#At least 1 clip from every year of their career

[piratewithvigor]

Sold As Set, Do Not Separate:

20 Years Of Young Bucks

[wibben]

CAREER DAY — NANAMI KENTO

↳ Summary: It's your favorite day of the school year, and you've never met Yuji's father... until now.

↳ WC: 4.2k

↳ AN: my submission for @nanamiweek's Day 1 Papamin prompt! I had such a blast writing this one, I've truly missed my favorite blonde. Perhaps this has the makings for a little mini-collection of Nanami, kid Yuji, and teacher shenanigans.

You’d been up to your eyeballs in glitter, paper cups, and rocket fuel caffeine since six o’clock sharp. 

Not a complaint in sight. You adored Bring Your Parent to School Day almost as much as your students did. There was something endlessly endearing about the way they paraded their grown-ups around the classroom like rare Pokémon cards, puffed up with pride, introducing them to friends as if they'd rolled up in a limousine rather than a Subaru. 

“This is my mom!” one girl might yell, face luminous with excitement and star-struck eyes. “She does people’s eyebrows.” 

Gasps all around. You would barely be able to keep a straight face. 

The professions were almost always lost on your second-graders, their tongues tripping merrily over syllables like “chiropractor” and “esthetician” but it didn’t matter. Their awe wasn’t in the job. It was in the magic of presence. That Mom or Dad had stepped out of the nebulous, grown-up world to sit on tiny plastic chairs and drink juice boxes beside them — it made everything feel a little shinier. 

You loved it, honestly. A soft, well-earned reprieve from math drills and shoelace catastrophes. It warmed you from the inside out to see the little duos in action — hands clasped, sneakers swinging under desks, pride glowing from every corner. 

Most of the parents you’d met already — familiar faces from conferences and after-school sports games, or quick hellos in the pickup line. The day was as much about touching base with them as it was about stepping into the background and letting the kids run the show. 

Except for one unfamiliar face paired to a brand new name. 

Yuji Itadori was new this year. A mid-year transfer who had, miraculously, skipped all the usual hurdles and growing pains of social integration. No sulking in the corner, no anxiety-stricken tugs on your sleeve. The boy had walked in, grinned at you with gapped and missing teeth, and within forty-eight hours had more friends than you could count — probably even more than you had yourself. 

You hadn’t met his father. Radio silence on that front aside from slips and papers returned signed in neat calligraphy, and one brief, clipped phone call before Yuji’s first day. The mysterious Mr. Nanami remained just that: a mystery.

But Yuji wrote his own mythology. 

According to him, his dad was very tall, very strong, very good at math, and — most importantly — the best dad in the world.

You’d seen at least four crayon portraits of the man. A scribbled head of blonde hair. Always in a suit. Always holding Yuji’s hand. One even featured a big spotted paddle (sword?), though Yuji was quick to assure you that it wasn’t real. You’d raised a brow and let it slide. You were used to dads in superhero capes and interpretive renditions of fist-fighting monsters. This wasn’t odd. 

When the phone rang that night, you’d answered with the upbeat warmth you always offered new parents — a smile in your voice, ready to build that bridge. But Nanami Kento crossed it first. 

His tone was even, no-nonsense. Not unfriendly, but certainly not one for pleasantries or menial small-talk.

He informed you, calmly and concisely, that his family was undergoing a period of adjustment.

That if Yuji struggled — academically, socially, or emotionally — you were to contact him immediately.

He thanked you. Briefly. And ended the call with a curt, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.” 

No mention of a mother. 

None from Yuji, either. 

You’d read between and colored in enough lines in your career to understand that well enough. 

And even in the brevity of those clean, clinical lines of his voice, you caught a glimpse of him — this man Yuji so obviously admired. Serious. Sharp. The kind of parent who showed up and cared, even if not always in person. 

Still, you hadn’t expected him to show up at all. 

Not until his name appeared on the list for Bring Your Parent to School Day. 

And certainly not with the kind of presence that would make you double-check the dress you wore that morning.

You’d been welcoming parents for the last twenty-five minutes, and each one brought with them another blur of motion — squeaky sneakers pelting down the linoleum hallway, the slap of a hand against the doorframe, a gleeful shriek of your name. You’d pop your head out with a wide smile, crouching low to greet each student like your own, your voice warm and sunflower-bright. 

“Good morning!” 

A gentle pat on the back, and off they’d go — nudged toward the long folding table piled high with boxed donuts, pastries, and room temperature juice boxes. You’d done your best to make this morning a special one within your limited means. 

The parents made for an even more eclectic bunch than their children. Some arrived in scrubs, others in hard hats, mud-streaked boots trailing across your clean rug (you winced, mentally tabbing another steam-clean rental).

One mother came in juggling mannequin heads. Another brought a stethoscope, which she graciously let the kids try on. And one father — clearly playing for keeps — arrived with a black lab from the fire station in tow. The dog wriggled and basked in the attention of twenty sticky-fingered admirers, tail a blur like an overdriven metronome. 

You would definitely have to steam clean the rug. 

There was always one family that stole the spotlight, and this year's frontrunner had all but cinched it with four paws and a lolling tongue. That was hardly fair play. 

Still, as you subtly ushered parents toward the foam cups and coffee station, you couldn’t help but notice one bright face conspicuously missing. Yuji Itadori wasn’t exactly the type to blend in, and he’d never missed a day of school.

You frowned, glancing up at the wall clock just as the minute hand slipped neatly into place. 

8:29. 

Right on cue, the hallway outside your classroom erupted. 

There was a screech — rubber soles skidding like brakes on blacktop — and then Yuji exploded into the room with the exuberance and subtlety of a category five hurricane, sending art projects fluttering and bulletin boards rattling in his wake. He collided into your legs and wrapped himself around them. 

“Told you we were gonna be late!” he howled, already twisting to glare over his shoulder. 

You barely had time to ruffle his hair before a second voice — measured, calm, and cut from a different cloth entirely — followed behind. 

“And I told you we would be right on time.” 

The clock ticked. 8:30 on the dot. 

“And we are.” 

The crisp click of dress shoes in long, confident strides heralded the arrival of a man you’d heard so much about, even if written in the strokes that belonged in something as fantastical as The Odyssey. 

Brown leather shoes shined within an inch of their life, gleaming like mirrors beneath long legs dressed in tailored beige — an unusual suit color, but you decided not an unflattering one. It was immaculate. Pressed. And the faint creases at the elbows and knees were the only lifeline cast to save you from the broad chest and shoulders beneath his jacket, and his face— 

What did Yuji say his dad did for work again…?

You couldn’t tell. He came empty-handed without props or costume, only deepening the mystery and leaving you to your own intrigued speculation. 

A model, maybe. Editorial spreads. GQ. Gentleman’s Digest, something. It had to be. 

You were staring. You were still smiling and you were still staring, and at some point Yuji had un-velcroed himself from your legs and launched into a new tirade, tugging eagerly at his fathers hand. 

“I wanna show you my art! And my favorite toys, and all my friends, and—oh! Nanamin, there’s a dog!” 

Nanami who’d been looking at you turned to his son and took a knee, and you witnessed a 3-second timelapse of glacial melting in the stern lines of his face. His eyes went soft and his mouth untensed into the suggestion of a smile. 

“I’ll look at everything in a moment,” he said, voice gentled for Yuji alone. “May I speak with your teacher first?”

You nodded encouragingly, voice tugging itself back into your throat. 

“Why don’t you grab some breakfast real quick, Yuji? Then we’ll get started.” 

He peeled away, drawn to the scent of sugar like a moth to flame, and behind your back came the cacophony of reunion as if it had been years and not yesterday since his classmates had seen him last. You smiled as Nanami stood, the gentleness in his expression already evaporated. Not unkind, but compartmentalized. 

His warmth was not meant for you. But rather than snubbed, you felt undeniably endeared by such uninhibited paternal adoration. 

“You must be Mr. Nanami,” you greeted amicably, a hand already outstretched to grasp his with a welcoming tilt of your head. He met your handshake with a firm grip, and you self-consciously tightened your own. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

“All good things, I hope.” 

His voice was low — husky with fatigue but smooth enough to suggest that this was just the way he always sounded. He looked tired. Moved like he’d made peace with it. You figured he’d just been designed that way — quiet, composed, and just slightly too serious for a room filled with googly eyes and glitter glue. 

“Only the best,” you assured with a smile. 

There was a small pause. Not awkward — just considered. 

“Thank you,” he said at last. “Yuji speaks about you often. It’s clear he feels safe here.” 

It was rare to receive gratitude for your efforts with your students, and rarer still for it to be delivered with such conclusivity. Non-effusive, Nanami’s appreciation was simply a fact, a fact which made it feel all the more sincere in its lack of grandiosity. 

Your smile softened. “That means a lot. He’s a great kid, you must be really proud.” 

“I am.”

Just like that, it passed — his gaze shifted briefly behind you and his mouth twitched, a convection between an exasperated smile and down-turned fluster, already slipping past you. “Yuji! Wash your hands before eating if you’re going to pet the dog—“ * The morning began in earnest not long after you pressed a conciliatory coffee into Nanami’s hands. Chairs shuffled and screeched into a half-circle and name tags were peeled from their sticker sheets and affixed to breast pockets, labels, scrubs, and sleeves. You ran a quick welcome with your own steaming espresso in hand (god knows you needed it) before handing the floor over to the parents. 

Suddenly your second grade classroom was a parade of bladeless scalpels and stethoscopes, a menagerie of machinery and manicure sets. Laughter bloomed bright and uninhibited in the kids as each grown-up took their turn in the spotlight, answering questions as palatably as possible for their innocent audience. 

You knew one mother was a cardiovascular surgeon, but in front of the class she simply said, “I help hearts feel better when they’re sick,” folding a model valve between her fingers. The lawyer in the corner — slim briefcase at his feet, a heavy gavel making its rounds like a party favor — told them he made sure “bad guys went to jail.” No mention, of course, of the murder trial he’d wrapped up the week prior. 

You encouraged questions, and your students — bless their lack of tact — took you at your word. The shy ones curled against a parent’s leg with owlish eyes, while the bolder kids launched a barrage of increasingly personal inquiries: Has anyone died? Have you ever been to jail? Has your dog ever peed in the fire truck? You did your best to redirect the worst of them, gently steering the conversation away from blood and bladder-related incidents. 

And through it all, Nanami watched it unfold. Tucked into one of the red plastic chairs you’d borrowed from the snack table, he looked like he might snap the thing in half just by breathing too hard. His limbs folded into reluctant submission up toward his chest, tragically origamied, the entire chair tilting forward with each shift. He’d finished his coffee by then and now quietly sipped on a comically tiny juice box. 

Stone-faced, but not indifferent. His gaze tracked each speaker with judicial interest. And when the air grew too thick with awkward silence after a hesitant finish, it was Nanami who occasionally lifted one long arm to ask a polite question — enough to nudge things back into motion and, you suspected by the nature of some of his questions, simply to satisfy his own curiosity of the subject. You liked him for that. 

“Alright…!” You clapped your hands. “Yuji, why don’t you send your dad up here next?” 

Yuji’s eyes blew wide, his mouth popping open in an exaggerated ‘O’, then he swung at Nanami’s arm, batting at him and tugging on his sleeves.

“Gogogo!” he whisper-shouted. 

Nanami looked up at you and you smiled. You spread your arm wide with a flourishing ‘the floor is yours’ gesture. 

Nanami stood, unfolded himself and his ensemble with a smooth brush of his palms over the fabric. He stepped forward to take your place at the front of the room and you happily shifted aside, sitting upon the corner of your desk and crossing your ankles. 

From where he stood, a paper caterpillar peered just over the top of his head with big wobbling eyes. 

He straightened the cuffs of his jacket and adjusted his tie, pinching the pristine Windsor in his palm and hiking it up to his throat. He scanned the room, meeting eyes, chin down-tilted to examine his under four-foot tall crowd. 

“I work in finance,” he began. “Specifically, I manage assets and perform risk assessments on financial portfolios to ensure return on investment, primarily through domestic and international equities.” 

A long silence followed. One of the kids in the corner let out a tiny sniffle. 

Unperturbed, Nanami pressed on. “What that means is I analyze companies and determine whether it is strategically sound to invest money in their future operations. I also track market fluctuations and perform cost-benefit analysis on various classes of stock.”

You saw it happen in real time — the eyes of your students glazing over like the sticky donuts they’d grubbed from the table. Even a few parents tilted their heads, bewilderment blooming in the stitch of their brows as though suddenly realizing they’d forgotten something on the stove.

One girl leaned sideways to whisper to her mother, “Is he saying math?” 

Yuji was practically vibrating in his seat. Elbows on his scuffed knees, chin in both hands, he stared up at his father with the full, undiluted adoration of a boy watching his hero. Nanami could’ve explained the intricacies and importance of counting grains of rice and you were sure Yuji still would’ve looked at him like he’d hung the stars himself. 

If Nanami realized his audience was all but lost to him, he didn’t seem to show it. Not when he turned around to face the white board to erase the cheerful doodles of the water cycle drawn by the meteorologist who’d gone before him, nor when he uncapped a black marker and began sketching out a meticulous diagram — boxes and arrows, sloping trend lines in red and blue, neat little yen symbols penned with paradigm precision. 

He spoke the whole while, low and steady, detailing the invisible scaffolding that held up the adult world: markets, investments, value over time. He laid out the bones of capitalism, and at points showed his true feelings toward the structure with how he’d slice and jab the marker to make particularly impassioned points. You got the impression this particular machine was one he raged against often. 

“And that,” Nanami concluded, recapping the marker and adjusting his tie again, “is the basic structure of my work in a securities firm. Thank you.” 

Silence. 

Yuji led the charge. Loud, earnest applause that rang out in sharp claps, his face split in a grin wide enough to rival the sun. A few other children joined in, more from peer pressure than understanding, while a mother near the back whispered to another nearby: “God, he’s quite serious, isn’t he?” To which the other nodded, “It’s kind of hot.” 

You had to agree. 

You clapped along with them, encouraging the display until it naturally died down. “Thank you, Mr. Nanami! That was… incredibly thorough!” You beamed, he looked at you sideways. “Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Nanami?” 

You hadn’t expected a single hand to raise… except maybe Yuji. But he instead whirled around in his seat, pleading with wide brown eyes and a trembling lip for any excuse to keep his dad at the center of attention. Because really, what would a bunch of second graders want to know about stock exchange or insider trading? But to your delight, one by one, tiny hands shot up like spring sprouts. 

Nanami, too, looked taken aback. He gestured to a boy in the second row.

“Do you have a dog?” 

Nanami blinked. “… No.” 

There was a ripple of dissatisfaction at that. You saw him shift his weight to the opposite leg as he called on a young girl. 

“Are you rich?” 

“Depends on how you define it,” he said. 

“Do you go to the gym?” 

“… Yes.” 

“Ohhh,” someone whispered, followed by a murmur of approval as if this, at last, was finally relevant information. 

Then the questions poured in: 

“Can you lift a car?” 

“Do you fight robbers?” 

“What’s the strongest thing you’ve ever punched?” 

“Can you fight my dad?” 

Nanami blinked once. You watched him recalibrate his entire moral framework in real time. 

“I don’t make a habit of fighting people’s fathers,” he said.

“But could you?”

That made the corners of his mouth twitch — enough that you could tell he was debating the ethics of indulging a six-year-old’s thirst for chaos. 

“I suppose if your father were endangering others, and all other options had been exhausted—” 

Helpfully, Yuji shouted: “He could! I know he could!” 

You saw that boys father shrink in the back, a sickly sallow overtaking his face. He clearly didn’t fancy his odds. 

Nanami glanced at you like he was seeking diplomatic extraction. You gave him a bright, innocent smile and shrugged your shoulders. He should’ve predicted this larger than life reputation set forth by his son with that statistical brain of his. 

“They’re very engaged,” you whispered, and he gave you a look that could only be described as deeply disappointed.

Mercifully, after three more questions about whether he could punch through a wall, you finally stepped in with a laugh, clapping your hands to wrangle the brewing chaos. “Okay, okay! Let’s all thank Mr. Nanami for visiting and giving us a peek into his very responsible, very serious job.” 

The children groaned their disappointment, already half-convinced he must moonlight as a superhero, but they still chorused their thanks with sticky-fingered enthusiasm. By the end, there was a suspicious sparkle in Nanami’s eye that made you think he may have liked the attention more than he let on. * By the time the final parent wrapped up and the dismissal bell rang, your kids and their short attention spans had all but forgotten about Nanami standing in the back of the room, arms crossed against a tall cabinet, clearly having forsaken his small seat. 

You dismissed your class one by one, sent off with folders tucked, backpacks zipped, and final reminders about homework and forgotten lunch boxes as small groups filtered out of the door. The glitter remained in every corner of the room, as did the smell of bleach and acetone from an unfortunate and entirely predictable accident with the fire dog. 

Yuji bounced over to collect his things, tugging at his fathers sleeve as they turned to go. 

“You forgot to tell them about the time you beat that cursed—“ 

Nanami coughed. “—Budget shortfall,” he said, the words surgically clipped in two. 

Yuji frowned. “That’s not what I was gonna—“ 

��Cursed budget shortfalls,” Nanami repeated. “They can be quite aggressive.” 

Yuji pulled a face, eyes narrowed suspiciously and scampered off to barter holographic stickers by the cubbies. A friend had gotten a shiny tiger, which was decidedly much cooler than his dinosaur. 

Nanami hovered by the door a respectful distance from you, his gaze drifting across the emptying classroom. A couple of rogue pencils lay belly-up beneath desks. Someone had left their water bottle weeping onto the reading rug. There was a half eaten donut hooked over the pot of your plant on the windowsill. It seemed he was just as interested in where his son spends his day as the students were in where the adults usually spent theirs. 

You watched him quietly. There was something about Nanami Kento that drew you — nothing overt, not even that he had a nice face. But there was something so… artificial about his authenticity. He presented himself as a boring man, dressed in boring colors, with a boring job, and had a voice that could probably put you to sleep. The type that probably ate oatmeal for breakfast every day, and bland conbini meals on the train home every evening. It’s like he was trying to be unassuming, to snag no second-glances. 

Frankly, you thought that it was bullshit. 

Your intuition was sharp. You knew when your students stole from each other, and could sniff out the culprit in record time. You knew when the dog had actually eaten someone's homework, or if they’d just forgotten it at home. There was something more to Nanami, and you would’ve picked at that thread if you had more time to do so… but curiosity would not kill the cat today. 

But there would be other days.

“Thank you for coming,” you said instead, a sly smile in the Cheshire curl of your lip. “You made quite the impression.” Maybe more on you than on the kids. 

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” Nanami said.

“Oh it is,” you beamed, gesturing to the boardroom-esque diagram still drawn on the whiteboard. “I think I may be teaching the next generation of stock brokers and market analysts here.” 

Nanami grimaced, turning his shoulder away to scrub a hand over his face. “It was a cautionary tale,” he tsked. “They should find something that’s worth doing. Like meteorology. Or baking. Anything but office work. Teaching is a much more rewarding and worthwhile occupation.” 

There it was. The little glint of something more. A cautionary tale of slipping into monotony and tedium, suffering a daily slog with no end in sight, a mere cog in a machine that nobody would notice if it suddenly broke off the belt. Your students would notice your absence. Their parents too, if only because of the inconvenience. But who would notice Nanami, one man in a suit standing on a train full of other men in suits? 

“Well… it made Yuji’s day,” you suggested, softened — not sharp — with conviction. “In fact, he’s going to talk about this until summer break, I can already tell.” 

A preternatural stillness took the business-casual mannequin as he looked over at his son — all spiky pink hair, too-big puffer jacket, trading up his stickers with enough business savvy to make Nanami proud. 

Eventually he sighed, heavy like he’d been holding it in all day as he adjusted the strap of his watch. “He mentions you at home,” he said again.

You smiled, no less warmed by the repetition than you were the first time.

“He’s a pleasure to have in class, honestly. I’m really amazed by how well he settled, most kids struggle to acclimate but…” you watched as Yuji hopped in a circle, one shoe on as he wrestled with the other. “Not him!” 

Nanami gave a small nod, his gaze still fixed outward but you reckoned his attention was much closer. 

“Apparently you give out gummy stars.” 

“… Only for exceptional behavior,” you said with a wide grin. “Or sometimes for being unusually charming.” 

That got you a glance — dry, inscrutable. 

“Then I imagine he’s amassed quite the hoard… and I have you to blame for the frequent sugar highs.” 

You weren’t not flirting with him. Subtle enough to fly over his head if he chose not to acknowledge it, and you had no intention of pushing your luck much further. It was a small miracle you’d met the man behind the mythos at all. But you couldn’t resist a final parting shot. 

You turned and stood on your toes, reaching for a wicker basket stashed high on a shelf, rifling through crinkly cellophane wrappers to procure one such gummy star. You held out your hand — and found yourself pleasantly surprised when Nanami reached out to accept it. 

“For exceptional behavior,” you declared. Or for being unusually charming. 

He regarded the gummy with an expression you couldn’t read, his mouth a neutral set frown that you’d noticed seemed to just be his default expression. He didn’t speak, not until his fingers creaked closed around the treat and retreated into his pocket. 

A win, you think. One glittering, citrus-sugar coated win. 

“Thank you.” 

You merely smiled, gracefully bowing out of the tentative curiosity you’d cast in his direction, just in time for Yuji to veer back towards you both. 

You said your goodbyes and your “see you next week”s, then with one hand swinging Yuji’s backpack and the other resting steadily atop his head, the last of your stragglers stepped out into the sunny hallway. 

You watched them go. 

The gummy star was still in Nanami’s pocket. 

And you were still smiling like a fool.

[lexirosewrites]

Ok hear me out the grammys r today & I am a swiftie

(PSA not Nancy Wheeler friendly & Billy Hargrove pops in like a jump scare but he's somehow better than Nancy??)

O!Steve loves his career, he gets to make music with his favorite producer & best friend ever B!Robin Buckley, he gets to tour his music around the world, his fans made it possible for him to pivot his career, & now he is free from the overbearing thumb of his previous record label. He's on top of the world, prepping to embark on his most ambitious & physically demanding tour of his career with a partner working on her own growing career in journalism

Then, Jonathan Byers messages him. He's a beta who works w A!Nancy Wheeler at her news network job where she's rising in the ranks as an investigative reporter. He confesses to Steve with evidence tht Nancy has been cheating on Steve w Jonathan for going on 3 months. Jonathan is ending things w Nancy & he felt Steve should know what Nancy has done & Jonathan emphasizes he feels terrible. Steve doesn't blame Jonathan necessarily, Steve is more upset w Nancy. So Steve breaks things off, gets professional movers to take all of her things out of his various apartments & homes & mail them all to her New York address all at once, gets her to give back every key she has, and Nancy doesn't even have the decency to pretend at remorse for how she's shattered him, just sneers & makes a remark abt him writing a song abt her as if the 5 years they were together meant nothing

Steve rebounds HARD

His begins his tour & decides to indulge in a relationship w blue eyed bad boy British actor Billy Hargrove, he's crass & abrasive & it ends like a car crash behind the closed doors of Steve's beloved Nashville apartment, but at least Billy parts w a statement tht shows the asshole is even more understanding than Nancy abt how Steve will write a song or 2 abt this

The show must go on & it does. It's during a break btwn cities tht his little step-brother Dustin sends him the link to a clip of a podcast

It's a group of 4 friends, two of them alphas, 1 a beta & 1 an omega man. 2 of them are involved in professional hockey. The podcast involves them playing d&d but they also chat for abt an hour at the start of every episode. The alpha Eddie Munson plays as star goalie of The Detroit Red Wings (a team his grandpa Otis cheers for) & the beta Felix calls plays from the box. While A!Jeff & O!Gareth both have lucrative careers in computer science & robotics. Gareth works w NASA & the Mars Rovers, no wonder Dustin likes the podcast his twerp of a brother is coworkers w Gareth

This particular clip is from the first hour of a recent episode & is abt how Eddie has been a not at all secret fan of Steve since his debut & how he got to see the tour when it stopped in Detroit & how it was the best show Eddie's ever seen. Eddie confesses he was a little sad to learn Steve isn't meeting anyone backstage during this tour as he puts himself on vocal rest as often as possible to maintain the ability to sing for 3 hours straight, because Eddie had a friendship bracelet he made with his number on it & he happily implies it was his phone number & the alpha graciously responds to the teasing abt having a long time celebrity crush on Steve

Steve is charmed

He only needs to send 2 messages to Dustin before he's sending a text to Eddie's personal number. They hit it off, they're both goofy in the same ways, Eddie is theatrical in a different but complimentary way, soon they're meeting up privately btwn stops on his tour & Eddie's prep for hockey season & then Steve is very publicly at a Red Wings game & soon after Eddie is in the very visible VIP tent at the New York show trading his own handmade bracelets w fans

& Steve ends the night w a lyric change he only told Robin about bc she's 50% of his impulse control just like he's 50% of her impulse control & they secretly recorded a remix of the encore song because they liked it so much. The lyric tht used to reference Nancy with "karma is the girl on the screen" is changed to "karma is the guy on the wings" which makes the crowd explode with noise

When the show is done Steve knows fans r waiting to see him exit the stadium waving one last goodbye for the night & he knows they see Eddie clearly waiting for Steve & tht they're all recording so he does something he's never done for a beau: he runs ahead of his security right into Eddie's arms & is swept into a kiss tht makes him feel like they're the only ppl in the world

The multiple videos from multiple angles go viral within minutes of posting & the internet descends into madness when the remix is dropped w the lyric change just 3 hours later, but Steve & Eddie r too busy cuddling in Steves nest in his NYC penthouse the both of them laughing at the ketchup blood in a bad slasher movie to care abt tht

biting both of them from happiness🥰

[empresskylo]

i apologize, but i just need to get this off my chest. badjhur’s death has been sitting heavy with me every day since i found out. it feels so fucking wrong and weird to even type that out.

i feel so stupid for grieving someone i never knew personally. someone i never talked to or interacted with. but badjhur is the first person that i actively consume content from to pass away. celebrities i’ve known have passed, but i either didn’t follow them beyond their career, or i wasn’t an active fan. but with badj, i checked at least once a week to see if he had posted anything new. i followed him on his socials and always thought he was funny. he was the only reason i hadn’t deleted my twitter. he had such a sweet and active community. so many artists adored him/were friends with him, always posting such cute art of him. so when i saw he died, i kinda just froze, because wtf do you mean? i took for granted that he was such a constant in my life for the past few years that i never even considered the fact he could die. and now my heart hurts because he had so much more to give. so many amazing friends and followers who are grieving him. for him to just be gone, just like that, doesn’t sit well with me. i keep waiting for him to post again, saying this was all some weird misunderstanding.

and then i get existential with it, knowing that right now, his last reddit and twitter post was from 15 days ago. it feels so weird that he was with us so recently. but that number is just going to keep growing. it will shift to 1 month ago. to a year ago. to 5 years ago. and we’ll get to a point where people have moved on. where new members/followers of the VA community will have no idea who he is.

my heart hurts knowing he’s gone. knowing i’ll never hear a new clip of his voice. knowing he had so much more left to live for. knowing his family and friends must be hurting. knowing he was so young and didn’t want to die. knowing time is just going to keep passing. those “15 days ago” on his last post will just keep growing. he’s never going to get the chance to tweet again or post another audio or see anymore artwork people create for him. and i just don’t know how to grieve or cope with this loss, especially when im going through this alone.

i never thought this random constant in my life would just disappear like this. a constant for the past 2-3 years. and i can’t even imagine how his friends and family are handling his loss.

thank you for listening.

[hrtsdevils]

you made me love the number forty-three | fall to me au

summary: a close-knit bond is formed between luke hughes and y/n l/n throughout the years. they have their ups and downs, but they’ll always be there for one another.

pairing: platonic luke hughes x family friend!reader

wc: 1564

warnings: fuck ass bob

a/n this is based off of abby by gracie abrams, and it’s very dear to my heart! pretend that luke wasn’t committed to umich 2 years before he graduated… for the plot! sorry jack’s kind of a meanie, i love him!!! i swear!! it just fits w the lyrics <3 enjoy and thanks for reading!

tell me your secrets, ask every question. my door is open twenty-four/seven. think you were made from something in heaven. you made me love the number eleven forty-three.

october 2008-september 2010

Your family had known the Hughes family for as long as you could remember. Your mother had played soccer at the University of New Hampshire with Ellen, and she was the first person to cheer her on once hockey season started. This allowed them to form a close bond over their four years of eligibility. The Hughes family travelled a bit around the country due to the careers of Ellen and Jim, but as soon as they settled in Toronto with their seven, five, and three-year-old sons, your mother followed suit with five-year-old you and your eight-year-old older brother.

The older two boys in each family started hockey, and Jack was soon to follow. This left you and little Luke to hang out in the care of Ellen, and occasionally your mom. At first, you loved him, he was like your personal baby doll that you could drag around, dress up, and have tea parties with. Luke didn’t usually object, except for that one incident where you tried to make him wear “clip-clops”, as you called them, to which he had a temper tantrum about the sheer idea of putting them on his feet.

As you grew older, Luke wanted less to do with you and your girly things and more to do with hockey, along with whatever else the boys were doing. Although normal of him, you still felt betrayed. What can you say; you were seven years old. To try and make you fit in, Luke took craft scissors to your long, wavy hair and cut it to look like the boys. Maybe you’d have looked better if you had a pixie cut done by a professional salon, however, he was slightly less than and you came out with the same shaggy haircut as the five-year-old. You ran to your mom immediately, about to cry of embarrassment.

“Mommy, something bad happened!” You screeched, interrupting her conversation with Ellen and catching the attention of the three boys.

Covering her mouth slightly, Ellen was the first to speak, “Oh, sweetie.. what happened?” She reached out to touch your now chin-length locks and brushed a few stray longer hairs out of your eyes.

“Luke cut it, so I could play hockey with them.” You gesture towards the boys, “And now I... I look like him!” You exclaimed out of horror, finally realizing the drastic nature of your actions.

You started to tear up before your mother cut in, “Baby, you both look adorable! It’ll grow out soon, don’t worry about it.”

You were still seething for the rest of the day, and you were plotting your revenge plan on Luke for weeks. You wanted to kill him, and had been ignoring him since that very moment.

You figured your life was over, and what better way to spend your final moments pretending Luke didn’t exist after what he’d done to you. You decided that he was public enemy #1, or at least that’s what he was until you looked in the mirror, albeit a month or two later, and your hair had grown out into a short bob, framing your sweet features beautifully. You started to feel better about it.

Later that day, you went up to your mom and curled up in her lap. “Do you think Luke and I will ever get along again?” You asked while she was reading a book.

Your mother sighed and smiled at you, “You and the boys just have different interests. When you get older, things will be different and you’ll be even closer.”

december 2015

Your mom was right, although you and Luke were pretty far in age, he was practically your baby brother and best friend. You were close, despite differing interests and he would confide in you on a regular basis. One particular night, Luke rode his bike down the sidewalk in the cold, snowy winter and knocked on the window to your first-story bedroom.

You immediately let him in, then asked him what was wrong. Ten-year-old Luke pulled you into a hug and started spilling out his feelings and secrets. “Jack’s so rude!” He exclaimed into your shoulder, “He thinks he’s so much better at everything! Hockey, Mario Kart, basketball, all of it.”

“And?” You inquired, “Just ignore him, Lukey.”

He sniffed some more and released himself from your arms, “He keeps excluding me from his friends and stuff, they’re over and he pretends I don’t exist because I’m not good.” He wiped his nose and sat on the carpeted floor by your bed, “Quinn’s not home, he’s at a tournament with Mom.” He attempted to clarify why Quinn couldn’t stop, although you already knew because your brother was with them.

You frowned, “That’s not cool of him.” You quickly shot a text message to Jim saying Luke came over here to hang out, so nobody got worried. “Are you hungry?”

He nodded, and you offered to make some Kraft mac and cheese. “Feel free to listen to music or something, love you.” You slipped out the door and went to make him some dinner.

Since you were little, you knew for certain that you’d always be there for him and now you knew you’d always look out for him, whenever he needed it. Even if one day he’d be more able to protect himself than you ever could, today you would refrain from marching over to the Hughes residence and getting in a physical fight with Jack.

march 2020

It was almost your eighteenth birthday, so you were visiting home to hang out with your parents, the Hughes’, and a few other hometown friends. You entered the front door to your house after catching up with your friend over coffee to see your parents and the Hughes’ bent over Luke and his laptop. “What’s up?” You question, hanging up your big, puffy jacket.

“We’re waiting for my UMich college acceptance letter, they sent them out today.” He said, nervously. You could tell by the shakiness of his voice.

You joined them at the table, “Don’t be silly, Lukey. You know that they’ve already expressed interest in you and your game.” He smiled a little as you ruffled his hair, and sat down at the chair to the right of him.

“I wish Jack and Quinn were here.” Luke sighed and scratched his head, “Jack promised he’d call, but I think he’s busy.”

You frowned for him, you knew how much closer he and Jack had become in the last few years, but they’d drifted again when Jack moved to New Jersey last year. A part of you wished Jack had gone to college and stayed closer, but you and Luke knew he was too good for the NHL to wait on. “I’m sure he’ll call soon, bub. Give it a little bit.”

After about twenty minutes of refreshing and chatting, the letter from the University of Michigan popped up. It was nerve-wracking. Luke had already been accepted into a few safety schools that wanted him on their hockey teams, but he really wanted to follow in Quinn’s footsteps and go to Michigan. Luke’s cursor hovered over the email for a few moments before clicking it, and to nobody’s surprise, it was an acceptance letter. Everybody cheered, but you seemed the most excited (besides Luke, of course.)

“Luke!” You squealed, hugging the boy from the side as tight as possible, “You did it!”

He hugged you back, “Thanks for supporting me, and letting me sleep on your floor.. and buying me food all the time.” He chuckled, “Couldn’t have done it without you, sissy.”

present day

It was Luke and Jack’s day off, as they had zero games scheduled for the next few days. You had come to visit them to watch a few games, and you were staying at their apartment. It wasn’t a rare occurrence that you came and watched their games, stayed in the guest bedroom of their Hoboken apartment, and hung out with their team and whatever WAGs were joining them. But today it was just you and Luke, chilling on the couch and watching ‘Elf’.

“Remember last November when we went to New York?” You recalled while watching Buddy run through the city. Luke turned the TV down and grinned.

He nodded, “Yeah, good times. And we ate so much chocolate that you almost threw up.”

“That wasn’t because of the chocolate,” you objected, “it was because you were making me laugh so hard my organs hurt.”

Luke snorted as he remembered the vacation and the hotel room you guys stayed in. It was a spontaneous trip on a week when he was injured to try and cheer him up. You guys sat all night judging random music albums and your boyfriend at the time. It was all just a part of a collection of memories you loved to revisit, a photo album in your head.

“God, I can’t believe how old we’re getting.” You said, a tone of sadness. “You used to fit on my shoulders, and now I think you might break them if I tried to give you another piggyback ride.” You laughed softly.

“I’m grateful that our moms raised us two houses down.” Luke threw a piece of popcorn at your face.

You threw it back, “I’m grateful I get to know you.” You stated, a smile gracing your features.

i’m right here. fall to me, to me. fill your head with sweet dreams, sweet dreams. you’d never hurt a thing, nothing. i hope you know to talk to me.

end

[bidoofenergy]

from my AU where Tango is a retired footballer (soccer player) turned sports commentator/interviewer and Jimmy is a popular footballer that’s desperately trying to seem Smart and Impress Tango part 1 | part 2

Someone is torturing Tango. That's the only possible explanation. He was a horrible terrible person in his past life or as a teenager or maybe even yesterday—that's the only reasonable explanation.

“I'm being tortured,” he whispers confidentially to Impulse. Impulse snorts and hastily covers with a coughing fit. It really isn't believable but Tango pats him on his back and waves off the few looks they get. Thankfully, everyone is focused on the front of the room—the source of his pain: Jimmy. 

If you really want to get into it, the real source of his pain is the changing media landscape around football, the way broadcast television has been forced to make room for social media and streaming services. Now the priority isn't just in-depth interviews with players; it's also about farming clips to put on Instagram or whatever. Usually, this doesn't bother Tango. Usually, he likes when his nieces send him viral posts of himself doing something goofy in an interview. Usually, he's not watching Jimmy Solidarity be adorable. 

Someone, probably a fan, has given Jimmy a soft hat, with a cute face stitched on and floppy bunny ears and long paws that hang around his shoulders. Every time Jimmy squeezes the paws, the ears stand up. It's adorable. It's obscene. It's killing him. 

In the front of the room, someone is asking Jimmy a long question that Tango cannot process. Jimmy frowns and tilts his head and halfway squeezes one paw so an ear perks up a little, giving him the perfect look of a confused puppy. A wave of muffled laughter spreads through the crowd and the poor reporter stutters in the middle of their question. Jimmy nods encouragingly, keeping his eyes fixed on the reporter. Tango feels a little sorry for them—and a lot like pushing his way forward to take their place. 

Not that he'd even be able to form a question if he gets called on. Tango had questions in mind before they started, a mix of the usual post-match bullshit and ones that’d make most players stumble, but now his mind is perfectly blank in a way it hasn't been since he was 13-years-old and discovering what being horny felt like. 

Back up front, Jimmy starts answering, eyes serious despite the ridiculousness of everything else. When he gestures he keeps ahold of the paws, like he can't bring himself to let go. Cute—but in a way that makes Tango sweat. 

Tango folds his arms. Readjusts his lean against the back wall. Covers his mouth with a hand and tries to frown in a thoughtful way. He’s not absorbing a word of this conference. The question might’ve been about youth teams? Or the transfer window? Or the standings so far? 

Or maybe Tango's being punished because he can't keep it together long enough to get through a post-match conference—the thing that makes up half of his career now. At least, not when there's an attractive 20-something sitting up front. This is far from the first time Tango has been rendered completely useless by Jimmy. That's probably why Impulse had decided to tag along today, why he has a notepad out though his scribbling doesn't hide his smirk. 

He'll take notes for Tango—but not warn him. Tango needs better friends. 

The next reporter has a question of the softball, clip-farming genre: “Where'd you get the hat?” 

“A fan!” Jimmy says excitedly and makes the ears stand straight up. “This kid, she tossed it to me while we were heading back inside.” Tango is a professional—he swallows the urge to coo. Around him, his peers fail, aww-ing as if on cue.

Jimmy grins, cocky and crooked. He's scanning the crowd and when he catches Tango's eye his smile grows. He squeezes the paws out of sync so his ears flop up and down one after the other. Tango swallows a second, even less professional, noise. 

Thankfully, for both Tango's heart and career, that was the last question. A manager reappears to shepherd Jimmy away and another to disperse the crowd of reporters. Impulse and Tango are close enough to the door to slide out almost immediately. In the hallway, Impulse finally lets out his laughter. Tango lets out a long groan, stopping and burying his face in his hands, letting everyone that files out after them jostle him around. 

“This is really great.” Impulse says brightly. 

Tango needs better friends. 

“Tango!” Jimmy calls across the noise. “Impulse!” When Jimmy Solidarity calls, you answer. They both turn. 

Tango raises a hand in greeting. He can't bring himself to move—he doesn't know if he can handle Jimmy like this up close. “Hey kid,” he calls back. 

“Good game today!” Impulse adds. 

Something in Jimmy's smile falters even as he draws close, moving through the crowd like he doesn't even notice how they all stop for him. Or his annoyed manager that he left behind. “Thanks,” he says to Impulse before turning to Tango. “You didn't have a question for me today!” 

“I did not.” Tango agrees. He absolutely cannot handle Jimmy this cute and this close to him. This wasn't the right answer because Jimmy frowns and looks even cuter. 

“I like your questions.” Jimmy says—a hilarious thing for him to say to Tango. 

“I don't think I ever liked anything the press asked me when I was playing.” Tango laughs. He glances at Impulse for backup, but Impulse is suddenly busy talking to another reporter Tango could've sworn he hated. 

“Maybe, it's about who's asking the questions.” Jimmy says and he's looking straight at Tango and his eyes are so big and so brown and Tango's brain is already sludge, from the day and the match and Jimmy, and Tango can't help but feel like maybe Jimmy might mean something, might be trying to say something with the careful way he's looking at Tango with his big beautiful brown eyes. 

Or maybe Tango is old and retired and a hot striker is looking down at him again. 

“Timmy!” Either way, Tango isn't figuring it out today. It's Grian yelling for Jimmy, of course, from next to their disgruntled-looking manager. Jimmy slumps, the way he usually does at the sound of Grian's nickname, and Tango can't help the pang of worry at the expression on his face. 

“Captain's calling,” Jimmy says with a sigh. He backs up a few steps. “See ya, Impulse,” he calls and somehow Impulse had conveniently ended his conversation in time to wave. “Bye Tango!” 

“See ya, Jimmy,” Tango waves and hopes he doesn't look as stupidly fond as he feels.

Jimmy doesn't wave; instead he flip-flops his ears one last time.

[rythmicjea]

Hobbyism is the best way to get through grief. ~Cole Sprouse

NEW FIC BACKSTORY

Okay... so... This is an odd one (and a long one). This is kind of representative of my current "chaos era". It's a bit of a story and I put most of it in the A/N. But this was not a story I was ever intending to write. In fact, I am not part of the fandom (scandalous I know), and better yet, I had no idea that the show even existed until this past November... But apparently it was big! My excuse is that I was not of the demographic for it age wise. I think if it's age appropriate, anyone can watch anything. Rock on, man.

The backstory of this goes, I found out that my baby boy (cat) Jayne, had advanced kidney disease. For a brief and shining moment, I thought that he would beat the odds. Unfortunately, he was gone within two weeks. I held him as he passed. I have a little altar to him on my desk because he will never be forgotten. But, in my grief, I knew I needed to find an outlet. While I can't journal write (I absolutely hate it lol) I can tell stories. And I wanted to write something very dark and nihilistic that basically combined Peaky Blinders with Riverdale (Chaos Era).

So while I was falling down the Jeronica rabbit hole, I was gathering playlists and mashup videos to aid in my inspiration. But, the story refuse to appear. Instead, YouTube kept suggesting clips from a show I had never heard of. And the clips were OLD. Like from over 10 years ago. Though I said I was uninterested the recs kept coming. So I did ONE google search. I read ONE synopsis. I saw a cast list and I saw a timeline of a relationship. I thought that was all I needed. My brain said NOPE!

The timeline of this relationship ended every entry with "and they hugged". I was very confused about why this couple was only hugging. Then when I saw that the last episode was graduation I got a little more incensed. I had two puzzle pieces that didn't connect without a third. So, I asked around. I have friends that were of the age demographic at the time this was on. And every one of them said that 1.) they loved the show and 2.) It was a very Disney show. Now, there were some sporadic kisses here and there but I remember being that age in high school and while I wasn't some "light BDSM scene on the second time I ever had sex" (Looking at you Bughead in Riverdale...) I definitely did more than just hug my high school boyfriend.

Even though I wasn't satisfied with the answer I thought that was the end of it. My brain had other ideas. My brain told me that if I didn't write this story then I would never write again. Well. That's death to a creative type like me. While I never wrote every day or even put out stories consistently, I was still crafting stories in my head. I needed to be able to write. I was in a desperate state. So I thought "fine, I'll write 3000 words, delete it, and then write what I want."

I wrote 10,000 words in one sitting.

I wrote 50,000 words in 18 days.

I didn't watch the show until I was like 80% done with the fic.

It currently stands over 100,000 words.

If you've made it this far you're going "WHAT IS THE STORY?!"

Okay, I'll tell you. It turns out I was being recommended the clips because of an actor. This actor is Cole Sprouse. I knew him mostly as Ben Geller from Friends. I didn't know he had an actual career before Riverdale. I just thought he did something as a kid, and then came back after college. I was so wrong... So so so so so wrong...

If you guessed The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and The Suite Life on Deck you would be correct.

This massive story started as a way to explain why Cody and Bailey "only hugged". Turned into a love story. I made Zack not straight and married to a man with identical twin girls. London is a pediatric surgeon (and I still stand by that decision knowing what I know now). And Cody and Bailey are probably the least likable characters in the entire thing but they are relatable. This is a story of trying to find love after you discover the amount of abuse you went through. Why running from things is not ideal. And maybe, even when you live an outlandish life, there's some normalcy to discover. It's kind of dark, but there's a lot of humor. If you're not familiar with the show, I would just think of it as an original work. (I know, I know... certain death for a fanfic writer lol)

If you enjoy it, please drop a kudos and my comments section is open and I welcome kind and constructive criticism and questions. Like, fuck me up with questions. Please.

[tomorrowusa]

This POLITICO article is from 2019. But little mentioned in its content has substantively changed since then except that Trump is out of office.

There are few things less real than so called "reality shows". And Trump's Apprentice shows were even less real than most of that genre.

A lot of Trump supporters are unaware that he is a nepo baby who was known mostly as a self-promoting publicity hound who suffered a string of business failures and bankruptcies prior to making it big with the Apprentice.

Who is Donald Trump? Ask Americans and many of them will describe a self-made billionaire, a business tycoon of unfathomable success. In research recently published in Political Behavior, we found that voters are not simply uninformed about President Trump’s biographical background, but misinformed—and that misinformation has serious political consequences. Large swaths of the public believe the Trump myth. Across three surveys of eligible voters from 2016 to 2018, we found that as many as half of all Americans do not know that he was born into a very wealthy family. And while Americans are divided along party lines in their assessment of Trump’s performance as president, misperceptions regarding his financial background are found among Democrats and Republicans. The narrative of Trump as self-made is simply false. Throughout his life, the president has downplayed the role his father, real estate developer Fred Trump, played in his success, claiming it was “limited to a small loan of $1 million.” That isn’t true, of course: A comprehensive New York Times investigation last year estimated that over the course of his lifetime, the younger Trump received more than $413 million in today’s dollars from his father. While this exact figure was not known before the Times’ report, it was a matter of record that by the mid-1980s, Trump had been loaned at least $14 million by his father, was loaned at least $3.5 million more in 1990, had borrowed several more million against his inheritance in the 1990s after many of his ventures failed, and had benefited enormously from his father’s political connections and co-signing on loans early in his career as a builder.

Yep, The Donald was a rich kid who spent his dad's money rather poorly. While his father Fred was despicable in his own right, at least HE really did have a successful real estate empire.

When people do discover the true story behind Trump, attitudes about him are changed in a statistically noticeable way.

On perceptions of business acumen, which are higher across both parties, the information regarding Fred Trump’s role in his son’s business success is equally important. Democrats reduce their perceptions of Trump as a good businessman by 6 points, while Republican perceptions decline by 9 points.

And the producers of the Apprentice series had to do a lot of work just to keep up Trump's image.

Apprentice Producers Struggled to Make Trump—and His Decisions—Seem Coherent

The producers were the real (evil) geniuses of the series – not Trump.

Putting the series together was incredibly time consuming. According to journalist Patrick Radden Keefe in the MSNBC clip below, they would have to shoot 300 hours of footage for every 1 hour they actually aired. That is some serious editing for a "reality" show.

Mark Burnett was the metaphorical man behind the curtain pulling the levers of Trump's business image.

In close contests, it takes only a small percentage of votes to change an electoral outcome. The reality about Trump's business image is an additional tool we can use to gnaw away at his vote totals.

[cynicallarrie]

How Harry Could Improve

1. Post! Photos! On! IG! Nobody expects selfies from him but just the occasional pic of him on vacation, or something quirky he's seen on his travels, or a book he's read and recommends! His caption game used to be strong and showcased his sense of humor.

2. Find another London best friend who isn't Controversial Corden who nobody likes.

3. Take more care with your street style. Leave the hair clip, the woolly hat and the trackies at home. He killed street style between 2013-2017.

How Louis Could Improve

1. He won't stop smoking cigarettes and weed but he could stop glamorizing it by posting photos of himself doing it. I can't think of anyone else who does that these days including his idol Liam G.

2. Don't drink alcohol on stage or take pics with fans when you're clearly very drunk or high.

3. Ditch the fake Manchester accent you use when you sing. He never had this in 1d or on Walls. A lot of fans found the FitF songs hard to understand.

For Harry:

1. I miss Harry being active on social media. I know he might be trying to seem mysterious and unattainable, but I remember even when he posted while in 1D, at least in the years that I was a fan, he still retained that mystery and intrigue because his tweets were often cryptic and he rarely posted on instagram. Likewise, those posts also had cryptic captions. He comes off as super pretentious when he refuses to engage with fans via social media when most other celebrities do.

2. You are who your friends are. He has multiple zionist friends, has a bizarrely obsessive allyship towards Jewish people and Judaism, and pumps his fist at the Israel flag. It's clear that he is a PROUD zionist—but not proud enough to lose his career over his views. I know many celebrities right now aren't speaking up, but I'd rather they just tell us they're on Israel's side than say nothing. Like, don't be a pussy about it.

3. His street style used to look so fashionable and interesting. I guess he's just tired these days of having to "go to work" and get papped, so he doesn't put the effort in most of the time. That's my guess.

For Louis:

1. Yeah, there are no excuses for that. He needs to have some shame, especially when he knows he has so many teen fans. Most smokers I've known have discouraged me from picking it up. All Louis is doing is encouraging. Like, why? If time travel was possible, I wonder if Louis would want to tell his past self not to start smoking. Like I said, most smokers I've known regret it.

2. He has a very serious problem. Every alcoholic I've known used alcohol to "self-medicate" when all they had was depression, anxiety, or some kind of personality disorder that they never got diagnosed. I've talked about this before—I think Louis has ADHD and has not gotten a diagnosis. I have it myself, so that's why I recognize the symptoms he showcases. He was an alcoholic before his mother died, but I think it's only worsened since then. He's going down the route Liam (Payne) went. I fear he'll never recognize the problem for what it is though.

3. In 1D, they all had to sing in semi-American accents, so I wouldn't use that as an example of what Louis's "real accent" is. I'm not great with British accent differences, so if you could give me an example of Louis singing a specific word in both Walls and FITF in completely different accents, please do. If he really is putting on a fake accent to copy Liam Gallagher or whatever, that's... really cringey, ngl.

[inkribbon796]

Egotober 2023 Day 6: Like Children Again

Summary: Every once in a while the Lost Ones need a night where they just hunker down in the living room and sleep there like a bunch of seven year olds.

Prompt: Pillow

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

They didn’t tend to do this a lot, not since they were much smaller, and much newer in the Manor. Tonight the living room of the Manor was covered in pillows and blankets, making a huge pillow fort area. The outer area you could mostly walk through, but the inner edges you had to crawl. Snacks were left for the kids around the edges of the fort to keep them from making too big of a mess.

Dark opened a random portal or two to check on them but mostly the seven Lost Ones were left to their own devices.

Yan leaned over to put her elbows on her eldest adopted brother’s pillow. “How's Florida?”

“Too hot,” Patton looked up at her as he was working on a cat-themed coloring book. “But I’ll get used to it. Appa’s place down there has good air conditioning.”

“I want to go, tell him I can go,” Yan pleaded.

A pillow came from the side and hit her off of Patton’s area. Arthur had his black notebook on his lap and leaned over. “Fat chance, I only just got him to let me go, and if you go he’ll be all over us.”

“C’mon,” Yan said as she tossed the pillow back at him.

The young author easily dodged and the pillow almost dislodged some of the blanket wall. Which Illinois had to hold up before enough of the weight could start dislodging and bringing down the fort.

“Hey,” Illinois called out before his magic set the curtain rod holding the partition up. “Quit roughhousing in here, go outside.”

Yan leaned over and pulled the blanket up to lean over Illinois’s shoulder where he, Bim, and Yancy were watching Army of Darkness.

“Hey, Ills.” Yan smiled.

“No,” Illinois said without looking at her.

She frowned. “I didn’t even ask. You’re so mean.”

“There’s no convincing Appa, you’d have to wait another year at least.” Illinois finally looked back at her. “Wait your turn like the rest of us had to.”

“No fair,” Yan said as she moved into their area to watch the movie. Illinois let her slide up next to him.

Arthur and Patton were left in the other area for a couple of minutes before a portal opened up next to them.

Dark’s ringing was dulled but still present. “Boys, if you would, a moment?”

The two adopted brothers looked at each other before crawling through the portal and jumping down to stand in Dark’s office.

“Perfect,” Dark said as he pulled a small, thin wooden box out of a different portal. “I’ll make this quick. Patton, during your stay, you’re in charge.”

“Figures.” Arthur was barely audible but Dark gave him a sharp look.

Dark’s expression turned more into a frown. “I need you two to be able to blend in. Remember, your future careers in the Network depend on how well you do. I need you to be able to pretend to be fully human and have covers. If you can’t, you’ll be pulled back into Egoton and we will discuss what to do from there.”

“We got this, Old Man, don’t worry,” Arthur said.

“That remains to be seen,” Dark said as he opened the case and his aura pulled out two silver pines. Each a gleaming star with deer antlers curled around it. The pins were moved to clip onto the inside of their sleeve where a cufflink would sit on a fancy dress shirt.

Dark closed the case with a sharp SNAP and used his aura to check their placement. His aura burrowing into the very metal itself. “There are many gangs in the area. Deceit of the Twin Serpents is one of them. These should mark you as my top enforcers and give you less trouble.”

“Awesome,” Arthur smiled, turning his sleeve over to study it.

“Remember that you are my enforcers, you do things my way. You represent me and therefore you have to obey my rules to the letter. You are Pathos and Author, not anything else.”

“Got it, boss,” Patton did a mock salute, a huge smile on his face.

Dark managed a proud smirk. “You two will make your father proud, I’m sure of it.”

After that he opened up another portal right to where they had been before in the fort. “You both start on Monday, you have the weekend to pack and I can send you anything else you need. Including a trip home with just a tap of the pin.”

“Won’t need it,” Arthur said as he climbed back into the fort.

Patton gave another big smile and climbed into the fort where there was minor jealousy from Bim and Yan.

None from Illinois, at least visibly, which was what the young author had wanted.

All in all it was a nice night, watching movies. Talking about boys, except for Kay who just wanted to talk about random animal facts.

They fell asleep watching a horror movie and Dark was there to wake them up at the respectable hour of ten in the morning.

Another successful night at the Doom-Warfstache household.

A/N: Huh, what's Patton doing here? Ehhh, I'm sure that's not important. :)

[lettersfromleslie]

Blossoms, Birdhouses & Nutcases / The Gang Gets Famous / Jazzing In Blue Jeans

Well, new year, new sorrows, eh?

Ever-changing evergreen grey are the days, and fairly formless, here in the birdhouse, a chill damp and much silence these last few months. But the winter's about spent, the soft fuzzy Winter of the Mole, spent in a daze, a hazy few months of fretting & forgetting. Should we have called it the Winter of the Ostrich? What a spring we're awaking to. Did we rest? Are we stronger? Up and stretch, children! Stretch arms and hands and feet! The blossoms are here!

Really did hibernate more or less, did I, getting by on just three or four days of work a week, nothing like last winter's everyday frenzy trying to keep up with new & bigger bills. This winter the yodeling regimen was highly streamlined: aside from a bit of street poetry at Pike Place, I mostly just played the morning farmers markets on Saturdays and Sundays, drizzle or no, and a weekly gig at SeaTac airport, courtesy of the Port of Seattle. Cooked cheap, barely went out, just paying down the basics till the end of the rainy season. A mite monklike, but quite restful, certainly a step up from the K2 smokes of the 2nd Ave F line… Been thinking bout ghosts of NYC winters past… I miss NYC but I guess I don't miss the winters.

The idea was that I'd use all this extra time to write. Every winter I tell myself I'll live off me fat awhile and use the time to freshen up my set. Light the midnight candle, ruminate & brood, conjure masterpieces, all that. Stanzas. Poems that bloody well rhyme. Us musicians still get away with that. And this year I told myself louder than ever, because I'm overdue for some new work - horrors thinking how long it's been since the last album - the relentlessness of time!! - besides, you get tired of your set when you're singing your old feelings every day.

Anyway, have actually been writing songs am glad to say, got a few keepers and ye will be getting to hear em this year. We can thank Dusty for that in part, what with his relentless jazz lessons, which I've got some new chords out of, as well as the street poetry, which has kept the word-pipes from freezing over. And then there's the jolt our lil gang has had from the dizzying rise to stardom of our very own Brudi Brothers..!

They're famous now, they are, and TikTok did it, of course, and a good illustration twas of how TikTok thrives on the energies of those whose brains are least rotted by our great societal unscrolling. They're about the most real-world, old-world, out-and-about type young folks you can find anywhere these days. I befriended Conrad and George Brudi at the Ballard Farmers Market soon after moving here, where every Sunday I'd be yodeling and they'd be typing poems, doffed up in fine Western dandy style - real proper swashbuckling art lads them, versed in block printing and iambic pentameter as well as the fickle ways of the sea, singing oldtimey Mills Brothers-esque harmonies, cowboy songs, '20s jazz, fabulous mouth trumpeting. The lads have style! Dusty completed the gang when he turned up in May, and among the constellations of fellow art bum types connecting out from there life over the summer & fall was a great merry whirl of lil trips & gigs & tours & adventures, all on a shoestring, a lovely shoestring tapestry…

Imagine everyone's surprise when it turnd out this cheery ragamuffin thing of the Brudis needed nothing but a savvy eye for social media to utterly explode on TikTok. Shoutout to George's love Lily for that final touch, which sent a live clip of the debut performance of their anti-hipster anthem, "Me More Cowboy Than You" to every corner of the spiderweb, and the hastily recorded demo that followed went straight to #1 on the USA Most Viral charts on Spotify. Prestigious rockstar developments followed, execs flying in, talent agents, mango margaritas, and now they're in the realm of dealmaking and syndication, their careers seem assured, the hometown drama is outrageous, everyone wants a piece of em and they're oscillating daily thru all phases of giddy terrors - and a month from now they'll be playing arenas, opening for Sierra Ferrell (who is fondly remembered in these parts as a former Pike Place busker herself). All in the space of three or four months!

You can imagine how a thing like that can earthquake a gang - and how it can light a fire under a slightly stalled-out yodeling bum like myself. So it really can happen just like that! Damn! There's hope yet for the bums! The sweet musk of the busk! Best get scribbling!

Looking at the blank page before me, then, and trying to picture the next album, or whatever it's gonna be. What's it about? What does it sing of? The outlines are still pretty hazy. Feels there oughta be plenty to cover in this world, but being contemporary doesn't come easy to me, especially now that the present moment is so distressing to look at head-on. I've always preferred to listen for the weird whispers underneath the chatter … the monsters & the mysteries. And how do you sing for a world that's in such an absolute state? Protest feels a bit like trying to put out a rapidly spreading house fire with a cup. There's an energy growing the world over that's just plain mean, mean and stupid, that most dispiriting combination of traits … And it's not like it's just started either, the shift has been underway for years, open threats & warfare becoming ever more accepted currencies of power, ethnic cleansing and mass murder not only being carried out but intellectualized and justified, environmental considerations abandoned even as mama nature becomes more chaotic … and we keep doubling down further, keep voting for more meanness and stupidity. We already had problems aplenty, by gawd, and now we've added on political deportations of activists, secret police, institutions dissolved, alliances torn up, rights rescinded, trans folk bullied… It's Weimar in the first person, darlins … The colours are fading, the talk is jingo, the silence is the uneasy silence of horrified bystanders. Will the transformation be completed, or will the bastards cock it up? Will the coming economic crash break the spell, or pave the way for new oppressions? Will the exhausted yanks get back up and buck their greasy rider? Or will they cower beneath the whip? Are we more cowboy than he - or he more cowboy than us?? These are the matters before us.

Out in the world, on the streets, in the mountains, strange beauties still take place, always. You miss em though, when you're all wrapped up in things, looking up from a screen - eh? It's not just the Luddites now who know in their hearts that one day we'll all look back shaking our heads over our crazy collective decision to wire our monkeybrains to an ever-expanding system of endless information designed with the sole function of holding our attentions to show us more ads. What a mad thing to do! And we carry it all with us in our pockets, no less, with GPS trackers and all, and we use it to film our protests & pleas! Really! We're that entangled! I'm doing it now! How else do I reach ya? But we gotta try to disentangle. Give the fuckers a little less every day. The old world is still waiting out there.

Still, damned efficient route to getting famous quick, eh? So we give the wheel another turn, dreaming of breaking er.

For now, once again: up come the crocuses, and the daffodils begin their wretched honking, our walls are filled with squirrels, new sounds are drifting thru the cracks, the floorboards, strums & tinkles & trombones, songs are scribbled, each Sunday a family dinner, travelers and performers snooze away on the couches & floors… We're not dead yet … The whales spurt & sputter yet in the sound, the crabs cackle in the deep with unmistakable schadenfreude. Look out for the word - plan your ways quietly - never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake - tip your local yodeler - all is life inexorably going its way & holy holy holy holy !

[xtruss]

2023 Person Of The Year: Taylor Swift

— By Sam Lansky | Photographs By Inez And Vinoodh For TIME | Published: December 6, 2023

Taylor Swift is telling me a story, and when Taylor Swift tells you a story, you listen, because you know it’s going to be good—not only because she’s had an extraordinary life, but because she’s an extraordinary storyteller. This one is about a time she got her heart broken, although not in the way you might expect.

She was 17, she says, and she had booked the biggest opportunity of her life so far—a highly coveted slot opening for country superstar Kenny Chesney on tour. “This was going to change my career,” she remembers. “I was so excited.” But a couple weeks later, Swift arrived home to find her mother Andrea sitting on the front steps of their house. “She was weeping,” Swift says. “Her head was in her hands as if there had been a family emergency.” Through sobs, Andrea told her daughter that Chesney’s tour had been sponsored by a beer company. Taylor was too young to join. “I was devastated,” Swift says.

But some months later, at Swift’s 18th birthday party, she saw Chesney’s promoter. He handed her a card from Chesney that read, as Swift recalls, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t come on the tour, so I wanted to make it up to you.” With the note was a check. “It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life,” Swift says. “I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.”

Swift’s accomplishments as an artist—culturally, critically, and commercially—are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point. As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell. As a businesswoman, she has built an empire worth, by some estimates, over $1 billion. And as a celebrity—who by dint of being a woman is scrutinized for everything from whom she dates to what she wears—she has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it. (“I don’t give Taylor advice about being famous,” Stevie Nicks tells me. “She doesn’t need it.”) But this year, something shifted. To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.

If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone? Were you one of the people who made a pilgrimage to a city where she played? Did you buy a ticket to her concert film? Did you double-tap an Instagram post, or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming “Cruel Summer” while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?

Her epic career-retrospective tour recounting her artistic “eras,” which played 66 dates across the Americas this year, is projected to become the biggest of all time and the first to gross over a billion dollars; analysts talked about the “Taylor effect,” as politicians from Thailand, Hungary, and Chile implored her to play their countries. Cities, stadiums, and streets were renamed for her. Every time she came to a new place, a mini economic boom took place as hotels and restaurants saw a surge of visitors. In releasing her concert movie, Swift bypassed studios and streamers, instead forging an unusual pact with AMC, giving the theater chain its highest single-day ticket sales in history. There are at least 10 college classes devoted to her, including one at Harvard; the professor, Stephanie Burt, tells TIME she plans to compare Swift’s work to that of the poet William Wordsworth. Friendship bracelets traded by her fans at concerts became a hot accessory, with one line in a song causing as much as a 500% increase in sales at craft stores. When Swift started dating Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chief and two-time Super Bowl champion, his games saw a massive increase in viewership. (Yes, she somehow made one of America’s most popular things—football—even more popular.) And then there’s her critically hailed songbook—a catalog so beloved that as she rereleases it, she’s often breaking chart records she herself set. She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world.

It’s hard to see history when you’re in the middle of it, harder still to distinguish Swift’s impact on the culture from her celebrity, which emits so much light it can be blinding. But something unusual is happening with Swift, without a contemporary precedent. She deploys the most efficient medium of the day—the pop song—to tell her story. Yet over time, she has harnessed the power of the media, both traditional and new, to create something wholly unique—a narrative world, in which her music is just one piece in an interactive, shape-shifting story. Swift is that story’s architect and hero, protagonist and narrator.

This was the year she perfected her craft—not just with her music, but in her position as the master storyteller of the modern era. The world, in turn, watched, clicked, cried, danced, sang along, swooned, caravanned to stadiums and movie theaters, let her work soundtrack their lives. For Swift, it’s a peak. “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” Swift tells me. “Ultimately, we can convolute it all we want, or try to overcomplicate it, but there’s only one question.” Here, she adopts a booming voice. “Are you not entertained?”

A few months before I sit with Swift in New York, on a summer night in Santa Clara, Calif., which has been temporarily renamed Swiftie Clara in her honor, I am in a stadium with nearly 70,000 other people having a religious experience. The crowd is rapturous and Swift beatific as she gazes out at us, all high on the same drug. Her fans are singularly passionate, not just in the venue but also online, as they analyze clues, hints, and secret messages in everything from her choreography to her costumes—some deliberately planted, others not. (“Taylor Swift fans are the modern-day equivalent of those cults who would consistently have inaccurate rapture predictions like once a month,” as one viral tweet noted.)

Standing in the arena, it’s not hard to understand why this is the biggest thing in the world. “Beatlemania and Thriller have nothing on these shows,” says Swift’s friend and collaborator Phoebe Bridgers. Fans in Argentina pitched tents outside the venue for months to get prime spots, with some quitting their jobs to commit to fandom full time. Across the U.S., others lined up for days, while those who didn’t get in “Taylor-gated” in nearby parking lots so they could pick up the sound. When tickets went on sale last year, Ticketmaster crashed. Although 4.1 million tickets were sold for the 2023 shows—including over 2 million on the first day, a new record—scalpers jacked up prices on the secondary market to more than $22,000. Multiple fans filed lawsuits. The Justice Department moved forward with an investigation. The Senate held a hearing. Given these stakes, Swift had to deliver.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation executives testified at a Senate hearing after demand for tickets overwhelmed the siteAl Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

“I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” Swift says. Each show spans over 180 minutes, including 40-plus songs from at least nine albums; there are 16 costume changes, pyrotechnics, an optical illusion in which she appears to dive into the stage and swim, and not one but two cottagecore worlds, which feature an abundance of moss.

In the past, Swift jokes, she toured “like a frat guy.” This time, she began training six months ahead of the first show. “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” she said. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.” Her gym, Dogpound, created a program for her, incorporating strength, conditioning, and weights. “Then I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones,” she says. “I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.” She worked with choreographer Mandy Moore—recommended by her friend Emma Stone, who worked with Moore on La La Land—since, as Swift says, “Learning choreography is not my strong suit.” With the exception of Grammy night—which was “hilarious,” she says—she also stopped drinking. “Doing that show with a hangover,” she says ominously. “I don’t want to know that world.”

Swift’s arrival in a city energized the local economy. When Eras kicked off in Glendale, Ariz., she generated more revenue for its businesses than the 2023 Super Bowl, which was held in the same stadium. Fans flew across the country, stayed in hotels, ate meals out, and splurged on everything from sweatshirts to limited-edition vinyl, with the average Eras attendee reportedly spending nearly $1,300. Swift sees the expense and effort incurred by fans as something she needs to repay: “They had to work really hard to get the tickets,” she says. “I wanted to play a show that was longer than they ever thought it would be, because that makes me feel good leaving the stadium.” The “Taylor effect” was noticed at the highest levels of government. “When the Federal Reserve mentions you as the reason economic growth is up, that’s a big deal,” says Ed Tiryakian, a finance professor at Duke University.

Carrying an economy on your back is a lot for one person. After she plays a run of shows, Swift takes a day to rest and recover. “I do not leave my bed except to get food and take it back to my bed and eat it there,” she says. “It’s a dream scenario. I can barely speak because I’ve been singing for three shows straight. Every time I take a step my feet go crunch, crunch, crunch from dancing in heels.” Maintaining her strength through workouts between shows is key. “I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,” she says. “That’s part of my identity as a human being now. If someone buys a ticket to my show, I’m going to play it unless we have some sort of force majeure.” (A heat wave in Rio de Janeiro caused chaos during Swift’s November run as one fan, Ana Clara Benevides Machado, reportedly collapsed during the show and later died; Swift wrote on Instagram that she had a “shattered heart.” She rescheduled the next show because of unsafe conditions, and spent time with Benevides Machado’s family at her final tour date in Brazil.)

Top: Swift told TIME she started training six months in advance of the Eras Tour, which kicked off in March. Courtesy TAS Rights Management Bottom: Austin, Andrea, and Scott Swift with Taylor at NYU graduation in 2022 where she received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. Courtesy TAS Rights Management

Swift is many things onstage—vulnerable and triumphant, playful and sad—but the intimacy of her songcraft is front and center. “Her work as a songwriter is what speaks most clearly to me,” says filmmaker Greta Gerwig, whose feminist Barbie was its own testament to the idea that women can be anything. “To write music that is from the deepest part of herself and have it directly speak into the souls of other people.” As Swift whips through the eras, she’s not trying to update her old songs, whether the earnest romance of “You Belong With Me” or the millennial ennui of “22,” so much as she is embracing them anew. She’s modeling radical self-acceptance on the world’s largest stage, giving the audience a space to revisit their own joy or pain, once dismissed or forgotten. I tell Swift that the show made me think of a meme that says, “Do not kill the part of you that is cringe—kill the part of you that cringes.” “Yes!” she exclaims. “Every part of you that you’ve ever been, every phase you’ve ever gone through, was you working it out in that moment with the information you had available to you at the time. There’s a lot that I look back at like, ‘Wow, a couple years ago I might have cringed at this.’ You should celebrate who you are now, where you’re going, and where you’ve been.”

Getting to this place of harmony with her past took work; there’s a dramatic irony, she explains, to the success of the tour. “It’s not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this happening were two horrendous things that happened to me,” Swift says, and this is where the story takes a turn. “The first was getting canceled within an inch of my life and sanity,” she says plainly. “The second was having my life’s work taken away from me by someone who hates me.”

Swift shows me some things she loves in her apartment: a Stevie Nicks Barbie that sits still boxed in her kitchen, sent to her by the artist; the framed note from Paul McCartney that hangs in her bathroom; tiles around the fireplace that Swift found shopping in Paris with her mother. Connections to her family are everywhere, including a striking photo of her grandmother Marjorie, an opera singer and the inspiration for a track on her album evermore. Swift grew up on a Christmas-tree farm in Pennsylvania, with her younger brother Austin; her father Scott was a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, and Andrea worked in marketing. Her family still works closely with her today. “My dad, my mom, and my brother come up with some of the best ideas in my career,” Swift says. “I always joke that we’re a small family business.”

After moving to Nashville as a teen, she signed with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records. Swift’s songwriting ability was evident from the first lyrics of “Tim McGraw,” her debut single: “He said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame that night—I said, ‘That’s a lie.’” Even for country music these lyrics are literary—conjuring a romantic fantasy, then deflating it a line later. The fairy-tale promise of love and intimacy became a runner in Swift’s work as a songwriter, something she’d repeatedly espouse, then skewer; she was self-aware about the role narrative played in her expectations. She was seen as a gifted pop-country ingenue when, in a now infamous moment, Kanye West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting an award. The incident set in motion a chain of events that would shape the next decade of both artists’ lives.

It was around that time, Swift remembers now, that she began trying to shape-shift. “I realized every record label was actively working to try to replace me,” she says. “I thought instead, I’d replace myself first with a new me. It’s harder to hit a moving target.” Swift wrote songs solo, incorporated diverse sonic influences, and placed more clues about personal relationships in her lyrics and album materials for fans to decode. Her epic ballad “All Too Well,” from 2012’s Red, epitomizes Swift’s superpower as a songwriter, deploying tossed-off details like a forgotten scarf that comes back at the song’s end to stab you in the heart—but it also had a secret message hidden in the liner notes. When an extended version of the song hit No. 1 last year upon its rerelease, it wasn’t only because the song is extraordinary, but because it has its own lore, like Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” if it came with an experiential puzzle for fans to solve. “She’s like a whole room of writers as one person, with that voice and charisma,” Bridgers says. “She’s everything at once.”

Swift knew she had to keep innovating. “By the time an artist is mature enough to psychologically deal with the job, they throw you out at 29, typically,” she says. “In the ’90s and ’00s, it seems like the music industry just said: ‘OK, let’s take a bunch of teenagers, throw them into a fire, and watch what happens. By the time they’ve accumulated enough wisdom to do their job effectively, we’ll find new teenagers.’” She went full-throttle pop for 2014’s 1989, putting her on top of the world—“an imperial phase,” she calls it. She didn’t realize it would also give her much farther to fall. Public sentiment turned—sniping about everything from her perceived overexposure to conspiracy theories about her politics. “I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots,” she says. West wrote a song with vulgar lyrics about her, and claimed that Swift had consented to it, which Swift denied; West’s then wife, Kim Kardashian, released a video of a conversation between West and Swift that seemed to indicate that Swift had been on board with the song. The scandal was tabloid catnip; it made Swift look like a snake, which is what people called her. She felt it was “a career death,” she says. “Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me.”

It was a bleak moment. “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” she says. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.” (Kardashian wrote, in a 2020 social media post, that the situation “forced me to defend him.”) Swift’s next album, 2017’s Reputation, featured snake imagery; the video for “Look What You Made Me Do” saw her killing off younger versions of herself. She remembers Reputation being met with uproar and skepticism. “I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life,” she says. She had also satisfied her record deal with Borchetta, and knew she wanted out. “The molecular chemistry of that old label was that every creative choice I wanted to make was second-guessed,” she says. “I was really overthinking these albums.”

She met with Lucian Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group, and Monte Lipman, who runs Universal’s top label Republic Records, to talk about signing a deal that would give her more agency. Today, Grainge is perhaps the most powerful executive in the music industry, but, as I sit with him in his office in Los Angeles, he describes himself as an “old punk” who operates on instinct more than metrics. He told Swift, he says, “We will utilize everything that we’ve got as a company for you.” Swift felt like she’d been given carte blanche: “Lucian and Monte basically said to me, ‘Whatever you turn in, we will be proud to put out. We give you 100% creative freedom and trust.’” It was exactly what she needed to hear most when the chips were down.

Yet the release of Swift’s first album with Republic, 2019’s Lover, coincided with the second big upheaval in her professional life: Borchetta had sold Big Machine—and with it, Swift’s catalog, valued then at a reported $140 million—to Ithaca Holdings, which is owned by music manager Scooter Braun, a former ally of West’s. “With the Scooter thing, my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted them for nefarious reasons, in my opinion,” Swift says. (“It makes me sad that Taylor had that reaction to the deal,” Braun told Variety in 2021.) The sale meant that the rights to Swift’s first six albums moved to Braun, so whenever someone wanted to license one of those songs, he would be the one to profit. Swift rallied her fans against the deal, but still felt powerless. “I was so knocked on my ass by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now. This is it. I don’t know what to do.’” She went back to work, using the pandemic lockdown to pare back her sound on critically acclaimed albums folklore and evermore.

Around the same time, she started thinking about rerecording her old albums in an effort to wrest back control. “I’d run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, ‘Just redo it,’” Swift says. “My dad kept saying it to me too. I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ Nobody wants to redo their homework if on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.” Since Swift wrote her own songs, she retained the musical composition copyright and could rerecord them. She also negotiated to own the master rights for her material when she moved over to Republic in 2018, so she now owns her new material and the rerecorded songs. (Major labels have since made it more difficult for artists to rerecord their music.) She began rerecording subtly different versions of her old albums, tagging them “(Taylor’s Version)” and adding unreleased tracks to redirect listenership to them. She frames the strategy as a coping mechanism. “It’s all in how you deal with loss,” she says. “I respond to extreme pain with defiance.”

Top: Swift performs at Foro Sol in Mexico City on Aug. 24. Hector Vivas—TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management Bottom: After playing Kansas City in July, Swift returned in October to support her boyfriend, Chiefs star Travis Kelce. David Eulitt—Getty Images

Grainge calls the rerecording project “bizarrely brilliant and unique”—something that only an artist at her level could pull off. “It’s got such a narrative—there’s a reason for it.” He shakes his head. “Imagine Picasso painting something that he painted a few years ago, then re-creating it with the colors of today.” Part of the success story, Swift says, is the freedom she received from the label to follow her instincts. “If you look at what I’ve put out since then, it’s more albums in the last few years than I did in the first 15 years of my career,” she says. That prolific output has fueled her ascension. “She could serve two terms as President of the United States and then go to Las Vegas,” Grainge says. “Who else can do that?”

In the grand narrative of Swift’s life, as she rose this year, her foes’ fortunes also seemed to turn. Over the summer, it was reported that several of Braun’s key clients—chief among them Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande—were no longer being managed by his company, while West’s antisemitic and other offensive remarks led to his losing key endorsement deals. Swift knows firsthand that fame is a seesaw. “Nothing is permanent,” she says. “So I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before. There is one thing I’ve learned: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.” She considers. “But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies,” she says. “Trash takes itself out every single time.”

The premiere for Swift’s concert film takes place at the Grove, an outdoor mall in Los Angeles, which has been shut down for the event; Swift has packed 13 screens with thousands of fans. She goes, one by one, to each theater thanking sobbing audience members for being there. Like the tour, the film, which was released directly to theaters without a traditional partner, is an event. “We met with all the studios,” she tells me, “and we met with all the streamers, and we sized up how it was perceived and valued, and if they had high hopes and dreams for it. Ultimately I did what I tend to do more and more often these days, which is to bet on myself.” She credits her father with the idea. “He just said, why does there have to be a—for lack of a better word—middleman?”

In the theater excitement ripples through the crowd, a mix of fans and Swift’s friends, as we wait for her. To my left are two dedicated Swifties, sisters who introduce themselves as Madison, 23, and McCall, 20, and who are still reeling from taking a selfie with Swift on the red carpet. Their wrists are covered in friendship bracelets, some of which are deep cuts—such as no it’s BECKY, a reference to a beloved Tumblr meme, and BLEACHELLA STAN, for Swift’s 2016 platinum blond bob—and Madison reveals a tattoo on her forearm that says “Taylor’s Version.” Both tell me their favorite album is Reputation. They are my favorite people I have ever met, and I want to talk to only them for the rest of my life. Madison admires Swift for her vulnerability—“which is insane, when she’s under endless scrutiny”—while McCall cites her consistency, which she calls “a lost art form.” When I ask how McCall feels about Swift’s romantic life, she fields the question elegantly. “It’s a disservice to her to focus on that stuff,” she says. “She’s so good at making her personal experience relate to millions of people. When I listen to her songs, I think about what I’ve been through—not what she’s been through.”

Swift’s private life has long served as both grist for the tabloid mill and inspiration for her own work; she split from her longtime boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, earlier this year. Most recently, she’s been dating the NFL star Travis Kelce, as has been well documented when she attends his games. “I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in,” she says. “There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once.” She is sensitive to the attention that’s put on her when she shows up. “I’m just there to support Travis,” she says. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”

I point out that it’s a net positive for the NFL to have a few Swifties watching. “Football is awesome, it turns out,” Swift says playfully. “I’ve been missing out my whole life.” (A game she attended in October was the most-watched Sunday show since the Super Bowl.)

Given her complex history with public interest in her dating life, I say, it seems noteworthy that her relationship with Kelce has played out so publicly. Swift gently pushes back: “This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she says. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.” The larger point, for her, is that there’s nothing to hide. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she says. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

Swift’s openness is one part of why her fan base leans heavily, though not exclusively, female. The Eras Tour was one critical piece of what Swift calls “a three-part summer of feminine extravaganza”—the other two parts being Gerwig’s box-office bonanza Barbie and Beyoncé’s blockbuster, culture-shifting Renaissance Tour. “To make a fun, entertaining blast of a movie, with that commentary,” she says of Barbie, “I cannot imagine how hard that was, and Greta made it look so easy.” (“I’m just a sucker for a gal who is good with words, and she is the best with them,” Gerwig says about Swift, whom she calls “Bruce Springsteen meets Loretta Lynn meets Bob Dylan.”)

Swift is no less effusive in talking about Beyoncé, who brokered a similar deal with AMC and shows up to Swift’s Los Angeles premiere; the next month, Swift returns the favor by attending Beyoncé’s in London. “She’s the most precious gem of a person—warm and open and funny,” Swift says. “And she’s such a great disrupter of music-industry norms. She taught every artist how to flip the table and challenge archaic business practices.” That her tour and Beyoncé’s were frequently juxtaposed is vexing. “There were so many stadium tours this summer, but the only ones that were compared were me and Beyoncé,” she says. “Clearly it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when those two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion.”

To Swift, the success of all three feels like an inflection point. “If we have to speak stereotypically about the feminine and the masculine,” she says, “women have been fed the message that what we naturally gravitate toward—” She has a few examples: “Girlhood, feelings, love, breakups, analyzing those feelings, talking about them nonstop, glitter, sequins! We’ve been taught that those things are more frivolous than the things that stereotypically gendered men gravitate toward, right?” Right, I say. “And what has existed since the dawn of time? A patriarchal society. What fuels a patriarchal society? Money, flow of revenue, the economy. So actually, if we’re going to look at this in the most cynical way possible, feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.”

Beyoncé joined Swift in Los Angeles on Oct. 11 for the first screening of her Eras Tour filmJohn Shearer—Getty Images for TAS

Amid so much attention, it seems noteworthy that Swift appears more relaxed in the public eye, not less—although I wonder out loud whether it just appears that way. She nods. “Over the years, I’ve learned I don’t have the time or bandwidth to get pressed about things that don’t matter. Yes, if I go out to dinner, there’s going to be a whole chaotic situation outside the restaurant. But I still want to go to dinner with my friends.” She sounds thoughtful. “Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years—I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”

She’s also having more fun. At her premiere, Swift sits in the same row as me, Madison, and McCall, singing along and dancing in her seat; we keep craning our necks to look at her, sharing thunderstruck looks: Isn’t this surreal? There are moments in the film when the cameras capture the enormous screens behind Swift onstage, and it feels like a house of mirrors, these myriad reflections of Taylor Swift—us watching her watch herself on a screen, which is itself showing Swift’s image on so many screens, the thousands of fans onscreen in the stadium and us in this theater, with Swift in the middle of it—all of us rapt, unable to look away.

Swift and I have been talking for a while now at her apartment, long enough that our coffees have gone cold and her cat Benjamin Button has trundled into the room, then gotten bored and left. She tells me about revisiting Reputation, which is perhaps the most charged era in the tour. “It’s a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure,” she says, laughing. “I think a lot of people see it and they’re just like, Sick snakes and strobe lights.” The upcoming vault tracks for Reputation will be “fire,” she promises. The rerecordings project feels like a mythical quest to her. “I’m collecting horcruxes,” she says. “I’m collecting infinity stones. Gandalf’s voice is in my head every time I put out a new one. For me, it is a movie now.”

It strikes me then that for all the talk about eras, it’s also worth thinking about genres—how Swift has moved between them in the stories she’s told. At first, it was a coming-of-age story, one about a young woman finding her way in the world and honing her voice before a fickle public. Then there were romances, great ones—tales of enchantment and desire, heartbreak and disillusionment, relationships that she both excavated for her songs and that the media documented for her with either joy or schadenfreude, depending on the day. There have been dramas with stakes so high and turns so twisty they feel Shakespearean in their scope, betrayals both personal and professional that have shaped her life. Occasionally, these stories have tipped into screwball comedy—like when a crowd in Seattle cheered so loudly it registered as an earthquake, or when, on a tour stop in Brazil, the local archdiocese allowed messages celebrating her to be projected onto the 124-ft. Christ the Redeemer statue. But they have one thing in common: Swift.

She is a maestro of self-determination, of writing her own story. The multihyphenate television creator Shonda Rhimes—no stranger to a plot twist—who has known Swift since she was a teenager, puts it simply: “She controls narrative not only in her work, but in her life,” she says. “It used to feel like people were taking shots at her. Now it feels like she’s providing the narrative—so there aren’t any shots to be taken.”

Here, Swift has told me a story about redemption, about rising and falling only to rise again—a hero’s journey. I do not say to her, in our conversation, that it did not always look that way from the outside—that, for example, when Reputation’s lead single “Look What You Made Me Do” reached No. 1 on the charts, or when the album sold 1.3 million albums in the first week, second only to 1989, she did not look like someone whose career had died. She looked like a superstar who was mining her personal experience as successfully as ever. I am tempted to say this.

But then I think, Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt? The point is: she felt canceled. She felt as if her career had been taken from her. Something in her had been lost, and she was grieving it. Maybe this is the real Taylor Swift effect: That she gives people, many of them women, particularly girls, who have been conditioned to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment from a society that treats their emotions as inconsequential, permission to believe that their interior lives matter. That for your heart to break, whether it’s from being kicked off a tour or by the memory of a scarf still sitting in a drawer somewhere or because somebody else controls your life’s work, is a valid wound, and no, you’re not crazy for being upset about it, or for wanting your story to be told.

After all, not to be corny, haven’t we all become selective autobiographers in the digital age as we curate our lives for our own audiences of any size—cutting away from the raw fabric of our lived experience to reveal the shape of the story we most want to tell, whether it’s on our own feeds or the world’s stage? I can’t blame her for being better at it than everyone else. It’s also not like she hasn’t admitted it. She sang it herself, in her song “Mastermind,” off last year’s Midnights, in a bridge so feathery you could almost miss that it marks some of the rawest, most naked songwriting of her career: “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/ So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since/ To make them love me and make it seem effortless/ This is the first time I’ve felt the need to confess/ And I swear I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian because I care.”

She tells me she wrote that song after watching the Paul Thomas Anderson film Phantom Thread, which—spoiler—culminates in the reveal of a vast, layered manipulation. “Remember that last scene?” she says. “I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have a lyric about being calculated?” She pauses. “It’s something that’s been thrown at me like a dagger, but now I take it as a compliment.”

It is a compliment. After I leave Swift’s house, I can’t stop thinking about how perfectly she crafted this story for me—the one about redemption, how she lost it all and got it back. Storytelling is what she’s always done; that’s why, Chesney tells me, he gave her that gift all those years ago. “She was a writer who had something to say,” he says. “That isn’t something you can fake by writing clichés. You can only live it, then write it as real as possible.”

She must have known that all the references she made had hidden meanings, that I’d see all the tossed-off details for the Easter eggs they were. The way she told me that story about Chesney, she knew there was a lesson, about the power of generosity, and how a crushing defeat can give way to a great and surprising gift. The way she said, “Are you not entertained?”—surely we both knew it was a quote from Gladiator, a movie in which a hero falls from grace, is forced to perform blood sport for the pleasure of spectators, and emerges victorious, having survived humiliation and debasement to soar higher than ever. And the way before I left, she showed me the note from Paul McCartney hanging in her bathroom, which has a Beatles lyric written on it—and not just any Beatles lyric, but this one: “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Megan McCluskey •

Styled by Heidi Bivens at Honey Artists; hair by Holli Smith; make-up by Diane Kendal; nails by Maki Sakamoto; production by VLM Productions

On the covers: Jacket, denim shirt and turtleneck by Polo Ralph Lauren; dress by Area; bodysuit by Bardot, tights by Wolford; earrings are artist’s own

On the inside: Jacket, denim shirt and turtleneck by Polo Ralph Lauren; tuxedo jacket, tuxedo shirt, vest and pocket square by Ralph Lauren Collection, jeans by Polo Ralph Lauren; dress by Alaia; rings by Anna Sheffield and Cartier; earrings are artist’s own

[all-hail-trash-prince]

Okay so I may have spent way too long thinking about this reply and then gone and wasted a ton of time on pointless research but I think I have the answer

I didn't just want to know how much he gets paid, though, oh no - I wanted to know his total budget and if his lifestyle is sustainable and comfortable. The short version? Yes, he's making enough money to live off of. The long version? That's below the cut.

The first step in that was to determine where he lives to get more accurate numbers. We can see from some of the concept art that the town Daniel lives in seems to be between the coast and some mountains (Source 1, Source 2, Source 3). Assuming the map is drawn where north=up, we can assume Daniel lives somewhere on the West coast. And considering the proximity of the mountains to the water, plus the fact that Daniel seems comfortable in short sleeves and long pants in the majority of public clips, (besides this one, where he's in a light jacket) I think it's pretty safe to say he lives in northern California.

After that, I looked into average living expenses. Things weren't looking too good for Daniel - according to this website, the cost of living on the West coast is around 120% the cost of other places in the US. California alone is 134%! But we'll get back to that later.

I picked up a couple numbers for average annual living expenses for a single person in the US - $44,312, (source) $38,266, (source) and $40,860 (source). The cost when considering rent for a studio apartment in California ($1400-2000 per month, averaged to $1600) and other expenses ($1188 per month) separately ended up a bit lower, at $33,456 yearly. But just to be safe, I averaged out all four values for an overall average of $39,223 spent on living expenses annually. But wait! Remember that living in California is 134% the price of other places? With that final adjustment, we find that Daniel is likely to be spending $52,558 annually.

Now, we move on to his actual income. I'd call Daniel's job quality control, and though it's very simple and he probably doesn't earn all that much per hour, I'm guessing he works enough hours to make up for it. Based on this piece of concept art, there seems to only be a single testing room in the factory, so Daniel might be the only person checking these light bulbs before they ship - or at the very least, he'd be one of a very few. All that is a long way of saying that even though Daniel's job isn't the most complex, I'm still using the averages and not a lower value.

Anyway, onto the numbers. Indeed says that the average annual salary for quality control inspectors in California is $81,865 per year, but that seems far higher than every other source I could find. Career Explorer estimated the average salary to be closer to $56,210 per year for California, or about $55,500 on average for states on the West coast. Finally, Salary.com says quality control inspectors in California can earn $47,134 at level 1, or $55,813 at level 2. I have no idea what the cutoff for these levels are, so I'm including both of these in the final average. Speaking of which, putting all these values together gives us an average annual salary of $59,304.

With an average salary of $59,304 and an average living expense of $52,558, Daniel can expect to see roughly $6746 of surplus money yearly, or about $562 per month. Assuming that a chunk of that surplus budget is reserved for things like movies and takeout food, not to mention taking care of a cat, he's certainly not rich. But since Daniel seems like the type to stay in and mostly entertain himself rather than go out and make big purchases, it probably works well enough for him.

Gonna be so real, the more I think about Daniel Grubb's job, the more I want that to be my job. I get to hang out in a room without anyone bugging me all day? I get to listen to whatever music or podcasts I want the whole time? My job is super simple and repetitive so then when I get home I'm not completely mentally drained and still have the energy to do the things I want to do? Yes please

(for those who are unfamiliar with me and my shadow:)

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

Babe! Congrats!

Look I couldn’t choose my fav!

Bradley and “I’ll never be good enough, will I?”

Cassie! This is your second request for my celebration. You know how the last one was super fluffy and cute and sweet? This one is decidedly none of those things. I hope you enjoy it! (You might want to keep a tissue box handy)

Smoke In The Air

"Dagger 2, up and ready." Your voice had been tense as you strapped in for your first mission with your new squadron.

The jolt of the catapult as it shot your jet into the sky? That was something you could handle. Flying in formation with your eyes peeled? You could handle that, too. A dogfight with a squadron of SU-57s hell-bent on bringing you down? You weren’t sure that even Top Gun had prepared you for that brand of chaos. The bright mid-day air is filled with a haze of smoke. The staccato hiss of flares deploying and the rattling wheeze of onboard machine guns make a frantic backdrop to the comms spilling into your ears from your squadron. 

“Dagger 1, defending!”

“Dagger 6, smoke in the air, 3 o'clock!”

Each set of clipped communications assures you that at least your squadron is faring the same as you are. And more importantly, that they’re all alive. Throughout the fighting, you’ve been pushed closer and closer toward the ocean. You’ve got two SU-57s dogging your every move, and things are not looking great. You’re out of flares and missiles, and you only have a hundred bullets left. It’s practically a disaster zone. And you can’t rely on any of your squadron members because they’ve all got their own battles they’re waging in the air. 

Was he right? He has to be. Why else are you the only member of the team who isn’t able to shape up? Phoenix would’ve been flying circles around these bozos. That’s the last thought in your mind as your jet blares with the signal for tone lock. You have only a few moments to grab your ESAT and hit the button to eject before you feel the rush and heat of your jet exploding near you. Shrapnel pierces the material of your parachute, and as you plummet to the ground, you’re thankful that at least nobody will miss you when you’re gone. It’s a thought only soundtracked by the screaming of the wind in your ears as you plummet to the ground.

You’d joined the Dagger Squadron in San Diego following Lieutenant Commander Natasha ‘Phoenix’ Trace’s announcement of her pregnancy. Admiral Simpson had hand-picked you to join the squadron after following your career in the year after you’d graduated from Top Gun. You’d been incredibly intimidated when you’d been introduced to the Daggers. They were all legends of their own making. And while you were good, you knew immediately that you were nowhere near their level.

“Wasp, huh?” As one of the pilots had loomed over you, you'd squeaked, the sound embarrassingly shrill. He’d smelled so good, cedar and spice enveloping you as you peered into his whiskey eyes. His mustache had bristled as he’d spit out,  “Well, you’re a little thing, but what makes you so sure you deserve a spot on this squadron? We’re the best of the best. I’m afraid we don’t have openings for kids fresh out of flight school or Top Gun.”

You’d bristled at that accusation and shot right back, “Well, Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw, at least I’m not so old that I can't learn all the new tricks they teach nowadays.”

“Fine, we’ll settle this in the air, kiddo.” He’d spat before wheeling away.

“Anytime, old man.” Had been your impertinent response.

The rivalry between you and Rooster had started that day. You knew he hated that you’d taken the position of a friend on the squadron. He hated that you weren’t flying with Bob, and he hated that you could fly circles (sometimes) around them all. But above all, you know he hated that Lieutenant Commanders Seresin and Floyd had taken a shine to you, the two pilots closest to Lieutenant Commander Trace. It got some attention, you and Rooster. Mav had pulled you aside one day after a training exercise and told you to chill the animosity. That had worked for about 48 hours. Hangman had suggested at one point that you should fuck the older man to get it out of your system. You’d snorted in derision and turned around, only to walk right into Bradshaw. 

His glare had cut you to the bone, and you knew you’d just burned any bridges you could’ve had with this squadron. Push comes to shove, they’d pick Bradshaw. Hands down. It was lore in the Navy. It had been since they'd done the impossible during the Uranium Mission. The Dagger Squad was the best of the best. Their leader? Their heart? That was Lieutenant Commander Bradley Bradshaw. You get on his bad side, and your career is as good as dead. You could feel the reaper standing over you every day of training after that, and then as you lined up for the mission briefing, you felt the chill of the reaper’s blade across your neck.

What an omen for the mission to come. 

You wake up half-buried in a mossy log. The scent of petrichor and greenery surrounds you. It’s a relief to know that despite everything else, at least your brain and your nose still work. But everything aches. Your ribs and right thigh scream as you push yourself upright. All you can see around you are trees. You’re safe. Mostly. But your heart’s in your throat. You went down. You left your squadron with one less defender and one less protector. And you don’t know if you’ll be able to get to safety. Even now, you can hear the battle happening in the skies and, far worse, boots tromping through the brush, looking for something. 

You slither into a hunched position behind what's left of the log and pray that whoever it is isn't the enemy. Every breath hurts, your expanding lungs sending pain lancing through your system. Black spots cover your vision as you crane your neck to see who it is. Your mouth falls slack as you see Bradley Bradshaw marching over to you.

His eyes light up when they see you, half hunched as you are. "Wasp! There you are. I saw you go down. I was just able to report your last known location when I got shot down too." 

You open your mouth, trying and failing to say a word, when Bradley carefully props you up and begins running through a cursory examination. His eyes are worried and dark when he sees the shrapnel buried in your thigh, though he keeps his mouth shut and hands you a canteen of water. You're hesitant to accept it initially, though you're forced to drink when he presses it against your lips. You'd forgotten how thirsty you were.

"Roost'r" You're breathing heavily as you tug on the sleeve of his flight suit. "Ever'ne okay?"

"Yeah, all good. We took down the SU-57s. The others are completing the mission. Mav'll send out S&R once they're back." His hands are gentle as he carefully tests the metal in your thigh. "M'gonna pull this out so we can get you bandaged up, ok? It's going to hurt. Can you be strong for me, Bug?"

"Yes," you screw your eyes shut, sticking your hands over your mouth and bracing yourself as Bradley carefully yanks the metal. Inch by inch, he pulls, and you can feel the burning ache radiate through you. You're sobbing, biting into the back of your hand to keep anyone from hearing you. You can't feel anything other than the waves of pain and your blood rushing past your ears as you stay still as a statue until Bradley carefully tugs your hand from your mouth. He’s wrapped a bandage around your thigh, but you can see blood soak the bindings with each breath you take.

"C'mon. I scoped out this abandoned cabin. Both our ESATs are running strong. The best thing to do would be to get to shelter." He's got your hand securely wrapped in his own as he carefully helps leverage you up. That's when your ribs make themselves known. 

"Rooster. My ribs. They hurt a lot. I must have a few broken. M'not sure I can walk." Your face is grim, expecting him to scold you or call you useless or any of the other things you're sure he knows are true about you. 

"That's okay, Bug. C'mere. I'm going to carry you. And we'll get you laid down so we can take a look, okay?" He positions you until you're facing him. His hands are gentle as he slips his arms around your knees and carefully picks you up. Each move aches, but when you're braced against his chest, all you can smell is the cedar and spice of his cologne.

Bradley keeps up a steady chatter, carefully checking on you every once in a while. The two of you have been walking for nearly an hour. You're mostly silent, humming on occasion in reply as you stay fixated on the pale scar on his cheek. 

Your voice shocks you when you finally speak, "I'll never be good enough, will I?"

"Hmm? What's that, Bug?" You can hear the confusion in his voice as he tries to figure out what you're saying. "I can see the cabin now. We'll be safe and sound soon. I promise."

You hear the creak as he pushes the door open and carefully sets you down on the dusty bed in the corner. 

"Now, what were you saying, Bug?"

"I said, I'll never be good enough for you, will I? It's obvious, I know. I'm not Phoenix. I'm just the dumb baby that you got stuck babysitting. I don't belong in this squadron. Why'd you come looking for me? God." Your voice is a wheezing chuckle as you try and fail to catch your breath. You can feel your spit dribbling out with each choking breath. "I bet you're going to tell them it was my fault you got shot down. That I don't deserve to be a part of the Navy anymore, forget flying."

You're looking right into his eyes as you spit the words out. You're not expecting something that looks an awful lot like worry to slide over his face. His hands are gentle as they cup your cheek, thumb tender against your bottom lip.

"You're going to be okay, Bug. You're hurt and scared. I know you are, I am too. We're going to get you home, get you to a hospital, and you're going to be flying again in no time." When Bradley pulls his fingers away, you're not surprised to see blood-tinged spit coating the calloused digits. A sudden surge of surety hits you at the sight.

"You and I both know that's not gonna happen, Roo. I wanted to be good for you. I wanted to show you I had your back." Each breath aches a bit less than the one before it. You're not coming home from this. You know it. "Was too stupid. M'sorry, Roo. Tell Jake and Bob thank you for me? And wish Phoenix luck w'the baby? Hangy's gonna be a great dad." 

You'd never suspected that Bradley Bradshaw would cry over you. A tear tracks down his cheek, the one with the scar you'd been so fascinated with while he brought you here. "What're you saying, Bug? You're going to be just fine. Two months max, and we'll have you flying circles around me again."

"I'd like that, Roo." You cup his jaw, dragging him in until you can feel the hot splash of his tears against your neck. His arms are wrapped around your waist as he cradles you against his chest. "I hope that'll happen. You're going to be a great Commander and Captain, Roo." He's crying in earnest, his sobs racking his shoulders as he holds you close as tightly as he dares. You can't help the hitch in your own breath as you try and fail to keep your tears at bay. "I don't have anybody waiting at home. The Navy's my home. So when you bring me home, will you put my body someplace where I can watch the flowers grow? I just want to see the flowers grow, Roo. Please?"

"Yeah, Bug, I can do that. Any other requests?" His nose is stuffed, and his voice is hoarse as he pulls back so he can see your eyes.

"Kiss me?" Your voice is barely a whisper. "I just want to be loved when I die." You can see the shock in his eyes at your final request.

"Yeah, sweetheart." His lips press gently to yours as he cradles you close. Nothing hurts anymore as you bury your fingers in his curls. You can feel everything fade as your eyes flutter closed.

Want to request something for my 100 Follower Celebration? The guidelines are here! Please leave me a request in my inbox with your ask!

- XOXO Star

[kanmom51]

JM JK timeline.- my observations how they grew over the years - 2017

Disclaimer:  these are my own opinions and conclusions.  Feel free to disagree, but hate or aggression will be unacceptable.

This is a long one, so I will to post this in several parts (at least 4).

 2017 - Part 1

2017 is an enormous year for the couple.  This is such a significant year for the both of them.  

This is a year that both JK and JM become way bolder.  

Saying that, out of the two, it’s JK that I feel gets much more comfortable within his own skin, and feels ready to be louder.  Not only is JK making progress in coming to terms with himself, but he is ready to tell the world about it.  He is young, he is impulsive, meaning he most definitely needs reigning in by the members on several occasions.  

I think that is why, sometimes, it feels to us like he is more reserved with JM when it comes to the ‘skinship’ or closeness, because when he isn’t, he tends to go ‘too far’.  It’s sometimes easier to keep away, not touch, not react, than to touch or react and lose control in the process.  The ‘big’ or ‘loud’ moments we do get from him are mostly (GCFT not one of them) when he is acting impulsively, doing first and only then thinking it over.

Another thing we see this year is the two getting comfortable within the relationship.  By the end of the year we get to see how much more comfortable they are within themselves.  You can’t say yet that there is a calm between them, but they are getting there.  

At this point all the members of the group are aware of the relationship, and I believe that in 2017 the important surrounding staff are made aware too.  Were they outright told, or did they just ‘get it’ as the time past? Maybe both, in a way, all to be able to protect both members, and not to let things get out of control (protecting the band and the brand).  I think that the staff knowing allowed them both more freedom to be themselves, at least when off camera, without needing to hide all of the time.  

This is the year of both JM’s and JK’s love odes to each other.  

This year brought us bv2, GCFT, Serendipity, JK’s graduation and so much more.  

We still see the micro touches and brushes, but there is also a boldness, especially on JK’s part. As JK is finding his place within the relationship, asserting himself, he is also maturing, so he learns how to assert himself but also learns how to be more attentive to JM’s needs, especially his emotional needs.

JM was, and still continues to be JK’s anchor.  He is his biggest supporter, pushing him to challenge his boundaries, pushing him to the front, helping him when he is down, being there for him when he is hurt.

But JK is also there for JM. It is sometimes less noticeable, but he is the one that knows how to make him laugh, even when JM is down.  He supports him when he needs it.  He looks after him, makes sure he eats, protects him physically, when he thinks it’s needed.  

They are like magnets – constantly seeking each other’s closeness.

I know that there are many Jikook’s that believe that JK and JM’s romantic relationship started only after their end of 2017 trip to Tokyo.  I emphatically disagree.  2017 brings much development and change in their relationship, but that’s like every longer term romantic relationship.  There are shifts in the relationship.  The more the couple get to know each other, their wants and needs, they adjust themselves to that (as much as they want the relationship to continue).  That is the push and pull we see with the boys over the first 2 years .  Figuring out how they feel, what they want from each other, what they need from each other, and just how much they are willing to give the other or maybe give up of themselves.  

That’s a healthy relationship – when you manage to find that point of balance.  And that’s what the boys were doing throughout 2016 and 2017. That doesn’t mean that even after you find that point of balance there won’t be conflicts.  It does, though, enable you to come back to that balance faster, to be able to solve the conflict, because you understand each other better, and learn how to and when to give in (Summer package 2017 - the dream catcher saga).  

This brings me to the JK jealous narrative out there.  I don’t love it.  It makes JK out to be this possessive jealous boyfriend.  It’s oversimplifying and a bit juvenile.  Sorry, but that’s how I feel.  I’m not saying that JK ,or for that matter JM, didn’t ever get jealous.  They are human beings, like me and you.  Jealousy happens.  But there is a difference between getting jealous once in a while and creating this whole narrative of possessiveness jealousy, where someone is so jealous they can’t see anyone, including their closest of friends, come anywhere near your boyfriend.

Also, there could be other kinds of ‘jealousy’.   Not only seeing your significant other leaving you for someone else.  That is only one aspect of it, feeling threatened that someone you love will  be tempted to leave you for another.  But there are other aspects to jealousy too. You can be jealous of others, not a jealousy within your relationship, not a fear your significant other doesn’t love you or will leave you, but the jealousy of those others that can show affection to one another, but you can’t because of the nature of your relationship, that may have to be hidden.

There could also be frustration, not jealousy.  Frustration you need to keep hiding your relationship, when all you want to do is shout out loud to the world that JM/JK is yours.  

The fact that JK and JM’s relationship was something to be hidden, the fear of discovery (have you seen that clip when they are caught in the car ‘taking a photo for Twitter’? The panic on JK’s face? Seeing his face for me was heartbreaking) forced them to mellow down on their interactions, not to be obvious with the touchy feely between them.  

That, in my opinion, is another reason for JK’s minimalizing his skinship with JM.  Not knowing when it’s ok to touch, or just how much, or maybe the fear of going too far.  

JM had less of a problem with that.  Most of the time he was more calculated, knew exactly what he was doing, and how far he was pushing it (although, he too loses himself sometimes – Wings tour Japan documentary interviews, just for example).  

JK couldn’t do that, so sometimes the safer thing was to disconnect all together. That’s when the cameras were on, and not behind the scenes.  But not being able to show their love, having to hide, that took a toll on both of them. Seeing the person that they are building a relationship being able to be touchy with others but not with them, that hurt.  And that, in my opinion, is what we see and that is interpreted as jealousy some of the time with JK and with JM alike.    

2017 gave us plenty of content.  And just like with 2016 timeline, I just can’t address all of the content out there. I chose to refer to the content that seems most relevant to me.   No Twitter, mostly not photo shoots, even if they are the cutest.  Even if some of the moments there are spontaneous, most are directed.  The unicorn photo shoot, for example.  So beautiful, may have some spontaneous moments, but still mostly produced and directed.  Was it their own decision to pose with the unicorn? At this point in their careers, I doubt it.  It’s definitely a cute Jikook moment though.  They are beautiful, cute, have chemistry to die for, but it’s not more than that – not a JK and JM relationship moment, if you get what I’m driving at.

So, in JK’s words, let’s get it:

14 Jan 2017 Golden Disk awards – JK making his bae laugh, by imitating his own dance (Rainism) - exaggerating his own moves.  Yes Tae joins in, but JK is the one to initiate, and JM’s attention is solely on him.  He only has eyes for JK, but wasn’t that clear by now?

16 Jan 2017 ISAC 17 – I love these ones.  Just like with award shows, they have so much time to burn, that they sometimes seem to forget the cameras are there, so we get to see these little cute interactions between them, like JK finding his way to JM, wherever and whoever he may be with, little flirtatious behaviour, including JK finger hearting JM and JM doing it back to JK giggling. JM ‘flashing’ for JK .  JK holding JM’s hand, while it’s around JK’s waist, when photo taken.

19 Jan 2017 – Seoul Music Awards.  OMG, this is a big one for me.  They both look absolutely gorgeous btw.  This was one of the first clips I saw.  The way JK looks at JM, so beautiful.  But what topped the cake for me was what JK did.  JK notice JM back hugging Hobi, so he goes to Hobi, moves him aside, only then to go stand behind JM and back hug him, while gently placing his head on JM’s shoulder and closing his eyes.  

First of all, why move Hobi?  He wasn’t in the way, and it makes no sense to move him from below JM only to go behind JM and hug him from behind. Second, JK was fully aware that they were being photographed.  You can see the members around him posing for the cameras. This is where bold JK comes in. He needs JM.  JM is his safe place, his home, so who cares who can see or what they see?  He wants. No. Needs to hug him and feel him, so he will.  

When I saw JK close his eyes, I wanted to cry. I’m not exaggerating. It was so beautiful, so pure.  When I saw this, I knew.  I knew this was ‘something else’, something special.  

26 Jan 2017 – Global Vlive top 10 BTS – JK asserting his place by JM’s side.  Making sure JM doesn’t fall off the stool, but also pushing Jin back away from JM – that’s JK’s place not Jin’s.  We also get to see, again, the hesitation when touching JM, placing his hand at his lower back, only to pull back hesitantly.  We get the mutual glances, and them being in their own world.  At some point RM having to whack them out of it.

7 Feb 2017 – JK’s graduation day.  Big big day. Starting with JK making sure it’s JM standing by his side for the group photo.  In the car , on the way to their celebratory dinner,  JK singing a suggestive song while looking at JM – serenading him in a way.  Then JM asks JK what he wants for a graduation present, V telling JK that JM will buy him whatever he wants, and JK asking for an apartment (something that withing cultural context is a big thing).  The whole time there’s a flirty vibe between the two, V being the 3rd wheeler in the conversation.  

At the restaurant the boys recreate their photo from JK’s 1st day at high school too (of course it’s the two of them centrefold).

Then, to top the cake, there’s JM’s tweet.  The camera is on JM, and we hear what sounds like a kiss in the background bringing a big smile to JM’s face, and then what sounds like “My Mo, my mochi…”.  Then JM says congratulations and turns the camera sideways, only to see JK sitting there, and to JK’s smile and clapping.  V is in the back seat playing with his phone.  

Did JK send JM a kiss?  Did he call him his Mochi? .  Idk. 

It wouldn’t be the first or last time JK referred to JM as a Mochi.  

What I am sure of is that it had nothing to do with V. He was sitting in the back playing with his phone, totally ignoring or unaware of what was going on there.

To be continued...

[bloody-bee-tea]

Devastation - All Star Xicheng White Day 1

This is for the All Star Xichen White Day and the prompt for that was Fashion/Modelling/Makeup. I only chose the first two though.

Jiang Cheng is acutely aware of the eyes that are following him through the room. He doesn’t dare to look over to check out if it’s a glare or not, but he can imagine that it must be.

People usually glare at him.

Even though this feels a little bit unfair, because it’s the first time he ever actually met Lan Xichen and he’s not sure what he did to offend him like this already.

He hasn’t even spoken to the guy yet.

Jiang Cheng huffs into his glass of water at that thought, because Lan Xichen is probably an overprotective older brother and it’s more than clear that Lan Wangji doesn’t like Jiang Cheng one bit—at least that feeling is mostly mutual—and so he’s probably angry on his brother’s behalf.

It’s the only explanation Jiang Cheng has.

Jiang Cheng tries to ignore the stab of disappointment he feels at that, and he scolds himself for expecting anything more.

He might have a little tiny crush on Lan Xichen, and while Jiang Cheng never deluded himself into thinking anything more will come out of that, he wasn’t expecting active hostility either.

Especially since Lan Xichen doesn’t even know him yet.

“You look upset,” Nie Huaisang suddenly says from his side and Jiang Cheng scowls even harder.

“How would you know?” he bites out, but he knows he’s being unfair to his friend.

It’s not Nie Huaisang’s fault that Lan Xichen clearly can’t stand him.

“You have a broad variety of frowns,” Nie Huaisang says, tapping his fan against his lips. “And this is your upset scowl. So tell me, what’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” Jiang Cheng tries, even though he damn well knows that it’s no use.

If Nie Huaisang thinks that something is wrong then he’ll definitely bother Jiang Cheng until he admits to it or erupts into his face.

It’s a tested method, and Jiang Cheng is annoyed to admit that it usually works too.

“Maybe you want to try that again and this time look a little more like you mean it,” Nie Huaisang teases him and Jiang Cheng sighs.

“Lan Xichen doesn’t like me,” Jiang Cheng finally whispers and goes hot in embarrassment at Nie Huaisang’s knowing little “Ah”.

They have been best friends for years, of course Nie Huaisang knows about Jiang Cheng’s stupid, unfounded, hopeless crush.

“Are you sure? Why wouldn’t he like you?” Nie Huaisang wants to know and Jiang Cheng shrugs.

It’s not like he knows how he offended Lan Xichen or what he did to make Lan Xichen dislike him. Lan Xichen is Nie Mingjue’s best friend and the brother of Wei Wuxian’s boyfriend—fiancé, now—but for all that their social circles should overlap at every turn, they have never actually met.

There were a few situations where one of them was leaving while the other was just arriving, but today is the first time they are in the same room for longer than twenty seconds.

“I mean, it’s not unusual for people to dislike me,” Jiang Cheng amends after a short pause, “but I didn’t even speak to him yet. Usually that’s the breaking point for most people.”

“Stop that right now,” Nie Huaisang chastises him and slaps him with his fan. “We talked about this. You’re not allowed to speak like this about my best friend,” Nie Huaisang firmly tells him and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes at him.

“Doesn’t change the fact that he seems to despise me,” Jiang Cheng mutters under his breath, watching Lan Xichen from the corner of his eyes.

Lan Xichen is furiously scribbling something into a sketchbook before he turns the page with enough speed to almost rip it to shreds and then he’s glaring at Jiang Cheng again, before he turns back to his sketchbook.

“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang muses. “He doesn’t seem angry.”

Jiang Cheng scoffs.

“Are you looking at the same guy I am? He nearly ripped that page in half, he’s so angry.”

“Or impatient,” Nie Huaisang gives back but Jiang Cheng won’t hear it.

“Look at him,” he hisses. “He looks as if he’s personally blaming me for his art block.”

“How do you know about his art block?” Nie Huaisang asks him with a frown and Jiang Cheng snorts.

“Please Huaisang. The statue is his brother and Wei Wuxian loves to overshare about everything regarding the statue. Including how he worries about his brother because he seems to have lost his muse and is even thinking about taking some time off.”

“You know, they are engaged now. You should probably stop calling Wangji that,” Nie Huaisang mildly says but they have had this conversation often enough that they both know nothing will come of it.

And besides; Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have been together for long enough that Jiang Cheng actually says it with some kind of fondness now. Lan Wangji does make his brother happy, after all and Jiang Cheng can acknowledge at least that.

“I will, if he stops calling me sparkle,” Jiang Cheng give back, completely deadpan but he has to smile when Nie Huaisang bursts out into laughter.

“Okay, fair,” he says between his giggles right before he goes serious again. “But all jokes aside, I don’t think Xichen-ge hates you,” Nie Huaisang says again and Jiang Cheng sighs.

“Hate might be a strong word,” he finally amends. “Intense dislike would maybe fit more.”

“You’re being stupid. You said it yourself; you didn’t even speak to him yet. There’s no reason for him to dislike you. Maybe you should go over there and make some small-talk. Your brothers are getting married, you should at least make an effort to speak to him.”

Jiang Cheng can feel himself blush at just the mere suggestion but he has to agree that maybe Nie Huaisang is right about this. Maybe Jiang Cheng just has to talk to him, to either be completely sure that Lan Xichen truly dislikes him, or to amend his previous impression.

Either way, it will bring some clarity to the whole situation and with that thought in mind Jiang Cheng walks right up to Lan Xichen and sits down on the couch next to him.

He tries to keep his face smooth when Lan Xichen slams his sketchbook closed and then he tries to pretend not to be hurt when Lan Xichen leans slightly away from him.

“Hi,” Jiang Cheng says very eloquently and Lan Xichen jerks as if he’s a startled baby rabbit.

He blinks at Jiang Cheng a few times, before he finally manages to return the greeting.

“Hello,” Lan Xichen says and he sounds unsure and probably spooked to hell and back, and it’s Jiang Cheng’s time to stare in surprise as Lan Xichen suddenly gets up from the couch.

“Bye,” Lan Xichen rushes out and then promptly flees the scene.

Jiang Cheng can do nothing but stare after him. This is really not how he imagined meeting Lan Xichen for the first time would go over.

“That was strange,” Nie Huaisang says as he sits down next to Jiang Cheng on the couch, a thoughtful look on his face as he stares after Lan Xichen.

“I told you so,” Jiang Cheng says, trying not to let Nie Huaisang know how hurt he is over this reaction, but when Nie Huaisang pats his arm, he knows it’s futile.

“I’m sorry,” Nie Huaisang says and while Jiang Cheng was in the process of relaxing under his constant petting, he tenses when Nie Huaisang suddenly smiles at him. “I know how to cheer you up, though,” he promises and Jiang Cheng is not in the habit of calling his friends liars, but yeah.

Nie Huaisang is a liar.

“No,” Jiang Cheng says immediately, because he knows that whatever Nie Huaisang will propose now, he’s going to hate it.

“How about you model for me?” Nie Huaisang asks him and Jiang Cheng glares at him so hard, he hopes he sets him on fire.

“Absolutely not,” he gives back, because he will not model for Nie Huaisang.

“Come on, A-Cheng, why not?” Nie Huaisang whines and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, before he sinks deeper into the couch.

“You damn well know why. I’m not going to model for you. Don’t you have Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji at your beck and call for that kind of thing anyway?”

“But I don’t want them,” Nie Huaisang says and clings to Jiang Cheng. “I want you to do it. You would look magnificent.”

“I wouldn’t look better than Wei Wuxian and I can’t hold my composure like Lan Wangji so stop it.”

Jiang Cheng is very firm in his refusal of this, has been ever since Wei Wuxian picked up modelling as a hobby, and he won’t change his stance on it now. He knows that he’s nothing compared to Wei Wuxian and he’s not keen to see it in the photos or clips Nie Huaisang will make.

“You would be wearing completely different clothes, you can’t even compare the two of you,” Nie Huaisang tries but Jiang Cheng shakes his head.

“No,” he says and Nie Huaisang deflates against him.

“You’re a spoilsport, A-Cheng,” he mutters, but he snuggles into Jiang Cheng’s side, so he can’t be too mad.

“And don’t we all know it,” Jiang Cheng says with a sigh, because that is one of the many faults he has.

The rest of the party goes over relatively quickly and Jiang Cheng does his best to stay out of Lan Xichen’s way, seeing as the guy clearly can’t stand him. It almost doesn’t hurt at all, especially with how hard Nie Huaisang tries to distract him.

~*~*~

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Wei Wuxian yells as he storms into Jiang Cheng’s apartment.

“Hello to you, too,” Jiang Cheng gives back, but he’s already on the defence because Wei Wuxian seems genuinely mad and Jiang Cheng can’t think of anything he did to warrant that reaction.

“Fuck you and your hello,” Wei Wuxian sneers and jabs his pointy finger into Jiang Cheng’s chest. “You’re a selfish, thick-headed idiot and I am so mad!” Wei Wuxian yells into his face and Jiang Cheng smacks his finger away.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jiang Cheng bites out. “Get the fuck out of my apartment if you think I’m so stupid.”

“You don’t even care, do you? You’re ruining Xichen-ge’s whole career and you don’t even care. God, you’re truly so damn selfish,” Wei Wuxian tells him and Jiang Cheng frowns at him.

“What the hell do I have to do with Lan Xichen? I don’t even speak to the guy,” Jiang Cheng tells him because he has barely even seen the guy since he so clearly fled from him, but Wei Wuxian continues to glare at him.

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs and Jiang Cheng fights the urge to strangle him. “Is that what you tell yourself to be alright with what you are doing?”

“I have no fucking clue what you think I’m doing!” Jiang Cheng yells at him, completely fed up with Wei Wuxian’s accusations.

Wei Wuxian clearly wants to scream something back at him but before he can do so, Lan Xichen comes into the apartment. He frantically looks around until he sees Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng and then he rushes forward.

“Wei Wuxian, what are you doing?” Lan Xichen asks him, clearly trying for calm, but looking stressed as well.

“You said—” Wei Wuxian starts but Lan Xichen frantically shakes his head.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“What the hell is going on here?” Jiang Cheng snarls out, crossing his arms in front of his chest and shifting uncomfortably when both Wei Wuxian and Lan Xichen turn to look at him.

“I would like to explain,” Lan Xichen starts, but Wei Wuxian interrupts him.

“Why would you even still speak to him if he’s ruining your whole show?” he demands to know and Lan Xichen sighs before he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Because he doesn’t know about it,” Lan Xichen mutters, and Wei Wuxian’s eyes go big.

“Oh,” he whispers and Jiang Cheng sends him a scathing glare.

“Yeah, oh,” Jiang Cheng says and then points at the door. “You’re going to get the fuck away from me now, I don’t want to see your stupid face until I calmed down, and then we will have words about your accusations,” he tells Wei Wuxian who presses his lips together and then scurries out of the door.

He closes it behind him very softly and Jiang Cheng glares after him for a long moment before he turns to Lan Xichen.

“Explain,” he bites out and does his very best to not find it fetching how Lan Xichen’s cheeks slowly turn red.

“What did he say exactly?” Lan Xichen asks him first and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.

“That I’m ruining your entire career,” Jiang Cheng gives back and frowns when Lan Xichen grimaces at that.

“He’s overreacting,” he then says but Jiang Cheng is not going to let him off without a proper explanation.

“About what?” he demands to know and Lan Xichen sighs, before his shoulder sag.

“I have a new collection ready,” Lan Xichen tells him and Jiang Cheng is surprised to hear that.

Last he knew, Lan Xichen was completely without inspiration and thought about taking some time off, so this surely must be a good thing.

“Congratulations?” Jiang Cheng asks, because with how the day has been going it cannot be simply something good, that much is clear to Jiang Cheng.

“Thank you.”

“Now what does it have to do with me ruining your career?” Jiang Cheng eventually prods when Lan Xichen doesn’t say anything else, and Lan Xichen blushes again.

“I refuse to let people who are not you model them,” Lan Xichen whispers and goes even more red in the face.

“Why would you do that?” Jiang Cheng asks with a frown. “And you didn’t even ask me about that.”

“I know,” Lan Xichen admits. “But I heard you talking to Huaisang once—during the party—and you said you’re not going to model, so I thought it futile to ask just for you to tell me to fuck off.”

“Why would you even want me to model for you if you have your brother and my gremlin at your beck and call? They are clearly the better choice,” Jiang Cheng says and almost manages to not sound bitter at all.

“Because you’re—” Lan Xichen starts and then can’t seem to bring himself to finish the sentence.

Instead he reaches into his bag and pulls out a sketchbook. Jiang Cheng recognizes it as the one Lan Xichen was drawing in when he saw him at the party and when Lan Xichen pushes it into Jiang Cheng’s chest, he takes it.

“Just look at it,” Lan Xichen says without meeting his eyes and Jiang Cheng frowns down at it before he flips it open.

He silently goes through every page, but his eyes get bigger and bigger as he goes along. Lan Xichen didn’t draw faces or anything, just sketched the absolute minimum to give it a human figure, but Jiang Cheng knows that it’s all him.

The clothes completely give it away.

They are all in various shades of purple, completely fitting Jiang Cheng’s style and he doesn’t know what to do with that at all.

“But you hate me,” Jiang Cheng says when he finally manages to tear his eyes away from the last page.

“Why would you ever think that?” Lan Xichen asks and Jiang Cheng thinks he must be imagining the devastation colouring his voice.

“Because you glared at me the whole evening! And then you fled like a startled animal when I tried to talk to you!” Jiang Cheng reminds him and Lan Xichen breathes out a soft oh.

“That wasn’t—" Lan Xichen starts and then shakes his head. “You’re so beautiful,” he finally says and frowns when Lan Xichen scoffs at that.

“You are! You’re gorgeous and captivating and seeing you in action, talking to people, it was like my muse had come back and hit me over the head. So I had to start drawing that very instant and it couldn't go fast enough with all the ideas I suddenly had, because you are just that inspiring. And then you came over to talk to me and I was just filling another page with clothes for you and I didn’t know what to do. So I ran,” Lan Xichen sheepishly admits and Jiang Cheng can only blink at him, because surely this must be a joke.

“What the hell are you on about?” Jiang Cheng finally manages to get out and he gives the sketchbook back to Lan Xichen, waiting for the punchline.

He’s not prepared for the look on Lan Xichen’s face though.

“You’re so beautiful,” Lan Xichen whispers again and it seems like he wants to reach out for Jiang Cheng before he remembers himself. “I’m sorry this made you uncomfortable, I wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t for Wei Wuxian,” Lan Xichen finally says with a sad, small smile when Jiang Cheng can’t seem to find his words.

“Please don’t let this—It doesn’t mean anything,” Lan Xichen finally finishes and that jerks Jiang Cheng out of his stupor.

“Of course it does!” he almost yells out and Lan Xichen flinches. “Fuck, you can’t just say that and then pretend that it doesn’t mean anything,” he goes on, voice a little bit softer and his heart is hammering away in his chest.

He fears that he’s going to perish on the spot if Lan Xichen keeps insisting that this doesn’t mean anything, and so he shakes his head vigorously when it seems like Lan Xichen is going to protest against his words.

“I’ve had a crush on you ever since our brothers started dating,” Jiang Cheng finds himself blurting out and Lan Xichen’s eyes go big. “So if this means more, then I’m not opposed to that,” Jiang Cheng finishes weakly, and is not prepared for the huge smile that breaks out on Lan Xichen’s face.

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Lan Xichen beams at him and immediately reaches out to thread their fingers together.

“It still doesn’t mean I’m going to model for you,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, completely taken aback by how happy Lan Xichen seems, but even that doesn’t seem to do much to dampen his mood.

“That doesn’t matter,” Lan Xichen reassures him and Jiang Cheng finds that maybe he would like to model for him, if Lan Xichen keeps looking at him like this then.

Jiang Cheng will have to wait and see, though. He’s not going to dive into this head-first. At least not into modelling.

“Do you want to stay for—” Jiang Cheng leans slightly to the side so he can catch a glance at the clock, “lunch?” he then asks and Lan Xichen nods enthusiastically at him.

“I would love to,” he eagerly agrees and Jiang Cheng can’t help the small smile on his own face.

They still have to get to know each other and see where this will take them, but Jiang Cheng is cautiously hopeful about this and he can’t wait to spend more time with Lan Xichen.

And by how Lan Xichen squeezes his fingers, he’s feeling the same.

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