, her parents would walk her to the park every weekend growing up to run around in the grass and ruin more clothes with grass stains.

It's no surprise that she arrives at the entrance of the town's park. It looks like there is no one around until she really enters and finds a family seated on a picnic planet as their youngest tries feeding their oldest strawberries. It's a sweet sight. 

She keeps going, not at all wanting to disturb; soon enough, she enters the part of the park no one really visits and finds the old park bench with lots of initials carved in the wood, hers included. It creaks as she sits on it; she smiles, knowing that it is something that has not changed. 

There aren't many flowers in this corner, just a big willow tree offering her shade that she very much enjoys. 

It's nice being home, she's missed it, but she has loved living in new places, making new friends and connections. She spent her first four years in New York, and she loved the environment. It was a university filled with thousands of people never seeing the same face twice in the halls. Everyone was always in a rush to get somewhere but not here, not at home. Everyone stops her for a conversation. They talk to her as if no time has happened, as if she was still the young girl who helped her mom tend the garden each weekend. 

In a way, she always will be. 

She wanted this time to explore and travel because she knows this where she'll come back one day to lay her roots. She and her future husband will marry here, maybe at the botanical garden with the beautiful flower arch all year round. It's where she sees her children growing up and running around as she once did. She's got her residency to finish up, but she's looking forward to when she can call Aurora home again. 

After sitting for a while, she decides she will come back with a book or two next time. If she's going to be here all summer might as well start by doing some reading on books she has not gotten around to reading. Y/N is thinking about leaving when her eyes spot a couple coming down a hidden path, a small daisy behind the girl's ear, her arm tight around her boyfriend's arm. He's got the biggest smile on his face. They look so lost in each other, one can feel their love. 

It reminds her of when she used to do that. When she did that with Harry before they broke up and never spoke again. It breaks her heart, but it also brings back some of the best memories. He'd always bring her here just so they could talk for hours so that she'd tell him more about the flowers and to kiss in private. 

One of her favorite memories is when they were in their third year of high school, and he asked to meet for a surprise. She stands up and shakes the memory away, not wanting to get lost in her thoughts. It's harder to do now that she's home and she can see him everywhere she looks. 

With that last thought brushed away, she decides to walk back home. She's got a few days to herself before meeting with everyone; there was the big reason she was back in town. 

It was time to open a box of memories. 

APRIL 1989 - JUNIOR YEAR

Harry is up to something. 

She suspects something because he made her walk to the park when he would always be quick to offer her a ride. Sure, it's only a ten-minute walk from her house, but he always says something along the lines that not everyone is as kind as they seem. 

It's April, and the flowers are in full bloom. She hears the birds singing, and she swears they sing of the beauty of the flowers. It's also bee season, meaning lots will be around the park, and as much as she loves them, Harry has a big fear of them. Y/N has mentioned various times that they don't mean to harm him; it can just happen. Especially if they get startled.

Y/N takes note of a new flower; it's a small white four-petaled flower that grows in fragrant clusters. They smell divine, but she knows she has never seen them. She really wishes she had her father's polaroid on her to take a photo and show her mother. Any other day she would turn back to do just that, but Harry is waiting on her. 

She walks to the back of the park where Harry has claimed their spot, their initials carved in the bench make sure of that. He's standing next to the viola's, and they stand dull next to Harry. 

"Hiya, angel." Harry greets hands hiding behind his back.

"Hello." She greets softly; Harry can easily note she's nervous. Any other time she would have given him the biggest hug, but right now is keeping an appropriate distance. 

"Are you nervous?" He teases, which honestly calms her down because if he's teasing her, it surely means he doesn't want to break up so she can toss that idea right out. 

The last few ideas left are that it's an important anniversary and she's forgotten, or he just wanted to be romantic. 

She hopes it's the latter. 

"Not so much anymore." She replies truthfully, stepping closer, desperately wanting to give him a hug. He looks warm in his knitted baby blue sweater; she knows it was a Christmas gift from his grandmother, his new favorite. 

 If he's not wearing his cardigan, he's wearing his varsity jacket, but it's at the dry cleaners because when it's not in his possession, it's in hers. She likes the heaviness of it, how small it makes her look. Harry is the perfect height, standing at what she thinks is 6'0, but she can't be too sure. His broad shoulders only seem to grow stronger each summer after returning from two weeks of football camp. At this point, she wears his varsity jacket more than he does. Sure, she can get an academic one she has more than enough patches to choose from, but it just isn't the same; besides, she rather spend her money on books and records. 

Harry tells her his favorite thing about her wearing his jacket is that it has his last name. He knows marriage is long down the line, but he does hope to share the same last name one day. 

It's his most prominent dream.

But currently, his big dream at the age of seventeen is asking the prettiest girl to prom. 

Harry brings his hands forward to reveal a dozen lavender roses in his hand. Y/N gasps at their beauty, not at all expecting this. They are gorgeous, and she can't wait to show them off to her mom as soon as she gets home. 

"My love," Harry starts closing the gap between them and bringing her left hand to his lips to place a soft kiss before setting it back down to rest close to his heart that is beating just for her. "Will you do me the honor of being my date to prom?"

She smiles wide, not at all expecting him to ask, let alone for it to be this romantic and intimate. 

"Yes, of course." She wraps her arms around his neck, and Harry spins her around, letting out a small holler of excitement. 

"The roses are beautiful; they must have cost you a pretty penny," Y/N tells him as soon as he sets her down so she can admire them again.

"Well, darling. You're worth every one. It also pays that your mom gets on well with the town's florist." 

She giggles, nodding. 

"Now, how about we walk over to my car and celebrate with a make-out." Harry wiggles his eyebrows at her, knowing he needs very little to convince her. 

"Harry!" She chastises, looking around to see if anyone heard, but the park is empty, not a soul in sight. "How about we take a stroll around the park, then we'll see afterward." 

"You're a little tease, love." She leans in and pecks his lips two times. He tries for a third, but she hurries off. 

"Come on, dove. We've got to see the rest of the flowers that are blooming." Y/N's voice is full of excitement at the chance of walking around the park for the next hour, hand in hand with her boyfriend. 

Harry grins happily, following after her, he may be young, but he knows he will do whatever is in his power to always see her happy and smiling.

JUNE 1998 - HOME

"Dad!" She yells as soon as she walks in the door; she sees him stand quickly from his seat on the couch and embraces her in a big hug.

"My baby is home." He whispers. 

"I missed you." 

"I missed you too, sweetheart."

"How was work?" 

"Awful, when I knew I had my two favorite girls at home waiting for me."

Y/N laughs. "Always a sap, dad." 

Her mother makes her presence known. "This is a lovely sight. I've missed it." 

"Yes, as have I." Her father gives her one last kiss to her head and lets her go. 

"Any plans?" Her mother questions walking back from the kitchen, placing a cup of tea for Y/N on an old family coaster. 

Y/N takes a seat on the couch, as do both her parents wanting to carry on the conversation.

"I'm meeting Sarah and Sydney for breakfast one of these days, most likely going to spend the entire day together. Then, everyone else won't be coming around until the week after. Think it will be on Friday, seeing as that is what worked for everyone's schedule. 

"Happy to see your friends." Her mom states, the wide smile on Y/N’s face confirming her statement.

"Yes, chatting isn't as easy as when we were in high school seeing each other that day. There are lots of emails sent back and forth between us." 

"Glad you girls stayed closed. Was worried you would all drift away." She reaches forward to squeeze Y/N's knee. 

Y/N knew she meant it about Harry. How no one thought anything would come between them that they would make it through university and settle down soon after. Oh, how wrong they all were. As much as they hoped for the best, they were each other's downfall. 

"It's a bit late; I'm going to shower and head to bed instead."

"Before you go, can I say something?"

Y/N recognizes the gleam in her mother's eye and nods, knowing she has to get this off her chest. 

"It's sadly a man's world out there, but you have managed to make it your own." She reaches forward and takes Y/N's hand in hers, pressing a gentle kiss before settling it in her lap. Y/N smiles. "I know you long to love and share it with someone, and I want you to remember that the person for you is out there. As a mother, I know these things, and I wish you nothing but the greatest things in life, but they all come when we are ready for it."

Tears well up in Y/N's eyes, she nods. Not replying to her mother's words because she knows if she speaks, she will cry. 

"Lorelai, you made her cry." He whispers, pulling both women into a squished hug. 

"I've always had your father, and I hope you find that someone for yourself." 

She pulls back and wipes her tears away. "Thank you." Y/N leaves her parents with a final hug.

She heads up the stairs to the room that holds all the memories she has kept locked away. In her home, there are no longer any photos of her friends or of him. Not like before, where they were spotted on every wall displayed for all to see. Her mother took them off after she left for university. It broke her mother's heart to see her suffer such a big heartbreak. Harry had become like another son to her parents, so they were all sharing the heartbreak. She missed everything about him, but it has been years since they last spoke. 

It's been eight years since they last talked, last kissed but not the last she's thought of him. He's coming for the time capsule opening, and as much as she tries to convince herself she's going to be alright, she knows she's not. Yes, she's moved on. She has built a life without him in it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. 

All she can do is count the days until she leaves Aurora and goes back to the comfort of her apartment in Massachusetts. 

____

It's been a week since she's been home, and she knows everyone will show up in two days. The friends she was sure she'd never lose touch with but slowly did with time no matter how each tried, but life moves on. 

Y/N is nervous to see everyone. She's changed in the last eight years, but so has everyone else. She misses what they used to have in high school but honestly, getting to hear what everyone has been up to will be fun. Who knows, it might feel as if not time has passed at all? 

She met up with Sarah and Sydney earlier for breakfast at the old dinner. The girls spent a good five minutes embraced in a hug before they took their seats. They ordered too much to eat but, to no surprise, finished it all by the end of their conversation. 

The time together was spent mostly catching up and jumping from topic to topic. She did feel she was asked one too many questions about starting her residency and how they will be addressing her as a "doctor."

Y/N brought up Sarah's love life wanting to hear how they were doing. Sarah and Mitch did not start dating until after graduating high school, finding out they were going to the same university just an hour away from their hometown. Everyone was aware of Mitch's heart eyes for Sarah, but she was too focused on her internship, always wanting to do good. One can imagine how happy everyone was when news spread that Sarah asked Mitch out and was quick to say yes. Now eight years later, were happily moved in together. Sarah is a music engineer, and Mitch a music teacher at the local high school; as mellow as Mitch is, he gets on well with the teens. 

Having focused on love and Sydney quickly saying nothing new was going on with her, just that she was more in love than she could have ever imagined, it was time to hound Y/N, it seems. They asked about her love life and how good-looking the boys in Massachusetts are.

Y/N told them how nonexistent her love life has been since she graduated high school. It's not something she ever made time for, and her friends understand as much as they hate that for her. Sydney did not stop herself from making a joke on what seems to be Y/N's long dry spell. She shrugged it off, not at all bothered. Y/N assured them she knows how to take care of her own needs until the right person comes along. They all knew who she hoped would be the right person, but they knew better than to bring him up.

Once again, there was a change of pace. Sarah surprised them with tickets to Spice Girls at a sold-out Madison Square Garden concert on July first. Six tickets, a perfect number for their friend group. It was perfect, honestly. Sarah figured they'd road trip up the last week of June and could stay in Y/N's shared apartment with her roommate, who would not be home yet. Then take a train up to New York for the show. Also, told them they'd have hotel rooms for the night already, having an idea there would be an after-party. Y/N was all for it as was Sydney. 

Y/N has always loved concerts; it's something she saves for not bothered to spend some money to enjoy a great show for one of her favorite artists, especially in good company. The long queues were a downfall, but not everything is perfect. She has gone to concerts and knows that one can make the best experience out of floor seats and nosebleeds. Artists never fail to amaze. 

It reminds her of the first concert she ever went to that Harry took her to their senior year. The ticket stub she has pinned next to a polaroid that a stranger offered to take for them. It was before the show, and they had matching grins. It's still one of her favorites, and the reason she doesn't take it down is too good of a memory to keep hidden away. 

While seeing Sarah and Sydney was good and everything she hoped it would be, it did not prepare her to see the others. She had not talked to Zac in a long while, having no idea what he was up to. Mitch is quiet and only says hello when she has called with Sarah and Harry; well, it's like she doesn't exist to him. Not since their last day together. 

Y/N has two days to prepare.

Two days to wrap her head around the fact that she's going to see Harry. 

AUGUST 1989 - SENIOR YEAR

Many people told her to enjoy her high school years because they would fly by, and she accepted the advice and made memories to last a lifetime in the three years leading up to her senior year. Her friends and family have made each year memorial. Still, there is something about senior year, and knowing that it is their last year before university has her excited and anxious. 

Harry repeatedly told her how he wanted it to be their best year yet and promised to do just that. She has no doubt in her mind he will accomplish that in whatever way. He's managed to do so year after year. 

Harry made sure to pick her up each morning, never wanting her to worry about walking alone to school or arriving late. He made sure he knocked on her door every morning.

Depending on the time he showed up, he was ushered in for a homemade breakfast, or sometimes he said a quick hello before grabbing her hand and rushing out the door because they were running behind schedule, and Harry knew he could not make her arrive late. 

One thing that was always constant was how he carried her bag to his car and opened her door. He made sure she was settled before reaching down for his morning kiss. Sometimes, he went as far as putting on her seatbelt, just wanting to be close to her. 

Today was Monday, and he usually comes in, but today he selfishly told her to grab him a slice of toast because he was in a hurry. She didn't question him and sent her apologies. Her mom kissed her cheek and told her not to worry about it. A true angel, her mother was.  

Harry slipped her bag over his shoulder before ushering her in. She felt a little flustered with his urgency but let him be. He stole a quick kiss before going to the driver's seat. 

"What's got you in a rush today?" She asks, genuinely worried. 

He smirks, looking over at her. He seems calm, not that they've driven away from her house. "Thought we could use the extra time for some kisses. You deprived me this Sunday." He pouts at her, waiting for the light to turn green. 

"H, you know I have dinner with my grandparents one Sunday a month." She chastises him.

"I know, darling, doesn't mean I like it." He tells her. "Had to suffer a Sunday alone." 

"Well, at least I know how I can make it up to you." She teases. 

Arriving at school, Harry parks toward the back under a shady tree, one far away from everyone. 

"Want to sit on my lap, baby?" He asks, spreading his thighs, and as much as she wants to, she shouldn't knowing very well what he can convince her to do when in his lap. 

"Later, H." She promises. 

"I'm holding you to that, angel." He unclips her seatbelt, quickly placing his lips on hers. 

She feels how smooth his lips are and knows he stole her cherry lip balm again. "Harry, that's the third lip balm you've taken in two weeks." She pulls away, rubbing her thumb over his bottom lip that he juts out. He gives her thumb a soft kiss. 

"Swear I was going to put it back this time." He moves closer, placing a kiss on her neck, slowly trailing down, pushing his varsity jacket down her shoulder, exposing more of her neck. Her black corduroy pants and white acrylic sweater, and her favorite worn-out Mary Jane's mother have been begging her to change out. She likes to think it adds an extra flair to her outfit. "You drive me crazy when you wear my jacket," He whispers in her ear.

"Does that mean you're always going crazy?" She whispers back, knowing he mostly wears the jacket during game days. 

"Always make me lose my mind." 

After a fun half-hour of making out, Y/N pushes him back, knowing she has matching bruised lips. She loves that everyone can see what she did to him. She also may have sucked a little too hard on the skin right below his collar, the love bite just barely visible. She pulls down the sun visor, looking in the mirror to straighten out her hair, that Harry just loves digging his fingers into. 

"Baby, what did you do?" Harry says, looking at the fresh mark just by his collar bone. 

She smirks, knowing very well that Harry loves when she marks him. Not doing it very often in fear of getting caught by their parents. 

"Got to remind those girls that stare at you who you belong to." She reapplies her lip balm before layering the new lip gloss her mom got for her the other day. 

"You know I've only got eyes for you, love." He says, caressing her cheek softly. 

His gentle tone of voice always makes her soft, but it also might be that his accent seems to stand out even more. 

"I know, H." She leans in to give him one more kiss but pulls back quick enough to not let him deepen it. 

"Sneaky, baby." He clicks his tongue at her, rushing out and rounding the car to open her door, offering her his hand. 

She gladly accepts it, placing a kiss on both cheeks before landing on his lips. 

"I love you, Styles." She whispers against his lips, eyes closed as she tries to catch her breath. 

"And I love you, my darling angel." He softly nuzzles her nose, causing her to let out a small giggle. 

"Let's get you to class." He says, throwing his arm over her shoulder pulling her in close. 

Harry is smiling wide; she takes notice as she looks up. He looks extra giddy. 

Too giddy, and it has nothing to do with their steamy make-out. 

She narrows her eyes at him, "what's got you extra smiley?" 

"Nothing, happy all the time."

"Nuh, uh. Styles. I know you. Fess up!" She stops walking, wanting him to answer her.

"It's because my girl marked me up today for all to see. Makes me feel special." He answers smoothly. 

Y/N looks at him in suspicion, not buying a single word he's saying, "I'm onto you, Styles."

Harry lets out a deep breath before stepping close to her. "Let me surprise you, darling." 

She instantly relaxes. "Okay, only because you know I like surprises."

"Thank you." He rests his forehead against her, happy to be in her space, forgetting all around him until he hears a shout of his name. 

Moment over, it seems.

"Let's get you to English Literature," Harry murmurs, intertwining his hand with hers making sure she's close by as Sarah greets her.

_____

It's lunchtime when they walk hand in hand to the lunch tables where Mitch and Sarah sit, stalling their conversion to greet them. Before she can take a seat next to Sarah, Harry pulls her in his lap. He leans in close to her ear and whispers that he'll give her his chocolate chip cookies Anne had baked. She silently agrees, grabbing the bag Harry was offering her. What he didn't disclose is that his mum had sent them specifically for her. They have three empty seats, but she can see Zac and Sydney approaching, carrying food trays. Meaning, neither had lunch prepared for the day. 

Y/N leans back against Harry getting comfortable, knowing that he wouldn't be letting her go any time soon. The chatter begins with how their weekend went and what this week's activities are. She knows she doesn't have much to do this week; her club meetings don't meet until next week. Harry has football practice all week, meaning she either visits the library or finds a ride home. She doesn't mind staying and watching his training, but Harry hates knowing she sits there alone for so long. He rather have her be home warm and cozy than on the cold bleachers.

Harry asks for her attention by placing a kiss on her neck, his tell sign that he's feeling left out. 

"Yes, H," She whispers for only him to hear. 

"Need your attention. Don't like sharing." 

"You're extra needy this Monday, dove." Y/N has his hands in her lap as she begins to trace circles on his palm; it's something that soothes him instantly. 

"I just want to know our plans this weekend." He kisses her cheek, nuzzling his face in her neck. "Rather you get parent permission early on than last-minute giving them a chance to say no." 

Harry's right; there are occasions where her parents have said no, and Y/N finds herself sneaking out from her window that conveniently has an old tree that makes it all the easier. 

Her parents trust them together, but if they really knew what happened behind locked doors, they would think otherwise.

"Do you want to go kiss a little?" He wants her to say yes. 

"At your car or in the abandoned hallway?" 

"What's quieter?" 

"The hallway, and it's closer." 

Harry nods, gently grabbing her waist and helping her stand. "We'll see you later," Harry says, interrupting their conversations. 

"Oh, Styles, you've corrupted her." Zac teases very well, grasping what they were about to go do.

"Think she's corrupted me. Who knew angels could be so dangerous?" Harry teases in front of their friends. 

Y/N feels her face warm, bidding them all a quiet goodbye. Harry, having rendered her a bit speechless. She swears she never knows what is going to come out of his mouth. 

Harry all but drags her to the hallway. He gently pushes her back against the wall next to an older poster for the school play. Y/n glances down at his lips before looking into his eyes.

"Did you really bring me here to kiss, or are you spilling the surprise?" Her eyes are big and filled with hope. 

"Sorry, baby. Really did want some kisses from you." He pulls her closer wanting no space in between them. "Really missed you. Can't believe we only have one class together." 

"It's like they know you wouldn't pay attention to me in a class with you." She teases.

"Kissy." He pouts his lips, feeling like they've talked enough. 

Who is she to deny him when he asks so sweetly. 

Y/N always felt like time stopped when she kissed Harry. She felt her heart pounding in her chest as her knees grew weak, and as if Harry knew, he wrapped his arm around her waist, keeping her up. Harry pulls away slowly, a smile growing on his face. He would never tire of kissing her. 

Harry leans in and nuzzles his head in the crook of her necks, slowly beginning to place kiss after kiss before he finds his favorite spot and begins to suck lightly, pulling a surprised moan from her. 

She pushes him back. "No love bites that high. It will keep us locked up in the house all weekend supervised. 

Harry tenses at the thought, knowing fully well her parents would do that, having done it before when they first started dating, and he thought more with the thing in his pants than his brain. "I guess I'll just have to bruise these pretty lips."

Never one to tell him no, a small nod is enough to make Harry lean in and take her breath away. He'd kiss her forever if he could, but the last fifteen minutes of lunch break would have to do for now. 

_____

Monday's always drag on; she goes home, does homework, reads a book, and waits for dinner to be ready. Most days, she joins her mother in cooking; both like conversing about their days. More than ever, they have lots to talk about, from holiday plans to the universities she is applying for. She has saved up allowance allowing her to use it for more universities than the average three. If it was up to her, she'd send one to all the universities because that is how confident she is not only about her grades but how she comes off as a student on paper. 

Dumping most of her books in her locker, she keeps Calculus in her bag, knowing the sooner that homework gets done, the less stress she'll have. Just as she shuts her locker, she hears footsteps approaching her. 

"Is my girl ready to go?" 

"She is." 

Harry swings his arm over her shoulder, and they begin to walk out the school doors that are kept wide open. There are groups of students lingering talking to another, and in the distance can hear cars driving away eager to get away. 

Y/N smiles at a girl who sends her a wave, recognizing her from her English course. Harry walks them under a tree, a reasonable distance away from everyone because, as she has come to know, he likes kissing her in private. 

"Our first game is in two weeks." Harry reminds her.

"Yes, exciting." 

"Will you be there, or is there a test to study for?" He teases. 

She frowns and takes him by the lapels of his varsity jacket that she gave back to him at the end of lunch because she claimed it was losing his smell. 

"Don't start, Harry. You know I've never missed a game, and I won't start now." 

"Was only teasing, love." 

"Didn't like it." 

"Sorry, love. Forgive me? He pouts, wanting her to smile at him instead of frown. 

"You know my price." Y/N shrugs. 

He sighs, nodding his head three times before moving to get on his knees, toying with unbuttoning her pants. 

She gasps and jumps away. "Harry!"

Harry can't help but smirk, "Isn't that always the price."

"I just wanted a kiss; no need to make a scene." He shrugs. "Now, don't you have a practice to get to?"

"Ugh, I do." Harry groans, dreading practice knowing the coach likes to run them twice as much for not working out on the weekends. 

"Give me a kiss, please. Then you'll come by later, right?"

"That is correct." He leans in, giving her three consecutive pecks on her lips. 

"Who's taking you home again?" He asks, wanting to make sure she's safe. 

"Sarah and Mitch." 

"Right, good. Well, off I go, poppet." 

"Bye." 

Harry turns and heads toward the field, where he can see the freshman already setting up drills and getting the water jug out to the bench. He's only taken a few steps when his angel's voice stops him. 

"Dove," 

Harry can feel his cheeks turn bright red at the term of endearment. He turns and takes two steps back to her. "Yes, lovie." 

"Will you give me one more kiss?" Her voice soft and innocent but the gleam in her eye is anything but that. 

Harry takes the last step towards her and holds her face with both hands reaching down and kissing her passionately. He pulls away after what feels like a lifetime, slowly as he tries to steady his breathing. 

"I love you," she whispers.

He presses a final kiss to her forehead. "And I love you." Harry turns and begins to jog away, recognizing he's got a limited time to get dressed and out on the field to warm up. He's a few feet away but turns his head to see her watching him still. "Tell your mom I'll be joining you for dinner." 

She nods, letting him know she heard him before he turns a corner and out of her eyesight. Only then does she go in search of her waiting friends who will bring her home. 

______

After Y/N informed her mother that Harry was going to join them for dinner, she got up to cook, wanting everything to be ready for when her father and Harry arrived, seeing it would be around the same time.

Y/N made herself scarce as her mother was in no mood to converse. Instead, she wanted to cook, and maybe if she planned her time accordingly, she would do dessert. 

Dinner time came around quickly, meaning she was lost in homework for a good few hours. She walked downstairs wanting to help her mom set the table when the front door swung open. 

"Hello, father!" Y/N bounced over to him, giving him a big hug and a peck on his cheek, one that he happily returned.

"Hi, my sweet girl." 

"Mom cooked a delicious dinner. We're just waiting on Harry." Y/N told him, knowing he's hungry from a long day at work.

"Won't have to wait long; Harry was just parking when I was on the steps." 

Y/N's eyes lit up at hearing that he arrived. Her father chuckled, "I'll go say hello to my wife, dinner in ten, okay." 

Y/N walks out to see Harry coming up the stairs in a cozy blue emblem sweater with denim Levi jeans and paired with his old white Chuck All-Stars. She smiled because he went home to shower, not wanting to wear his clothes from earlier or come over smelling like sweat, not that she minded. 

"You know we don't mind the sweat, H," She tells him as he's climbing up the last few steps. 

He shrugs. "I know, but I am a guest in your home and would never dare disrespect your parents and you, of course." 

Y/N grins. "Four years dating, and you continue to prove to be the most perfect boyfriend." 

Harry looks away, feeling bashful. "I wouldn't go that far." 

"I would, dove." Y/N closes the gap between them. "Now, I say you kiss me before mom calls us in for dinner." 

"It would be my greatest pleasure." 

____

Dinner was a success, conversation always flowing well. Y/N likes to sit back and listen to her parents talk with Harry as if they hadn't seen him in forever when he is more than likely to be here every other day. Her father is a big fan of football; he too was once a player. No, he wasn't quarterback; he was right-wing and helped his team make it to state championships. 

The high school team has won three state championships since Harry's first year as a freshman. They counted on making it the fourth year; no doubt in anybody's mind it would happen. Y/N picked up on her father's excitement going on and on about the first game and how it was the most important one now that scouts would be coming out more and more. Without a second thought, she reached over and placed her hand on his thigh, lightly squeezing, reassuring Harry she was there for him. He slowly turned the hand on his thigh palm up and intertwined them together. 

"Thank you so much for dinner, Lorelai. Luke, thank you for the great conversation. I can't wait to see you both at the game."

"We wouldn't dare miss it, Harry," Lorelai tells him, a wide grin on her face as she picks up the dishes. 

"Now go on; I'll help your mother with the dishes tonight." Luke gestures to them to get up and get their privacy. Y/N thanks him and takes Harry's hand, leading the way up the stairs. 

Now they are lying on her bed, it's got enough space for them to be spread out, but she prefers to lay across Harry, her head on his chest as he rests his head on her pillows. 

Harry had his hand in her hair, always calming for her and for him. Allows them to sit in comfortable silence, basking in the joy of being together. 

Many people ask them if they ever get sick of seeing each other every day and never giving each other space after dating for so long. That isn't entirely true because when they aren't at their respective extracurricular activities, they are found together. Harry's response is always, "she's my favorite person." Y/N just shrugs and smiles, "he's my best friend." 

Believe it or not, they spent around in her room listening to music or in his house watching movies from their grand VHS collection. Most thought they spent it making it out, not that they don't do that because they are just as in love as when they got together four years ago. When they walked into any room, her parents were sure they would be kissing, which is why the open door policy exists. Well, half-open is the agreement now. 

Harry looks around her room, his eyes settling on the polaroid photo on her bedside table, one of them smiling at each other, lost in their own worlds. It's dated 06-18-1989<i<, it was from one of their many summer days spent together. He decided now was as good as time to bring up what he had been hiding. 

"You know how we were making plans for the weekend, sweetheart."

"Yes, you didn't let us decide on anything." 

"Well, what if I did?"

She sits up and moves to sit in front of him. "Okay, I'm all ears. 

"You up for a drive?"

"Always, so drive me to the moon, please." 

Harry laughs. "Serious for a sec, baby."

"Sorry, yes, go on then." She interrupts him once more. "How far is the drive? You're not always the best driver."

"Ouch" Harry has his hand over his heart, feigning as if her words had pierced him. "Guess I won't tell you."

"That's fine." 

"Yeah. Is it?" 

"Yup." 

"Why's that?" He's confused; she's usually begging to know by now. 

"Simple, because I just won't give you any kisses."

"That's cruel."

"Oh well. I don't play fair." 

"Think you can resist me, sweetheart?" 

"Oh, I know I can." 

Harry shakes his head, response ready, but she stops him. "Remember who asked who out five different times."

"That's because you were playing hard to get. Claiming you just wanted to be friends for a little longer." 

"That was tru-" It's his turn to stop her.

 "Ah, yes, I know. I was getting impatient. Don't know if you know this or not, darling, but I had to scare off a lot of boys. 

"Trust me, H. I knew" 

"You did?" 

"Yes, I think it was because everyone knew sooner or later I was going to put you out of your misery."

"Yeah, by saying yes." 

"Oh no, I was going to say no."

"What changed?" Clearly, something had, and he just had to know. 

"You decided to show up at school wearing your Sunday best and brought me sunflowers. Told me they reminded you how much light I brought into your life. There I decided yes, he'll make a fine boyfriend."

Harry's smile is big, dimples on display just for her. Always for her. "You tease too much."

"But you love it."

"I do." He leans in and smiles as she lets him lead the kiss. It's slow and full of love. A love that only continues to grow each moment they are together. "I really do."

Y/N leans in, wanting to give him more kisses, wanting to be connected to him, wanting him to always feel her love. She's not sure how much time has passed when Harry pulls away. 

"You do realize we got sidetracked." 

"Yes, worth it if you ask me." She looks pleased. "Now you have to tell me, I gave you kisses."

Harry runs his thumb over her bottom lip, asking for another. She puckers her lips leaning forward, and connects their lips in a short soft kiss.

"Friday night, the Forum."

Y/N's eyes go wide; she was not expecting to hear that.

"No."

"Yes."

She sits there taking it in.

"Say it, baby." Harry likes that he managed to surprise her. 

"You got us tickets for Elton John." She whispers out, her eyes now locked with his needing him to confirm it.

"Yes, I did." 

"A sold-out show."

"Think it's going to be a fun night."

"How?" Although Y/N has an idea.

"Well, I called in on a favor with our dear friend Sarah and the radio station she's interning at." 

"I love her." She breathes out.

"Hey," Harry knocks her out of her gaze. "And me." 

"Of course, I love you." She moves forward, seating herself in his lap. "I love you. I can't believe you did this for me." 

"Yes, can't let you go off to uni without experiencing a concert." 

"You are perfect, Styles."

"Perfect for you."

There's so much love in between them; if anyone walked into the room, they'd be able to feel it. 

"Wait." Her hands now resting on his chest, a frown taking over her face. "How are we going to convince my parents." 

"Already done. Told them the plan and the itinerary, and your parents have agreed." 

"Perfect, I'm telling." 

"Is this why we're walking to school tomorrow?" She remembers him telling her he won't have his car. 

"Yes, taking it to the mechanic. I just want to make sure all is okay." 

"Marry me?" 

Harry can feel his cheeks warming up; she always makes him blush. He takes hold of her left hand and brings it up to his lips, leaving a gentle kiss on her ring finger. 

"All in good time, my love."

_____

The week had dragged on, but it was finally Friday. She had been excited all week, and everyone could tell. Told her how she was jumpier, a lot more smiley, and twice as affectionate with Harry. She was happy.

She's at home getting ready; they would be leaving soon. Seeing as it was still a bit of a drive and no doubt would get stuck in traffic, seeing as they aren't the only ones attending the show. 

Y/N had gone over outfit after outfit until she finally decided on what she is wearing now. She's wearing a deep red power shoulder tucked into her favorite high-waist denim that makes her waist and butt look extra good. 

As she walks down the stairs, she hears the door and knows Harry is here to take her away. No matter what, he always stepped up to the door to pick her up; it still made the butterflies in her stomach go crazy. 

Her father is at the door speaking with Harry going over her extended rules and what numbers to call for an emergency. 

"Well, aren't you a dream," Harry looks her up and down; she does a slow spin for him on the heel of her black boots to give him the full look. "I'm a lucky man." 

"Glad you know it, H." 

She grabs hold of his brown leather jacket and runs her finger down it, it's an old one, but he takes such good care of it; one would think he just got it today. 

"Think you just took my breath away, H." She swears there are hearts in her eyes as she takes him in.

"That's exactly what I was going for." 

Harry and Y/N bid her parents goodbye; they wish them a safe journey. Her mother was excited to send her off; her father was a bit more worried but trusted Harry to keep her safe. 

The drive to the arena is filled with conversation over the upcoming year, Harry's final football season, and her volunteering hours how she was hoping to be accepted into the NICU's internship at their hospital. Also, lots of singing on the radio as well as Harry's CDs. From ABBA to Shania Twain, he had, but they settled on Elton John for the ride. 

In what feels like no time, they had arrived. Y/N is amazed at how big it is; she doesn't know much about the place just from what Sarah told her that it was large and no matter where she sat, she was going to have the best time of her life. Already having Harry at her side, she had no doubt about it. She can't stop smiling, and neither can Harry.

Harry grabs her hand as they both stare at the arena, where hundreds of people are lining up to enter. 

"Ready, love." 

"Yes, gosh. I might throw up from the excitement." 

"Oh no, let's get you a pop. It'll help."

"That sounds nice." Y/N leans up and gives him a gentle kiss. "Thank you, H." 

"Angel, I am more than happy to do this for you." 

Hand in hand, they walked into the arena, ready to sing their hearts out together. 

_____

Two hours of singing and dancing her heart off, and yet it still wasn't enough to tire Y/N out. Harry was sure she'd be clinging to his arm as he pulled her out of the arena, but she had asked him to wait out the crowd, and they stood in the emptying arena, arms around each other. He could feel her heart beating against his chest, and it was still pumping hard. He kissed her lips one final time before swinging his arm over her shoulder and guiding them out to the chilly Los Angeles air. 

Y/N was all smiles, and she thinks it has to do with the man whose curls have fallen flat from all the sweating they did inside the arena. Being in a room packed around thousands of people will do that. She has never been in such a happy and united environment. 

It's a memory she's going to cherish forever. 

The drive home is full of retelling of their favorite parts of the night. Harry decided his was when Y/N turned to kiss him during "Your Song." He felt himself fall in love with her all over again. It's a feeling he never wants to end. 

Y/N's had to have been each outfit change. There were so many that she lost track, but she loved how unique each outfit was. It's something she knew she could never pull off, but she admired the beauty of each one. It was over the top and full of colors; it kept her mesmerized. It reminded her of life and how filled with color it really is. Also, when Harry sang his heart out during "Tiny Dancer." How he knew every lyric and didn't miss a beat, if she's honest, she didn't bother looking at the stage for the entire song too entranced in Harry. 

The smile does not leave their face, not during the traffic of getting on the freeway, not when they stopped by McDonald's and got burgers and decided to share a coke, and not even when they saw the sign welcoming back into Aurora. 

Y/N's smile didn't drop until Harry parked his car right in front of her house. She sits back against the seat and turns her head to already find a bashful Harry smiling at her. 

"Come here." He whispers. 

She unbuckles and sits in his lap, it may have been a few hours, but she missed being this close to him. 

Y/N didn't wait for Harry to ask; she simply leaned in and connected his strawberry lips with hers. She loved how soft they always were, and she knew she'd keep letting him steal her lip balms if they did such an excellent job keeping them soft and tasting sweet; then again, that could be all Harry. She lets out a small moan when Harry swipes his tongue on her bottom lip, asking for entrance, and she happily grants it. 

She wishes she can stay here forever, in his arms, kissing his lips, never having to stop. 

"Baby," Harry breathes against her lips.

Y/N knows what he's going to say; she's not ready to say goodnight. Instead, she keeps kissing him. "Just a little longer." She mutters against his lips.

Harry can't bring himself to pull away again and nods, allowing her to take control. He has a tight grip on her thigh, he wishes to move it higher, but he knows if he does, she won't be going inside tonight. She moves her lips down his jaw pressing gentle kisses.

"You drive me crazy." 

"Feelings mutual, darling." 

Harry pulls her back up and kisses her plush mouth. She tastes sweet, something he never pinpoints; all he knows is that it's intoxicating. He presses one final kiss on her lips and pulls back. She's breathing heavy, a large grin on her face. He knows he looks just as dazed. 

"Think you got to get inside now." 

"Don't want to leave you." She grabs a fist of his jacket, pulling herself closer. 

"I'll be here tomorrow afternoon."

She pouts. "Why so late?"

"Because you're going to want to sleep in." He brushes a bit of her hair away, she leans into his touch; she loves how delicate each touch is. 

"What if you come early and then cuddle me? Mom won't turn you away."

"She might."

"Not after I walk in and tell her how amazing the night was." She cups his cheeks, rubbing her thumb affectionately on his smooth skin. "She's got a sweet spot for you."

"And you." He reminds her. 

"Well, of course. I'm her daughter." She laughs but knows she hasn't convinced him. "Please," she whispers. She flashes him her best puppy dog look, knowing he won't be able to resist.

"Fine. I'll be here at eight, darling." 

"Perfect." She gloats. 

"Let me walk you up." 

Harry helps her back into the passenger seat so they can both head out. He grabs her hand, pulling her in close, not wanting her far for the last moments he has her. 

"You want to know something, H." She whispers, keys in her hand.

"What is it, angel?"

"I want to travel the world with you."

"The world." He gasps. "It's a big place, baby. Where would we start?" 

"London got to see the place you grew up before moving here. Of, course we'll save up and just spend the year traveling wherever life takes us."

"That sounds perfect." 

She hums, deep in thought, picturing visiting all these places she's only dreamed of with him by her side. To see the Eiffel tower, walk the streets of Scotland, and swim in the Amalfi Coast waters. 

"Dove," He hums, playing with a loose string of her jeans. "Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere you want. I'll make sure to take you wherever you want to go." 

"Take me to the stars, dovie."

"As you wish, my sweet angel." 

Harry brings his right hand up to her face and gently cups her cheek; she sighs, knowing precisely what he's going to do. She tilts her head up and feels his lips against her. It's the softest kiss of the night; it's gentle. It's her favorite kiss, the goodnight kiss, a promise to see her tomorrow. 

She breaks away the first time tonight, knowing if he kept going a moment longer, she wouldn't let him go. "Goodnight, H," She whispers as she begins to open the door. 

"Goodnight, love." 

Harry turns and walks to his car as he hears the door shut and hears her turn the lock. Once in his car, he takes a look up at her window, sends a final smile as he sees her waving him off.

He feels so much joy always being around her, but tonight it seems to have multiplied by a hundred. He knew tonight was perfect, but his favorite part wasn't even at the concert; it was standing outside her door as they spoke of their future together.

Happiness isn't always about the big moments but also about these small moments that make them feel invincible.

JUNE 1998

Y/N grabs a book from her bookshelf, not bother glancing at which one knowing if she stopped to read each title, she would be there all day. She heads to the yard, a picnic blanket tucked under her arm, so she can lay on it and soak in a bit of the sun. 

Her mother is trimming the leaves of the roses, wanting the flower to pop out more. Her father usually helps her, but he's finishing up last-minute work before coming out to join them. He has a good view of them from his office window. When she was young, he told her he chose this room because it's where her mom spends all her time, and he likes having his eye on her as she joins the beauty of her flowers. Y/N's known love all her life, and she's happy her parents have each other, but she can't help but feel like she let that one-of-a-kind love go years ago and fears she'll never find it again.

As she settles down on her blanket, she decides to rid herself of all thoughts and instead get lost in the words of Stephen King. She picked up a psychological horror. She remembers her father mentioning it was a good read and that she'd enjoyed it. Two pages in, and she knows she's hooked; it looks like she will be laying out here all day. 

At least that's what she thought when her mother interrupted her. 

"When are you meeting everyone?" 

Y/N puts the book down on her chest and looks over at her mom, who's still got her eyes on her roses. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"When are you meeting everyone?" Her mother repeats herself.

"Tomorrow."

"Time, darling?" 

"At one."

She hums in response. "I leave you in charge, and please be watchful over my roses." 

"Of course, I would never think of damaging your roses. Well, my roses, really." Y/N corrects. 

"Just because they were planted in your honor does not mean they are yours. You've cared for them for such little time."

"Excuse me, mother. I went off to university, but once I'm done and ready to settle down, I will be doing all the caring."

"Yes, because you will have time as a doctor." Her mother responds sarcastically. 

"I will be able to." 

Her mother decided to move on, knowing how stubborn Y/N can be. "Your father and I have lunch and dinner plans out of town, so you'll have the house to yourself for most of the day and night."

"You're treating me like I'm sixteen again, and it's my first time having friends over." 

Her mom laughs, and Y/N can't help but join. "You're forever, my little girl."

"Cheesy." Y/N teases.

Y/N leans back and gets comfortable, all thoughts of tomorrow pushed away and instead gets lost in the town of Bridgton, Maine. 

_____

It's time; everyone is making their way over. She can feel her palms begin to sweat, thankful there's a nice breeze outside to keep her cool. Y/N and her mom cooked pasta with grilled chicken and strawberry lemonade wanting to be ready for after the digging. Y/N would feel bad making them dig a hole, open a box, then head on out. These people are her friends, and she wishes to spend time with them, and what better than with food.

She's got ten minutes before everyone is due to arrive when she hears a car pull up and turn off right in front of her house. Y/N knows of only one person who shows up early.

Harry. 

Y/N thought he would be the last to arrive, but she's guessing old habits die hard. She takes a deep breath before opening the front door and walking out.

Harry would be lying if he wasn't nervous. He's about to see Y/N for the first time after years. He's seen her in photos; he knows she only continued to become more beautiful as the years passed. It's not the same as, no, because he knows what's separating them is a walk up to the door. 

He feels precisely as he did the moment he asked her out and, if he's truthful, how she made him feel their entire relationship. Harry's 26, but his heart feels 18, and at that age, he was deeply in love with the woman inside that house. He loves her just the same.

Harry takes a long deep breath before slowly letting it out. He could do this; he got out of his car and made his way up the path, where she was already standing waiting for him. It felt like no time had passed as if he was coming over to take her on a date--except they weren't even close enough to say they were friends. 

"Harry," She breathes out as he reaches the first step. 

"Hi" He sends her a small smile. "You look great." 

Y/N feels her cheek flush, and knows he can notice now that he's right in front of her. She takes in her outfit; it's simple, just a cropped red long-sleeved tee and black pants, with an old pair of black sneakers. 

"Thank you, Harry. As do you." And he really does. He's wearing loose green denim joggers with a matching jacket. He has left it open, showing a brown button-up, a silver cross necklace peeking out from the space he left unbuttoned. "Always on time still."

"Better early than late." 

She nods, not sure if she should continue the conversation or not. Are they going to stand out here in silence? It was never this hard; she hates this. Y/N rather keep talking than let themselves stand there in silence for another eight minutes. 

She clears her throat. "How'd med school go? Have you decided on a residency yet? Anne told me you were weighing your options." 

Harry doesn't try to hide his shock. "You spoke to my mum?" He asks in disbelief. 

Y/N grins as much as his English accent is fading; it always comes back when saying 'mum,' or well, when he's nervous. 

She nods. "I visit her when I visit my family. Recently passed when I came to see my mother who was feeling down and lonely as she put it even though she has dad to keep her company."

Harry smiles, knowing what weekend she was talking about because he had come the week after, and Lorelai had told him she was no longer as lonely. He thought it might have been because of his company, but it was because her daughter was home for a weekend.

When he's about to tell her where he decided, she waits patiently, staring up at him, a shy smile on her face but stops when Sydney comes and tackles Y/N in a hug. 

"Of course, Styles got first dibs on you." Sydney fakes her exasperation. 

"He knows how to be punctual." Y/N teases. "Looks like you bring the others as always." She signals seeing two more cars park; they park in the empty driveway.

"Just like old times," Zac screams out two bottles of wines in his hands. Mitch and Sarah walk up behind him, agreeing. 

Y/N looks around, and it's almost like old times. Just one small difference that makes her heartache. 

Everyone greets each other, sharing long hugs, and it's not long after that she invites everyone in and into the backyard. 

"Mom says if we mess up her roses, we are dead meat," Y/N informs them all as they all stand in a semi-circle under the spot they buried their time capsule. 

Mitch steps and pats Harry on the back. "If anything does happen, just say it was Harold. Lorelai has a soft spot for him." 

Sarah approaches water in her hand. "Y/N is her golden child who does no wrong, easy to forgive."

Y/N laughs. "Enough. No roses will be damaged. Are we clear?" 

She gets a chorus of "yes."

"Great, there are clear instructions that only Zac and Harry are allowed to shovel. Sorry, Mitch, mom said we've got to take care of your musical hands."

Mitch nods in appreciation. 

"What about the doctor? No care for him." Harry mutters a small smile on his face.

"Quiet Styles, you're a favorite still," Zac tells him, pushing a shovel into his chest. 

Y/N's happy watching the banter; it's like she's sixteen again, and they are trying to see who could dig their side of the hole faster. 

SEPTEMBER 1988 - TIME CAPSULE 

"High school friendships aren't known to last," Zac speaks out randomly, breaking everyone out of their conversations.

Harry sighs, "You're a downer." 

"I'm a realist." 

Y/N takes this in; she hasn't thought years down the line. She just assumed they would always be in her life. She can't see herself without them.

"What if we aren't friends ten years down the road?" Y/N voices.

Harry instantly picks up the concern in her voice. "I promise I won't let that happen, lovie." He assures her. 

"H, I know." 

"It's not uncommon for others to drift, especially when everyone has a different path after high school." Sydney comments. "My sister went through it."

"Let's write a letter, and we can bury it, open it ten years, but we have to do it together," Sarah suggests.

"Not a bad idea." Everyone nods in agreement.

"Let's do a letter and something important to us." Y/N proposes already having an idea of what to put.

"It's settled. We're burying a time capsule." Harry states. 

"One problem." 

"What now, Zac?" Sarah groans. 

"Where do we bury it?"

Slowly everyone turns their gaze on to Y/N. 

"Your house," Sydney tells her. 

"You all agree?" Y/n is surprised. 

"Your mom will never leave her house. It's gorgeous."

"Also," Zac chimes in, "You love it and tell us how it's going to be yours one day."

Y/N sighs and nods. "I will ask and will let you know."

_____

It took a lot to convince her mother, but her father liked the idea and supported her. Two against one, Y/N knew her mom was in a losing fight. After lots of hugs and kisses and promises of doing the dishes for two weeks straight, she got permission. 

They had decided on a Saturday, wanting to do it early in the morning, unsure how long they would take digging the hole. Her mom designated an area for them to open. 

Her mom allowed her to have the house to themselves, trusting them not to do anything but dig a hole. Y/N had everyone promise they would be on their best behavior. 

Harry and Zac volunteered to dig, and no one argued. It took over an hour for them to get a decent-sized hole. It looked tiring, but Y/N enjoyed watching Harry's muscle flex as he threw out dirt. Finally, being satisfied with the hole size, mainly Sydney, made them go longer; it was time to place their items inside. 

Y/N rewrote her letter a few times, never knowing the right thing to say. It wasn't until she was lying on the floor of her room with Harry's head in her lap did she know what she wanted to tell her future self. 

Mitch went first, putting in his first-ever guitar pic, Sarah her Walkman, Harry followed with a copy of Romeo and Juliet, Y/N a chained rose ring, she put it in but not before giving it a small kiss knowing she'd miss it. Zac decided on his baseball mitt, and Sydney threw in a signed polaroid of herself, knowing it'd be worth a lot more once she became famous for her art.

Harry locked it shut with the final object in the box and lowered it down with Mitch's help. It fit well, and they sat around as it began to fill with dirt. 

"Ten years, we'll come back and open it up." 

"Yeah, but like summertime. I'm sure we'll have more time during the summer than other months." Zac might be right for once. 

"June 1998," Sarah suggests. 

Everyone thinks about it for a second, it feels so far away, a lifetime, really, but yes, they all agree. 

Ten years' time, they will all be digging it up and will relive these moments. 

JUNE 1998 

Harry removes his jacket half an hour in, and there is nothing to complain about. He tosses it close to her side, and Y/N knows if things were different, he would have gently thrown it at her, and without a second thought, she would have put it on. She missed the times when he loved her. Because as much as she can't admit it out loud, she still loves him. 

Now she'll fake conversation with Sydney when her real focus is on Harry and how his muscles seem to grow every time he scoops some dirt out and adds to the pile. He's grown buff over the years, he was always tall and firm in high school due to football, but now he's more defined. The most significant change was in his face, more stern. Not as smiley; it might just be due to being around her. He must hate being in her presence after she broke his heart. 

Y/N lets herself get lost in thought when Zac cheers. She looks down, and peeking out in the corner is brown wood.

"We've hit gold." 

In the next five minutes, Zac and Harry dig as much of the sides as they can, and soon enough, they are lifting it out before settling it down with a big "thump." 

Y/N can't stop eyeing it; it's got dirt in every spot that meets her eye, but she knows what's waiting for her inside of that box, and she can't wait to have it with her once more. 

"Who's going to do the honors?" Mitch asks the bolt cutters in his hand, ready to hand them over.

Everyone looks around at each other; no one says a thing until Harry steps forward and reaches to take them from his hand. Mitch hands them to Harry, no question asked. Harry heads straight to Y/N; he stretches his arm out, waiting for her to accept the cutters.

"Think it's only fair Y/N does the honors, seeing as we made her do a lot of groveling to Lorelai ten or so years ago just for us to bury this; not that she let any of us know." Harry smiles, urging her to take it. Y/N fingers brush his rather quickly, but in that small second, she felt her heart rate pick up and fears he might hear it, although that is almost impossible. 

"Thank you." He nods, urging her forward. 

"Take your time, doll." Zac says sarcastically." 

Y/N is too busy getting down on her knees in front to see the glare Harry sent Zac's way. Everyone else catches the look; believe it or not, they all hope this is the moment that brings these two once lovers back again. 

"Here goes nothing." 

Y/N places the bolt cutters between the lock and counts down to three; it breaks right off the first try.

"You've got some strength!" Sydney exclaims; she was expecting it to take much longer.

Y/N lets the lock fall before reaching up and pulling the single latch. She scans everyone circling around her before opening the crate hating the creaking sound it releases. 

There on top are their most prized items from when they were sixteen. 

Sydney reaches in first, pulling out a polaroid and pink envelope. She flips it over and lets out the biggest laugh. Sydney turns the photo around, letting everyone see her in the photo wearing her then boyfriend's varsity jacket. It has her signature on the page. "I swore I was going to be famous for my art and would sell this for thousands." 

"One day." Harry offers. 

Sydney shrugs. "My boyfriend will appreciate this the most if I'm honest."

"He's that crazy for you?" Sarah asks.

Sydney nods, a shy smile on her face. "Yeah, I'm fortunate." She laughs, letting the moment pass. "Enough, Zac, please, you're next."

Zac, for the first time the whole evening, has fallen silent, almost looks nervous to reach inside. He takes a deep breath to go to the corner of the box and pull out a beat-up baseball mitt. Y/N can see his eyes well up with tears. He chuckles, "I swore I was going to go pro, but that senior injury year changed everything. In a way, Zac felt free; he got to pursue a career in travel journalism. "Enough sap, I volunteer, Harry." 

Harry nods, moving forward, sitting next to Y/N thighs touching; she feels her breath hitch; she doesn't dare move. He reaches in for the only book it's resting on the bottom, a white envelope with a scribbled 'H' on top. He sets the envelope aside but keeps the book in hand.

Harry smiles at the book in hand, Romeo and Juliet. It was not his favorite by any means, but it held a special place in his heart because it was the first book Y/N read to him when they first started dating. He remembers telling her he hated how she ignored him for words on paper, so he proposed she read to him aloud, and that way, they could bond. Y/N was thrilled at the idea; the first book was Shakespeare because it was a reading assignment, and she wanted it done that weekend.

 Harry hated the ending; he remembers ranting to Y/N as she ran her fingers through his hair to calm him down. He didn't understand why Shakespeare made these two people who were star-crossed lovers fall in love in a week only to have them die. 

Safe to say, it took a while to let Y/N read another one of Shakespeare's works. 

Y/N's eyes were on the book, and she watched as Harry carefully opened it to the first page, moving it back so that only they could read what was written on the cover page. 

It read: I've loved you for six months. I'll love you for six more. And maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get to love you for life. Love, Y/N xxx

Y/N felt tears behind her eyes; she had to look away. She was so naïve at the age, but oh how she loved him, and she knew he loved her just the same. Y/N was so grateful to know she was loved, even if it was years ago.  

She doesn't want to go next; instead, Sarah reaches in to save her. Sarah pulls out her folded half of paper and her blue Walkman player. "Oh my goodness, this is going to have some golden tunes." 

Mitch chuckles, "You suffered without it. Think was the first time I ever heard you complain about something." 

Sarah sends him a playful glare. "Shut it! Why don't you go next, Mr. Sentimental."

Mitch is one to never say no to Sarah, so he shrugs and makes his way forward. Patting Harry on the shoulder causing Harry to shift closer to Y/N. Both Harry and Y/N don't say anything but don't bother to move away either. 

Sarah smiled as she watches Mitch pick up a guitar pick. It was the first one he received from his father. "Dad always said I had a guitar in hand." 

"Mitch, you've voiced your thoughts out loud." Harry jokes. 

"Funny Styles." That's the last of what Mitch says as he moves back to read his letter, and Sarah follows close behind. 

Y/N feels everyone staring, but really it's only just Harry. Everyone focused on their own letters but also waiting for a reaction. She slowly reaches in, first pulling out the pink envelope with her initial on the front; Harry wrote it for her, saying she needed a way to identify it years later. 

She sets it in her lap before reaching in and getting the item she's been thinking about all day. 

A silver rose ring. 

It was a gift from Harry; Y/N always spoke of roses and how much her mother loved them. Leading to Harry finding out she loved them just as much. He wore this ring for a long time; he found it in a store in London before they made the move here permanently. It's his last real piece of home, but Aurora had become home, and so had Y/N. It felt right to give to her. She cried, receiving it, and knew it wouldn't fit but told him not to get it resized. She surprised him by wearing it around her neck; she put it on a chain she had. There wasn't a day she wasn't seen without it. 

She holds it tightly in her hand as if Harry might rip it out of her hand, wanting it back, but it's hers, and it's special. Y/N never wants to forget her memories with Harry, no matter how much it hurts, thinking back on them. 

"I've missed it." She whispers. 

Y/N slips it over her head, letting it rest outside her shirt for all to see. She missed the look on Harry's face, but this might be the motivation he needs to speak with her. To talk about where they are now in life. 

Except Y/N stands up, brushing the dirt that was on her pants to head somewhere more private to read her letter she wrote to herself. She walks a few feet away and flips open the pink tab, pulls out a folded paper. Her eyes immediately go to the bottom of the page, wherein black ink, it says, "I love Harry (PS: he made you write that, but it doesn't make it any less true." 

Everything surrounded him; her love for him was just that large. She reads over her letter taking in the words of how her sixteen-year-old self said she was proud of her and that no matter what happens, it was all for a reason.

It's exactly what she needed to hear. 

Harry is watching Y/N stand there read her letter, and he feels the gaze of everyone else to go approach her. Years ago, he wouldn't have thought twice about it, he would have been at her side holding her hand or rubbing her back, but now he doesn't even know if they are even friends. Mitch nudges him, and he knows he should check on her, but she surprises everyone by turning around, a grin on her face. 

"Mom and I cooked lunch, so let's wash up and eat. All this sure has built up my appetite." 

"Don't have to tell me twice." Zac smiles, walking inside heading straight to the kitchen sink. 

The others begin to follow Zac inside when Y/N stops hearing her name being called. It's Harry standing by the hole, shovel in hand. 

"Should I cover it up?"

Y/N can't help the smile, Harry was always so eager to help, and she's glad his kind helping sport hasn't changed. "No, dad is going to cover it. Mom told him he needs to do more yard work. She called it bonding time." 

"Okay, if you're sure." 

"I am." 

"Let's head in then." 

As Harry is about to walk past her, she reaches her hand out, grabbing his bicep, surprising him. "Thank you." 

He nods his head. "Of course." 

Y/N sighs; there's so much left unsaid. Their breakup fresh on her mind seeing him walk away from her, bringing it all back. Oh, how she wishes things were different. 

She doesn't regret leaving for New York, but she does wonder if there was a way to have made their relationship work; would it have survived or crashed and burned. 

In a way, she's glad she never had to find out. 

Y/N puts her brave face on; she's surrounded by friends who love her and who she hasn't spoken to for longer than half an hour. She's going to soak in this time and enjoy it. 

There are other times to be sad.

MARCH 1990 - ACCEPTANCES

Y/N and Harry were both lost in thought as Harry drove them to their destination. There was a lot to think about

Harry was proud to get a full-ride football scholarship to UCLA and a partial for USC. They were close to home, and he got to play a sport he was good at. These universities were tough to get into, but he impressed the recruits. He didn't bother applying outside the state, knowing he couldn't be far from home. It felt wrong for him; he knew that wasn't the case for Y/N. 

Y/N always spoke about leaving the state. She had dreamed about it from a young age especially seeing her brother do it. Gabriel's stories only make her more excited for her future. She loved to travel, no matter the distance. 

Harry, of course, knew this; he just thought he could convince her to stay. 

Applying to schools was hard for Y/N; there were many universities she wanted to apply to, but she feared rejection, so she set a limit of six. Still, a high number; she just needed options. 

When acceptances came in, each application welcomed her. Two east coast universities offered full-ride scholarships, USC offered partial and others only half. She had the money for tuition, her parents saved for her, which she is forever thankful for but knowing she could move across the country like she always dreamed of was calling her name. 

The one thing that stopped her was Harry. 

Y/N had never known love until Harry, and she knows her leaving will jeopardize that. She also knows if she stays, she might not be happy, always stuck on the "what if?"

She was distraught as soon as she heard the news. Her mom saw her pace outside, then sit, pour herself tea then began the cycle again. Y/N dreamed of Columbia. It was her dream university, and to give that up, but also having to give up Harry, she couldn't pick; she didn't want to. 

Harry parks the car; he drove them to an abandoned cliffside that's full of wildflowers. Y/N didn't rush out of the vehicle as she once would have wanted to feel the cold breeze. Now, she stares ahead, letting the car fill with silence—neither one wanting to be the one to begin the conversation that would change everything.

"Is this the end?" Y/N asks her voice, betraying her, as she feels her throat tighten up.

Harry doesn't answer; he reaches for her hand and holds it tight. 

"It doesn't have to be. I don't want it to be." She's barely holding herself together. Y/N's staring at the side of his head, silently begging for him to meet her gaze. 

"Life isn't always as easy as the last four years have been for us," Harry tells her, finally meeting her eyes. 

"I love you. You know that, right." 

"I know." He whispers. 

Y/N shuts her eyes, repeats the words in her head she hasn't been able to voice out, knowing she's going to be breaking more than one heart right now. 

"I can't stay, Harry." Y/N blinks her tears away, but they come right back, seeing Harry holding back tears. "As much as I want to, as much as I can't let you go. I also can't stay." 

"Don't let me go then." He whispers. He reaches forward, cradling her cheek in his hand. It's the softest touch he's given her. It's as if he's trying to remember how she feels. 

"It's not fair." 

"I don't care." Y/N reaches forward to wipe the tear away that managed to escape. 

"But I do." 

"I don't care." He tries again, Harry can't let her go. She's his life, he's too young to know about forever, but he doesn't want to live a life without her. "I'll go with you."

Y/N lets her tears begin to fall at his words. "No." Her voice firm. "It's over if you leave."

Harry pulls back, hurt by her words but Y/N's just as upset. 

She lets go of her hold on him and hurries out of the car. Harry yells her name, begging her to come back, but she's too busy crying to listen to him. Soon enough, she's surrounded by trees, and there are two trails to follow, but she can't pick; it is faith mocking her in the smallest of ways. Instead, she settles for sitting right in the center on a patch of grass. 

Y/N sits hunched over, crying; that's how Harry finds her. He doesn't say a word. He sits next to her and pulls her into his lap. 

"I'm sorry. So sorry, darling." 

Harry begins to rock her back and forward, letting his tears all as he rests his chin on top of her head. Begins to whisper sweet nothings, just wanting her close. He hates that they are causing each other this hurt. 

Y/N's cries have stopped; she sniffles from time to time. The holds she has on Harry is iron tight as if he'd vanish if she let go for even a second."

"Summer." She whispers, breaking the silence. 

"What?" Harry is not sure what she can mean.

"We have Summer."

"Yeah, we do." 

"We have to let each other go at the end of Summer." Her tone is final.

"Y/N-"

Y/N stops him, "Harry, I'm not letting you give up your dreams for me, and I know you won't let me do the same."

"I can't say goodbye," He confesses. 

"Then we won't. We'll kiss goodnight and pretend like we'll see each other in the morning." 

"That's heartbreaking, love." He chuckles bitterly.

"I love you, Harry Styles." 

"And I love you, my angel." 

Harry is done crying, instead leans in and kisses her like he should have done earlier as soon as he had parked the car. The kiss is fast, not soft like all the kisses he's used to giving her, no he wants her to remember this kiss. He wants her to feel everything he isn't saying. 

I love you. You're mine. You're my best friend. I will love you forever. He wants her to feel it all. 

"Show me you love me." Y/N pulls back breathless, lips plush begging to be kissed again. Harry knows what she's asking, and he's not one to deny her. 

He stands up, confusing her, but he comes prepared. Harry walks for the blanket he dumped a few feet away from them, grabbing it and spreading it out. Y/N is quick to lay back on the soft blanket. It warms her instantly. She smiles, reaching her hand up as Harry leans over her, his bottom half straddling her waist, her hand intertwining in his soft curls. Y/N brings him down for a kiss needing his touch to be close. 

Harry and Y/N are wrapped in their own world, lost in their kiss; it's always been them against the world, but soon they are going to venture off separately. It's something that neither of them wants to wrap their head around, and they won't not until they have to. 

They will enjoy graduation together, hand in hand receiving diplomas. Y/N will deliver a beautiful valedictorian speech. The joint graduation party will be a joy and one they sneak away from to spend watching the moon reflect over the ocean. It's the one place they feel at peace, the sea being a favorite of both of theirs. The Summer will bring endless days out, travels up the coast of California even as far as making it to San Francisco for a trip. There is not a second where they don't spend time together, and their parents understand; it breaks their heart, but it's their future, and all they can do is support them. Their love will only grow this Summer which makes it more heartbreaking when they say goodbye in August.

But none of that matters because, for now, they have each other, and that is enough. 

Harry pulls back, leaning his forehead against hers, their breaths mixing together. 

"I love you." 

"I love you so much; it's not going away just because--" Harry stops, not being able to voice the words out loud. He can't say it, or he'll start crying. 

"I know, dove." She trails her finger up his chest until they right over his heart. Y/N can feel how fast it's beating; it beats for her. "Maybe a day will come where we can be together again, that's if you don't find someone else, which I understand if you do."

"It's not going to happen." 

"You don't know that," She mutters. 

"Hey, I love you. No one is going to love me like you do. I'd be a fool to love someone else." Y/N settles her chin on his chest. She's staring into his eyes, trying to find a hint of a lie, but there is none. There's only love and sadness in his green orbs. 

"I love you too."

Harry sighs; there's not much they can do to brighten the mood. "You know what we can do?"

"What?" 

"Make a summer bucket list. First on my list is to kiss the prettiest girl I know every day." She laughs, making Harry break out in a big grin. "Lucky for you, that happens to be you." He tells her, booping her nose with his index finger.

Y/N laughs; it's only March. She has the rest of Spring and all of Summer to love Harry. To love him with every bone and cell in her body because that last day will come sooner than she likes. 

_____

The end of Summer arrived, and she bid Harry goodnight with a kiss at the door like normal, like he was going to show up tomorrow bright and early for breakfast and kisses, but that wasn't the case. It was goodbye, even though neither of them could admit it. 

Y/N and Harry walked away from each other; they didn't say no contact, but it was like they both silently agreed on it because there was no letters or calls to each other, no visits to each other's homes, no visiting each other parents, at least not in the beginning

The love was there, but life goes on.

JUNE 1998

After a delicious meal and second servings, everyone sits back stuffed. Everyone enjoyed a lovely home-cooked meal with entertaining conversation. Y/N enjoyed watching it happen, not participating much in conversation. She never was that interesting, she felt, always let her friends carry the conversation. She could feel Harry glance at her from time to time, but Y/N still hasn't recovered, knowing that Harry's most prized possession at sixteen was a book she wrote a note in. 

Y/N wonders if he's regretting that now. 

"Have we overstayed our welcome?" Zac asks, taking Y/N's silence as something terrible.

She laughs, shaking her head. "You're fine. I like listening, fascinating conversations going on."

"Come on, share something with us." Zac urges her.

"Uhh… med school has been going well. Have all of the Summer off, might do some sightseeing before going home." 

"Yeah, driving home to Massachusetts instead of taking a plane like a normal person." Sydney winces at the thought, not at all wanting to think about the pit stops she had to make. 

"Maybe not the smartest idea, but I encountered zero troubles; my baby, Twila, runs smoothly." 

"Should get her checked out again before leaving." Harry comments.

Y/N nods. "Dad's been on my ass about that as well, but I've got no rush, especially since all I ever do here is walk around town." 

"Enough car talk, let's talk about the time Zac got his clothes stolen after gym class sophomore year." Sarah sets them off on a never-ending conversation of memories.

As soon as one story is finished, a new one is being shared. Y/N forgot most of these, but as her friends tell them, she feels each memory unlock and surfacing. The conversation goes on forever, with no end in sight because that's how friendship is; it's never-ending. Especially when all they did for four years was hanging out together, creating these memories they now are so fond of. 

It's around seven o'clock, the sun begins to set when everyone decides to head home. She walks them out, giving them hugs and promises of seeing each other again before everyone leaves town. Y/N notices Harry lingering by, but she doesn't say anything.

Y/N waves goodbye to Sarah and Mitch when Harry comes to stand by her. She waits for him to say goodbye, not going to rush him, which is why what he says next surprised her. 

"Do you want help cleaning up?" 

Harry looks shy, asking, and Y/N knows he's about to take it back, so she nods. "That'd be great." 

She walks back in, and Harry follows close behind, making sure to lock the door, just in case. "I'll rinse, and you put it in the dishwasher. Okay?" 

"Okay, yes." 

They begin to work in silence, the only sound of the running water. Y/N wonders if he's going to stay longer or if he's going to leave right after. 

God, she could really go for a glass of wine. 

As Y/N hands him the last plate, she dries her hand with the red dish towel before handing a white one over to Harry, who thanks her quietly. 

She leans back against the counter, debating asking him to stay for a drink or not. Harry catches her staring and smiles, unleashing the dimples. It seems he made the decision for her. 

"Do you want a glass of wine?" Y/N turns around, reaching up for a glass for herself, not wanting to face him just in case he rejects her. 

"Wine sounds great." 

Y/N grabs two stemmed wine glasses and opens the bottle of red wine rather quickly; she's surprised her hands aren't shaking because she's so nervous. She fills both glasses halfway before stepping forward to hand Harry his cup.

"Thank you." 

"No problem." 

Harry takes a sip, humming at the taste. Y/N isn't sure where Zac got the bottle. She's just happy it tastes good. 

"Do you want to sit outside, watch the sunset on the steps?" 

Harry agrees and steps out, holding the door open for her. She sits down, leaving room for Harry. He leaves a small space in between them. 

"I love sunsets, never the same." 

"Same as sunrises." 

"I'm not a morning person as I once was, a bit of a night owl." She shares.

"Oh really, why is that?" 

"I'm not sure." Y/N knows that's a lie; what she wanted to say is because she has no one to wake up to. No one to give morning kisses or morning cuddles. 

"You must still love mornings." 

"I do." He chuckles. "I do three-mile runs each morning." 

"Three!" She gasps. "I'd be tired the entire day; I prefer going on hikes or long walks." 

"Used to it already." 

"Pity, to your partner. Stealing cuddles from them." She mutters, taking a sip of her wine, hoping he didn't hear. 

Harry wants to respond, not sure if she was asking or stating. Oh, how he wishes he could know what she was thinking.

"Didn't know you were interested in medicine, Harry." 

"I wasn't, not until my injury." He rubs his shoulder as if he remembered the pain. "After finding out, I was done for; I just needed something entirely different. My physical therapist spoke about his journey to entering the field. He told me to enter something that captured my attention and something I would never get tired of learning about. It led me to psychiatry. My professors were great guidance." 

"John Hopkins, right?" 

"Yes, the very one." 

"Tough school." 

He laughs out loud, hand on his belly. "You're telling me, miss dean's list each semester. Graduating with highest honors from Harvard." 

"You know me, my head always stuck in a book." 

"Still don't take compliments." 

"Makes me feel weird. I love what I do; I can't wait to start and just learn it all. This sponge I call my brain is ready to absorb it all."

"I'm sure you're going to do amazing." 

"Thank you, Harry. That means a lot." She pats his knee before quickly retracting her hand back into her lap.

"Where is your residency?" Harry looks at her, a frown on his face. "Don't think I asked you." 

"Well, Harvard medical was a dream, and I wasn't ready to say goodbye, so I accepted Massachusetts General. I really love the environment they have in the hospital." She sets her wine glass down, turning her body to look at Harry. She misses the look of shock on his face. "Everyone is so kind--"

"Y/N," He tries, but she continues on.

"I went for a tour, and it was busy and crowded, but they were so kind with the children. When I entered the pediatrics ward, I just knew it's where I had to be."

"Y/N," 

"I already know who I'm going to be working under, and she's--" 

"Love," Harry tries his gaze on her face hoping to get a reaction.

That shuts Y/N right up; it has been a long time since she last heard that term of endearment. 

Her eyes are on Harry; he has her full attention. He can tell she's a bit stunned, but his news is life-changing. "I have my residency at Massachusetts General." 

"You what?" She was not expecting that news. Harry is in the same hospital as her. "Are you saying?" 

"We would have run into each other if we hadn't come home for the time capsule, yes." He answers for her. 

"Fate," she whispers.

Harry nods, eyes shining with tears. That one word was enough for Harry to know she might feel the same. 

He sees Y/N's eyes flicker to his lips, going back to his eyes, then leans in. He does the same, wanting to feel her close more than ever. 

"Y/N, you left the-" Harry and Y/N spring apart, the moment gone started by her mother. "Oh, hello, Harry."

Harry clears his throat, standing up to offer the woman who startled him a hug. "Hello Lorelai, wonderful to see you."

"How's your mother?"

"She's well. Left yesterday to visit my nephews for the weekend." 

"That's nice." 

The three now stand outside together, Y/N rocking back and forth on her heels, not able to standstill. 

"Truly wasn't expecting to see you," Lorelai tells him.

"We were catching up" Harry smiles at Y/N. "We were keeping each other company." 

"Very kind." 

"I should get going; it's late." Feeling as if he overstayed his welcome. 

Lorelai senses the tension a second too late as Harry is saying his goodbyes. "Well, please do stop by before you leave town." 

"Of course." 

"I'll walk you out." Y/N smiles at her mother as she leads Harry out through the side gate, personally wanting to avoid a run-in with her father.

Y/N, true to her word, walks him to his car; he is about to round his car, heading to the driver's seat but stops.

"Y/N?" His voice was shaky.

"Yes, Harry."

"Let's have dinner together." He rushes out in one go.

"Harry…" She pauses, "I--" 

He interrupts her. "Don't tell me you have a--" he trails off, not wanting to say the word.

"Course not." She replies quickly.

"But,"

Y/N takes a deep breath, taking a moment to get her thoughts together. "I won't do this unless this is it. This is the time I'm yours again. For good." 

"You've always been mine." He steps forward, hand reaching out to cup her cheek. She lets out a sigh, feeling a sense of peace take over her body. "Eight years and no one compared. No one ever will." 

"H." He can see the tears in her eyes. 

"I mean it. I've always been in love with you. I will always be in love with you. It will always be you."

Y/N closes the gap between them; they are the closest they have been in eight years. She searches his face for any sign of doubt but finds none. Only sees love in his beautiful emerald eyes.

"I love you." She confesses feeling a weight leave her shoulders as the words leave her mouth for the first time in years. "I never stopped. I will never stop." 

"Sweetest words I have ever heard. Words I want to hear forever." Harry's smile is one she had never seen before; it's wide, and she swears it reaches the sky. His eyes hold a shine they never have before. 

There's one last thing she needs for this moment to be perfect.

"Please kiss me."

"With pleasure." 

She's never dreamed of this moment in fear of it not happening, but it finally is, and Y/N swears she feels the stars aligned just for them. Harry's lips were getting closer, and she felt her heart skip a beat. She parted her lips and felt him washing over like a wave of warmth. She finally felt at home. Her whole body tingled, the feel of his frame leaning on jets as his arms wrapped around her tightly, afraid that she'd disappear. Y/N's fingers slowly moved up Harry's chest until they tangled with the back of his short curls. She tugged, needing more, feeling her legs buckle at the moan Harry let out. 

All she felt was love, and she wanted to feel it forever. Y/N let Harry pull away; he didn't go far, letting his forehead rest on hers. Their breaths mix together. There's a bashful smile on Y/N's face, but this moment feels too good to be true. 

Harry and Y/N stand there wrapped in each other's arms, lost in each other's gaze as if no one else existed and there was no risk of interruption. 

"I'll be here at noon tomorrow, going to take you out if you'll let me." 

"Yes, H. I accept." She kisses him softly two more times before unwrapping herself from him, putting a bit of distance between each other, or they very well would stand there all night kissing. 

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." She confirms 

Harry steals one last kiss, short and sweet, before getting in his car. He sends her a kiss that she pretends to catch and places it over her heart. 

She knows he is blushing even though she can't see it. 

As he drives away from her, all the hurt and pain of not having him washes away. Harry is hers, and she is his. 

All is right. 

Their paths finally crossed again, and this time there would be no final goodbye. 

_____

Harry showed up the day after as promised. Y/N was eagerly waiting, she had felt time go slow when they had been apart, but it's a monumental day because once again, after so many years, Harry and Y/N are finally reunited. 

She waited on the steps of her house like she used to when she was a teen waiting for him to pick her up and take her out on a date. It was bringing back the best memories. Harry parked right in front, and just as he was rounding his car to go meet her, she was in front of jumping in his car.

"Woah!" Harry was fast to react, only stumbling a little put holding her tight. "This is a nice welcome." He teases.

"Can you blame me? I missed you." She tells him, nuzzling her face in his neck. 

"Missed you too, love. Eight years, I've missed you." 

"Don't start, H. Don't want to cry. We're here now." 

"You're right." 

Y/N has Harry set her down; they stand there smiling at each other, taking each other in. 

"Up for a drive?" 

She nods. "Will you drive me to the moon?" 

"Anywhere you want, angel." 

Harry drives them to one place she hasn't visited because of the memory it holds. She's guessing it's because he wants to create new, better ones. 

"It's still beautiful here." She looks out through the window, not wanting to leave the safety of the car. She wants to stay close to Harry. 

Y/N sits in silence with Harry holding each other's hands, allowing each other to just enjoy this time together. The calmness of being loved and feeling loved. She knows there are lots to talk about, but she settles for the quietness for now. 

She's not sure how much time has passed, but she's now facing Harry, and he's toying with the rose ring hanging on her neck.

"Y/N," he whispers; she lifts her gaze from his lilac nails and hums for him to go on. "I have to ask." She lets his words sit in their silence. She knows what he's asking, the same thing running through her mind. 

"No." She frowns. "It felt wrong. I could never-- it was never you." 

Harry can tell she feels sheepish confessing this. 

She chuckles dryly. "I must sound lame; the last person I kissed was you eight years ago."

"No, it's not." He assures her. 

She sighs, "Harry." 

"It was the same for me. My friends tried to set me up multiple times, but it felt like cheating. No one understood." 

"So you haven't…" She trails off. 

"Well acquainted with my hand." He jokes.

She burst out laughing, and seconds later, Harry is as well. Their joyous laugh fills the car but also their hearts. 

"I love you." She breathes out, trying to catch her breath.

"And I love you." 

"Want to know a secret," she asks him.

He nods.

She turns her head to the window; she can see herself and Harry in the reflection. His eyes on her full of adoration. 

"I wrote you letters, hundreds. I've lost count, really, but I've got a box full; they are locked up in mom's attic." Y/N turns, looking back at Harry; there's a soft look on his face. "I wanted to send them, but I couldn't. I didn't want to interfere."

"Darling, that's-" he chokes up, tears escaping him. "Can I read them?" 

Y/N nods, "Of course, they were intended for you after all."

"Will you read them with me?" 

"Sure, if that's what you want." 

"Do you want to know something now?"

Y/N reaches forward and brushes a loose curl back. "Tell me." 

"Each book I've read, I have written a dedication in it for you." 

"What?" She says, surprised. 

"The new bookshelf in mom's living room is filled with books." He waits for her to nod before continuing on. "All books for you."

"Harry," It's her turn to cry now, it seems.

"Thought about you just as much, angel." 

"Do you think we did the right thing, letting each other go?" 

"I do."

"Why?" 

"It brought us together again. Sure it was the time capsule, but there is also Massachusetts." He reminds her.

"Isn't that wild?" She shakes her head in disbelief. "Same residency."

"It was fate, angel. Like you said last night." 

"Yeah, guess fate had a plan, after all, dove." 

Harry chokes up, tears welling up in his eyes. "What did you say?" 

"Fate had a plan."

"After."

"Dove," she breathes out, not even noticing she slipped it in; it came out like second nature. "You're my dove, my kind man, the love of my life." 

Harry grabs her face and connects his lips to hers. It's not soft; it's fast and hot but full of love. She leaned back, feeling the heat in her cheeks. Harry chases her lips, not finished yet. She lets him kiss her as he pressed soft pecks on her lips, liking the feel of her soft lips. 

"Is it too soon to ask to marry you?" Harry asks, trailing kisses down her neck. 

"No, never too soon." She giggles as he kisses a soft spot right under her jaw. "If I recall, I asked you one too many times during high school." 

Harry chuckles, nodding. "Should have accepted sooner." 

She looks at him, not being able to contain her laughter, knowing very well he should have.

"Marry me." He asks, all traces of laughter gone. He holds his breath, waiting for a response. 

"Yes, of course, dove." 

Harry seals it with a kiss. She accepted, and yes, it may seem rushed, but they aren't getting any younger. Their love was put on hold, and now because the time is right, they get to pick up as if no time passed at all. 

They are different people, but Harry and Y/N have only become more perfect for one another. 

2000 DECEMBER - MASSACHUSETTS 

Her eyes snap open, and she quickly sits up, throwing the blanket off herself feeling hot and unfocused, startling Harry making him drop the Pop-Tart he was eating to fall on his chest. 

She looks back at Harry, sitting up with crumbs covering his mouth and half-eaten brown sugar cinnamon sitting on top of his black sweats. 

Y/N can't help but laugh at the sight in front of her, her nightmare now pushed aside. 

"You're laughing." He pouts. "You gave me a proper scare." 

She frowns, "I had a bad dream." 

"Yeah, want to talk about it?" 

She shakes her head no, instead asking him an important question. "Why are you eating Pop-Tarts in bed?" She picks up the broken half and takes a bite, appreciating the strong cinnamon flavor. 

"I got hungry, but I didn't want to leave you alone, and honestly, I'd never willingly leave your cuddles." 

"Did you bring me my own?" She mutters, swallowing the last piece of his.

"Why, of course, I'm no monster." 

"What time are you going in today?" She asks as she opens up the package handing him half since she ate his. He happily accepts. 

"Noon." 

She glances at the alarm clock and sees it is only nine am. She mumbles an 'okay,' settling herself to lay her head on his chest. 

"How are you spending your day off?" His hand running through her hair, always wanting to be touching her in some way.

"In bed." 

Harry doesn't like that. "Still feeling sick." He states.

"Yes, but I'm fine." 

"Okay, but we do work in a hospital." He playfully reminds her.

She lets out a deep sigh. "I'll have Annie check on me tomorrow." 

"Thank you." He kisses her temple, definitely leaving crumbs of food behind.

"I love you, Harry." 

"I love you too." 

Y/N and Harry had come a long way from the Summer of 98'. They got back together and were excited to start the next chapter of their lives together. Their families were thrilled at the news of them getting back together and even happier when they learned about their shared residency location. 

That Summer led them to where they are now; two years into their residency programs and one year into marriage. 

Harry could not wait; he had wanted to take her to city hall for a quick signature but knew she deserved better. They were wed in the botanical garden under the beautiful flower arch she dreamed of. It was the wedding she always dreamed of; it was small and beautiful. Only their closest friends and family were in attendance. Their wedding photo; Harry gazing at her as if she put all the stars in the sky and Y/N smiling at the camera. It sits framed on Y/N's bedside. He decided it went there, so when he turns to look over at her, he sees all of her beauty laid out for him and the happiest day of his life. 

Harry had fought her on changing her last name, wanting her to be called Doctor Y/LN because she worked for it and was a man who wanted his wife to shine and do all she set her mind to. Harry went as far as suggesting hyphenating but still no. She changed her last name to 'Styles.' Y/N told him she spent years dreaming about it in high school, even years later when he wasn't by her side. It's an honor to share his last name because one day, their future children would as well. 

Y/N has a year left in her pediatrics residency, and Harry has two years to go. She has her fellowship to think about, which will add three more years; her focus on Critical Care Medicine. Harry has decided on Addiction Psychiatry which is only a year-long, but he's got his last two years to worry about first. 

Life has been going well, they've had their fair share of arguments but nothing they can't fix. Harry can't say he doesn't love making up; it always leads to a good time.

They didn't know what life had in store for him but looking around at the photos they have hanging up, a picture of Mitch and Sarah's little boy Nathaniel who only gets bigger every time they see him. A photo of Sydney showing off her engagement ring, face full of tears but smile large; Zac off traveling the country smiling in his picture of him visiting the Grand Canyon part of his trip to visit each National Park and document his journey. 

This group of six friends is living their dreams; at sixteen, none of them know what life would be like twelve years down the road, but if it wasn't for each of them having this friendship and deciding to bury a time capsule, they might not be where they are right not; happier and more in love than ever. 

Harry and Y/N are filled with love and know life couldn't be better than it is; incredibly grateful to be in love and be loved back just the same. 

Little do they know their love will soon have to be shared.

_____

Thank you so much for reading! 

I love you and I hope you loved this story <3

[cotncandyboifics]

1989 [High School AU]: Chapter 8

AO3 Link

Masterpost

Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5 ~ Chapter 6 ~ Chapter 7 ~ Chapter 9 ~

Pairings: slight Logince, eventual Prinxiety & Logicality

Word count: 2,407

Story summary: Roman Prince is your stereotypical Jock, with everyone swooning after him. Every day a crowd of people follow him around, only to disperse at his personal whim. In reality, he's lucky to have such good acting skills that help him cover up the disdain he has for his life. He only wishes he could use his skills properly.

Patton Whitelock's always there to lend a helping hand, no matter who you are. If you need a favor or just need someone to talk to, go to him. In reality, he's been taught from a young age that kindness should be held above all else. No one suspects that he took it the wrong way.

Logan Montgomery is the smartest boy in the Senior class. He's stern, and most people are too intimidated to speak to him. In reality, he despises most all of his fellow students. He sticks to his studies and doesn't stray, for fear of being stuck in his father's shadow his whole life.

Virgil Black is the most emo kid in school, let alone 12th grade; everyone knows to leave him be. In reality, he's very fortunate. He has two parents who love him dearly. But everything beyond his life, everything within his mind, is utter chaos and turmoil.

what will happen when they're assigned a biology project together?

General CW: food, swearing, implied s-lf h-rm, non-graphic descriptions of s-lf h-rm scars, graphic and non-graphic descriptions of anxiety attacks and panic attacks, drug abuse, minor character intoxicated on heroin, non-graphic drug overdose description, sickness/description of sickness, blood, non-graphic descriptions of needles, (will be added to as I write more)

Chapter CW: food, (let me know if i missed anything please!)

Author notes: alternate title: Virgil's very subtle epiphany. also Patton has a gay panic moment lol

...

Slam.

Monday morning. Mr. Berry was slapping a small poster on each student's desk like a stamp, one-by-one and painfully slowly.

"This," he began, "Is the official welcome to the schoolyear; audition posters for the Fall Talent Show." His bloated belly hardly fit between the desk rows, and students made futile attempts to scoot away from him before they were bombarded by his tyrannical tummy. "As a retired thespian and a life long supporter of theatre and the arts," he continued, bringing his pile of posters to his chest in his passion, "I highly recommend you at least consider looking into auditions. Everyone has a passion, or at least a hobby, and the talent show is a perfect freelance opportunity to show off your skills."

Roman rolled his eyes too dramatically. This was upsetting him more than he thought it would, and his eyes shot daggers up at his large superior as he slammed the next poster onto Roman's desk.

"Auditions will be held next week, on the specified dates. The show itself will be two weeks later, I believe on Friday night. Be there, and I will award you some extra credit points. All you must do is present me with your ticket, which must have your name on it," he eyed a few mischievous students in the room, "With a stamp on it from the Talent Show admissions booth, on the following Monday." As soon as Mr. Berry had given a poster to Virgil and moved on, Virgil quietly crumpled it and shoved it into a random part of his backpack, proceeding to fold his arms on his desk and put his head down. This caught Roman's attention, and his subconscious latched onto formulating a teasing remark for after class as a distraction from his own feelings about the Talent Show.

After class, the usual place where Roman and Virgil were shortly alone and had a short interaction - most often consisting of some insufferable tease from Roman or occasionally a debate spurred by Virgil making a witty side comment - the two met once again. After their first class of the day was usually the only time they were both at their lockers at the same time, as it happened, and Virgil was always thankful that it was the only time. Since their assignment to the Biology project, however, Roman had taken to walking with Virgil from their English class to their lockers and beginning his bouts of banter prematurely.

"Not a fan of the infamous talent show, are we?" Roman paced quickly over to Virgil, who had just made it outside the classroom door as they'd been dismissed. Virgil huffed in defeat as his attempt to escape before Roman could catch him had been fruitless.

"It's ridiculous," Virgil didn't slow his pace for Roman, and began essentially speedwalking down the hall. Roman was slightly taller than him and was able to keep up, but still got a little out of breath doing it. "Hey everyone, come and show everyone in the school something you really enjoy so they can all collectively judge you and make you self conscious about your interests and - oh no! you don't wanna do it anymore because you feel horribly inadequate? shoooot. Sorry man, no one could have seen that coming. Oh well, better luck next year when you'll just ruin a different passion for yourself!" Virgil flailed his hands at the end of his mini-rant.

"How can you stay that sarcastic for that long consecutively? I'm honestly impressed," Roman said, huffing as they arrived at their lockers. Virgil's permanent frown seemed to somehow deepen. "Though, I guess I really can't argue, Count Woe-laf. I see your point. The pressures of an impromptu performance are... undeniable." Roman focused his attention on the padlock hanging from the latch of his locker, while Virgil looked to him with widened eyes.

"Really?" He didn't look away from Roman until he would look back.

"What?" Roman defended.

"It's just..." Virgil focused on his own padlock now, "You never agree with what I say. It always becomes a debate," he pulled his locker open lazily, pulling his backpack off his shoulders and putting it on backwards so that he could more easily exchange things. When Roman didn't reply, he continued, "like... I don't know. Why is it any different now?"

Roman was exchanging things as well, and didn't have an immediate answer. Well, he knew the answer (or in this case, answers), but it wasn't one he was even ready to admit to himself, let alone anyone else, and especially let alone Virgil. He just eventually shrugged.

This reaction only further alarmed Virgil. He opened his mouth to continue his flabbergasted interrogation, but the bell rang right at that moment. Roman slammed his locker shut suddenly.

"Well, that's our queue I suppose. See you tonight, Incredible Sulk." Roman elbowed Virgil in the shoulder a bit awkwardly and began skipping down the hall to his next class. That left a dumbfounded and nearly-panicking Virgil standing in front of his open locker in an almost completely empty hall.

He wished Roman would stop leaving him like that.

...

Roman had texted the Biology Project group chat that weekend, saying he had an important football practice on Monday that went until 5. they'd have to have their meet-up at Roman's a bit later in the evening. Logan simply waited it out by heading to the school library to get his other homework done, while Patton and Virgil shot the breeze, walking down random hallways of the school.

The two of them were grabbing a snack from a vending machine when Virgil checked his phone. It was 4:50. They got their respective snacks - Patton got a strawberry Pop tart and Virgil got a Sunny D - and made their way to the designated meeting place. It was a concrete bench at the front of the school. They expected to find Logan there, but he wasn't. The two of them simply sat on the cold bench and exchanged bits of each other's snacks, and continued talking until Virgil noticed someone approaching.

He figured it would be Logan, but this person was shorter and more filled out than Logan. He trained his eyes better and realized that it was Roman. Roman, who happened to have a towel around his neck and sopping-wet crimson curly hair unabashedly on display. A drip of water rolled down his cheek and along his jawline, and Virgil realized he was staring. Roman finally got within conversation distance.

"Like what you see, Charlie Frown?" He teased. Patton looked to Virgil, noticing his awe, and giggled.

"Hah, in your dreams, Meta Knight," Virgil deflected half-heartedly, still finding it hard to pull his eyes away from Roman's unfortunate perfection. It was only worse that Roman knew just how attractive he was.

"Why's your hair all wet, silly?" Patton asked, standing energetically to greet him.

"We rinse off after practice. I considered leaving my shirt off so i could just get a clean one when i got home, but i knew that might be a bit too much to handle for some of us," Roman elbow-nudged Patton, who just giggled again and pushed his glasses up. Virgil knew that was extremely forced, especially after their conversation on Friday.

"Well," Roman checked his wristwatch, "Where would my nerdy Wolverine happen to be? It's ten past, and if there's anything Logan certainly is, it's punctual."

"Quite right you are," a stern voice came from behind them, to reveal Logan's lengthy form approaching casually. "My apologies for my tardiness. I got quite engaged in a particular Physics problem." Roman turned to him smiling, and pecked him on the cheek. Virgil didn't need to look at Patton to feel his friend's heart sink through the floor.

"Shall we then?" Roman turned to lead the way on the five-block journey to his house.

...

"hmm, that reminds me," Roman said from his sprawled position on his bed, "what are all your sexualities?"

That sure caught everyone's attention. The clock beside Roman's bed read 6:28 PM. Logan was studying their plants and taking notes, Patton had been cooing quietly to Roman's pet turtle, and Virgil was sitting in Roman's spinning desk chair scrolling on his phone. They all looked at Roman at once, and then at each other.

"Heh," Roman sat up, "My apologies for blurting such an intrusive question, I was just looking up at my-" he gestured toward his ceiling- "glorious flag, and it made me wonder. No man must answer that which he does not desire to." Roman was blatantly referring to the Bisexual flag that was pinned to the ceiling above his bed. They all looked at it, and back at him. "I suppose it's obvious now, but yes, I am undeniably bisexual," He faux bowed.

The silence wasn't doing anyone good, so Patton broke it before it got too much more awkward. "I, I'm gay," he said sheepishly, continuing to observe the turtle. Virgil gave him a soft smile, and decided to offer himself up next.

"I'm pan," he seemed to recoil further into his hoodie, if that were even possible. Logan turned to the other three, adjusting his necktie.

"I'm not usually one to admit this to many people, but since you have all been so transparent and calm about such personal information," He started, "I am comfortable telling you that I am Asexual."

No one regarded this with much surprise, except for Roman. "Oh really?" He said, seemingly surprised and embarrassed. Virgil scoff-laughed at him.

"What, upset you can't make your sexual fantasies a reality?" Virgil teased. Roman gasped, bringing a hand to his chest in an offended gesture.

"Excuse me!" He exclaimed, a look of disgust contorting his face.

Before a classic Roman-Virgil debate could ensue, Patton decided to share his thoughts.

"Well, I, I mean, I'm not ace but I, I guess sex isn't really so important to me," he was fiddling with his ring yet again.

"W-well, it should never be the centerpiece of any relationship!" Roman declared. They all looked at him skeptically. "what? I mean, personally, I prefer grand gestures." As he spoke, he stood and walked to Logan. "In my opinion," he produced a pristine bouquet of deep red roses that none of the others had noticed anywhere in the room before, "they are the key to any person's heart."

Logan seemed tame, Patton thought. As if he were performing. If he were being his normal self, he would have been very confused by where Roman had hidden the bouquet, and how it looked so perfect after being concealed. Instead, he just took it with a very gentle sweet smile, and thanked him quietly. Instead of Logan, Patton was now the one confused.

Virgil's face was red, and his neck a blotchy pink; thankfully he was mostly hidden under his purple bangs and hood. He huffed and excused himself to use the restroom. Patton noticed this time, and grabbed his arm before he made it out of the room.

"You okay?" he whispered gently to Virgil. Virgil just looked at him, mustered a small smile and a nod. Patton knew exactly what that meant. Virgil was okay, he just needed a moment. He returned the smile, and released his gentle paternal grip on Virgil's arm, allowing him to leave.

There was the sound of someone calling Roman's name from another part of the house, and Roman excused himself, rushing off to find its source.

Logan slipped his phone into the pocket of his navy slacks. "Well, I must be going now," He began. Instead of reaching to gather his things, he trained his acute attention directly on Patton, who was startled by the sudden focus on him. "Patton, do you have a ride home today?"

"I, uh, well," He tried blurting out an excuse but none came to his mind. "No, not exactly..."

Logan was slowly approaching, and Patton tried to back up but hit the terrarium containing Roman's turtle after just one small step. "Would you like a ride? My parents would be more than happy to assist in your safe transport home."

"Well, well I really don't want to intrude, or-" He stopped dead when Logan placed a slender hand gently on his shoulder.

"I insist. It's no intrusion or burden to them. They appreciate being able to help others when they can, especially people whose company I enjoy." Logan didn't feel as though he was figuratively lying through his teeth, but he knew that his parents didn't exactly feel that way. The nature of the situation was more that they took kindly to those that Logan worked well with on academically related subjects, such as people from his study group or the like.

Patton caught himself before letting the thought "you enjoy my company?" escape his lips. He just smiled. He knew there was no way he could get himself to deny Logan's offer when his heart was taking the reins.

"I would.. really appreciate, a ride home, yeah," He said quietly. Logan was just looking into his eyes with a tenderness Patton hadn't seen before. He pushed away any thoughts that Logan may have looked at Roman the exact same way during their date. He hoped he hadn't, and cursed himself for hoping it.

"Wonderful," Logan pulled himself out of their shared momentary trance. "I will let them know. I'm sure they will find it a pleasure to become acquainted with you. They should be here in less than five minutes, so I suggest gathering your belongings." Logan's thumbs padded across is illuminated phone screen as he spoke, until he once again slid it into his pocket and began collecting his things along with Patton.

Virgil entered once again, hood off and face slightly red and wet. it was clear that he hadn't been crying due to the sporadic nature of the droplets of water across his face; it looked more like he'd just haphazardly washed his face in the sink and hadn't bothered to wipe the remnants away. Patton smiled at him brightly.

"Ah, Virgil," Logan addressed as he slung his bag over his shoulder, "It was pleasant to see you again. We are on our way out now. Are you ready, Patton?" He looked to Patton, who also slung his bag over his shoulder.

"Yep! Logan's giving me a ride," Patton blatantly could barely contain his excitement in his ever-growing grin, so Virgil only returned it with a small thumbs up.

"Alright, ill see you guys in class tomorrow," He hugged Patton tightly, and half-heartedly saluted to Logan without making eye contact. Logan simply nodded to him, and the two left shortly, leaving Virgil alone in Roman's room.

[theladysexpistol]

Maybe headcanon or a scenario of a s/o finding out that her love Polnareff is actually a turtle now? Possibly being invited by Giorno to Italy where she finds out about it. Just an small idea. Anyways thanks sm, if you decide to do it! (you don’t have to though)

This request made me so sad I’m 🥺🥺

One of my friends just very recently got to that part in the manga/anime and in his words “Polnareff deserved better”. I mean we’re glad he didn’t die but now he’s stuck as a turtle! And the turtle, the MVP of Vento Aureo, died! 😂😂

🐢

Ended up with a scenario because I got inspired. You used female pronouns in your ask so I’m going to assume you wanted a fem!reader

~~~

This prompt is sad. Here he is smiling

“I won’t be long, mon chéri. Just a few things I need to help clean up for an old friend. Don’t miss me too much, now. Then we have all the time in the world together, just you and I.”

The man you loved most in the world, the one you had given your everything to, had said that to you before leaving. “I won’t be long,” the beginning would make you laugh now, if it didn’t make you want to cry every time you thought about it.

He had said it almost seven years ago, and then vanished without a trace.

Jean Pierre Polnareff, what an enigmatic man he was. You met him in the summer of 1989 - unbeknownst to you, he had just returned to France from facing certain death every single day for 50 days, avenging his sister’s death and losing three of his friends on the way to defeating the most evil being to ever exist - and the two of you began dating quite soon after. Something you both had in common was that neither of you had any family left, and so you became each other’s family.

He was a major flirt and a goofball, but in the moments of quiet between the two of you, you could always sense this strange intensity to him. His ghosts followed him everywhere, but the most you ever got from it was that it didn’t matter anymore.

“Everything’s behind me, mon amour. I’d rather not burden you with my old troubles. Let’s just keep walking forward together.”

Despite worrying over him, you respected his boundaries, trusting that he would tell you when he was ready. Still, the years spent with Jean Pierre were the happiest you had been in a long time. You felt certain that you would marry him, settle down and two of you could bring children into your blissful lives.

In 1994, he said those words to you; got on a plane, and you never saw him again.

You never heard from him, once. It was though he had vanished. The police were absolutely no help, essentially telling you to get over it as you were the only person alive who seemed to care about the fact that he was missing. They told you there was nothing they could do since he could be anywhere in the world. Essentially, your friends told you he got cold feet and ran. Though deep in your heart you were shattered by this, something inside you just felt like it was something else. One of those secrets he had been keeping to himself behind every smile.

In 2001, something strange happened to you. You had been in your kitchen cooking, and nicked yourself with a knife. As you searched frantically for a cloth or a tissue to stop the cut from getting everywhere, small droplets of blood began to run down your finger. One... Two... Three... Four.... and then suddenly, there were ten drops. You stared in silence at the blood droplets on the counter. How was that possible? You weren’t going crazy were you?

The second strange event occurred moments later, when something inside you, what felt like your very soul, felt as though you were burning. You collapsed to the floor in agony, crying out and simply waiting for it all to be over. But when it all stopped, and you found yourself alive in a mess of tears on your kitchen floor, it was though you knew instinctively. This had to do with Jean Pierre.

A few weeks later, you received a call from a number in Italy. Normally one to just ignore odd phone calls, you elected to ignore it the first two times it rang... the third sent your heart into your throat. They were trying to reach you so desperately; it just had to be him! after seven years, he was finally coming back.

Who was on the other line, though, was not Jean Pierre. It was an Italian man, he sounded very young, who introduced himself in English as Giorno Giovanna. He told you he was calling on behalf of Jean Pierre Polnareff and you nearly burst into tears. Without even hearing what else he had to say you were demanding him to tell you were he was, that you could see the man you loved so much again, to be held in his arms again-

“Sign- Miss,” the young man continued. “He does want me to tell you... he doesn’t look like how you remember him anymore. He wants you to be prepared for that.”

“I don’t care!” You exclaimed. “As long as Jean Pierre is alive, that’s all that matters to me! As long as he still loves me!”

It was faint... it was oh so faint but somehow you still heard it. “Chéri...” mumbled so softly and yet the phone still picked it up. It was his voice. A voice you had longed to hear from anywhere else but trapped inside your head for any longer.

“Jean Pierre! Can I speak to him?” You asked, but Giorno disregarded your question. He told you he would pick you up at Napoli airport, and hung up quickly afterwards.

You had said it didn’t matter before, but the way they both had acted made you realize as tears pricked the corners of your eyes, that something terrible had happened to the love of your life.

~

Giorno turned out to be even younger than you had imagined. He couldn’t even be over the age of 20. Oddly enough, after receiving you at the airport he then led you to a black car with darkened windows in which he got in the backseat with you. Another young man was in the driver’s seat, with a strange hat that covered much of his hair and a cropped sweater in loud red and blue. You noticed the gun holstered on him immediately. Who exactly had Jean Pierre gotten involved with in Italy?

All of those thoughts went out the window though as Giorno and the other man escorted you inside a beautiful Italian manor. They brought you into a beautiful ballroom with glassy floors and art across the ceiling. It had a wide window that overlooked a garden. You noticed there was a table pushed against the far wall, displaying several vases of flowers and the sculpture of a turtle on it.

“So,” you looked between the two of them. “Where is Jean Pierre? Is he hurt? In the hospital? What are we doing here?”

The two of them exchanged a glance before Giorno spoke again. “He’s... here. In the manor. I just want to emphasize again that he’s changed a lot since you last saw him. He was involved in some dangerous things that he never told you about. And for never telling you that before, he’s-“

A new voice interrupted from behind you. “For that, I am so, so sorry, mon chéri.”

With a gasp, and with tears already in your eyes, you turned around to expect to find a man standing in the doorway. Instead you saw nothing but the table with the turtle statue again. Confused and desperate, you frantically looked around for something, anything that made this make sense.

Finally, you spoke even though your voice cracked. “Jean Pierre, where are you?!”

This time, it was very clear where his voice came from. “I’m right here. L’amour de ma vie, I never thought I would get to see your beautiful face again.”

You made your way slowly over to the table, where upon approach it became immediately clear that the turtle was not a statue as it raised its head to look up at you. Slowly, you reached down to touch it. “Jean Pierre?” His name was barely a whisper on your tongue.

There was a key on the turtle’s back, wedged into the shell. You watched as the key glimmered for a moment, and a small Jean Pierre Polnareff from the waist up popped out.

The look on your face read joy - to finally see him again after all these years - to horror. You couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had happened to him.

But the explanation could all come later. Right now, you simply picked up the turtle and held him close to you as joyful tears, for now, ran down your face. You had him back. That was what mattered most.

[crazy4tank]

Here’s What Gives The Dodge Viper A Dangerous Reputation

New Post has been published on https://coolcarsnews.com/heres-what-gives-the-dodge-viper-a-dangerous-reputation/

Here’s What Gives The Dodge Viper A Dangerous Reputation

Dodge Viper is one of the deadliest animals within the American car food string. It has only one objective in the life; go from stage A to point W as fast as possible and nothing else. It offers embarrassed the exotics all over the world while being hand crafted in the USA.

Armed with ten cylinders shaped in a V shape, becoming light like a feather, plus providing you with the bare minimum you should see supercars in your decorative mirrors suffocate in the dust of the tires, the notorious Avoid Viper is one dangerous United states snake.

RELATED: Here's What Everyone Forgot Regarding the Dodge Viper

In spite of surviving near bankruptcy a couple of years prior, Chrysler was in large trouble in 1988. The rivals, Ford and Chevy, were way ahead of this in sales. Chrysler made the decision to produce one of the most hardcore sports activities cars since the Shelby Cobra .

A two-seat sports vehicle inspired by Jaguar’s E-type and the Cobra was exactly what Chrysler’s executive vice leader, Bob Lutz was longing to behold. He wanted a big motor, manual transmission, and no extravagant electronics like traction manage or anti-lock brakes to obtain in the way of making a quick animal.

Bob Lutz met up with Chrysler’s mind of design, Tom Gale , plus told him about their plan. There would be no concentrate groups of Chrysler’s suits informing Gale what to do. He had the entire freedom to do whatever would have to be done in order to bring Lutz' vision to life. Gale do just that.

Beginning his career working on the particular Plymouth Barracuda and the Challenger , it is secure to say that Tom Gale knew a thing or two about developing iconic American muscles.

The car they produced had a similar design vocabulary to the typical sports vehicles of the sixties; a long cover, a short deck, and no roofing. One of the major sources of impact for this car was Shelby Cobra. Even the name has been inspired by the Cobra; the Viper.

Gale great team worked for almost per year and came up with a working prototype just in time for your 1989 United states International Auto Show . The car was making a lot noise that even before Chrysler’s President had announced the vehicle, down payments were getting mailed to the Chrysler. Individuals went crazy about the Viper. Celebrities even tried to entice Bob Lutz to get their particular name on the waiting listing since Dodge only created 285 vipers in 1992.

Like the Shelby Cobra, the Viper didn’t offer anything to a person that wasn’t essential to heading fast; no air conditioning, simply no power locks, no doorway handles, no roof, with no window. Just a big metal unit with two not-so-comfortable seats and a big V10 engine.

Even though many sports cars carried the particular title “A race vehicle for the streets, ” Avoid Viper was one of the few that truly deserved it. It was naive that words like “compromise” or "subtlety” ever been around. All it wanted to perform was to go really, actually fast.

The particular Viper was difficult to generate fast and it wasn’t timid to hurt your feelings. The particular Viper didn’t hesitate in order to physically hurt you possibly; the side exhaust was situated right under the door and when your feet touched anywhere over the exhaust while getting out there, you’d burn yourself.

Chrysler owned Lamborghini until 1994. The same people who designed the Miura , Countach , and Diablo helped Dodge with the Viper. The 8. 0 T V10 design that the Viper was armed with was 2 liters bigger than the motor in the Diablo, but included one-fourth of the Diablo's cost!

This insane power to weight ratio designed that the Viper could stand against competitors like Ferrari and Lamborghini while becoming ridiculously cheaper. Chrysler demonstrated with the Viper that they nevertheless had it in them selves.

The viper got a few minor improvements including door handles as well as a roof in 1996 with all the introduction of the GTS Sports coupe. Then in 1999, Dodge offered the Viper its 1st serious upgrade; the Viper ACR. ACR stood regarding American Club Racer that was exactly what this model intended to be. It took only four and a half seconds for the ACR to go from 0 in order to 60 and its top speed has been 180 miles per hour.

Another track design that Dodge came up with was your GTS-R which was an immediate achievement on the track. GTS-R was able to win 16 out of the 18 races that it entered just inside two years.

The Viper’s first main facelift occurred in the year 2003; the headlights got just a little angrier and the car by itself got a little bulkier. Nevertheless , despite looking bigger, this actually weighed 100 lbs less and had 50 hp more than the previous generation.

After a few various other models and variations since 2003, the Viper disappeared in 2007. The absence, however , didn’t take greater than a year. In 2008, the Viper came back with 600 hp and the ACR model was back too. But in July 2009, Dodge announced the end of Viper production. Dodge’s CEO, Rob Gilles stated that Avoid wanted to “preserve the value” of the current cars simply by NOT building them consistently and promised that the Viper will be back with an all-new platform.

The particular viper returned in 2013 with a more aggressive encounter and 640 horsepower. With this particular second revival of the Viper came all the familiar cut levels, the GTS as well as the ACR models, and a lot of track-oriented features like lots of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer and tuned suspension.

Unfortunately, the Viper was killed off once again in 2017 with its final model painted with the exact same shade of red how the first one was covered with.

RELATED: fifteen Pics That Show Just how much The Dodge Viper Is promoting In 30 Years

The particular Viper’s only objective has been to go fast. And it certain managed to complete that goal even in its last era. With an 8. 0 liter v10 engine, the Viper place supercars in awe plus shame with its brutal rate throughout its years of manufacturing.

The Viper has been revived two times currently, so there still could be hope to see it return at some point.

NEXT: We Are unable to Stop Staring At These Revised Dodge Vipers

[blazehedgehog]

You mentioned May May was sort of a saviour after your previous pet's passing. Will your mother and you manage alright going forward? P.S. Really sorry to read about your special cat moving on :'(

There’s nothing that I can do about it. She was sick, and it was her time.

Would I like another cat? That’s not something I can easily answer right now. I am of two minds.

I’ve never been alone. For as long as I can remember, we’ve always had pets. Always always. When I was born (mid 1980′s), my Mom already had a dog, a miniature poodle named Sugar, and a Peekapoo named Frosty.

Sugar died before I was much older than 4 years old, so I don’t remember much about her. My brother moved in with us (1989, maybe 1990) while we were still living in California, and brought one of his cats, Nocona. He sort of became our cat after my brother moved out. He was a solid black tomcat with bright emerald green eyes. Absolutely beautiful.

When we moved from Cali to Colorado (1991), we brought Nocona and Frosty with us, and while we were staying at our Uncle’s house, one of their cats had a litter of kittens, so we ended up with two we named Babs and Furball. Babs was considered my Mom’s cat, and she was a tiny little orange and black calico, and Furball was mine, and her opposite – a big, slate gray cat with a white tummy and white boots that grew to the size of a Maine Coon.

Nocona, being a former stray, was not a lap cat and not super affectionate, though that gradually started to change over the years. Babs and Furball, given we raised them from newborn kittens, adored us. Nocona would often get jealous and try to establish dominance, until we eventually had him neutered, then he really mellowed out.

Frosty hung on for ages. She was two weeks from her 20th birthday when she died (1997-ish?). She was deaf and blind and eventually senile, but she kept going.

Once she was gone, it was down to just the three cats, which became four cats once our Grandma moved from Nevada to Colorado (1999-ish). She brought with her a tortoise shell calico that my brother had gotten for her named Barbie. Us having Barbie was only meant to be a temporary situation, but she ended up becoming our cat, even though she did NOT get along with the other three.

Most of our cats lived to be a good 10+ years, but eventually all died, and from what we mostly believe to be either stomach cancer or feline AIDS (both very common in cats). I want to say Babs was first, then Nocona, then Furball, over the span of 3-4 years in the early 2000′s. Eventually it was just Barbie.

In 2005 or 2006, a friend of my Aunt’s was moving and needed to get rid of their two dogs and their cat. The plan was that we’d take one dog, but then it became both dogs, and it almost became both dogs and the cat, but we thankfully backed out of that.

We were assured the dogs got along well with cats, for obvious reasons, but that did not end up being the case. We had to keep Barbie quarantined to one half of the house (basement) and the dogs got the run of the other half (up stairs).

The first dog was Bandit, a Shitzu, and we were told he was maybe two years old. Once we had him, he seemed much older, at least 3 or 4, maybe more. The other dog was a black little Pomeranian they named “Shaky Bear” because when he would get excited, he’d shiver. We didn’t like that name, so we started calling him Fozzie. We were told he was a year old, but he also seemed much older than we were lead to believe. We figure they fudged the dog’s ages to get us to take them.

Within a couple years of getting the dogs, Barbie started developing health problems, same as the other cats. That one was actually pretty shocking – with all the other cats, you could tell they were slowing down and that it was their time to go. Barbie was acting totally fine, but suddenly had trouble using the litter box, so we took her in for what I thought was a routine check up and my Mom came out wiping tears, with an empty cat carrier. I still don’t really understand what happened to her, other than my Mom telling me that “she was just old.” And to be fair, we’d had her almost ten years, and my Grandma had her at least two before that, so that was true.

I quickly learned that while I liked dogs, I was definitely a cat person. Cats are chill and easy to take care of. They do their own thing and you do yours. Dogs, especially small dogs like shitzus and pomeranians, are hyperactive, noisy, and require way more maintenance. Dogs are loud frat boys that are always ready to party. Cats are the quiet roommate that sometimes watches a movie with you. Both can be good, but in different ways, and the entire time we had the dogs, I found myself living vicariously by watching videos of Maru.

We didn’t know exactly how old the dogs were, so there was no way to measure their life expectancy. Bandit died in 2011. We’re pretty sure he had a seizure, or a series of seizures, and he went blind and senile within the span of a few months. He’d often have trouble finding his food dish and eventually had trouble standing on his own. He became so senile he’d start have panic attacks, and eventually just stopped wanting to eat. It’s possible he developed canine alzheimers (CCD).

Fozzie died a little over a year later in December of 2012. It was possibly liver failure, but we don’t know. All of our other pets were put down as to not prolong their suffering, but Fozzie actually died in my arms on the way to the vet. Though I was a cat person, Fozzie was such a strong personality that it broke my heart to see him go. We both cried a lot, and speaking personally, it was the first time a pet’s death had ever made me cry. That was a hard year for a lot of other reasons, and emotionally speaking, I have never been the same person since his death.

The house was empty for all of two or three days until our next door neighbor asked if we could take care of her cat for a few months while she found a place to live in California. Instead, she moved to Arizona, got a new Chihuahua, and lived with friends and family (who had pets of their own) for almost a year. It didn’t seem like a good idea for her to take her cat in to an environment like that, so it was decided the cat was ours now.

That cat was May May. I was instantly in love with her, but my Mom tried to keep her distance after what happened to Fozzie. Obviously, that didn’t last forever.

After Fozzie’s death we said no more pets, but we ended up with the cat, sort of against our will. Now that she’s broken our hearts, too, we’ve said that she was it.

I try to think about it logically. When we moved to Nevada a couple years ago, part of the reason it was so difficult to find a place to live is because out of the 100+ places we applied to, a good 80-90% of them were not pet-friendly. Where we’re living right now was essentially the first place that had room for us and said yes to pets, and it took almost 5 months for it to become available.

Not having an animal with us opens up a lot of doors for better places for us to live. Cheaper rent, lower move-in deposits, bigger general availability. We’ll also be saving at least $50 a month on pet supplies. No more special digestive food, no more lugging 20lbs of cat litter up and down a flight of stairs every month. 

But at the same time… May May was the only friend I got to bring with me from Colorado. There will be days now where I will really be truly alone in this apartment for the first time… ever. For literally my entire lifetime, I’ve always had pets by my side, and now I won’t.

And I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a distressing, lonely thing to consider.

Our lease is up next month and we’d hoped to move somewhere better after the holidays rush is over. And once we’re locked in to a place that doesn’t accept pets, that’ll be it.

And there’s a part of me that’s okay with that, and a part of me that really, really isn’t. It’s kind of paralyzing to think about.

I guess we’ll just have to find out what happens by living through it.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #388

Top Ten Things Tim Burton’s Batman Films Did Right

Thirty years ago, give or take, the first Tim Burton Batman movie was released in cinemas (according to Google, its UK release date was 11th August 1989). Everyone knows the story; it was a phenomenon, a marketing juggernaut, a hit probably beyond what anyone was reasonably expecting. I was too young to understand or appreciate what was going on, but for twenty years or more the image of Batman in the public consciousness was intertwined with Adam West and pop-art frivolity. Suddenly superheroes were “dark” and “grown-up”; suddenly we had multi-million-dollar-grossing properties, franchises, and studios rummaging through their back catalogues of acquired IPs to land the next four-quadrant hit. Throughout the rest of the nineties we got a slew of pulp comic adaptations – The Spirit, The Phantom, Dick Tracy – before the tangled web of Marvel licenses became slightly easier to unpick, and we segued into the millennium on the backs of Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man. Flash-forward to a super-successful Batman reboot, then we hit the MCU with Iron Man, and we all know where that goes. And it all began with Batman!

Except, of course, that’s not quite the whole story. Studios were trying to adapt superheroes and comic books for a number of years, not least because Richard Donner’s Superman had been such a huge hit a decade before Batman. And the Batman films themselves began to deteriorate in quality pretty rapidly. Plus, when viewed from the distance of a couple of decades or more, the supposed dark, gritty, adult storytelling in Burton’s films quickly evaporates. They’re just as camp, silly, and nonsensical as the 1960s show, they’re just visually darker and with more dry ice. Characters strut around in PVC bodysuits; the plots make little to no sense; characterisation is secondary to archetype; and Batman himself is quite divorced from his comic incarnation, killing enemies often capriciously and being much less of a martial artist or detective than he appeared on the page (in fact, Adam West’s Batman does a lot more old-school deducing than any of the cinematic Batmen).

I think a lot of people of my generation, who grew up with Adam West, went through a period of disowning the series because it was light, bright, campy and, essentially, for children; then we grow up and appreciate it all the more for being those things, and also for being a pure and delightful distillation of one aspect of the comics (seriously, there’s nothing in the series that’s not plausibly from a 1950s Batman comic). And I think the same is true of Burton’s films. for all their importance in terms of “legitimising” superhero movies, they have come in for a lot of legitimate criticism, and in the aftermath of Christopher Nolan’s superlative trilogy they began to look very old-fashioned and a much poorer representation of the character. But then, again, we all grow up a little bit and can look back on them as a version of Batman that’s just as valid; they don’t have to be perfect, they don’t have to be definitive, but we can enjoy them for what they are: macabre delights, camp gothic comedies, delightfully stylised adventure stories. They might lack the visual pizazz of a Nolan fight scene or, well, anything in any MCU movie, but they’re very much of a type, even if that type was aped, imitated, and parodied for a full decade following Batman’s release. There’s much to love about Burton’s two bites of the Bat-cherry, and here – at last – I will list my ten favourite aspects of the films (that’s both films, Batman and Batman Returns).

Tim Burton’s Batman isn’t quite my Batman (but, for the record, neither is Christopher Nolan’s), but whatever other criticisms I may have of the films, here are ten things that Burton and his collaborators got absolutely right.

Great Design: seriously, from an aesthetic point of view, they’re gorgeous. The beautiful Anton Furst Gotham, all gothic towers and industrial pipework, is a thing of beauty, and in terms of live-action the design of all of Batman’s vehicles and gadgets has never been bettered. It gives Batman, and his world, a gorgeously distinctive style all its own.

Wonderful Toys: it’s not just the design of the Batmobile and Batwing that impresses (big, bulbous round bits, sweeping curves, spiky wings); its how they’re used. Burton really revels in the gadgets, making Batman a serious tech-head with all manner of grappling hooks, hidden bombs, and secret doo-dahs to give him an upper hand in a fight. It makes up for the wooden combat (a ninja Michael Keaton is not), suggesting this Batman is a smarter fighter than a physical one. Plus all those gadgets could get turned into literal wonderful toys. Ker-ching.

He is the Night: Adam West’s Batman ran around during the day, in light grey spandex with a bright blue cape. Michael Keaton’s Batman only ever came out at night, dressed entirely in thick black body armour, and usually managed to be enveloped in smoke. From his first appearance, beating up two muggers on a Gotham rooftop, he is a threatening, scary, sinister presence. It totally sold the idea of Batman as part-urban legend, part-monster. Burton is fascinated with freaks, and in making his Batman freaky, he made him iconic.

You Wanna Get Nuts?: added to this was Michael Keaton’s performance as Bruce Wayne. Controversial casting due to his comedy background and, frankly, lack of an intimidating physique, he nevertheless utterly convinced. Grimly robotic as Batman, he presented a charming but secretive Bruce Wayne, one who was kind and heartfelt in private, but also serious, determined, and very, very smart. But he also excellently portrayed a dark anger beneath the surface, a mania that Bruce clearly had under control, but which he used to fuel his campaign, and which he allowed out in the divisive but (in my opinion) utterly brilliant “Let’s get nuts!” scene. To this date, the definitive screen Bruce Wayne.

Dance with the Devil: The counterpoint to this was Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Cashing a phenomenal cheque for his troubles, he nevertheless delivered; his Joker is wild, over-the-top, cartoonish but also terrifying. In my late teens I was turned off by the performance, feeling it a pantomime and not reflective of the quiet menace and casual cruelty of, say, Mark Hamill’s Joker; but now I see the majesty of it. You need someone this big to be a believable threat to Batman. No wonder that, with Joker dead, they essentially had to have three villains to replace him in the sequel.

Family: Bruce’s relationship with Alfred is one of the cornerstones of the comic, but really only existed in that capacity since the mid-80s and Year One (which established Alfred as having raised Bruce following his parents’ deaths). So in many ways the very close familial relationship in Batman is a watershed, and certainly the first time many people would have seen that depicted. Michael Gough’s Alfred is benign, charming, very witty, and utterly capable as a co-conspirator. One of the few people to stick around through the Schumacher years, he maintained stability even when everything else was going (rubber) tits up.

Meow: I’ve mostly focussed on Batman here, but by jeebies Batman Returns has a lot going for it too. Max Shreck, the Penguin, “mistletoe is deadly if you eat it”… but pride of place goes to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. An utterly bonkers origin but a perfectly pitched character, she was a credible threat, a believable love interest, and an anti-hero worth rooting for, in a tour-de-force performance. Also came along at just the right time for me to experience puberty. If you’re interested. Plus – and this can’t be overstated – she put a live bird into her mouth. For real. I mean, Christ.

Believably Unreal: I used to criticise Batman for being unrealistic, just as campy in its own way as the ‘60s show. But that’s missing the point. It’s a stylised world, clearly not our own thanks to the Furst-stylings. And Burton uses that to his advantage. The gothic stylings help sell the idea of a retro-futuristic rocket-car barrelling through city streets; the mishmash of 80s technology and 40s aesthetics gives us carte blanche for a zoot-suited Joker and his tracksuited henchmen to tear up a museum to a Prince soundtrack. It’s a world where Max Shreck, looking like Christopher Walken was electrocuted in a flour factory, can believably run a campaign to get Penguin elected mayor, even after he nearly bites someone’s nose off. It’s crazy but it works.

Believably Corrupt: despite the craziness and unreality, the first Batman at least does have a strong dose of realism running through it. The gangsters may be straight out of the 40s but they’ve adopted the gritty grimness of the intervening decades, with slobby cop Eckhart representing corrupt law enforcement. Basically, despite the surrealism on display, the sense of Gotham as a criminal cesspool is very well realised, and extends to such a high level that the only realistic way to combat any of it is for a sad rich man to dress up as Dracula and drive a rocket-car at a clown.

The Score: I’ve saved this for last because, despite everything, Danny Elfman’s Batman theme is clearly the greatest and strongest legacy of the Burton era. Don’t come at me with your “dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner-Batman” nonsense. Elfman’s Batman score is sublime. Like John Williams’ Superman theme, it’s iconic, it’s distinctive, and as far as I’m concerned it’s what the character should sound like. I have absolutely no time for directors who think you should ever make a Batman film with different music. It’s as intrinsically linked with the character as the Star Wars theme is with, well, Star Wars. It’s perfect and beautiful and the love-love-love the fact that they stuck it in the Animated Series too.

Whelp, there we are. The ten best things about Burton’s two Batman movies. I barely spoke about the subsequent films because, well, they’re both crap. No, seriously, they’re bad films. Even Batman Forever. Don’t start.

[thehifiproject]

1989: a vintage year for classic albums

What was in the water 30 years ago? Today, in 2019, a surprising number of artists and bands are celebrating the 30th anniversary of some of their greatest albums. Sure, 1988 and 1990 have their fair share of significant releases, but 1989 was a stonker of a year. 

Read on to discover our favourite ‘Big Albums’ from 1989.

The decedent 80s drew to a close with landmark releases across all genres. The ‘second summer of love’ had pushed dance music and rave culture into the mainstream, whilst indie guitar upstarts suddenly found themselves playlisted on daytime Radio One. As these contrasting acts rubbed shoulders on TOTP and across NOW compilations, influences began to cross-pollinate, lighting the touch paper for Madchester and beyond.

In the studio, samplers and digital recording kit had become more affordable. Artists could realise ideas without the mortgage-scale budgets of the Fairlight pioneers earlier in the decade (Bush, Gabriel, Horn, Clarke et al).

At home, the CD format was firmly established but still in its infancy compared to its dominance in the late-90s. Cassette tapes sold more than vinyl in 1989, mainly driven by the US market. 1989 was also the year Comet Group bought up all 31 branches of the Laskys hi-fi chain – remember Laskys? You could still buy hi-fi separates in stores like Boots, but the masses mainly wanted neater ‘stack’ or ‘midi’ systems from brands like Aiwa, Kenwood, Technics and Sony.

So, what were we playing on these systems?

If we squint our rose-tinted vision just beyond hits by Jive Bunny, Kylie & Jason and, ugh, Band Aid II, 1989 offers a plethora of genre-defining debut LPs alongside creative peaks from established artists.

Before I ruffle anyone’s feathers, I admit this is a totally subjective piece. I have not been studying sales figures or cross-referencing reviews in Q Magazine, but many ‘89 albums pop up in the ‘Top 10’ lists of Pitchfork, NME or Rolling Stone etc, and they’re frequently referenced as key influences by artists and producers today.

Here’s a selection of my favourites. It’s by no means exhaustive.

Which albums were you cueing up on your Technics linear-tracking deck in 1989, and what type of TDK tape were you recording them onto?

Let us know in the comments.

1. The Cure – Disintegration

Last week the band completed a five-night run of gigs at Sydney Opera House, celebrating 30 years since the release of their landmark Disintegration album. No doubt many of its tracks will also feature when they headline Glastonbury this summer.

I was a big Cure fan as a teenager. I nipped out of school at lunchtime to buy Disintegration on the day it was released. It was a hot, sunny day and I drew the curtains to listen in the dark.

2. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

Before Spike Island or even Fool’s Gold, 1989 introduced us to this genre-defining eponymous Mancunian debut. Nothing quite chimes and grooves like the Roses’ early output and its unrivalled sing-along nostalgia.

3. De La Soul – Three Feet High & Rising

Rhymes, skits and daisies. This funky and humorous collage of samples from the NY trio has been referred to as “genius”, “a hip-hop masterpiece”. It was reissued by Vinyl Me, Please as a double LP in their Essential series earlier this year.

4. Kate Bush – The Sensual World

How do you follow a career-defining work like Hounds of Love? It seems you turn inwards, re-write the closing passages of Ulysses and employ a Bulgarian male choir. You also deliver one of the most heart-breaking performances committed to tape in This Woman’s Work.

The Sensual World may not reach the heights of its predecessor (it was one of the albums Kate reworked significantly for the Director’s Cut project), but it remains a convincing release from such an enigmatic creative talent. It earned her Brit Award nominations for both Best Album and Best Producer.

5. New Order – Technique

Ibiza, Factory, The Hacienda, ecstasy, even sheep sound effects. The stories behind this album have sold thousands of books for each member of the band. It was their first LP to reach No 1 in the UK and still sounds magnificent today.

6. Tears For Fears – The Seeds Of Love

The band’s third studio album took almost two years and £1million to make. Considering the hugely successful Songs From The Big Chair cost nearer £70,000, this could have led to the end of their record contract and career! Luckily, they had the chutzpah to see it through. Seeds reached No 1 in the UK and achieved platinum status in numerous territories across the globe.

Sadly, the album took its toll on Orzabal and Smith’s relationship. It was the last one they could work on together for over a decade.

Immaculately produced, the album features many established session players (including Phil Collins on drums, who himself released But Seriously… in 1989), but is most noted for introducing the world to the voice of Oleta Adams.

7. Neneh Cherry – Raw Like Sushi

If you came to Raw Like Sushiexpecting nine more tracks like the huge hit Buffalo Stance, you would have been disappointed. The album stood out for its range of styles and depth of influence. When you reflect on Cherry’s debut as an album envision by a ‘musician/artist’, rather than fronted by the ‘rapper/singer’ Buffalo Stancesuggests, it’s no surprise that she is still recording and performing today.

8. Pixies – Doolittle

Back in the late 80s, nothing else sounded quite like The Pixies. With their second full-length, the band perfected their loud-quiet-loud pop blast, offering up a key blueprint for Nirvana’s looming commercial breakthrough Nevermind.

9. Tom Petty – Full Moon Forever

Louder Sound describes Petty’s ’89 release as“a remarkably consistent collection of wonderfully constructed rootsy rock songs. Petty teams up with ELO guru and fellow Travelling Wilbury Jeff Lynne, who does an immaculate production job as well as co-writing the album’s standout tracks, Free Fallin’ and I Won’t Back Down.”

10. Soul II Soul – Club Classics Vol 1

In the summer of 1989, the single Back To Life and its accompanying MTV-friendly video took Soul II Soul’s London slant on R&B/Soul around the world. The album goes deeper (Back To Life features only as an acapella) but brings underground club vibes to the mainstream, going triple-platinum in the UK and Top 20 in the US (No 1 in the R&B chart).

“A happy face, a thumping bass for a loving race.”

11. Paul’s Boutique

Sorry! I couldn’t keep this list to just ten albums! The Beasties’ now-beloved second album was considered a flop at the time, but, in the ensuing years, has been embraced as a landmark of sample-based hip-hop.

The Best Of The Rest

It doesn’t stop there. The list of landmark 1989 albums rolls and rolls.

What have we missed in the list below?

10,000 Maniacs, Blind Man’s Zoo

Elvis Costello, Spike

NWA, Straight Outta Compton

Tracy Chapman, Crossroads

Eurythmics, We Too Are One

Simply Red, A New Flame

Ian McCulloch, Candleland

Lenny Kravitz, Let Love Rule

The Beautiful South, Welcome to the Beautiful South

The Jesus and Mary Chain, Automatic

Nirvana, Bleach

The B-52s, Cosmic Thing

Queen, The Miracle

Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Mother’s Milk

Lou Reed, New York

The Cult, Sonic Temple

The The, Mind Bomb

The Wedding Present, Bizarro

Pop Will Eat Itself, This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This!

Throwing Muses, Hunkpapa

The Wonder Stuff, Hup

Julee Cruise, Floating into the Night

Simple Minds, Street Fighting Years

The Primitives, Pure

Jesus Jones, Liquidizer

Tin Machine, Tin Machine

Kirsty MacColl, Kite

808 State, 90

Kitchens of Distinction, Love is Hell

[makistar2018]

All 125 Taylor Swift Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best

By NATE JONES April 30, 2019

In this business, there are two subjects that will boost your page views like nothing else: Game of Thrones and Taylor Swift. One of them is a massive, multi-million-dollar enterprise filled with violence and betrayal, and the other airs on HBO. I find it hard to explain why exactly, and I’m sure Swift would, too: Somehow, this one 27-year-old woman from Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, keeps finding herself at the center of our national conversations about race, gender, celebrity, victimhood, even the economics of the tech industry. And, outside the legions of fans who eat up everything she puts out, no take on her ever stays solid for long. She was a precocious teenager, and the ultimate embodiment of white privilege. She’s been feminism’s worst nightmare, and an advocate for victims of sexual assault. Some people say she’s a goddess of the alt-right. Other people say she’s Jewish.

And yet, unlike Madonna or Bowie, Swift got through the first 11 years of her career without any major reinventions. (For 1989, she embraced feminism and threw away the last vestiges of her Nashville sound, but those were basically just aesthetic changes.) If the word on her has shifted since her debut, it’s because we’ve changed, not her. Swift — or at least the version of Swift on her albums — has remained largely the same person since her debut: a thin-skinned, bighearted obsessive, with a penchant for huge romantic moments. People don’t slowly ease into a relationship in her songs; they show up at each other’s doors late at night and they kiss in the rain. An unworthy suitor won’t just say something thoughtless; he’ll skip a birthday party or leave a teenage girl crying alone in a hotel room. Listen to her songs and you’ll ache at the resemblance to the most dramatic moments in your own private history. Listen to too many and you might ache again at the nagging feeling that those stories of yours have all been a bit uneventful and drab by comparison. What sort of real life can stand up against fantasies like these?

So, uh, I don’t recommend you listen to this list top to bottom.

But I do recommend sampling as many of these songs as you see fit. Even with the widespread critical embrace of poptimism — a development I suspect has as much to do with the economics of online media as it does with the shifting winds of taste — there are still those who see Swift as just another industry widget, a Miley or Katy with the tuner set to “girl with a guitar.” If this list does anything, I hope it convinces you that, underneath all the thinkpieces, exes, and feuds, she is one of our era’s great singer-songwriters. She may not have the raw vocal power of some of her competitors, but what she lacks in Mariah-level range she makes up for in versatility and personality. (A carpetbagger from the Pennsylvania suburbs, she became an expert code-switcher early in her career and never looked back.) And when it comes to writing instantly memorable pop songs, her only peers are a few anonymous Swedish guys, none of whom perform their own stuff. I count at least ten stone-cold classics in her discography. Others might see more. No matter how high your defenses, I guarantee you’ll find at least one that breaks them down. 

Some ground rules: We’re ranking every Taylor Swift song that’s ever been released with her name on it — which means we must sadly leave out the unreleased 9/11 song “Didn’t They” as well as Nils Sjöberg’s “This Is What You Came For” — excluding tracks where Swift is merely “featured” (no one’s reading this list for B.o.B.’s “Both of Us”) but including a few duets where she gets an “and” credit. Songwriting is an important part of Swift’s spellbook, so covers are treated more harshly than originals. Because Swift’s career began so young, we’re left in the awkward position of judging work done by a literal high-schooler, which can feel at times like punching down. I’ll try to make slight allowances for age, reserving the harshest criticism for the songs written when Swift was an adult millionaire.

125. “Look What You Made Me Do,” Reputation (2017): “There’s a mistake that I see artists make when they’re on their fourth or fifth record, and they think innovation is more important than solid songwriting,” Swift told New York back in 2013. “The most terrible letdown as a listener for me is when I’m listening to a song and I see what they were trying to do.” To Swift’s credit, it took her six records to get to this point. On a conceptual level, the mission here is clear: After the Kim-Kanye feud made her the thinking person’s least-favorite pop star, this comeback single would be her grand heel turn. But the villain costume sits uneasily on Swift’s shoulders, and even worse, the songwriting just isn’t there. The verses are vacuous, the insults have no teeth, and just when the whole thing seems to be leading up to a gigantic redemptive chorus, suddenly pop! The air goes out of it and we’re left with a taunting Right Said Fred reference — the musical equivalent of pulling a Looney Tunes gag on the listener. Other Swift songs have clunkier rhymes, or worse production values, but none of them have such a gaping hole at the center. (I do dig the gleeful “Cuz she’s dead!” though.)

124. “Umbrella,” iTunes Live From Soho (2008): Swift has recorded plenty of covers in her career, and none are less essential than this 90-second rendition of the Rihanna hit recorded at the peak of the song’s popularity. It’s pure college-campus coffeehouse.

123. “Christmas Must Mean Something More,” The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007): One of two originals on Swift’s early-career Christmas album, “Something More” is a plea to put the Christ back in Christmas. Or as she puts it: “What if happiness came in a cardboard box? / Then I think there is something we all forgot.” In the future, Swift would get better at holding onto some empathy when she was casting a critical eye at the silly things people care about; here, the vibe is judgmental in a way that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever reread their teenage diary.

122. “Better Than Revenge,” Speak Now (2010): A nasty little song that has not aged well. Whether a straightforward imitation of Avril Lavigne’s style or an early attempt at “Blank Space”–style self-satirization, the barbs never go beyond bratty. (As in “Look What You Made Me Do,” the revenge turns out to be the song itself, which feels hollow.) Best known now for the line about “the things she does on the mattress,” which I suspect has been cited in blog posts more times than the song itself has been listened to lately.

121. “American Girl,” Non-album digital single (2009): Why would you cover this song and make it slower?

120. “I Want You Back,” Speak Now World Tour – Live (2011): Another 90-second cover of a pop song that does not particularly benefit from a stripped-down arrangement.

119. “Santa Baby,” The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007): Before Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me,” there was only one holiday song about falling in love with Santa, and for some reason, we spent decades making all our young female singers cover it. Swift’s version leans out of the awkwardness by leaning into the materialism; she puts most of her vocal emphasis on the nice presents she hopes Santa will bring her. (The relationship seems to be fairly quid pro quo: She’ll believe in him if he gives her good gifts — even at this early stage, Swift possessed a savvy business sense.) Otherwise, this is a by-the-numbers holiday cover, complete with sleigh bells in the mix.

118. “Sweet Escape,” Speak Now World Tour – Live; Target edition DVD (2011): Swift’s sedate cover of the 2006 Gwen Stefani hit — those “ooh-ooh”s are pitched way down from Akon’s falsetto in the original — invests the song with a bittersweet vibe, though like anyone who’s ever tried the song at karaoke, she stumbles on the rapid-fire triplets in the first verse.

117. “Silent Night,” The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007): Swift’s cover of the Christmas classic veers significantly away from Franz Xaver Gruber’s original melody, and even gives it a Big Taylor Swift Finale. Points for ambition, but sometimes you just want to hear the old standards the way you remember them.

116. “The Last Time,” Red (2012): Red is Swift’s strongest album, but it suffers a bit from pacing issues: The back half is full of interminable ballads that you’ve got to slog through to get to the end. Worst of all is this duet with po-faced Ulsterman Gary Lightbody, which feels about ten minutes long.

115. “Invisible,” Taylor Swift: Special Edition (2006): A bonus track from the debut that plays like a proto–”You Belong With Me.” The “show you” / “know you” rhymes mark this as an early effort.

114. “…Ready for It?,” Reputation (2017): The second straight misfire off the Reputation rollout, this one sees Swift try her hand at rapping, with some ill-advised bars about Elizabeth Taylor and a flow she borrowed from Jay-Z. (Try to rap “Younger than my exes” without spilling into “rest in peace, Bob Marley.”) Bumped up a spot or two for the chorus, a big Swift hook that sounds just like her best work — in this case, because it bites heavily from “Wildest Dreams.”

113. “I Heart ?,” Beautiful Eyes EP (2008): Swift code-switches like a champ on this charmingly shallow country song, which comes from the Walmart-exclusive EP she released between her first two albums. Her vocals get pretty rough in the chorus, but at least we’re left with the delightful line, “Wake up and smell the breakup.”

112. “Bad Blood,” 1989 (2014): When Swift teamed up with Max Martin and Shellback, the marriage of their dark eldritch songcraft nearly broke the pop charts. But when they misfire, the results can be brutal. The lyric here indulges the worst habits of late-period Swift — an eagerness to play the victim, a slight lack of resemblance to anything approaching real life — attached to a schoolyard-chant melody that will never leave your head, even when you may want it to. The remix hollows out the production and replaces Swift’s verses with two from Kendrick Lamar; it’s less embarrassing than the original, which does not make it more memorable.

111. “White Christmas,” The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007):The most bluegrass of Swift’s Christmas tunes, this gentle rendition sees Swift’s vocals cede center stage to the mandolin and fiddle.

110. “Crazier,” Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack (2009): When approached by the filmmakers about contributing a song to the Hannah Montana movie, Swift sent in this track, seemingly a holdover from the Fearless sessions. In an admirable bit of dedication, she also showed up to play it in the film’s climax. It’s kind of a snooze on its own, but compared to the other songs on the soundtrack, even Swift’s leftovers shine.

109. “I’d Lie,” Taylor Swift (2006): A bonus track only available to people who bought Swift’s debut at Best Buy. It’s as cute as a study-hall MASH game, and just as easily disposable.

108. “Highway Don’t Care,” Tim McGraw’s Two Lanes of Freedom(2013): After joining Big Machine, McGraw gave Swift an “and” credit here as a professional courtesy. Though her backing vocals are very pleasant, this is 100 percent a Tim McGraw song.

107. “Superman,” Speak Now: Deluxe Edition (2010): A bonus track that’s not gonna make anyone forget Five for Fighting any time soon.

106. “Change,” Fearless (2008): A bit of paint-by-numbers inspiration that apparently did its job of spurring the 2008 U.S. Olympic team to greatness. They won 36 gold medals!

105. “End Game,” Reputation (2017): Swift tries out her blaccent alongside Future and Ed Sheeran, on a track that sounds unmistakably like a Rihanna reject. The only silver lining? She’s better at rapping here than on “…Ready for It?”

104. “The Lucky One,” Red (2012): A plight-of-fame ballad from the back half of Red, with details that never rise above cliché and a melody that borrows from the one Swift cooked up for “Untouchable.”

103. “A Place in This World,” Taylor Swift (2006): Swift’s version of “Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” this one feels like it missed its chance to be the theme tune for an ABC Family show.

102. “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever,” Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack (2017): In Fifty Shades Darker, this wan duet soundtracks a scene where Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele go for a sunny boat ride while wearing fabulous sweaters. On brand!

101. “Last Christmas,” The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007): Swift does George Michael proud with this reverent cover of the Wham! classic.

100. “Breathless,” Hope for Haiti Now (2010): Swift covered this Better Than Ezra deep cut for the Hope for Haiti telethon. With only one take to get it right, she did not let the people of Haiti down.

99. “Bette Davis Eyes,” Speak Now World Tour – Live (2012): “There’s some unbelievable music that has come out of artists who are from L.A., did you know that?” Swift asks the audience at the beginning of this live track. The crowd, not being idiots, responds with an enthusiastic yes. This cover loses the two most famous parts of Kim Carnes’s original — the synths and Carnes’s throaty delivery — but the acoustic arrangement and Swift’s intimate vocals bring out the best qualities of the tune.

98. “Eyes Open,” The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond (2012): One of two songs Swift contributed to the first Hunger Games soundtrack. With guitars seemingly ripped straight out of 1998 alt-rock radio, this one’s most interesting now as a preview of Swift’s Red sound.

97. “Beautiful Eyes,” Beautiful Eyes EP (2008): The title track of Swift’s early-career EP finds the young songwriter getting a lot of mileage out of one single vowel sound: Besides the eyes of the title, we’ve got I, why, fly, cry, lullaby, even sometimes. A spirited vocal performance in the outro saves the song from feeling like homework.

96. “The Outside,” Taylor Swift (2006): If you thought you felt weird judging songs by a high-schooler, here’s one by an actual sixth-grader. “The Outside” was the second song Swift ever wrote, and though the lyrics edge into self-pity at times, this is still probably the best song written by a 12-year-old since Mozart’s “Symphony No. 7 in D Major.”

95. “SuperStar,” Fearless: Platinum Edition (2008): This bonus track is a relic of an unfamiliar time when Swift could conceivably be the less-famous person in a relationship.

94. “Starlight,” Red (2012): Never forget that one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2012 contains a piece of Ethel Kennedy fanfiction. The real story of Bobby and Ethel has more rough spots than you’ll find in this resolutely rose-colored track, but that’s what happens when you spend a summer hanging in Hyannis Port.

93. “Sad Beautiful Tragic,” Red (2012): Another glacially paced song from the back half of Red that somehow pulls off rhyming “magic” with “tragic.”

92. “Innocent,” Speak Now (2010): The disparate reactions to Kanye West stage-crashing Swift at the 2009 VMAs speaks to the Rorschachian nature of Swift’s star image. Was Swift a teenage girl whose moment was ruined by an older man who couldn’t control himself? Or was she a white woman playing the victim to demonize an outspoken black man? Both are correct, which is why everyone’s spent so much time arguing about it. Unfortunately, Swift did herself no favors when she premiered “Innocent” at the next year’s VMAs, opening with footage of the incident, which couldn’t help but feel like she was milking it. (Fairly or not, the comparison to West’s own artistic response hardly earns any points in the song’s favor.) Stripped of all this context, “Innocent” is fine: Swift turns in a tender vocal performance, though the lyrics could stand to be less patronizing.

91. “Girl at Home,” Red: Deluxe Edition (2012): This Red bonus track offers a foreshadowing of Swift’s interest in sparkly ’80s-style production. A singsongy melody accompanies a largely forgettable lyric, except for one hilariously blunt line: “It would be a fine proposition … if I was a stupid girl.”

90. “A Perfectly Good Heart,” Taylor Swift: Special Edition (2006): A pleading breakup song with one killer turn of phrase and not much else.

89. “Mary’s Song (Oh My Oh My),” Taylor Swift (2006): This early track was inspired by Swift’s elderly neighbors. Like “Starlight,” it’s a young person’s vision of lifelong love, skipping straight from proposal to old age.

88. “Come in With the Rain,” Fearless: Platinum Edition (2008): An ode to a long-lost lover that follows the Swift template a tad too slavishly.

87. “Dancing With Our Hands Tied,” Reputation (2017): Reputation sags a bit in the middle, never more than on this forgettable ’80s-inspired track.

86. “Welcome to New York,” 1989 (2014): In retrospect, there could not have been a song more perfectly designed to tick off the authenticity police — didn’t Swift know that real New Yorkers stayed up till 3 a.m. doing drugs with Fabrizio Moretti in the bathroom of Mars Bar? I hope you’re sitting down when I tell you this, but it’s possible the initial response to a Taylor Swift song might have been a little reactionary. When it’s not taken as a mission statement, “Welcome to New York” is totally tolerable, a glimmering confetti throwaway with lovely synths.

85. “Tied Together With a Smile,” Taylor Swift (2006): When she was just a teenager with a development deal, Swift hooked up with veteran Nashville songwriter Liz Rose. The two would collaborate on much of Swift’s first two albums. “We wrote and figured out that it really worked. She figured out she could write Taylor Swift songs, and I wouldn’t get in the way,” Rose said later. “She’d say a line and I’d say, ‘What if we say it like this?’ It’s kind of like editing.” This early ballad about a friend with bulimia sees Swift and Rose experimenting with metaphor. Most of them work.

84. “King of My Heart,” Reputation (2017): Swift is fond of saying that “songs are what you think of on the drive home — you know, the Great Afterthought.” (She says it’s a Joni Mitchell quote, but I haven’t been able to find it.) Anyway, I think that’s why some of the love songs on Reputationdon’t quite land: Swift is writing about a relationship from inside of it, instead of with hindsight. It’s a different skill, which could explain why the boyfriend character here is less vividly sketched than some of her other ones.

83. “Come Back … Be Here,” Red: Deluxe Edition (2012): A vulnerable track about long-distance love, with simple sentiments overwhelmed by extravagant production.

82. “Breathe,” Fearless (2008): A Colbie Caillat collaboration that’s remarkable mostly for being a rare Swift song about a friend breakup. It’s like if “Bad Blood” contained actual human emotions.

81. “Stay Beautiful,” Taylor Swift (2006): Nathan Chapman was a Nashville session guitarist before he started working with Swift. He produced her early demos, and she fought for him to sit behind the controls on her debut; the two would work together on every Swift album until 1989, when his role was largely taken over by Max Martin and Shellback. Here, he brings a sprightly arrangement to Swift’s ode to an achingly good-looking man.

80. “Nashville,” Speak Now World Tour – Live; Target edition DVD (2011): Swift gives some shine to singer-songwriter David Mead with a cover of his 2004 ballad. (Listen to the screams during the chorus and try to guess where this one was recorded.) She treats it with a delicate respect, like she’s handling her grandmother’s china.

79. “So It Goes,” Reputation (2017): Unfortunately not a Nick Lowe cover, this one comes and goes without making much of an impact, but if you don’t love that whispered “1-2-3,” I don’t know what to tell you.

78. “You’re Not Sorry,” Fearless (2008): An unflinching kiss-off song that got a gothic remix for Swift’s appearance as an ill-fated teen on CSI. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

77. “Drops of Jupiter,” Speak Now World Tour – Live (2012): The best of the covers on the live album sees Swift commit to the Train hit like she’d written it herself. If you had forgotten that this song came out in 2001, she keeps the line about Tae Bo.

76. “The Other Side of the Door,” Fearless: Platinum Edition (2008): A bonus track saved from mediocrity by a gutsy outro that hints that Swift, like any good millennial, was a big fan of “Semi-Charmed Life.”

75. “Gorgeous,” Reputation (2017): In the misbegotten rollout for Reputation, “Gorgeous” righted the ship by not being completely terrible. Max Martin and Shellback pack the track with all sorts of amusing audio doodads, but the melody is a little too horizontal to stick, and the lyrics have a touch of first draft about them. (You’d be forgiven for preferring the actual first draft, which is slightly more open and real.)

74. “I Wish You Would,” 1989 (2014): Like “You Are in Love,” this one originated as a Jack Antonoff instrumental track, and the finished version retains his fingerprints. Perhaps too much — you get the sense it might work better as a Bleachers song.

73. “Cold As You,” Taylor Swift (2006): A dead-serious breakup song that proved the teenage Swift (with help from Rose, who’s got a co-writing credit) could produce barbs sharper than most adults: “You come away with a great little story / Of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you.” Jesus.

72. “Haunted,” Speak Now (2010): In which Swift tries her hand at Evanescence-style goth-rock. She almost pulls it off, but at this point in Swift’s career her voice wasn’t quite strong enough to give the unrestrained performance the song calls for.

71. “This Love,” 1989 (2014): Began life as a poem before evolving into an atmospheric 1989 deep cut. Like an imperfectly poached egg, it’s shapeless but still quite appetizing.

70. “Untouchable,” Fearless: Platinum Edition (2008): Technically a Luna Halo cover (don’t worry about it), though Swift discards everything but the bones of the original. Her subsequent renovation job is worthy of HGTV: It’s nearly impossible to believe this was ever not a Taylor Swift song.

69. “Wonderland,” 1989: Deluxe Edition (2014): A deranged bonus track that sees Swift doing the absolute most. This song has everything: Alice in Wonderland metaphors, Rihanna chants, a zigzag bridge that recalls “I Knew You Were Trouble,” screams. As she puts it, “It’s all fun and games ’til somebody loses their MIND!”

68. “Sweeter Than Fiction,” One Chance soundtrack (2013): Swift’s first collaboration with Jack Antonoff is appropriately ’80s-inspired, and so sugary that a well-placed key change in the chorus is the only thing that staves off a toothache.

67. “I’m Only Me When I’m With You,” Taylor Swift: Special Edition(2006): A rollicking pop-rock tune that recalls early Kelly Clarkson. As if to reassure nervous country fans, the fiddle goes absolutely nuts.

66. “Tell Me Why,” Fearless (2008): A bog-standard tale of an annoyingly clueless guy, but it’s paired with one of Swift and Rose’s most winning melodies.

65. “If This Was a Movie,” Speak Now: Deluxe Edition (2010): The mirror image of “White Horse,” which makes it feel oddly superfluous.

64. “How You Get the Girl,” 1989 (2014): The breeziest and least complicated of Swift’s guy-standing-on-a-doorstep songs, which contributed to the feeling that 1989 was something of an emotional regression. You probably shouldn’t take it as an instruction manual unless you’re Harry Styles.

63. “Don’t Blame Me,” Reputation (2017): A woozy if slightly anonymous love song that comes off as a sexier “Take Me to Church.” [A dozen Hozier fans storm out of the room.]

62. “The Way I Loved You,” Fearless (2008): Written in collaboration with Big and Rich’s John Rich, which may explain how stately and mid-tempo this one is. (There’s even a martial drumbeat.) Here, she’s faced with a choice between a too-perfect guy — he’s close to her mother and talks business with her father — and a tempestuous relationship full of “screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain,” and if you don’t know which one she prefers I suggest you listen to more Taylor Swift songs. Swift often plays guessing games about which parts of her songs are autobiographical, but this one is explicitly a fantasy.

61. “New Romantics,” 1989: Deluxe Edition (2014): Like “22,” an attempt at writing a big generational anthem. That it was left off the album proper suggests Swift didn’t think it quite got there, though it did its job of extending the singles cycle of 1989 a few more months. Despite what anyone says about “Welcome to New York,” the line here about waiting for “trains that just aren’t coming” indicates its writer has had at least one authentic New York experience.

60. “Sparks Fly,” Speak Now (2010): This one dates back to Swift’s high-school days, and was destined for obscurity until fans fell in love with the live version. After what seems like a lot of tinkering, it finally got a proper studio release on Swift’s third album. It’s like “True Love Waits,” but with more kissing in the rain.

59. “Me!,” Untitled Seventh Album (2019): Well, what did we expect? The run-up to “Me!” was preceded by a weeks-long guessing game about what precisely would be the nature of Swift’s April 26 announcement. Would she come out? Would she come out and reveal she had once dated Karlie Kloss? Cut to the fateful day, and the news was … Swift, who is a pop singer, was releasing a new pop song. After the Sturm und Drang of the Reputation era, “Me!” is a return to anodyne sweetness, a mission statement that says, “I’m through making mission statements.” The result is blandly inoffensive, emphasis on the bland.

58. “All You Had to Do Was Stay,” 1989 (2014): Just like the melody to “Yesterday” and the “Satisfaction” riff, the high-pitched “Stay!” here came to its writer in a dream. Inspiration works in mysterious ways.

57. “Delicate, Reputation (2017): With multitracked, breathy vocals, this is Swift at her most tentative. Would any other album’s Taylor be asking, “Is it cool that I said all that?”

56. “Stay Stay Stay,” Red (2012): Swift broke out her southern accent one last time for this attempt at homespun folk, which is marred by production that’s so clean it’s practically antiseptic. In an alternate universe where a less-ambitious Swift took a 9-to-5 job writing ad jingles, this one soundtracked a TV spot for the new AT&T family plan.

55. “Call It What You Want,” Reputation (2017): Many of the Reputationsingles aim at sexy; this airy slow jam about losing yourself in love after a scandal is the only one that gets there, though the saltiness in the verses (“all the liars are calling me one”) occasionally betrays the sentiment.

54. “Ours,” Speak Now: Deluxe Edition (2010): It’s not this song’s fault that the extended version of Speak Now has songs called both “Mine” and “Ours,” and while “Ours” is good … well, it’s no “Mine.” Still, even if this song never rises above cuteness, it is incredibly cute. I think Dad’ll get over the tattoos.

53. “The Best Day,” Fearless (2008): Swift’s parents moved the family to Tennessee so she could follow her musical dreams, and she paid them back with this tender tribute. Mom gets the verses while Dad is relegated to the middle eight — even in song, the Mother’s Day–Father’s Day disparity holds up.

52. “Everything Has Changed,” Red (2012): “We good to go?” For many American listeners, this was the first introduction to a redheaded crooner named Ed Sheeran. It’s a sweet duet and Sheeran’s got a roughness that goes well with Swift’s cleaner vocals, but the harmonies are a bit bland.

51. “Today Was a Fairytale,” Valentine’s Day soundtrack (2010): How much of a roll was Swift on during the Fearless era? This song didn’t make the album, and sat in the vault for a year until Swift signed on for a small role in a Garry Marshall rom-com and offered it up for the soundtrack. Despite the extravagant title, the date described here is charmingly low-key: The dude wears a T-shirt, and his grand gestures are showing up on time and being nice.

50. “Last Kiss,” Speak Now (2010): A good-bye waltz with an understated arrangement that suits the starkness of the lyrics.

49. “You Are in Love,” 1989: Deluxe Edition (2014): The best of Swift’s songs idealizing someone else’s love story (see “Starlight” and “Mary’s Song”), this bonus track sketches Jack Antonoff and Lena Dunham’s relationship in flashes of moments. The production and vocals are appropriately restrained — sometimes, simplicity works.

48. “The Story of Us,” Speak Now (2010): The deluxe edition of Speak Now features both U.S. and international versions of some of the singles, which gives you a sense of how fine-tuned Swift’s operation was by this point. My ears can’t quite hear the difference between the two versions of this exuberant breakup jam, but I suspect the U.S. mix contains some sort of ultrasonic frequencies designed to … sorry, I’ve already said too much.

47. “Clean,” 1989 (2014): Co-written with Imogen Heap, who contributes backup vocals. This is 1989’s big end-of-album-catharsis song, and the water imagery of the lyrics goes well with the drip-drip-drip production. I’d be curious to hear a version where Heap sings lead; the minimalist sound might be better suited for her voice, which has a little more texture.

46. “Getaway Car,” Reputation (2017): Another very Antonoff-y track, but I’m not mad at it. We start with a vocoder she must have stolen from Imogen Heap and end with one of Swift’s most rocking outros, and in between we even get a rare key change.

45. “I Almost Do,” Red (2012): The kind of plaintive breakup song Swift could write in her sleep at this point in her career, with standout guitar work and impressive vulnerability in both lyrics and performance.

44. “Long Live (We Will Be Remembered),” Speak Now (2010):Ostensibly written about Swift’s experiences touring with her band, but universal enough that it’s been taken as a graduation song by pretty much everyone else. Turns out, adolescent self-mythologizing is the same no matter where you are — no surprise that Swift could pull it off despite leaving school after sophomore year.

43. “The Moment I Knew,” Red: Deluxe Edition (2012): An epic account of being stood up that makes a terrible birthday party seem like something approximating the Fall of Troy. If you’re the type of person who stays up at night remembering every inconsiderate thing you’ve ever done, the level of excruciating detail here is like a needle to the heart.

42. “Jump Then Fall,” Fearless: Platinum Edition (2006): An effervescent banjo-driven love song. I get a silly kick out of the gag in the chorus, when Swift’s voice leaps to the top of her register every time she says “jump.”

41. “Never Grow Up,” Speak Now (2010): Swift’s songs where she’s romanticizing childhood come off better than the ones where she’s romanticizing old age. (Possibly because she’s been a child before.) This one is so well-observed and wistful about the idea of children aging that you’d swear she was secretly a 39-year-old mom.

40. “Should’ve Said No,” Taylor Swift (2006): Written in a rush of emotion near the end of recording for the debut, what this early single lacks in nuance it makes up for in backbone. I appreciate the way the end of each verse holds out hope for the cheating ex — “given ooonnne chaaance, it was a moment of weeaaknesssss” — before the chorus slams the door in the dumb lunk’s face.

39. “Back to December,” Speak Now (2010): At the time, this one was billed as a big step for Swift: the first song where she’s the bad guy! Now that the novelty has worn off “Back to December” doesn’t feel so groundbreaking, but it does show her evolving sensitivity. The key to a good apology has always been sincerity, and whatever faults Swift may have, a lack of sincerity has never been one of them.

38. “Holy Ground,” Red (2012): This chugging rocker nails the feeling of reconnecting with an ex and romanticizing the times you shared, and it livens up the back half of Red a bit. Probably ranked too high, but this is my list and I’ll do what I want.

37. “Enchanted,” Speak Now (2010): Originally the title track for Swift’s third album until her label told her, more or less, to cut it with the fairy-tale stuff. It’s a glittery ode to a meet-cute that probably didn’t need to be six minutes long, but at least the extended length gives us extra time to soak up the heavenly coda, with its multi-tracked “Please don’t be in love in with someone else.”

36. “I Know Places,” 1989 (2014): No attempts of universality here — this trip-hop song about trying to find a place to make out when you’re a massive celebrity is only relatable to a couple dozen people. No matter. As a slice of gothic pop-star paranoia, it gives a much-needed bit of edge to 1989. Bumped up a couple of spots for the line about vultures, which I can only assume is a shout-out.

35. “Treacherous,” Red (2012): Swift has rarely been so tactile as on this intimate ballad, seemingly constructed entirely out of sighs.

34. “Dress,” Reputation (2017): An appropriately slinky track that gives us an unexpected payoff for years of lyrics about party dresses: “I only bought this dress so you could take it off,” she says in the chorus. The way the whole song starts and stops is an obvious trick, but I like it.

33. “Speak Now,” Speak Now (2010): The rest of the band plays it so straight that it might take a second listen to realize that this song is, frankly, bonkers. First, Swift sneaks into a wedding to find a bridezilla, “wearing a gown shaped like a pastry,” snarling at the bridesmaids. Then it turns out she’s been uninvited — oops — so she decides to hide in the curtains. Finally, at a pivotal moment she stands up in front of everyone and protests the impending union. Luckily the guy is cool with it, so we get a happy ending! All this nonsense undercuts the admittedly charming chorus, but it’s hard not to smile at the unabashed silliness.

32. “22,” Red (2012): Another collaboration with Martin and Shellback, another absurdly catchy single. Still, there’s enough personality in the machine for this to still feel like a Taylor song, for better (“breakfast at midnight” being the epitome of adult freedom) and for worse (the obsession with “cool kids”). Mostly for better.

31. “Christmases When You Were Mine,” The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007): The clear standout of Swift’s Christmas album, with an endearingly winsome riff and lyrics that paint a poignant picture of yuletide heartbreak. If you’ve ever been alone on Christmas, this is your song.

30. “White Horse,” Fearless (2008): You’d never call Swift a genre deconstructionist, but her best work digs deeper into romantic tropes than she gets credit for. In just her second album, she and Rose gave us this clear-eyed look at the emptiness of symbolic gestures, allegedly finished in a mere 45 minutes. Almost left off the album, but saved thanks to Shonda Rhimes.

29. “I Knew You Were Trouble,” Red (2012): The guiding principle on much of Red seems to have been to throw absolutely every idea a person could think of into a song and see what worked. Here, we go from Kelly Clarkson verses to a roller-coaster chorus to a dubstep breakdown that dates the song as surely as radiocarbon — then back again. It shouldn’t hang together, but the gutsy vocals and vivid lyrics keep the track from going off the rails.

28. “Teardrops on My Guitar,” Taylor Swift (2006): An evocative portrait of high-school heartbreak, equal parts mundane — no adult songwriter would have named the crush “Drew” — and melodramatic. It’s also the best example of Swift and Rose’s early songwriting cheat code, when they switch the words of the chorus around at the end of the song. “It just makes the listener feel like the writer and the artist care about the song,” Rose told Billboard. “That they’re like, “Okay, you’ve heard it, but wait a minute — ’cause I want you know that this really affected me, I’m gonna dig the knife in just a little bit deeper.’” (In a fitting twist, “Teardrops” ended up inspiring a moment that could have come straight out of a Taylor Swift song, when the real Drew showed up outside her house one night. “I hadn’t talked to him in two-and-a-half years,” she told the Washington Post. “He was like: ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ And I’m like: ‘Wow, you’re late? Good to see you?’”)

27. “Begin Again,” Red (2012): Swift’s sequencing genius strikes again: After the emotional roller coaster of Red, this gentle ballad plays like a cleansing shower. (It works so well she’d repeat the trick on 1989, slightly more obviously.) Of all Swift’s date songs, this one feels the most true to life; anyone who’s ever been on a good first date can recall the precise moment their nervousness melted into relief.

26. “New Year’s Day,” Reputation (2017): Like a prestige cable drama, Swift likes to use her final track as a kind of quiet summing-up of all that’s come before. Here, she saves the album’s most convincing love song for last: “I want your midnights / but I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day” is a great way to describe a healthy relationship. The lovely back-and-forth vocals in the outro help break the tie with “Begin Again.”

25. “Shake It Off,” 1989 (2014): Swift’s second No. 1 was greeted with widespread critical sighs: After the heights of Red, why was she serving up cotton-candy fluff about dancing your way past the haters? (Never mind that Red had its own sugary singles.) Now that we’ve all gotten some distance, the purpose of “Shake It Off” is clear: This is a wedding song, empty-headed fun designed to get both Grandma and Lil Jayden on the dance floor. Docked ten or so spots for the spoken-word bridge and cheerleader breakdown, which might be the worst 24 seconds of the entire album.

24. “Safe and Sound,” The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond (2012): Swift’s collaboration with folk duo the Civil Wars is her best soundtrack cut by a country mile. Freed from the constraints of her usual mode, her vocals paint in corners you didn’t think she could reach, especially when she tries out a high-pitched vibrato that blends beautifully with Joy Williams and John Paul White’s hushed harmonies. Swift has worked in a variety of emotional palettes in her career, but this is the only time she’s ever been spooky.

23. “Picture to Burn,” Taylor Swift (2006): Swift’s breakup songs rarely get more acidic than they do in this country hit. By the time she’s twanging a line about dating all her ex’s friends, things have gotten downright rowdy. The original lyrics — “Go and tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy / That’s fine, I’ll tell mine you’re gay” — show how far standards for acceptable speech in nice young people have shifted in the past decade.

22. “Fearless,” Fearless (2008): The title track from Swift’s second album has more of her favorite images — in one memorable twofer, she’s dancing in the rain while wearing her best dress — but she invests them with so much emotion that you’d swear she was using them for the first time. The exuberance of the lyrics is matched in the way she tumbles from line to line into the chorus.

21. “Tim McGraw,” Taylor Swift (2006): If you by chance ever happen to meet Taylor Swift, there is one thing you should know: Do not, under any circumstances, call her “calculating.” “Am I shooting from the hip?” she once asked GQ when confronted with the word. “Would any of this have happened if I was? … You can be accidentally successful for three or four years. Accidents happen. But careers take hard work.” However, since the title of her first single apparently came from label head Scott Borchetta — “I told Taylor, ‘They won’t immediately remember your name, they’ll say who’s this young girl with this song about Tim McGraw?’” — I think we’re allowed to break out the c-word: Calling it “Tim McGraw” was the first genius calculation in a career that would turn out to be full of them. Still, there would have been no getting anywhere with it if the song weren’t good. Even as a teenager, Swift was savvy enough to know that country fans love nothing more than listening to songs about listening to country music. And the very first line marks her as more of a skeptic than you might expect: “He said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia pines to shame that night / I said, ‘That’s a lie.’”

20. “Dear John,” Speak Now (2010): “I’ve never named names,” Swift once told GQ. “The fact that I’ve never confirmed who those songs are about makes me feel like there is still one card I’m holding.” That may technically be true, but she came pretty dang close with this seven-minute epic. (John Mayer said he felt “humiliated” by the song, after which Swift told Glamour it was “presumptuous” of him to think that the song his ex wrote, that used his first name, was about him.) She sings the hell out of it, but when it comes to songs where Swift systematically outlines all the ways in which an older male celebrity is an inadequate partner, I think I prefer “All Too Well,” which is less wallow-y. I’ve seen it speculated that the guitar noodling on this track is meant as a parody of Mayer’s own late-’00s output, which if true would be deliciously petty.

19. “Red,” Red (2012): Re-eh-eh-ed, re-eh-eh-ed. Red’s title track sees the album’s maximalist style in full effect — who in their right mind would put Auto-Tune and banjos on the same track? But somehow, the overstuffing works here; it’s the audio equivalent of the lyrics’ synesthesia.

18. “I Did Something Bad,” Reputation (2017): It’s too bad Rihanna already has an album called Unapologetic, because that would have been a perfect title for Reputation, or maybe just this jubilant “Blank Space” sequel. Why the hell she didn’t release this one instead of “Look What You Made Me Do,” I’ll never know — not only does “Something Bad” sell the lack of remorse much better, it bangs harder than any other song on pop radio this summer except “Bodak Yellow.” Is that a raga chant? Are those fucking gunshots? Docked a spot or two for “They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one,” which doth protest too much, but bumped up just as much for Swift’s first on-the-record “shit.”

17. “Forever & Always,” Fearless (2008): This blistering breakup song was the one that solidified Swift’s image as the pop star you dump at your own peril. (The boys in the debut were just Nashville randos; this one was about a Jonas Brother, back when that really meant something.) Obligatory fiddles aside, the original version is just about a perfect piece of pop-rock — dig how the guitars drop out at a pivotal moment — though the extended edition of Fearless also contains a piano version if you feel like having your guts ripped out. I have no idea what the lines about “rain in your bedroom” mean, but like the best lyrics, they make sense on an instinctual level. And to top it off, the track marks the introduction of Swift’s colloquial style — “Where is this GOoO-ING?” — that would serve her so well in the years to come.

16. “Mean,” Speak Now (2010): It takes some chutzpah to put a song complaining about mean people on the same album as “Better Than Revenge,” but lack of chutzpah has never been Swift’s problem. Get past that and you’ll find one of Swift’s most naturally appealing melodies and the joyful catharsis that comes with giving a bully what’s coming to them. (Some listeners have interpreted the “big enough so you can’t hit me” line to mean the song’s about abuse, but I’ve always read it as a figure of speech, as in “hit piece.”)

15. “Wildest Dreams,” 1989 (2014): Swift is in full control of her instrument here, with so much yearning in her voice that you’d swear every breath was about to be her last. For a singer often slammed as being sexless, those sighs in the chorus tell us everything we need to know. Bumped up a few spots for the invigorating double-time bridge, the best on 1989.

14. “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Reputation (2017): Put aside the title, which can’t help but remind me of the time Hillary Clinton tweeted “delete your account.” The same way “I Did Something Bad” is the best possible version of “Look What You Made Me Do,” this is a much better rewrite of “Bad Blood.” Swift brings back the school-yard voice in the chorus, but also so much more: She does exaggerated politeness in the bridge, she spins the “Runaway” toast, she says the words “Therein lies the issue” like she’s been listening to Hamilton. The high point comes when she contemplates forgiving a hater, then bursts into an incredulous guffaw. Reader, I laughed out loud.

13. “Style,” 1989 (2014): The much-ballyhooed ’80s sound on 1989 often turned out to just mean Swift was using more synths than usual, but she nailed the vibe on this slinky single, which could have soundtracked a particularly romantic episode of Miami Vice. Despite the dress-up games in the chorus, this is one of the rare Swift love songs to feel truly adult: Both she and the guy have been down this road too many times to bullshit anymore. That road imagery is haunted by the prospect of death lurking around every hairpin turn — what’s sex without a little danger?

12. “Hey Stephen,” Fearless (2008): Who knew so many words rhymed with Stephen? They all come so naturally here. Swift is in the zone as a writer, performer, and producer on this winning deep cut, which gives us some wonderful sideways rhymes (“look like an angel” goes with “kiss you in the rain, so”), a trusty Hammond organ in the background, and a bunch of endearing little ad-libs, to say nothing of the kicker: “All those other girls, well they’re beautiful / But would they write a song for you?” For once, the mid-song laugh is entirely appropriate.

11. “Out of the Woods,” 1989 (2014): Like Max Martin, Antonoff’s influence as a collaborator has not been wholly positive: His penchant for big anthemic sounds can drown out the subtlety of Swift, and he’s been at the controls for some of her biggest misfires. But boy, does his Jack Antonoff thing work here, bringing a whole forest of drums to support Swift’s rapid-fire string of memories. The song’s bridge was apparently inspired by a snowmobile accident Swift was in with Harry Styles, an incident that never made the tabloids despite what seemed like round-the-clock coverage of the couple — a subtler reminder of the limits of media narratives than anything on Reputation.

10. “Love Story,” Fearless (2008): Full disclosure: This was the first Taylor Swift song I ever heard. (It was a freezing day in early 2009; I was buying shoes; basically, the situation was the total antithesis of anything that’s ever happened in a Taylor Swift song.) I didn’t like it at first. Who’s this girl singing about Romeo and Juliet, and doesn’t she know they die in the end?What I would soon learn was: not here they don’t, as Swift employs a key change so powerful it literally rewrites Shakespeare. The jury’s still out on the question of if she’s ever read the play, but she definitely hasn’t read The Scarlet Letter.

9. “State of Grace,” Red (2012): Swift’s songs are always full of interesting little nuggets you don’t notice until your 11th listen or so — a lyrical twist, maybe, or an unconventional drum fill — but most of them are fundamentally meant to be heard on the radio, which demands a certain type of songwriting and a certain type of sound. What a surprise it was, then, that Red opened with this big, expansive rock track, which sent dozens of Joshua Tree fans searching for their nearest pair of headphones. Another surprise: that she never tried to sound like this again. Having proven she could nail it on her first try, Swift set out to find other giants to slay.

8. “Ronan,” non-album digital single (2012): A collage of lines pulled from the blog of Maya Thompson, whose 3-year-old son had died of cancer, this charity single sees Swift turn herself into an effective conduit for the other woman’s grief. (Thompson gets a co-writing credit.) One of the most empathetic songs in Swift’s catalogue, as well as her most reliable tearjerker.

7. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” Red (2012): Flash back to 2012. Carly Rae Jepsen had a No. 1 hit. Freaking Gotye had a No. 1 hit. LMFAO had two. And yet Swift, arguably the biggest pop star in the country, had never had a No. 1 hit. (“You Belong With Me” and “Today Was a Fairytale” had both peaked at No. 2.) And so she called up Swedish pop cyborg Max Martin, the man who makes hits as regularly as you and I forget our car keys. The first song they wrote together is still their masterpiece, though it feels wrong to say that “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” was written; better to say that it was designed, as Swift and Martin turn almost every single second of the song’s 3:12 run time into a hook. Think of that guitar loop, the snippets of millennial-speak in the margins (“cuz like”), those spiraling “ooh”s, the spoken-word bit that could have been overheard at any brunch in America, and towering over it all, that gigantic “we.” Like all hyper-efficient products it feels like a visitor from some cold algorithmic future: The sense of joy here is so perfectly engineered that you get the sense it did not come entirely from human hands.

6. “Our Song,” Taylor Swift (2006): Swift wrote this one for her ninth-grade talent show, and I have a lovely time imagining all the other competitors getting the disappointment of their lives once they realized what they were up against. (“But nice job with that Green Day cover, Andy.”) Even at this early stage Swift had a knack for matching her biggest melodic hooks to sentences that would make them soar; that “’cause it’s late and your mama don’t know” is absolutely ecstatic. She’s said she heard the entire production in her head while writing, and on the record Nathan Chapman brings out all the tricks in the Nashville handbook, and even some that aren’t, like the compressed hip-hop drums in the final refrain.

5. “Mine,” Speak Now (2010): As catchy as her Max Martin songs, but with more of a soul, “Mine” wins a narrow victory over “Our Song” on account of having a better bridge. This one’s another fantasy, and you can kind of tell, but who cares — Paul McCartney didn’t really fall in love with a meter maid, either. Swift packs in so many captivating turns of phrase here, and she does it so naturally: It’s hard to believe no one else got to “you are the best thing that’s ever been mine” before her, and the line about “a careless man’s careful daughter” is so perfect that you instantly know everything about the guy. Let’s give a special shout-out to Nathan Chapman again: His backup vocals are the secret weapon of Speak Now, and they’re at their very best here.

4. “Blank Space,” 1989 (2014): You know how almost every other song that’s even a little bit like “Blank Space” ranks very low on this list? Yeah, that’s how hard a trick Swift pulls off on this 1989 single, which manages to satirize her man-eater image while also demonstrating exactly what makes that image so appealing. The gag takes a perfectly tuned barometer for tone: “Look What You Made Me Do” collapsed under the weight of its own self-obsession; “Better Than Revenge” didn’t quite get the right amount of humor in. But Swift’s long history of code-switching works wonders for her here, as she gives each line just the right spin — enough irony for us to get the jokes, enough sincerity that we’ll all sing along anyway. Martin and Shellback bring their usual bells and whistles, but they leave enough empty space in the mix for the words to ring out. Who wouldn’t want to write their name?

3. “Fifteen,” Fearless (2008): For many young people, the real experience of romance is the thinking about it, not the actual doing it. (For an increasing number, the thinking about it is all they’re doing.) Swift gets this almost instinctively, and never more than on this early ballad about her freshman year of high school, which plays like a gentle memoir. Listen to how the emotional high point of the second verse is not something that happens, but her reaction to it: “He’s got a car and you feel like flyyying.” She knows that the real thing is awkward, occasionally unpleasant, and almost guaranteed to disappoint you — the first sentence she wrote for this one was “Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind / We both cried,” a line that became exhibit B in the case of Taylor Swift v. Feminism — and she knows how fantasies can sustain you when nothing else will. “In your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team / but I didn’t know it at 15,” she sings, even though she’s only 18 herself. That there are plenty of people who spent their teenage years making out, smoking cigarettes, and reading Anaïs Nin doesn’t negate the fact that, for a lot of us squares, even the prospect of holding someone else’s hand could get us through an entire semester. Virgins need love songs, too.

2. “All Too Well,” Red (2012): It’s no wonder that music writers love this one: This is Swift at her most literary, with a string of impeccably observed details that could have come out of a New Yorker short story. “All Too Well” was the first song Swift wrote for Red; she hadn’t worked with Liz Rose since Fearless, but she called up her old collaborator to help her make sense of her jumble of memories from a relationship recently exploded. “She had a story and she wanted to say something specific. She had a lot of information,” Rose told Rolling Stone later. “I just let her go.” The original version featured something like eight verses; together the two women edited it down to a more manageable three, while still retaining its propulsive momentum. The finished song is a kaleidoscopic swirl of images — baby pictures at his parents’ house, “nights where you made me your own,” a scarf left in a drawer — always coming back to the insistence that these things happened, and they mattered: “I was there, I remember it all too well.” The words are so strong that the band mostly plays support; they don’t need anything flashier than a 4/4 thump and a big crescendo for each chorus. There are few moments on Red better than the one where Swift jumps into her upper register to deliver the knockout blow in the bridge. Just like the scarf, you can’t get rid of this song.

1. “You Belong With Me,” Fearless (2008): Swift was hanging out with a male friend one day when he took a call from his girlfriend. “He was completely on the defensive saying, ‘No, baby … I had to get off the phone really quickly … I tried to call you right back … Of course I love you. More than anything! Baby, I’m so sorry,’” she recalled. “She was just yelling at him! I felt so bad for him at that moment.” Out of that feeling, a classic was born. Swift had written great songs drawn from life before, but here she gave us a story of high school at its most archetypal: A sensitive underdog facing off with some prissy hot chick, in a battle to see which one of them really got a cute boy’s jokes. (Swift would play both women in the video; she had enough self-awareness to know that most outcasts are not tall, willowy blonde girls.) Rose says the song “just flowed out of” Swift, and you can feel that rush of inspiration in the way the lines bleed into each other, but there’s some subtle songcraft at work, too: Besides the lyrical switcheroos about who wears what, we also only get half the chorus the first go-round, just to save one more wallop for later. The line about short skirts and T-shirts will likely be mentioned in Swift’s obituary one day, and I think it’s key to the song’s, and by extension Swift’s, appeal: In my high school, even the most popular kids wore T-shirts.

Vulture

[2ptonpt]

Thinking Out Loud Ch. 2

Shelby Bates grew up with the Winchesters, fighting alongside them and saving the day as needed. She was living the life she loved with the man she loved, until a dark family secret comes out and she is kidnapped while Dean can only watch helplessly. Dean struggles to live without her- the only person that ever made him feel like he was worth something, until she shows up years later.

Pairing: Dean Winchester X OC(Shelby Bates)

Word Count: 3105

Rating: M

Masterlist

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

  Chapter Two: You're Not Alone

Some days I just can't go on I stumble and fall And I hang my head But You reach out for my hand And You lift me up Again and again Oh, yes, You do -Owl City ft. Britt Nicole

 Dean sighed happily. He didn't know when he met the Bates' that he would come to care so much for the girl who annoyed the hell out of him as soon as they met. He had known Shelby for nearly ten years of their lives. In 1989, John was following up on a lead about the demon who murdered Mary.

 -TOL-

 While driving down a dark back road heading to what he hoped would be a motel, John Winchester sighed angrily at his rear view mirror. His two sons were bickering in the back seat, seat belts long forgotten. He didn’t have the energy for these two.

 “Dean! Control yourself son. Buckle your brother back in and get in your own seat. You hear me? So help me if you don’t, I’ll pull this car over and make you two walk to the motel!” John eyed his eldest son angrily through the rear view mirror before Dean sniffled a bit and pushed Sam back down into his car seat. Just as Dean buckled his own seat belt, he lurched to the side, hitting his shaved head on the side of Sam’s own shaggy one. Rubbing his own head while checking his little brother over, Dean asked his dad what happened. Only to be answered by a growl and slamming of the Impala door. The two boys’ heads popped into view of the window and looked out into the rainy night. A royal blue Camaro sat perpendicular to their own car, smoke coming out of the hood and the hood slightly tee pee’d.

 While John looked over the damage of the body on his car, the other man walked up and held his hand out with an old receipt from a gas station. It had chicken scratch on the back; probably the driver’s insurance information. John shifted angrily. His poor Baby, he had just had it washed. He grabbed the receipt out of the man's hand. He paused. Was that?

 "You a hunter?" John asked with surprise in his voice. Hearing his dad, Dean got out and walked around to the other side of the Impala, looking up at the scruffy man in the leather jacket. Dean followed his father's line of sight to the mystery man's wrist, where a braided leather bracelet with an anti-possession pendant tied into it. A squeak came from the uninjured side of the Impala. A second later, Sam came up by Dean and grabbed his hand. He was still a bit shocked by the impact. Dean shrugged him off and walked away when his father gave them a look, telling them to get back into the car.

 "What?" Is all the verbal response John received. His question was answered when the man's hand slowly went behind his back.

 "Whoa, whoa man. No need for a gun. I'm not the boogeyman. I'm the guy who hunts him. John Winchester." John said with a tight smile, slightly forgiving the fellow hunter for the impact on his car. The man huffed quietly and shoved his hand out to shake John’s.

 "Sorry ‘bout that. Can't be too careful. Name's Colt Bates. And this-" Colt said, turning around to behind his Camaro and reaching into the shadows,

 "Is Shelby, my daughter. Shelby, mind your manners now. What would your mamma say?" Colt lightly scolded the young brunette, who had silent tears running down her eyes. She looked up at John through her eyelashes and sniffled, then held out her hand to the large man.

 "It's nice to meet you Mr. John." The shy girl said. John shook her hand, eyebrows raising ever so slightly at how firm the handshake was coming from such a small girl. After releasing her hand, John called for his boys to come back around.

 "Now boys, this here is Colt Bates and his daughter Shelby. They're going to ride back with us to a motel and we're gonna come back tomorrow to tow his car." At the words coming from the legendary hunter's mouth, Colt stilled.

 "Nonsense John, we can call a cab-" While the two older men discussed what to do with the vehicles and such, the three young children looked at each other tensely.

 "Hi, I'm Shelby. What are your names?" Shelby looked at Sam and Dean with her bright green eyes, tears still coming down but getting less frequent. Dean scoffed at the crying girl, What a wussy! He thought. Shelby just ignored him and looked at the short, brown haired boy next to the mean blonde one. He smiled shyly at her and introduced himself,

 "I'm Sam, it's nice to meet you. This is Dean, my big brother. He can be a jerk sometimes." That made Shelby smile a little and Sam chuckled, while Dean crossed his arms over his chest and stomped back the Impala. He slammed the door to the back seat. Shelby and Sam shared a small smile.

 The slamming door grabbed the two mens attention and John grumbled while Colt smiled a bit. They had decided to drive back in the Impala, since it had less damage to it. Colt unloaded some essentials from his car and loaded them in the trunk of Johns ride. He whistled softly at the impressive arsenal in the demon-warded trunk. He'd have to take note of some of the items in there.

 The car ride to the motel was filled with the quiet chatter of the men talking about what they needed to fix the cars. Dean noticed that John had relaxed and seemed to have forgotten about the yellow-eyed demon for the time being. He was okay with that. Anytime John caught wind of that thing, Sam and Dean took the brunt of his frustration when he lost the trail, which happened more often than not. Maybe this dude and his wussy daughter would distract him long enough for a break.

 Dean scoffed when Shelby's head fell on his shoulder as they rounded the corner for a motel. Sam and she had fallen asleep about 10 minutes into the ride. He ignored the cold feeling he got when Colt picked Shelby up from the middle of the back seat.

 -TOL-

 Almost as if she was reading his mind, the warmth from his left side disappeared when Shelby bolted out of her position gasping his name in terror. Another nightmare. Dean shifted to a more comfortable position and glanced at Shelby sidelong. She had tears in her eyes, much like the night they met. Only this time Dean didn't think of her as a wussy.

"Sorry, Dean." She murmured. Dean nodded his acceptance and rolled out of the bed. Shelby pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. She eyed Dean carefully as he padded the kitchenette and started the coffee pot. He then walked over to his duffel and grabbed a few things before heading into the bathroom. Before he shut the door, he heard a soft 'thank you' leave Shelby's lips. He turned slightly and gave her a soft, half-smile.

 "Anytime, Princess." Shelby's mood lightened at the nickname he had given her years ago, while she was in her pony-wanting stage. She gave him a warm smile as he turned around and shut the bathroom door. She checked the time. Three p.m. Damn, we slept longer that I would have liked. Shelby watched the coffee brew as her thoughts flew back to her dream. One she had often.

 -TOL-

 Breathe, Shelby. Just breathe.

 But she couldn't, the cold water surrounding her at all angles wouldn't allow it. She looked down at her hand, which was connected to her mother's bigger one. She followed the tan skin up her mother's arm and to her face, to her closed eyes. This wasn't right. She should be looking at bright green eyes. And her mother's skin should be a deep tan, not turning pale.

 Tired. So tired. Right as Shelby closed her eyes she felt someone grab her harshly from above. Dragging her up.

 Breathe, Shelby. Just breathe.

 "Damn it Shelby. Wake up. I can't lose you." Shelby swam out of the darkness and towards the familiar voice and gorgeous green eyes. But not her mothers.

 "Dean." She shot up, gasping for air.

 -TOL-

 The real memory didn't quite match the nightmare she always had. It was her dad's bright blue eyes and his deep, gruff voice that met her when she awoke. Fifteen years ago, her mother drowned. Sucked down by something supernatural while trying to rescue Shelby when she leaned too far over the lake’s dock. Her family had been on a short vacation in Arizona. Colt and Amelia had just taken out a huge vampire nest and decided to celebrate. To this day they never found out what had grabbed Shelby off the dock and ultimately took her mother. To this day she still hadn't stopped blaming herself.

Ever since she and Dean had started to get along, her nightmare changed. To his voice, his eyes. Rescuing her. She had long since told him and Sam about her mother's mysterious death. And Dean knew about her regular nightmares. She still never told him about his appearance in it. She was too embarrassed.

 She heard the shower turn off and glanced at Dean as he stepped out of the bathroom, clad in a blotchy green towel. Shelby averted her eyes from Dean's bare chest. She had seen the smooth slab of skin so many times before, she wouldn't be able to count. But after her dream she felt jumpy around him. Dean looked her way while he moved to the dresser by his bed and grabbed the clothes he would need for the day. Shelby cleared her throat before grabbing her workout clothes and disappearing into the bathroom. Dean dressed, smirking to himself the whole time. He loved to tease her.

 Shelby wiped last nights makeup away from her face and pulled her knotted hair back in a high, messy bun. She pulled on her black shorts and grey tank top before splashing some cold water on her face to wake her up a bit. After brushing her teeth, the brunette opened the door to a fully dressed Dean on his laptop.

 "I'm gonna go for a run. Wanna come?" Dean shook his head no and continued to check the internet. Probably looking for a lead. Shelby sighed. She was itching for a case, but she wanted to enjoy this day, especially after everything that had happened last night. Grabbing a twenty dollar bill from her brown leather book bag she smirked.

 "You know, one of these days all those greasy double bacon cheeseburgers and pies are gonna catch up with those rock hard abs. And you'll be saying, 'Damn, why didn't I listen to Shelby when I had the chance?'" Dean rolled his eyes at the girl, grumbling about having good genes, and turned towards his laptop once again. Shelby sat down next to him and pull on her socks and running shoes. She slipped the twenty into her shorts pocket, then her moms old army knife into her thigh sheath that the shorts covered. It wasn't very comfortable while running, and the shorts didn't hide the huge bulge coming out of her left leg but she'd rather look stupid than be caught without a weapon.

 "Well don't take too long. I wanna be on the road by tonight. Might have something in Alabama. Hey, and stay away from that damn bar! Shelby?" Dean got no reply as the door slammed behind the huntress. He smirked at her. Such the attitude. That's one of the things that drew him to her constantly.

 He pulled the old ring out of his front pocket. He'd seen the heart-shaped garnet ring in a thrift shop a few months ago while their dads were on a hunt in Indiana. He, Sam, and Shelby had decided to check out the small town. They came upon a thrift shop. While Shelby was busy softly fiddling with an old guitar, Sam pointed out the antique ring to Dean, who bought it as quickly as he could without her seeing. Garnet was Shelby's birthstone. It was killing him to keep this from her.

 Even something as small as a ring, which was supposed to be a surprise, made him feel slightly guilty about not telling her what was happening. He told Shelby everything. She was honestly the only person keeping him together in this life his father dragged him into. When John yelled at him for screwing something up on a hunt, it wasn't his little brother that brought him out of his rut. It was Shelby.

 She had this thing about her, which made everyone in the room a little happier. That something, whatever it was, drove him crazy half the time. Because he wanted to be mad, get angry back at his father. For making him feel useless, like he didn't matter. It wasn't Sam's voice saying not to listen to him, no. It was Shelby's soothing voice that brought him back to reality. A reality where he mattered. He saved people's lives. He did matter. Shelby made sure he knew that.

 -TOL-

 Shelby took a few big gulps of the cucumber flavored Gatorade she had purchased from a gas station a few blocks back. She looked at her watch. 5:26. She should probably head back, it was getting dark. Shelby was glad for the warmer January weather in Georgia. She was a little chilly when she started her run in her tank top and shorts, but by the time she had been running for a few minutes she started sweating. She drained the rest of her Gatorade quickly before tossing it into a recycling bin by a bench in the park she had found.

 Her trip back was quicker than she anticipated, Dean too apparently, for when she opened the unlocked door at six pm, she saw Dean had a crumpled piece of old college-ruled notebook paper in his hands. His eyes were tinged pink around the edges and glassed over when his head shot up. Shelby looked away quickly, not wanting to impose on whatever he was thinking about. She grabbed a change of clothes and her shower bag out of her duffel and headed to the bathroom for a long-awaited shower.

 -TOL-

 When Dean heard the shower turn on he glanced back down at the piece of paper in his hands. Shelby didn't know he had stolen it from her a few years ago. It was a song she had written. For him, but apparently she hadn't wanted him to see it because he found it in an old journal of hers while he was looking for some info on a case his dad had caught wind of.

 It was right after John busted his mouth open for raiding a Djinn warehouse by himself, only being saved from death by the sure, calculating hands of Shelby. Just in time. Shelby had cried silently that night in the bed across the cheap motel room, scribbling something in her leather-bound journal. He assumed it was new info on the Djinn they found.

 Turns out it was this song, which he keeps folded in his wallet at all times. It helped him through whenever his dad got rough on him.

 Some days I barely hold on When life drags me down I wanna let go But when my spirit is weak You come to my aid And strengthen my soul

I'm lost without You I'll never doubt You Your grace is beyond compare And though when it rains, it pours You know all I have is Yours You smile when you hear my prayer

You rescued me and I believe That God is love and He is all I need From this day forth for all eternity I'll never wander on my own For I am Yours until you call me home i close my eyes and I can hear You say You're not alone

Some days I just can't go on I stumble and fall And I hang my head But You reach out for my hand And You lift me up Again and again Oh, yes, You do

 Dean smiled lovingly at the doodles lining the side of the page; a horse head, some flowers, and a very detailed sketch of a .44 her dad carried around all the time. There were small notes of lyrics, like they were added as an after-thought; having no home yet in the script on the page. She was a great singer, and even better at writing songs it seemed. This wasn't the first she had done. Some of them she even shared with Dean; sometimes Sam, who could never seem to stop complimenting her on the job well done.

 Dean felt the same about her songs and voice, she had this way of painting a picture with her voice. The way her fingers glided over the guitar strings killed him. Yet somehow he could never seem to do more than smile appreciatively and murmur 'good job' when she was finished. Maybe it was because he saw how she squirmed under the lime light of Sam's doting; and how her eyes lit up like New York City when she heard the soft acceptance from the oldest Winchester brother.

Shelby opened the bathroom door just as Dean slipped the paper back in his wallet. He looked her over before saying,

"Alright, let's pack up, we got business to take of."

 "Dean, are you forgetting something?" Shelby tried to keep a smile from her face.

 "No, unless you found my razor, I've been missing it since Florida." Shelby had noticed. The dark stubble adorning his otherwise smooth face explained everything. She had found it, in the back seat in between the cushions. She had left it there, rather enjoying the 5 o'clock shadow.

 "Nope" She popped the P. She squirmed under the stern green eyes latched onto her form.

 "Well in that case-"

 "Dean, come on! I wanna do something for my birthday!" Dean smiled. Oh how he loved teasing her.

 "I know Princess, if you would just calm yourself and get ready, I have something to show you." Shelby smiled as she ran to her duffel bag, excited for what Dean had in store.

 -TOL-

[newstfionline]

Saturday, September 11, 2021

Record heat, fire danger plague West after hottest summer on record for U.S. (Washington Post) Punishing heat waves have plagued the West all summer and, even at the brink of fall, another sweltering blast has moved over the region. The heat has brought record-setting temperatures in the Southwest and is exacerbating a volatile fire situation farther north. This latest heat wave enveloping the West coincides with an announcement from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the months of June through August matched the Dust Bowl summer of 1936 as the hottest on record for the Lower 48 states. “A record 18.4% of the contiguous U.S. experienced record-warm temperatures,” NOAA wrote. The excessively high temperatures of the moment are being generated by a large and unusually strong zone of high pressure or heat dome parked over the Four Corners area, a situation that has occurred repeatedly in recent months. Temperatures near the core of the heat dome are generally 10 to 20 degrees above average, and its influence extends everywhere west of the Central Plains. On Thursday, record highs in the 90s and low 100s are predicted from California to Colorado. Excessive heat warnings are in effect for parts of the desert Southwest, including Las Vegas, where the forecast high is around 105 degrees. Death Valley could hit 120 degrees.

A foiled fire (SF Chronicle) As California’s Caldor Fire burned through South Lake Tahoe, the blaze destroyed dozens of cabins. Standing tall in the face of the blaze, though, was a shining example of fire prevention: a house wrapped in what appeared to be tin foil. While the building wasn’t actually wrapped in everyone’s favorite food storage material, it was protected. It turns out, wrapping buildings in fire blankets or aluminized structure wrap is a legitimate fire prevention method, and clearly worked in this case. The wraps prevent embers from entering buildings, keep flames from making direct contact with the buildings, and reflect heat from nearby blazes. According to Fumiaki Takahashi, an engineering professor, wrapping houses against fires can block up to 92% of the convective heat and 96% of the radiation from nearby blazes, but is only effective for a short period “while the wildfire front passes—five to 10 minutes—but longer protection would be needed to prevent structure-to-structure ignition.” The foil used is also far from your standard Reynolds Wrap: while its outside is aluminum, its inside is made of woven threads of polyester and fiberglass, and it’s laminated with a high-temperature adhesive. 200-foot rolls are sold for just under $700.

“Death shaming” (The Atlantic) Recently, Elizabeth Bruenig, a staff writer at The Atlantic, called on news organizations to stop “death shaming” unvaccinated victims of COVID. Newspapers and TV stations have covered a number of these deaths as cautionary tales, “with notes of shame or contempt subtle in some tales and bold in others,” Bruenig writes. “If persuasion is the target, then the aim seems off—a general problem in our democracy, where persuasion is a key method of self-governance but something we’re less and less amenable to. In that sense, the strange case of vaccine persuasion is just another entry in the annals of our disillusionment with our own liberal democracy.”

Olaf weakens after hitting Mexico’s Los Cabos as Cat 2 storm (AP) Hurricane Olaf slipped back to tropical storm force on Friday after slamming into the Los Cabos resorts at the tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula and then drenching the region with torrential rains. The storm came ashore near San Jose del Cabo late Thursday as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph (155 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. But winds had dropped to 50 mph (85 kph) by midday Friday, when it was centered about 20 miles (35 kilometers) south-southeast of Cabo San Lazaro. At least 700 local residents spent the night in shelters while while an estimated 20,000 foreign tourists hunkered down in their hotels. State Civil Defense Deputy Secretary Carlos Alfredo Godínez said he had received no reports of lives lost.

The other 9/11 (Foreign Policy) In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States this month, a leading Chilean university, the University of Concepción, held a series of panel discussions on their legacy. The program referred to the events as “the other Sept. 11.” “Other” because, in Chile, Sept. 11 is best known as the date of the country’s own national tragedy: the 1973 U.S.-backed coup against leftist President Salvador Allende that ushered in over 16 years of military rule. The Nixon administration worked to help foment the coup as part of its broader Cold War efforts against real and perceived Soviet-friendly governments across the globe, including in many Latin American countries. In its wake, Washington supported the government of general-turned-dictator Augusto Pinochet, despite knowledge that his security forces had killed political opponents. By the Pinochet dictatorship’s end in 1990, over 3,000 Chileans were dead or missing, and thousands more had gone into exile. In fact, the two 9/11s are linked: The U.S. role in the 1973 coup helps explain why Chile and other Latin American countries were reluctant to embrace the U.S.-led military interventions at the turn of the century.

France bans unvaccinated American travelers (CNN) A French government decree issued on Thursday bumped the United States and Israel from the country's "green" list, down to "orange," effectively prohibiting nonessential travel to France for unvaccinated visitors. Under France's rules, unvaccinated travelers from either country will still be allowed in provided they have an essential reason for travel, however they'll need a negative Covid-19 test before travel and must quarantine for seven days on arrival. France's move follow restrictions imposed on US travelers from several other European destinations. Earlier this week, Spain changed its entry policy for arrivals from the US, requiring them to have a certificate proving double vaccination.

Russia and Belarus Inch Closer to a Full-Blown Merger (NYT) President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia threw his embattled, authoritarian ally in Belarus a fresh lifeline on Thursday, pledging cheap natural gas and more than $600 million in new loans as part of a push to more closely integrate the post-Soviet neighbors. Mr. Putin and President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus met in person for the sixth time in the past year, hammering out a long-delayed integration plan that some analysts had speculated could bring the two countries to the brink of a full-blown merger. Late Thursday evening at the Kremlin, the two leaders finally announced the contours of such a plan, but one that focused on aligning the two countries’ economies while leaving aside thornier political questions.

Hong Kong Tiananmen vigil leaders charged with subversion (AP) Three leaders of the group that organized an annual Tiananmen candlelight vigil were being held in custody Friday after they were charged with subversion under Hong Kong’s national security law, as authorities intensify a crackdown on dissent in the city. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China’s chairman Lee Cheuk-yan, as well as vice-chairs Albert Ho and Chow Hang-tung were charged with inciting subversion of state power under the national security law. The alliance itself was also charged with subversion. For the past 30 years, the alliance organized the candlelight vigil that saw tens of thousands of people mass in the city’s Victoria Park to commemorate China’s bloody military crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. It was the only large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown on Chinese soil, featuring crowds of people lighting candles and singing songs to support democracy.

Twin tropical storms threaten flooding, mudslides in Taiwan and Vietnam (CNN) Vietnam and Taiwan are bracing for twin tropical storms which are expected to make landfall over the coming days, with typhoon Chanthu strengthening into a Super Typhoon in the past 24 hours. Taiwan has issued a sea warning on Friday for Super Typhoon Chanthu, known as Kiko in the Philippines, which is currently expected to pass over the island on Saturday before heading north towards Shanghai and the Chinese coastline. Chanthu is currently displaying wind speeds of 240 kilometers per hour (149 miles per hour), although it may weaken slightly as it nears Taiwan. At the same time, in the South China Sea, tropical storm Conson is due to make landfall in Vietnam on Sunday afternoon, with the country putting 500,000 soldiers on standby ahead of its arrival. Conson is known as Jolina in the Philippines.

After over a year of confinement, Singapore looks to ease coronavirus restrictions on migrant laborers (Washington Post) In Singapore, praised by epidemiologists for its swift response to the coronavirus pandemic, and lately for its high vaccination rate—which, at 81 percent, is among the best in the world—migrant laborers have borne the brunt of measures to contain the virus. For nearly 17 months, more than 300,000 low-income workers, mostly men from India, Bangladesh or China, have endured social distancing curbs stricter and longer than the wider population. Since April 2020 they have been largely confined to their dormitories, allowed to leave only for work, essential errands or to visit designated “recreation centers” once a week. What once was seen as a necessary health policy to control the outbreak—which at its peak last year saw infections in the dormitories reach nearly 1,400 a day—now serves as salient reminder of the gap between migrant workers and other residents in the wealthy city-state, who’ve been leading relatively normal lives for months after the virus was almost stamped out. From Sept. 13, Singapore plans to “gradually ease” restrictions on these migrant workers, starting with a month-long trial program that will allow up to 500 each week from dormitories that have had no new cases in the last 14 days to visit preselected places for six hours.

As flights resume, plight of Afghan allies tests Biden’s vow (AP) Evacuation flights have resumed for Westerners, but thousands of at-risk Afghans who had helped the United States are still stranded in their homeland with the U.S. Embassy shuttered, all American diplomats and troops gone and the Taliban now in charge. With the United States and Taliban both insisting on travel documents that may no longer be possible to get in Afghanistan, the plight of those Afghans is testing President Joe Biden’s promises not to leave America’s allies behind. A particular worry are those whose U.S. special immigrant visas—meant for Afghans who helped Americans during the 20-year war—still were in the works when the Taliban took Kabul in a lightning offensive on Aug. 15. The U.S. abandoned its embassy building that same weekend. “For all intents and purposes, these people’s chances of escaping the Taliban ended the day we left them behind,” said Afghanistan war veteran Matt Zeller, founder of No One Left Behind. It’s among dozens of grassroots U.S. groups working to get out Afghan translators and others who supported Americans.

Facebook, Ray-Ban debut picture-taking smart glasses (Axios) Ray-Ban Stories, the smart glasses being debuted by Facebook and Ray-Ban today, are most notable for just how much they look like a standard pair of the brand’s sunglasses. That speaks to both the most promising and troublesome aspect of the $299 glasses: They look and feel just like a standard pair of Ray-Bans while adding the ability to capture photos and video. The $299 glasses have three main “smart” features: they can record photos and 30-second videos via dual 5-megapixel cameras, they can play “open-air” sound without headphones and they allow users to take phone calls. Photos and videos are shared only to a companion smartphone app, where the owner can then decide whether and where to share the images and videos.

Research on beards, wads of gum wins 2021 Ig Nobel prizes (AP) Beards aren’t just cool and trendy—they might also be an evolutionary development to help protect a man’s delicate facial bones from a punch to the face. That’s the conclusion of a trio of scientists from the University of Utah who are among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes, the Nobel Prize spoofs that honor—or maybe dishonor, depending on your point of view—strange scientific discoveries. The winners of the 31st annual Ig Nobels being announced Thursday included researchers who figured out how to better control cockroaches on U.S. Navy submarines; animal scientists who looked at whether it’s safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down; and a team that figured out just how disgusting that discarded gum stuck to your shoe is.

[yasbxxgie]

On Tuesday, Spike Lee shook up the Cannes Film Festival all over again. The last time he rocked it this hard was in 1989 when he was here with “Do the Right Thing.” This time, the film is “BlacKkKlansman,” which tells the weirder-than-life true tale of Ron Stallworth, a former intelligence officer with the Colorado Springs Police Department who in 1979 infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. The twist? Mr. Stallworth is African-American, which is only the start of a story that finds him making a fool of the white supremacist David Duke. The less-surprising twist is that it’s very much about the American present — a direct, furious protest against the Trump era.

Ron is played by John David Washington, who can sound uncannily like his father, Denzel, the star of Mr. Lee’s “Malcolm X.” Ron infiltrates the Klan with the help of a colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), who pals around with Klan members in person in scenes that are by turns surreal, absurd and hair-raising.

I met Mr. Lee the morning after the film’s premiere on the terrace of the Carlton, one of the grand hotels that look out over the Mediterranean. Wearing a black ball cap and denim jacket, he was in a good mood, often breaking into deep, rolling laughter. “I’ve always had fun at Cannes,” he said, soon after sitting down. “This is the world’s greatest film festival — it’s like when people come to Madison Square Garden to see the Knicks — this is the mecca.”

Mr. Lee has now had five movies at Cannes, but he hasn’t been in the official program since 2002 and the anthology feature “Ten Minutes Older.” When “Do the Right Thing” played at Cannes it didn’t win any awards, and the jury led by Wim Wenders bestowed the festival’s top honors on Steven Soderbergh’s “sex, lies, and videotape,” causing Mr. Lee to famously assert that he had been robbed. A prize might have been nice, but he didn’t need the festival’s blessing; “Do the Right Thing” became a cultural touchstone, an essential work in Mr. Lee’s enduring, electric career.

In 2017 he was in the middle of production on the first season of the Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It” (based on his film), when he received a call from Jordan Peele, the director of “Get Out,” about the project that became “BlacKkKlansman.”

“Spike, I’ve got this script,” Mr. Lee recalled Mr. Peele saying. “I want you to take a look at it.’” Mr. Lee said that there was a lot that already worked in it (Mr. Peele is among the producers of the film) but that he along with one of his co-writers, Kevin Willmott, had to put their stamp on it. “Jordan Peele and his guys came to me because they wanted a Spike Lee Joint.”

To do so, Mr. Lee continued, he and Mr. Willmott had to link Mr. Stallworth’s story with the present. “It cannot be just a history lesson,” Mr. Lee said. “It has to be contemporary. So that was the hip thing that we did. Otherwise it’s a period piece. We had to connect David Duke to Agent Orange today.”

This is the name Mr. Lee uses to refer to President Trump, whom he did not mention by name during our conversation. Mr. Lee happily credits the musician Busta Rhymes for the nickname Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used by the American military during the Vietnam War: “Shoutout to Busta,” he said, laughing.

Mr. Lee worked with colleagues who have helped him turn his vision into cinema before, including Terence Blanchard, his longtime composer. For this film, though, he brought on a new cinematographer, Chayse Irvin, who shot Beyoncé’s “Lemonade.”

“BlacKkKlansman” has a great, strange story that keeps you off balance — you seek footing as it shifts between comedy and horror — but it also has moments of serene loveliness. When a guest of the student union, Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael), begins speaking about black beauty, Mr. Lee folds in floating close-ups of men and women whose halo-like Afros create a sense of near-holiness.

“I wanted to show black is beautiful,” Mr. Lee said. “Not to denigrate anyone else, but white America has been told through 100 years-plus of cinema that white people are the epitome of beauty, the standard.”

Cinema is a critical, intellectual touchstone in “BlacKkKlansman.” Pointedly, the film opens with a legendary scene from “Gone With the Wind” (1939) in which a stunned Scarlett O’Hara walks past a multitude of wounded and dying soldiers as the camera moves up and up, finally stopping on a tattered, still-flying Confederate flag. Mr. Lee also incorporates images from D. W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” (1915), which he saw when he was a student at New York University.

“What got me mad,” Mr. Lee said, “is that they only talked about Griffith and not the effect that film had. ‘The Birth of a Nation,’ undeniably, led to the rebirth of the Klan. So you can see, directly or indirectly, people were killed because of that film. It never came up.”

While he was a student, Mr. Lee made a short, “The Answer,” about an African-American screenwriter who’s hired for a remake of “The Birth of a Nation.” Mr. Lee said that his teachers weren’t pleased with his film and that he was almost expelled. He is now a tenured professor at N.Y.U., and while he doesn’t show “Birth” to his students, he thinks it should be seen with the right historical context.

Mr. Lee had finished shooting “BlacKkKlansman” when a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last August grew violent. He turns sober as he speaks about that weekend and President Trump’s divisive response. “That’s his definitive moment,” Mr. Lee said. “That’s going on his tombstone. He had the opportunity to show the moral leadership that we need,” adding, “He would not repudiate the Nazis, the Klan and the alt-right. He did not do that. That’s what the president is supposed to do.” Mr. Lee then added, “All these Jewish people supporting him, don’t they understand that he’s aligned with the people who tried to wipe them off the face of the earth?”

The intensity with which Mr. Lee spoke about Mr. Trump and Charlottesville finds a corollary in a section of “BlacKkKlansman” that incorporates some of the rally’s most agonizing images. These include the death of Heather D. Heyer, who had been part of an anti-racism counterprotest.

“I called up Heather’s mother, Susan Bro,” Mr. Lee said. “I was not going to put that in unless she gave me her blessing.” He gave her his sympathies and then said, “‘Mrs. Bro, I want to end ‘BlacKkKlansman’ with the murder of your daughter,’” Mr. Lee said after a silence, she told him: “Spike, put it in.” The film, he continued, opens in August, a year after Charlottesville. “That’s what this film is about,” he said. “It’s about today. Are we going to go forward or backward?”

[secretliz001]

翻译：Paul McCartney: One for the Road

原链接：https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/paul-mccartney-one-for-the-road-43295/ He blew it. Not that anybody spotted it. The audience at the Rosemont Horizon, outside Chicago, was too busy swooning in the ersatzcandlelight of a few thousand cigarette lighters and luxuriating in the warmbalm of nostalgia as a real, live Beatle reprised one of the band’s biggesthits onstage. Nobody appeared to notice — or care — that Paul McCartney had completely botched the words to his enduringturn-of-the-Seventies hymn “Let It Be.”

他搞砸了，虽然倒也没人发现。在芝加哥外的好事达体育馆，千千万万观众们都忙于举起打火机，在虚假烛光中陶醉，沉浸在温暖怀旧气息里，因为舞台上，一位真实的披头正在重演披头士乐队最受欢迎的歌曲之一。没有人发现（或者说，没有人在意）McCartney完全把Let It Be的歌词唱错了，这首发行于七世纪年代头上，经久不衰的歌。

 “I condensed that little one very nicely — it took on a newmeaning,” McCartney confesses later with an embarrassed laugh. “All I did was,I forgot the second half of the first verse and put in the second verse. And Ithought, ‘God what am I going to do? I’ll just do the second verse and probablyno one will ever notice that I’ve done it twice.’ But I was so thrown off thatI ended up getting it wrong in the last verse as well.” Not that it was all hisfault anyway, he insists with a disarming smile. “I spend most of my timewatching these little cameos in the audience. It’s like all human life isthere, a big sea of it. And it’s a bit distracting. If I get off on the wrongfoot, it’s because I’m hung up on the audience.”

“这首歌我提炼得不错，给了它些新内涵。”McCartney尬笑着坦白，“我就，把下半首歌的第一段给忘了，唱成了第二段，想着天哪咋办，要不我就直接唱第二段得了，大概也没人会发现我唱了两遍。然而我脑筋整个被搞乱，结果最后一节也弄错了。”他毫无防备地笑着，坚持说这并不都是他自己的错，“大部分时间我都在观察观众席。看着人山人海，人类生活都浓缩在那儿，有点让人分心。心思都在观众身上，把我的步骤都弄乱了。”

 And because, he might have added, that audience always was, still is and forever will be hung up on the Beatles. Currently in the midst of hisfirst major concert tour since his splashy 1976 American jaunt with the lateWings, Paul McCartney is digging deep into his half of the Beatles’ song bagafter spending most of the past twenty years pretending — in concert,anyway — that he had never been Fab in the first place. He is nowrediscovering to his eternal surprise, night after night, the enduring impactand resonance of the act he had effectively denied for all those years.

他可能还会补充说，这也是因为披头士乐队依然永远吸引着观众。McCartney正在进行一场大规模巡演，是自Wings乐队在1976年的那场高调美国巡演以来的第一次巡演。在过去的20年中，他一直在假装自己从来不是披头士乐队的一员（至少在演唱会上是这样表现的）。而为了这次巡演，他则深挖了自己创作的，占据披头士曲库一半的作品。如今每一晚他都能重新体验那份惊喜，那份他曾经故意拒绝面对，但是对观众有着经久不衰的影响和共鸣的惊喜。

 It’s not all hot tears and wet seats, of course, like it was in’64. At the Rosemont Horizon, where McCartney and his five-piece band holdcourt for three sold-out nights, it’s more like bright shrieks of astonishmentand deep sighs of contentment, spiced with moments of poignant intimacy anddroll hilarity:

Two teenage girls in the front row gently sobbing during“Yesterday,” a song written nearly ten years before they were born.

A middle-aged couple slow-dancing in the balcony to “Hey Jude.”

A family of three, including a little girl of kindergarten age,holding up signs that read, “We ♥ Paul,” except the little girl is holding the “We” upside down.

The thirtysomething fella in the tenth row holding a cellularphone over his head, apparently phoning in the gig to a ticketless yuppie palat home.

在好事达体育馆，McCartney和他的五人乐队举办了三场售罄演唱会。现在不是1964年，观众席已经没有粉丝们的滚滚热泪和湿哒哒的椅子。取而代之的是快乐的惊声尖叫和愿望满足的大叹，点缀着各种亲情与搞笑时刻：

前排的两个少女听着 "Yesterday "轻轻啜泣，这首歌是在她们出生前10年写就的。

一对中年夫妇缓缓地伴着“Hey Jude”在看台上跳舞。

一家三口，举着“We ♥ Paul”的牌子，不过那个看着才在上幼儿园的小姑娘把“We”的牌子举倒了。

第十排的三十多岁的小伙子高举着移动电话过头顶，显然在给一个没买着票只能家里蹲的雅痞朋友打电话。

 “I’m touching a lot of different nerves out there,” saysMcCartney, quite rightly. “Young couples and not-so-young couples who wereyoung when ‘Hey Jude’ came out. You see lots of guys doing high fives to eachother, a lot of communication, a lot of warmth.

“不同的人对我的表演都有感触。”McCartney说。他没说错。“不管是对年轻的情侣，还是对“Hey Jude”刚出时很年轻但现在已经不年轻的情侣。你可以看着好多人互相击掌，看到各种交流各种温暖。“

 “It’s not so much déjà vu for me. I’ve come back asanother person. I have different sensibilities now. I have kids, all that.Let’s face it, the first tours the Beatles did, the main essential thing wasscoring chicks. I’m a different person now, because that’s not allowed” Hegrins.

“但其实我对这场景并不熟悉，因为我回归时已经成长为另外一个人了，带着更多感情更多见解，有了孩子什么的。老实和你说，披头士第一次巡演最重要的目标就是找妹子而已。现在我不一样了，可不允许我这么干。”他笑笑。

 “And what I find now is, I get really touched by the audience,” hesays. “I keep telling Dick Lester [the director of A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, whois making a film of the tour] to capture all the little things we see from thestage. Nobody in the audience really sees it. But we do, because we’re lookingat them. And that’s the real show.”

“我发现自己倒是被观众感动着。我一直和Dick Lester说要捕捉到从台上向下看的各种细节。（Dick Lester是A Hard Day’s Night and Help!的导演，也在为此次巡演进行拍摄。）我们能看到观众在席内看不见的细节，因为我们才是面对观众的人。观众的反映才是真正的演出。”

 That’s also the crux of Paul McCartney’s continuing dilemma as anex-Beatle. McCartney, 47, has been a solo artist for nineteen years, nearlydouble his tenure as a Beatle. In 1988 he made a welcome return to his Fiftiesrock & roll roots with the Russian-only “covers” album Snova v SSSR, a.k.a. Back in theU.S.S.R. Last spring he released his most critically acclaimed(although commercially disappointing) album in years, Flowers in theDirt. In addition, his recent songwriting partnership withElvis Costello has yielded two Top Forty hits, his own version of “My BraveFace” and Costello’s recording of “Veronica.” He capped 1989 by debuting afine, new touring band featuring top-drawer studio and road guys who couldoutplay Wings blindfolded — guitarist Robbie McIntosh (the Pretenders),singer-guitarist Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), keyboardist Paul “Wix”Wickens (Paul Young, the The) and drummer Chris Whitten (the Waterboys, JulianCope), plus McCartney’s wife, Wings vet Linda, on keys and harmonies.

这也是McCartney作为一位前披头士一直进退两难的症结所在。47岁的他已经单飞19年，几乎是他披头士生涯的两倍。1988年，他推出了一张只在俄罗斯发行的翻唱专辑Snova v SSSR（又名Back in the U.S.S.R.），令人欣喜地追溯回（影响到他的）五十年代的摇滚乐根源。去年春天，他发行了多年来最受好评的专辑Flower in the Dirt，虽然商业成绩不理想。此外，他最近与Elvis Costello的合作了两首歌曲，McCartney版本的My Brave Face 和Costello的 Veronica，都打到了排行榜前四十名。1989年，他首次组建了一支优秀的新巡演乐队，都是优秀的录音室和巡演音乐人，蒙着眼睛弹也能���过Wings乐队--吉他手Robbie McIntosh (Pretenders)，主唱吉他手Hamish Stuart (Average White Band)，键盘手Paul “Wix” Wickens (PaulYoung, the The)和鼓手Chris Whitten (Waterboys, Julian Cope)，再加上他的妻子，Wings乐队常驻成员Linda，负责键盘和和声。

 Yet it has hardly escaped McCartney’s attention that many of thepeople packing arenas and, later this spring, stadiums on his 1989-90 worldtour are not coming to see him play obscure album tracks from Flowers in theDirt. They are coming to see the Beatles-by-proxy. They arecoming to have their emotional buttons pushed by the songs that defined andtransformed their youth — “The Long and Winding Road,” “Can’t Buy MeLove,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Good Day Sunshine,” “Things WeSaid Today,” “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” the climactic“Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” medley from Abbey Road. Theyare coming to see many of these songs performed live for the first time (thebulk of the Beatles oldies in McCartney’s show postdate their 1966 retirementfrom the stage) and, quite possibly, the last.

然而，McCartney当然不会假装无视，其实铺满场馆的人们并不是来听他演出Flowers in the Dirt中稍显晦涩的曲目。他们是来食用披头士代餐的。他们希望听到那些定义并改变了他们青春的歌曲，去触动自己的情感开关— “The Long and Winding Road,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Good Day Sunshine,” “Things We Said Today,”“Back in the U.S.S.R.,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” Abbey Road中高潮迭起的 “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” 组曲。他们的目的，是来欣赏史上头次（也有可能是最后一次）现场演出的披头士老歌，大量1966年披头士离开舞台以后创作的曲目。

 At the Rosemont Horizon and later that week at the Skydome inToronto and at the Forum in Montreal, you could feel the audience buzz take apalpable dip every time McCartney went into an unfamiliar number from Flowers in theDirt, like the reggaefied shuffle “Rough Ride” or “We GotMarried,” a Flowers highlight recalling the hard-rock melodrama ofmid-Seventies Wings. The pressure drop was particularly noticeable at thebeginning of the two-and-a-half-hour show, as the crowd cheered the soundtrackof Beatles, Wings and solo McCartney hits that accompanied Richard Lester’sopening rockumentary-film montage with its kinetic blasts of Beatlemania,flower power, Vietnam, et cetera. After which McCartney and his band hit thestage and stepped right into … his new single, the appealing butcomparatively low-key “Figure of Eight.”

在他巡演的各个场地都能感觉到，每次McCartney表演一首Flowers in the Dirt中的新曲目，观众的热情会陡然下降，比如雷鬼风的“Rough Ride”或者 “We Got Married”，令人眼前一亮回想起七十年代中期Wings的硬摇旋律的“Flower”。这在开场尤其明显。观众们欢呼着披头士，Wings, McCartney的solo作品，伴着导演制作的记录着摇滚年代开场，屏幕上展现了披头士狂热，花之力，越战等等。之后，McCartney和乐队上台直接演出新单曲，是吸引人但相对低调的 "Figure of Eight"。

 “We did thaton purpose — we had to do that,” McCartney argues over aveggie burger (the McCartneys are devout vegetarians) during a preshowdinner break backstage in Toronto. “Originally, we were going to open with ‘ISaw Her Standing There.’ But I really got upset by the idea. I was going homeone night and I thought, ‘That’s really betraying our new material, sending itright down the line.’ Like saying, ‘Hey, I haven’t been around for thirteenyears and I haven’t done anything worthwhile. Here’s the Beatles stuff.’

“我是故意的。“McCartney吃着素汉堡解释道（McCartney一家都是坚定的素食主义者）。”本来我们想拿I Saw Her Standing There开场，但我真的不支持这个想法。一天晚上回家的时候我想着，‘这简直在背叛我们的新作品，整个把格调拉低了’。这个安排就好像在说，‘嘿，我神隐了13年，啥有价值的事都没干。喏，给你们听听披头士的歌得了。‘“

 “It’s the obvious thing. Boom, bang, Beatles, Beatles. Then yousay, ‘Now we’d like to do some new material.’ Boo! Hiss! I’ve seen the Stonestry and do it, and it doesn’t go down that great. That’s a fact of life. Evenwith the Beatles, new material didn’t always go down that well. It was theolder tunes. ‘Baby’s in Black’ never went down nearly as well as ‘I Feel Fine’or ‘She Loves You.’ That’s just the nature of the beast.

“真的很明显。如果上来就砰砰唱披头士的歌，然后说‘现在我们想演一些新作品。’嘘声就来了。我见过滚石他们这么做，效果不太好。这就是人生嘛，就算是披头士，新作品落地激起的浪花也不会大，老歌才更能带动人们。唱‘Baby’s in Black‘的效果就没有唱‘I Feel Fine’ 或 ‘She Loves You’好。这行就是这样。”

 “It is hard to follow my own act,” he admits. “But the only answerto that would be to give up after the Beatles. I only had two alternatives.Give up, or carry on. And having elected to carry on, I couldn’t stop.”

McCartney has been consistently productive as an ex-Beatle. He hasnot, however, been consistently successful. His Eighties chart duds include Pipes of Peace,Give My Regards to Broad Street (the soundtrack to hisdisastrous feature film of the same name), Press to Play and thesolo/Wings “greatest hits” package, All the Best. Notably, McCartneyincludes only one song from the first three albums in his current show: “SaySay Say,” his Number One duet with Michael Jackson, from Pipes of Peace, isfeatured in Richard Lester’s opening film.

他承认，“追上先前的成就很难，唯一的答案是在披头士之后就放弃。只有两个选择：放弃，或者继续。既然选择了继续，我就停不下来。"

McCartney作为前披头士一直都很高产，但也没有持续成功。他80年代排行榜上的哑���包括Pipes of Peace、Give My Regards to Broad Street（超灾难的同名电影原声带）、Press to Play和Wings的精选集All the Best。值得注意的是他本次演出只收录了前三张专辑中的一首歌：Say Say Say，是他与迈克尔-杰克逊合作曲，打上了榜单第一，也在演唱会片头影片出现了。

 Flowers in the Dirt has done reasonably well saleswise — 600,000 copies inthe United States, 1 million in continental Europe by year’s end — but hasnot been the chartbuster either McCartney or his manager, Richard Ogden,certainly hoped for.

Flowers in the Dirt的销量相当不错--在美国发行了60万张，到年底在欧洲发行了100万张--但还没有达到McCartney与他的经纪人Richard Ogden希望的畅销程度。

 “It was as if it didn’t exist,” Ogden says ruefully. “I sat with aradio program director from Chicago, very nice, very up about the show. And hesaid, ‘What’s the next single?’ And I said, ‘We’re just starting with “Figureof Eight” ‘ And he said, ‘What about “This One”? That’s really good.’ And Isaid, ‘That came out in August, mate.’ That really drives me crazy.”

“打单结果就好像消失了一样，”Ogden怅然若失地说，"我和一个芝加哥的电台节目总监坐着，他人很好，对这个节目很上心。他说，'下一张单曲是什么？’我说：" Figure of Eight " 他说"那This One呢？这首很好听。”我说, ‘这首8月份就发行了啊，老哥。’真的好抓狂。"

 McCartney’s response, says Ogden, is a bit stoic. “Paul’s beendoing this for a long time, and he’s going, ‘I don’t want to think about thisanymore. You guys sort it out.'” In fact, McCartney’s response to his ongoingEighties commercial and, until recently, critical slump has been to get out andplay, something he had done infrequently (Live Aid, the 1986 Prince’s Trustconcert) since Wings broke up following his arrest in Japan in 1980 forpossession of marijuana. In 1987, with Ogden’s active encouragement andorganization, McCartney initiated a series of Friday-night jam sessions at asuburban-London studio with an eye toward eventually finding enough new,inspiring players to start a formal band. He also liked the idea, he says, ofhaving a rockers’ equivalent of cafe society.

McCartney的反应倒是挺淡定，他在这一行太久了。他说，“我不想考虑这个了，你们搞定吧”。实际上对于自己八十年代作品商业上的低迷，和最近才上升的风评，他的对应方式一直是出去演出（Live Aid，1986年Prince的Trust演唱会），虽然自1980年在日本因持有大麻被捕后Wings解散以来，他很少这样做了。1987年，在Ogden的积极鼓励和组织下，McCartney在伦敦郊区的一间录音室发起了一系列周五晚上的即兴演奏会，目的是找到足够多新人、有灵感的乐手来组建一支正式的乐队。拥有一个像咖啡公社一样的rocker团体，这个想法他很喜欢。

 “The Beatles nearly did that once,” says McCartney. “We were goingto open an Apple tea room, where we could all go and be intellectual, talk artor Stockhausen. So I thought, ‘We’ll do a similar thing with the jam. Maybe theword will get out that there’s a jam every Friday night, see who shows up.’ Butin fact, because it’s done by your office, and they just ring specific people,it didn’t work out like that. Whoever they rang, showed. Whoever they didn’t ring,didn’t show.”

McCartney 说，“披头士差点就这么干了，本来我们想用Apple的一个茶室，大家都进去开拓思路，聊聊艺术或者Stockhausen。我想着我们的即兴排练也学样，每周五的活动的话传开了，看看谁会参加。但其实因为是办公室组织的，而他们只会给一些特定的人打电话，效果不好。接到电话的人会参加，没接到的就不参加。”

 When asked why he stayed off the road for so long, McCartney saysvery casually: “I just couldn’t be bothered. Until Live Aid came along, Ididn’t think of doing anything live. I don’t know why. Maybe because nobodyasked me. Nobody asked me personally, anyway. I’d hear little things here andthere; I heard that Elton John was quoted as saying, ‘What he needs is to getback on the road.’ But it never seemed that vital for me; I was alreadyenjoying myself.”

问他为什么这么久没有巡演，McCartney反应很随意，“我就不是很care嘛，在Live Aid之前都没想过现场演出，我也不知道为什么。大概因为没人问过我吧，至少没人当面问过我。小道消息确实听说了点，我听人说Elton John说过“McCartney他现在需要的是回去巡演”。但这对我来说也不太关键，我已经很享受自己的生活了。”

 McCartney was never really much of a road hog. Wings’ first andonly American tour came ten years after the Beatles said sayonara to the roadat Candlestick Park. And it’s easy to tell how much time has elapsed by watchingMcCartney’s current show. The production is heavy on Seventies arena kitsch:lasers galore, levitating keyboards. McCartney’s between-song patter alsoprobably seems quaint (“We’re going to go back through the mists of time, to atime known as the Sixties”) to veteran Eighties concertgoers used to thenarrative command of Springsteen or Bono’s spiritual cheerleading.

McCartney从来都不痴迷巡演，披头士在Candlestick Park演出和观众彻底说byebye十年后Wings才在美国巡演。这是第一次也是最后一次。而看McCartney现在的演出，马上就能知道时间过去了多久。这场演出充满了七十年代舞台上的奇特风格：激光灯效，键盘悬浮着，对于八十年代资深演唱会观众，他们已经习惯了Springsteen 的narrative command【？】或者Bono的精神鼓励的，McCartney演出间歇的唠嗑风格古早，“我们将穿过时间的迷雾，回到一个被称为六十年代的时代”。

 One distinctly Eighties aspect of McCartney’s tour is hiscontroversial tour-sponsorship deal with Visa for the 1990 American shows. TheVisa arrangement — reportedly worth $8.5 million, which McCartney saysbasically covers the cost of transport for the tour — represents a new,potentially troublesome twist in pop-music sponsorship: rock & rollsponsored (some will say co-opted) not simply by a merchandiser butby a credit-card company, with close ties to banks and their complex networksof possibly questionable investments. McCartney says he vetted Visa asthoroughly as possible before saying, “I do.” “It may be true that they are agigantic money corporation,” he says, “but I can’t see what’s wrong with that,unless you can prove to me South African links.”

本次巡演的一个明显80年代特征是他与Visa公司就1990年美国演出达成的赞助协议，这个协议其实有点争议。据报道，Visa公司赞助达850万美元，McCartney说，这笔钱基本上包括了巡演的交通费。它代表了流行音乐赞助中一个新的、潜在的麻烦：摇滚乐的赞助（合作）不是简单地由一个商人赞助，而是一家信用卡公司，与银行及其可能会出问题的复杂投资网络关系密切。McCartney在说 "我同意 "之前，他尽可能彻底地审查了Visa。"他们可能确实是一家巨大的财团，"他说，"但我不觉得有什么问题，除非你能向我证明他们和南非之间有关系。"

 McCartney also insists he is not betraying any kind of political,social or emotional trust represented by the Beatles or the songs of theirsthat he’s performing on tour. “Whether you like it or not,” he says, “no matterwhat people thought was going on in the Sixties, every single band that didanything got paid for it. You look back at the early Beatles concert programs,there were Coke ads. We always got paid for everything we did, and when we madea deal, we always wanted the best.

McCartney坚持认为他并没有背叛任何一种披头士乐队代表的政治、社会或情感寄托，也没有与他在巡演中歌相左的行动。“实话实说不怕你惊讶，"他说，"不管你觉得六十年代是什么风气，每个乐队做的任何举动都是有报酬的。你回头看看披头士早期的演唱会，有可乐做的广告。我们做任何事情都会得到报酬，做交易总是希望得到最好的。“

 “Somebody said to me, ‘But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.’That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now let’swrite a swimming pool.’ We said it out of innocence. Out of normal, fuckingworking-class glee that we were able to write a ‘swimming pool.’ For the firsttime in our lives, we could actually do something and earn money.

“有人和我说，‘可是披头士是反物质主义的呀。’这只是个传说罢了。John和我以前真的会坐下来写歌，说“咱们写个游泳池出来”，这些都是无意识说出来的。这种普通的，tmd工人阶级的志趣使我们通过写歌赚到了一个“游泳池”。这是我们人生第一次，确确实实可以种瓜得瓜挣大钱。

 “You get any act around the table with their record company, theytell their manager, ‘Go in and kill.’ They don’t say, ‘Oh, let the punters inat half price.’ We’ve actually done a lot of that — the free program, thatwasn’t necessary.

“你和唱片公司打交道，他们都会和经纪人说，‘去吧，大干一场’。他们不会说，‘欧我们票价打对折吧’。事实上我们也做过免费的项目，不过也没必要罢了。

 “And I think it’s just going to be tough if people don’t like it,”he says coolly. “Stick the finger up and say, ‘Sorry, boys, it’s tough. You maynot like me because of it. Tough darts. I know I’m not doing it for whateverperception you put on it. It doesn’t alter me.’ I’ve taken money off of EMI.The Beatles took money off of United Artists.

“而且我认为如果人们不喜欢，他们就得忍着。”他酷酷说，“我会举个中指说，‘Sorry咯，这事就这样了，你可能不喜欢，但你也只能忍着。我做这个并不是为了你对我的看法，你怎么想都不会改变我’。我拿的是EMI的钱，披头士拿的是联美公司的钱。”

 “I wish we’d taken a little more actually,” he says, suddenlylaughing, taking some of the chill out of the air. “The accountants on A Hard Day’s Night gotthree percent. We got a fee.”

他突然笑着说，“我倒是希望当时多薅点，A Hard Day’s Night的会计都拿了百分之三，我们只拿了一笔固定的钱。” 气氛突然放松了起来。

 “I‘m actually getting tired of Paul interviews,” Linda McCartneyremarks with a shrug while her husband is being trailed by a television-newscrew backstage in Chicago. “People always ask him about the same things. WhatJohn said about this, or what such and such Beatles song meant? Why don’t theyask him about other things, about the important things going on in theworld?”

当他电视新闻人在跟着McCartney在芝加哥场后台采访时，Linda McCartney耸耸肩说，“Paul的采访我都已经疲了。人们总是问他同样的问题：John说了什么，或者这个那个披头士歌曲是什么意思？他们为什么不问其他的，问问世上真正发生的重要事件？"

 For many of the press hounds, radio DJs and TV interviewers following this tour, not to mention the fans who are paying for the privilege, the Beatles are still one of the most important things in the world. In a world still reeling from their original sound and remarkable creative vision, the Beatles’ significance as a cultural touchstone and spiritual anchor cannot be overestimated. In the Sixties the group was the embodiment of youthful ambition and utopian desire amid the graphic realities of war in Southeast Asia and at home in the urban ghettos. Now, with the world plagued by crack, wracked with racial hatred and poised on the edge of ecological apocalypse, talking about the Beatles is like a form of therapy.

对于关注这场巡演的许多狗仔，电台DJ，和电视记者，更不用说付钱来看的观众，披头士乐队依然是世上最重要的事情之一。他们的原创声响和非凡的创作理念仍在影响着这个世界，作为文化试金石和精神支柱的意义是不可低估的。在六十年代，这支乐队在斗争纷飞的东南亚和城市贫民窟，体现了青年们的志向和对乌托邦的向往。而现在，在这蔓延着毒品，种族仇恨和生态灾难的世界，谈论披头士乐队更像一种疗愈手段。

 That seems to be just as true for McCartney as it is for any fan. During rehearsals for the tour, the band would take an occasional tea break, at which point, Paul Wickens recalls, “anecdotes would come out about the old days, little stories about him and John.”

对McCartney来说似乎也是如此。在巡演排练期间，乐队偶尔会进行茶歇，Paul Wickens回忆道，“他会说一些旧日轶事，关于他和John的小故事"。

 But the usual aura of Beatlemania that accompanies McCartney wherever he goes has increased tenfold, at least, with the inclusion of so many Beatles songs in his set. The recent settlement of the band members’ lawsuits with their record company, Capitol-EMI, and among themselves has also brought the tiresome issue of a Beatles reunion back to the fore. McCartney himself fanned that flame at the start of the American tour in November when he suggested during a Los Angeles press conference that with their legal differences settled, maybe he and George Harrison might write songs together for the first time. (He didn’t say anything about writing with Ringo Starr.) Harrison quickly put the kibosh on a possible reunion, issuing a terse press statement: “As far as I’m concerned, there won’t be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.”

但无论McCartney走到哪里，平时就伴随着他的披头士狂热至少成十倍地增长，毕竟他的演出中加入了这么多披头士的歌曲。最近，乐队成员结束了与Capitol-EMI唱片公司的诉讼，这也重新聚焦了披头士重聚这个老大难问题。McCartney在11月的洛杉矶巡演的新闻发布会上表示，随着他们解决法律分歧，也许他和George会第一次一起写歌。(他没有说任何关于与Ringo一起写作的事情。)George很快就打消了这个念头，发表了一份简短的新声明：“就我所知，只要John没活回来，披头士是无法重聚的。"

 Indeed, John Lennon is an extremely conspicuous presence on McCartney’s tour, by his very absence. His name, his music and his celebrated differences with McCartney during and after the Beatles’ lifetime repeatedly come up in both interviews and idle conversation. Lennon figures prominently in the autobiographical passages that constitute the bulk of the 100-page concert program McCartney is distributing gratis at his shows. But in discussing Lennon in the context of his own contributions to the Beatles’ legacy, without Lennon to answer back, McCartney runs the risk of looking like he’s grabbing all the glory.

事实上，John的缺席反倒在本次巡演中成为了一个极其显眼的存在。采访和闲谈中人们都反复提及他的名字、音乐以及他与McCartney在披头士解散前后的著名纠纷。巡演中免费【免费!!!!!!!!】发放的【多达!!!!!!!!】100页场刊大段的自传段落中，John的身影占重要地位。但在讨论Lennon对披头士作品的贡献时，此时没有Lennon回击，McCartney看着像抢走了所有风头。

 For example, a portion of the program’s interview section is devoted to McCartney’s adventures in the nascent London underground of the mid-Sixties: hanging out with art scenesters like gallery owner Robert Fraser, attending avant-garde music concerts, helping to set up the pioneering Indica Bookshop and Gallery, funding the seminal underground newspaper IT (International Times). “I’m not trying to say it was all me,” McCartney points out in the program, “but I do think John’s avant-garde period later, was really to give himself a go at what he’d seen me having a go at.”

例如，场刊访谈有一部分是关于McCartney在伦敦六十年代中期新生地下艺术中的穿梭：与画廊老板Robert Fraser等艺术界人士混在一起，参加前卫音乐会，帮着打造先锋书店画廊Indica，资助开创性的地下报纸IT（International Times）。"我并不想说这都是我的功劳，" McCartney在场刊中指出，"但我确实认为John后期对先锋艺术的探索，是为了给自己一个新生活的机会，因为他看到了我经历的新生活。"

 “Because I talk about this so much, people go around saying, ‘Oh, he’s trying to reclaim the Beatles for himself, to take it away from John,'” says McCartney while relaxing on the chartered jet ferrying him, his family and the band between Toronto and Montreal. “I’m not doing anything of the kind! I’m not trying to claim the history and achievements of the Beatles for myself. I’m just trying to reclaim my part of it.

"因为我经常谈这件事，所以人们到处说，'哦，他想把披头士据为己有，从John那里夺走它'，" McCartney乘着包机轻松谈到（这包机在多伦多和蒙特利尔之间接送他自己、家人和乐队成员）。"完全没有的事! 我不想把披头士的历史和成就据为己有。我只是想找回属于自己的那部分。”

 “It’s not sour grapes. It’s true. I was there in the mid-Sixties when all these things started to happen in London. The Indica Gallery, art people like Robert Fraser. I was living in London, and I was the only bachelor of the four. The others were married and living in the suburbs. I was just there when it all started to happen.

“真不是酸葡萄心理，六十年代中期伦敦百花齐放的时代，我就在那旋涡中心，在Indica画廊，与Robert Fraser这类艺术人士在一起。我就住在伦敦，也是乐队里唯一一个单身的。另外三个都结婚了住在郊区，我只是正巧那时在那地而已。”

 “The difference is that once John got interested in it, he did it like everything else — to extremes. He did it with great energy and enthusiasm. He dove into it headfirst with Yoko. So it looked like he had been the one doing all the avant-garde stuff.

“It’s the ultimate conundrum,” he admits rather helplessly. “If I don’t say anything, I go on being the so-called wimp of the group. If I do open my mouth, it looks like I’m sullying John.

"不同的是，约翰一对它产生兴趣，他就开始走极端，就像他做别的事情那样。他以极大的精力和热情去投入，和洋子一起，一头扎进去。所以看起来他才一直在做各种先锋前卫的活动。”

"这是终极难题。"他颇为无奈地承认。"如果我什么都不说，我就一直是所谓的群体中的懦夫。但如果我真的开了口，看着就像是我在diss约翰。”

 “And this has only become an issue because he’s dead. Because of the mythologizing that inevitably comes with someone as special as that. And he never wanted that for himself. I remember driving in a car, listening to an interview with John on the radio on the day he died in which he said, ‘I don’t want to be a martyr.’ He didn’t want that responsibility, to be larger than life, to be some kind of god.”

No one brings it up, but this discussion, ironically enough, is taking place on the evening of the ninth anniversary of John Lennon’s murder.

"而正是因为他去世了，这才成了一个问题。因为他地位如此特殊，不可避免会被捧上神坛，可他从来都不想这样。我开车时，听过约翰去世那天的电台采访，他说，'我不想成为烈士'。他不想要那种责任，大于生命，要成为某种神什么的。"

虽然无人提及，但讽刺的是，这场访谈是在John Lennon遇害九周年的晚上进行的。

 “The fact is, we were a team,” McCartney states firmly as the plane begins its descent, “despite everything that went on between us and around us. And I was the only songwriter he ever chose to work with. Nuff said.”

"但其实我们是一个团队，"他在飞机开始下降时坚定表示，"尽管我们之间以及周围环境发生了各种事情，但我依然是唯一一个他自己选择合作写歌的人，就是这样。"

 A day in the touring life, McCartney style, is a nonstop series of interviews, photo opportunities, press conferences, sound checks and meals grabbed quickly by a band on the run. And, of course, the nights are busy, too.

McCartney的巡演生活每天充斥着持续的采访、拍照、新闻发布会、试音，在奔波中随意扒几口饭。当然，晚上也很忙。

 This evening’s performance at Toronto’s Skydome includes McCartney’s nightly plug for Friends of the Earth, the international ecological lobbying group that he is promoting throughout the tour. As the final notes of the closing Abbey Road medley reverberate around the cavernous Skydome, McCartney and the band jump into a fleet of golf carts, which zoom through the hallways to a waiting tour bus. With all aboard, the bus pulls out of the Skydome Starsky and Hutch-style before most of the fans have even left their seats. Back at the hotel at 1:00 a.m., McCartney hosts a small bash for the tour entourage in his suite. The food is vegetarian Chinese. The main attraction is a video of the evening’s Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran fight. At 2:30 a.m., as the party breaks up, McCartney, wearing a bathrobe, dances alone in the living room to the new Quincy Jones album.

今晚在多伦多Skydome的演出，包括McCartney每晚为Friends of the Earth做的宣传，一个国际生态游说组织。当空旷的Skydome回荡着Abbey Road组曲最后一个音符，McCartney和就乐队跳上高尔夫球车，穿过走廊驶向一辆等着的巡演大巴。大多数歌迷都还没来得及离开座位呢，大家就都上了车，飞速驶出了Skydome，像在演警界双雄似的。凌晨1点回到酒店，他会在套间里为随行人员举办一场小型派对，吃的中式素食，电视里放着当晚Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran的比赛录像。凌晨2点半派对散场，他会穿着浴袍，听着Quincy Jones的新专独自，在客厅里独自跳舞。

 Sedate in tone, organized with stunning military efficiency, the 1989-90 Paul McCartney World Tour is strictly business — the business of putting on a good show, promoting the latest record, getting maximum publicity and attempting to satisfy the constant public hunger for all things Beatle.

“This is more like a Beatles tour, strangely enough,” says McCartney. “In doing this tour, I’ve taken hints. If someone comes up and says, ‘How should we do this?’ my mind goes back to the best tours I’ve been on. And those were the first Beatles tours of America. They were highly organized, very efficient.

基调沉稳，组织高效，1989-90年Paul McCartney世界巡回演唱会是一场严格的商业活动—是为了举办一场优秀演出，推广最新唱片，获得最大宣传，并试图满足公众对披头士相关的持续渴望。

"挺奇怪的，这倒更像是一场披头士巡演，"McCartney说。"巡演中，我有一些自我暗示。如果有人过说，'我们应该怎么做？'脑海里就回想起我参加过的最好的巡演：披头士的第一次美国巡演，组织得很好，很有效率。

 Where there was once the hysteria of four wild boys with the world at their feet, however, now there is the calm of a middle-aged man who spends nearly all of his offstage hours meeting with assorted advisers, attending to his family (he and Linda are accompanied on this series of shows by two of their four children, Stella and James) and in turn being attended to by personal staff and security, the most prominent of the latter being three muscular, well-dressed men who look as if they had graduated with honors from Secret Service finishing school. Hell raising, needless to say, is at a premium on this tour.

曾经的，是四个狂野男孩带动的歇斯底里，站在世界之巅，现在的，是一个冷静的中年男子，几乎把所有台下时间都用在会见各种顾问、照顾家人（四个孩子中Stella和James这次陪他和Linda巡演），并反过来又受助理们和安保的照顾，其中最突出的是三个肌肉发达、衣着光鲜的男人，看着像特工学校毕业的优等生。Hell raising【？】在此次巡演中很重要。

 “I’m not used to that,” Robbie McIntosh says of the tour’s emphasis on organization. “When I was with the Pretenders, we would do a sound check and then we would go to a pub or something. Now with this, I get a feeling I can’t do that. It’s a lot more regimented, basically because the security is a lot heavier, because of who Paul is. And I guess because of what happened to John, although nobody directly mentions that.”

"我不习惯这样。" Robbie McIntosh提到这次巡演很强调组织性。"当我和Pretenders乐队在一起时，做完音响检查，我们就回去酒吧或者别的地方。现在我感觉自己不能这样做了。一方面因为Paul的身份，安保工作更加严密。另一方面我猜也是因为John的原因。虽然并没有人直截了当提出来。"

 McIntosh observes that the band “is sort of sacred” to McCartney, wholly separate from business. “He never talks business. Never, ever. He’s never mentioned money or anything like that to me. If he’s got something to say, then he’ll say it to the manager, and you will get it from him.

McIntosh发现乐队���McCartney几乎有些“神圣”，是完全与商业活动分开的。“他从来不说商业上的事情，从来都没有。他对我从来不提钱啊什么的。如果他想说，他会和经纪人沟通，经纪人再来和你沟通。”

 “And he’s got a very young approach as far as the band,” says McIntosh “You’d think this is his first band the way he goes on. You see him at sound checks, going around in circles and doing those silly little jumps. It’s a real novelty to him to have a band again — and he treats it like that.”

"搞乐队这方面，他的各种行为都显得相当年轻，" McIntosh说，"他的做法会让你以为这是他待的第一个乐队。试音时你会看到他绕圈圈，傻傻在蹦跶。对他来说，再度拥有乐队是一件很新奇的事情--他也是这样应对的。"

 The sound checks are shows in themselves. McCartney doesn’t run through any of the songs in the regular production; instead, he leads the band through a batch of oldies (Carl Perkins’s “Matchbox,” an old Beatles cover, and tracks from the Russian album, like “Just Because” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”), the Wings B side “C Moon,” the jaunty British music-hall number “Me Father Upon the Stage” and a Latin-hustle medley of Beatles songs.

试音本身就是一场演出。通常人们会过一遍歌单，但McCartney不这样。他会带着乐队演一些老歌(Carl Perkins的“Matchbox,” 翻唱披头士的歌，俄罗斯独家专辑里的歌, 类似 “Just Because” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”这种。)Wings的B面单曲“C Moon”，英式音乐厅的欢快曲目 "Me Father Upon the Stage "和披头士曲目的拉丁风串烧。

 “He’s a real clown,” Wix says quite admiringly. “He loves to show off, and he loves to be there doing it, making people laugh.”

And sure enough, onstage you can see by the light of his beaming, vintage Beatle Paul smile and the way he throws himself into the sixteen Beatles songs featured in the show that no one is enjoying this forward-into-the-past expedition more than McCartney himself.

“It’s twenty years, man,” McCartney says a bit wearily in response to the questions that have dogged him the whole length of the tour — why Beatles songs, and why so many?

"他真的是个小丑式人物。"Wix相当佩服地说。"他喜欢炫技，喜欢在台上搞笑让观众快乐。"

在舞台上，你可以从他那笑容满面、复古的披头士Paul的笑容，以及他投入演出中的十六首披头士歌曲中的方式看出来，没有人比他本人更享受这种向着曾经去探索的征途。

麦卡特尼有些疲惫地回答了困扰他整个巡演的问题--为什么是披头士的歌，为什么这么多？

 “You can’t keep angry forever, twenty years after an event that hurt,” he says, referring to the band’s acrimonious breakup. “Time is a great healer.”

谈起披头士乐队的激烈解散，他说道，"已经二十年了，老兄，二十年前的事我再心痛，也不可能永远生着气。时间很能疗伤。"

 McCartney explains that in preparation for the tour he actually sat down with pen and paper and drew up a list of his favorite Paul McCartney songs, Beatles and otherwise. He came up with so many of them that at one point there was talk, briefly anyway, of doing two completely different shows in each city. “I’d said to myself, ‘You’re a composer,'” he says. “‘There’s no shame in doing these songs.'”

他解释说，“准备巡演时自己真的拿着纸和笔，坐下来，写了一份他心中的Paul McCartney最佳曲目，其中包括披头士乐队和其他时期写的。单子太长了，甚至一度提到要在每个城市做两场完全不同的演出。"我对自己说，'你是作曲人'，"他说，"'演这些歌并不丢人'。"

 The songs of late partner John Lennon were a different matter. “In fact, I considered doing a major tribute to John,” says McCartney. “But it suddenly felt too precious, too showbiz. I was going to have a whacking great picture of John and just say, ‘He was my friend.’ Which was true. I’m totally proud to have worked with him.

演出已故搭档John Lennon的作品则含义不同。“我其实考虑过加一个John的致敬环节，但这回忆对我来说太珍贵，这环节也太作秀了。我本想挥着一张John的照片说，‘他是我的朋友’，这是真的，能与他合作我真的很骄傲。”

 “But then people started saying, ‘Why don’t you do “Imagine”?’ And I thought, ‘Fucking hell, Diana Ross does “Imagine.” They all do “Imagine.”‘ That’s when I backed off the whole thing. You go on tour, you sing your songs, arrange ’em nice, do it, and if you do it well enough, that’s what people will remember.”

“但人们又要说了，‘为啥不唱Imagine?’我就觉得，‘草了，Diana Ross也唱过Imagine，所有人都唱Imagine’。于是我退却了。我就想着去巡演，唱着自己的歌好好编排，如果做得够好，大家是会记住的。”

 Paul McCartney was rather late out of the starting gate for the 1989 Dinosaurs on the Road Sweepstakes, eating the dust already kicked up during the summer and early fall by the Who, the Rolling Stones and even Ringo Starr. But he’s not bugged either about his membership in the club — “I’m another dinosaur,” he says frankly — or by the implicit pressure to prove his viability as a contemporary artist to an audience obsessed by his past, if necessary at the expense of his peers.

【这段的典故没咋看懂，也没查到，有无老师解答？】

 “It’s never stopped,” says McCartney, sitting on a bench in the Montreal Canadiens’ locker room while a sold-out house awaits him inside the Forum next door. “I will never stop competing with every other artist in this business. Pet Sounds kicked me to make Pepper. It was direct competition with the Beach Boys. So what? That’s what everyone’s doing. Although when Brian Wilson heard Pepper, he went the other way.

“竞争从来没有停止过，”他说，在更衣室里坐在板凳上，隔壁漫长的人都在期待着他演出。“我永远不会放弃和这行艺术家们竞争的。Pet Sounds促使我推动Sgt. Pepper项目，这是和the Beach Boys直接竞争，但又怎样呢？大家都这么做。虽然Brian Wilson听完Sgt. Pepper，他就调转枪头啦。”

 “But, yeah, it’s competition. If you put ten children in a room, after an hour or so, they’ll sort themselves out. The smart one. The big, tough one. The cowardly one. The funny one who’s the friend of the smart one and the big, tough one. They will establish a pecking order.”

And where does McCartney place himself in rock’s pecking order?

“I’d put me at the top. Just because I’m a competitor, man. You don’t have Ed Moses going around saying, ‘Sure, I’m the third-best hurdler in the world.’ You don’t find Mike Tyson saying, ‘Sure, there’s lots of guys who could beat me.’ You’ve got to slog, man. I’ve slogged my way up from the suburbs of Liverpool, and I am not about to put all that down.”

“但竞争就是这样。你让10个孩子在一个屋子里，过一两个小时，他们就分出区别了。聪明孩子，壮硕孩子，强悍孩子，怂孩子，以及和聪明孩子壮硕孩子强悍孩子关系都很好的搞笑孩子。他们自己就会分等级。”那McCartney认为自己在哪一级呢？

“我觉得自己是最高一级，因为我确实很有竞争力。你看不到Ed Moses到处说：‘我是世上第三好的跨栏选手哈。’也不会发现Mike Tyson说，"很多人都能打倒我啊。”人必须要努力啊，伙计。从利物浦的郊区一路打拼上来，我不会放弃这一切的。"

 Nor is he about to let all that go forgotten. With the key Beatles lawsuits settled, he’s keen to go ahead with the long-discussed authorized Beatles film biography, The Long and Winding Road, although the project hit an early snag in terms of finding a director. McCartney mistakenly attempted to solicit interest from top screen talent by sending form letters outlining the project to the likes of Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Michael Apted. “George [Harrison], who’s in the film business, went, ‘Major no-no, man, we shouldn’t have done that.’ And he should have stopped me. It was a mistake.”

他也不打算让这一切消失于记忆深处。随着披头士乐队关键官司解决了，他开始积极推进讨论已久的乐队授权电影传记The Long and Winding Road，虽然在找导演时就早早遇到了阻碍。他错了，他试图征求顶级大导的兴趣，他向Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott 和Michael Apted等人发送了邀约。"涉足电影行业的乔治说，'可千万别，��不能这么干。’他确实该阻止我，这决定是错误的。"

 Yet having willingly reawakened the Beatlemania beast with his current show, Paul McCartney enters the Nineties with a new variation on his old Seventies dilemma: How do you follow an act like the Beatles — again? He talks of making a new album with his touring band, and he’s halfway through a major orchestral and choral piece, written with British conductor Carl Davis, to be debuted during the 150th-anniversary celebrations of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic next year. More important, though, he’s come to realize that you don’t follow an act like the Beatles. You learn to live with it, and learn from it.

Paul McCartney通过他目前的巡演，有意唤醒了人们对披头士的狂热。进入九十年代后，他对这七十年代的老难题态度又有了变化：如何重现披头士的行事作风？他说自己会和巡演乐队一起制作一张新专辑，和英国指挥家Carl Davis共同创作的大型管弦乐和合唱作品也已经完成了一半，将在明年皇家利物浦爱乐乐团150周年庆祝活动中首次亮相。但更重要的是，他已经意识到，自己不能重现披头士的作风了，而是要学会与之共存，并从中学习。

 “I’ve already done the thing where you go out and shun the Beatles,” says McCartney. “That was Wings. Now I’ve done this whole thing. I recognize that I’m a composer and that those Beatles songs are a part of my material.

“出门演出，假装自己不是个披头，这事我已经干过了，就是Wings。我现在想要的，是意识到自己是一位作曲人，而披头士的歌曲是我作品的一部分。”

 “The only alternative is that I turn my back on it forever, never do ‘Hey Jude’ again — and I think it’s a damn good song,” he says before heading out onstage, where he’ll play it again for a grateful crowd. “It would really be a pity if I don’t do it. Because someone else will.” 

“另一个选项是，我得永远无视披头生涯，永远不能唱Hey Jude。可这真tm是首好歌。”他上台演出前说着，“如果我永远不唱那就太可惜了，因为会被别人唱掉的。”

[hunterxjpeg]

Summary of Togashi's 2016 "Jump Ryu" book by sandman on apforums.net:

[Before becoming mangaka] - Togashi's parents managed a company which sold papers, painting tools, stationery and manga magazines. His father's hobby was drawing. - When Togashi was around 6 years old, he used to draw many of his original heroes and monsters.When he was around 8 years old, he was inspired by one of his friends whose hobby is drawing manga. They showed their manga with each other. - When Togashi was in junior high school, he was fully attracted by some Shoujo mangas whose essential was Shounen manga-ish such as Mineo Maya's manga. - Since then, he started reading "Urusei Yatsura" and learned how to attract female audience. Togashi thought he was suitable for Shoujo manga although his favorite manga genre was Shounen manga. - Togashi was going to become a junior high school art teacher, but gave up right after he started his internship. This was because he was afraid that his own words might influence students directly. - The reason Togashi was going to become a teacher was that he thought he would not be able to work in the same way as normal adults did. Shaving and wearing a business suit every day is what Togashi considered impossible for him. He was afraid of living a life outside school. After he gave up working as a teacher, he had no choice but to work as mangaka. - In 1986, Togashi's hype was skyrocketing when he was selected as one of the finalists in a famous manga audition, Hop Step Award. - When he was a college student, his editor said to him, "Even if you end up not being able to succeed as mangaka, you have an alternative choice to live as a teacher". After this statement, Togashi got more serious in drawing manga and dropped out of a college. Then he moved to Tokyo aroud 1989. - When moving, he suffered a trouble about his household goods not arriving his house for a week. Togashi had no choice but to sleep on the floor. - He couldn't afford to buy a single desk, so he used a drawer as desk when drawing manga. Togashi said it was painful since his legs couldn't put under the drawer. lol - Togashi was about to run out of his bank deposit. He felt really relieved to hear that Shueisha decied to make a serialization of his manga. [After becoming professional mangaka] - The first manga serialization for him was Ten de Showaru Cupid ("An Ill-tempered Cupid in Heaven"). It became pretty famous, but it finished earlier than expected (chapter 32). Togashi now regrets that he should have prepared a rough plot till the finale before serialization. - 2-3 months after finishing his first serialization, new ideas for next manga came to his mind one after another. Then He started Yu Yu Hakusho soon. - Togashi dsecided to focus on the occult and battle in Yu Yu Hakusho since both of them were his favorite genres. - Editor told him that Toagshi is good at creating a story. Togashi was glad to hear that, but at the same time, he thought it wasn't enough in order to maintain great popularity for more than 30 chapters. That's why Yu Yu Hakusho turned into battle manga and made a great success. - Editors in Shueisha consider it is one of the greatest role models to turn a manga which ends in each single story into battle manga. The role model for Togashi was "Kinnikuman" ("Muscle Man"). It started as comedy manga and then turned into battle manga, which Togashi believes can entertain shounen in terms of both surprise and excitement. - One year after he finished Yu Yu Hakusho in 1994, Togashi suggested his editor that he would like to draw manga that would NOT become much popular. This is because he wanted to show various aspects of his personality as mangaka to his audience. Togashi believed he had already drawn traditional Shounen manga to the best of his ability in Yu Yu Hakusho. - Togashi also told his editor that he would start traditional manga again after he finished "Level E". Editor accepted it. - In "Level E", Togashi was going to finish stories in each chapter, but Prince Baka (stupid prince) became popular as opposed to his expectations. Thus, he decided to make Prince Baka the protagonist of Level E. The prince had complicated personality which always went beyond everyone's imagination, so Togashi had difficulty in creating a story. - Having finished Level E, Togashi started Hunter Hunter. He keeps in mind that he should change his style in each arc so that his audience can be surprised. - Togashi considers character's personality is sometimes important than story. The ending of Chimera Ant arc was not what he expected at first.  He makes a simulation about how his characters will talk with each other and take an action in specified situations, which allows his audience to feel as if his characters really exist. - Togashi loves professional slang. For example, his characters call "turn over" when they visit websites. Also, he shows detailed concept of Nen as if it exists as some kind of martial arts in real world. - Togashi tends to show some rules to his audience at first such as Greed Island arc. He enjoys the process finding system bugs or shortcuts in the rules to go beyond expectations of audience. - In Chimera Ant arc, Togashi enjoyed making a super long list as to how his characters would take actions since 10 days before invasion in Royal Palace. He wanted to draw characters in desperate situations taking an unexpected action when they came across someone accidentally. Editor gives examples such as encounters between Morel and Shaiapouf/ Killua and Meleoron. - Togashi has been attracted by dirty side rather than beautiful side ever since he was a junior high school student. Editor considers Mukuro in Yu Yu Hakusho is one of the typical examples. - About drawing style, Togashi decided to draw Yu Yu Hakusho impressively and Level E realistically. In Hunter Hunter, he keeps in mind that he should not use screentones as possible as he can. - Togashi doesn't specify detailed personality of boss characters from the beginning. For example, Toguro in Yu Yu Hakusho was just a bodyguard at first, but his personality gradually became more attractive as his grudge against Genkai was revealed. About boss characters' appearances, he enjoys making them complicated since boss characters don't make much appearances. - While Togashi is drawing manga, he listens to TV show ad enjoys talking about it with his assistants. - Togashi considers himself not being good at drawing color spreads. -Togashi memorizes facial expressions of characters in other manga. One of his favorite book is "Facial Expressions" written by Mark Simon. - There are 5 assistants in his studio. - Togashi thinks of Akira Toriyama as a god. He has Dragon Ball 30th book. - On Togashi's desk, there is some manuscripts of a fight between Hisoka and Kastro which he considers as bad quality. He pays attention in order not to repeat the same error. Togashi also says that people on internet fandom were embarrassed with the chapter at that time. lol - The previous editor says, "Togashi-sensei is very gentle. He remembers what editors said in the past and sometimes bothered to be worried about us." - Editor thinks Togashi resembles Ging Freecss in terms of personality. - An editor says he was scolded by Togashi only once when he changed words in manga a bit without permission. - Togashi sticks to every single word in manga. He even doesn't want to use various fonts since he is always confident of his words being interesting. Togashi's message to mangaka beginners: "Keep in mind about audience. Make every effort to go beyond their expectations".