#I'll just take my time and if we end up in november then that's ok I'll finish it in november.

[bigs-bigshot]

I'll be doing this during october. 2022 version because it seems the artist hasn't been active since last year... Which is ok, I really like these 2022 prompts anyway.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Conspiratorialism as a material phenomenon

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

I think it behooves us to be a little skeptical of stories about AI driving people to believe wrong things and commit ugly actions. Not that I like the AI slop that is filling up our social media, but when we look at the ways that AI is harming us, slop is pretty low on the list.

The real AI harms come from the actual things that AI companies sell AI to do. There's the AI gun-detector gadgets that the credulous Mayor Eric Adams put in NYC subways, which led to 2,749 invasive searches and turned up zero guns:

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nycs-subway-weapons-detector-pilot-program-ends/

Any time AI is used to predict crime – predictive policing, bail determinations, Child Protective Services red flags – they magnify the biases already present in these systems, and, even worse, they give this bias the veneer of scientific neutrality. This process is called "empiricism-washing," and you know you're experiencing it when you hear some variation on "it's just math, math can't be racist":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/23/cryptocidal-maniacs/#phrenology

When AI is used to replace customer service representatives, it systematically defrauds customers, while providing an "accountability sink" that allows the company to disclaim responsibility for the thefts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

When AI is used to perform high-velocity "decision support" that is supposed to inform a "human in the loop," it quickly overwhelms its human overseer, who takes on the role of "moral crumple zone," pressing the "OK" button as fast as they can. This is bad enough when the sacrificial victim is a human overseeing, say, proctoring software that accuses remote students of cheating on their tests:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

But it's potentially lethal when the AI is a transcription engine that doctors have to use to feed notes to a data-hungry electronic health record system that is optimized to commit health insurance fraud by seeking out pretenses to "upcode" a patient's treatment. Those AIs are prone to inventing things the doctor never said, inserting them into the record that the doctor is supposed to review, but remember, the only reason the AI is there at all is that the doctor is being asked to do so much paperwork that they don't have time to treat their patients:

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-health-business-90020cdf5fa16c79ca2e5b6c4c9bbb14

My point is that "worrying about AI" is a zero-sum game. When we train our fire on the stuff that isn't important to the AI stock swindlers' business-plans (like creating AI slop), we should remember that the AI companies could halt all of that activity and not lose a dime in revenue. By contrast, when we focus on AI applications that do the most direct harm – policing, health, security, customer service – we also focus on the AI applications that make the most money and drive the most investment.

AI hasn't attracted hundreds of billions in investment capital because investors love AI slop. All the money pouring into the system – from investors, from customers, from easily gulled big-city mayors – is chasing things that AI is objectively very bad at and those things also cause much more harm than AI slop. If you want to be a good AI critic, you should devote the majority of your focus to these applications. Sure, they're not as visually arresting, but discrediting them is financially arresting, and that's what really matters.

All that said: AI slop is real, there is a lot of it, and just because it doesn't warrant priority over the stuff AI companies actually sell, it still has cultural significance and is worth considering.

AI slop has turned Facebook into an anaerobic lagoon of botshit, just the laziest, grossest engagement bait, much of it the product of rise-and-grind spammers who avidly consume get rich quick "courses" and then churn out a torrent of "shrimp Jesus" and fake chainsaw sculptures:

https://www.404media.co/email/1cdf7620-2e2f-4450-9cd9-e041f4f0c27f/

For poor engagement farmers in the global south chasing the fractional pennies that Facebook shells out for successful clickbait, the actual content of the slop is beside the point. These spammers aren't necessarily tuned into the psyche of the wealthy-world Facebook users who represent Meta's top monetization subjects. They're just trying everything and doubling down on anything that moves the needle, A/B splitting their way into weird, hyper-optimized, grotesque crap:

https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-being-overrun-with-stolen-ai-generated-images-that-people-think-are-real/

In other words, Facebook's AI spammers are laying out a banquet of arbitrary possibilities, like the letters on a Ouija board, and the Facebook users' clicks and engagement are a collective ideomotor response, moving the algorithm's planchette to the options that tug hardest at our collective delights (or, more often, disgusts).

So, rather than thinking of AI spammers as creating the ideological and aesthetic trends that drive millions of confused Facebook users into condemning, praising, and arguing about surreal botshit, it's more true to say that spammers are discovering these trends within their subjects' collective yearnings and terrors, and then refining them by exploring endlessly ramified variations in search of unsuspected niches.

(If you know anything about AI, this may remind you of something: a Generative Adversarial Network, in which one bot creates variations on a theme, and another bot ranks how closely the variations approach some ideal. In this case, the spammers are the generators and the Facebook users they evince reactions from are the discriminators)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_adversarial_network

I got to thinking about this today while reading User Mag, Taylor Lorenz's superb newsletter, and her reporting on a new AI slop trend, "My neighbor’s ridiculous reason for egging my car":

https://www.usermag.co/p/my-neighbors-ridiculous-reason-for

The "egging my car" slop consists of endless variations on a story in which the poster (generally a figure of sympathy, canonically a single mother of newborn twins) complains that her awful neighbor threw dozens of eggs at her car to punish her for parking in a way that blocked his elaborate Hallowe'en display. The text is accompanied by an AI-generated image showing a modest family car that has been absolutely plastered with broken eggs, dozens upon dozens of them.

According to Lorenz, variations on this slop are topping very large Facebook discussion forums totalling millions of users, like "Movie Character…,USA Story, Volleyball Women, Top Trends, Love Style, and God Bless." These posts link to SEO sites laden with programmatic advertising.

The funnel goes:

i. Create outrage and hence broad reach;

ii, A small percentage of those who see the post will click through to the SEO site;

iii. A small fraction of those users will click a low-quality ad;

iv. The ad will pay homeopathic sub-pennies to the spammer.

The revenue per user on this kind of scam is next to nothing, so it only works if it can get very broad reach, which is why the spam is so designed for engagement maximization. The more discussion a post generates, the more users Facebook recommends it to.

These are very effective engagement bait. Almost all AI slop gets some free engagement in the form of arguments between users who don't know they're commenting an AI scam and people hectoring them for falling for the scam. This is like the free square in the middle of a bingo card.

Beyond that, there's multivalent outrage: some users are furious about food wastage; others about the poor, victimized "mother" (some users are furious about both). Not only do users get to voice their fury at both of these imaginary sins, they can also argue with one another about whether, say, food wastage even matters when compared to the petty-minded aggression of the "perpetrator." These discussions also offer lots of opportunity for violent fantasies about the bad guy getting a comeuppance, offers to travel to the imaginary AI-generated suburb to dole out a beating, etc. All in all, the spammers behind this tedious fiction have really figured out how to rope in all kinds of users' attention.

Of course, the spammers don't get much from this. There isn't such a thing as an "attention economy." You can't use attention as a unit of account, a medium of exchange or a store of value. Attention – like everything else that you can't build an economy upon, such as cryptocurrency – must be converted to money before it has economic significance. Hence that tooth-achingly trite high-tech neologism, "monetization."

The monetization of attention is very poor, but AI is heavily subsidized or even free (for now), so the largest venture capital and private equity funds in the world are spending billions in public pension money and rich peoples' savings into CO2 plumes, GPUs, and botshit so that a bunch of hustle-culture weirdos in the Pacific Rim can make a few dollars by tricking people into clicking through engagement bait slop – twice.

The slop isn't the point of this, but the slop does have the useful function of making the collective ideomotor response visible and thus providing a peek into our hopes and fears. What does the "egging my car" slop say about the things that we're thinking about?

Lorenz cites Jamie Cohen, a media scholar at CUNY Queens, who points out that subtext of this slop is "fear and distrust in people about their neighbors." Cohen predicts that "the next trend, is going to be stranger and more violent.”

This feels right to me. The corollary of mistrusting your neighbors, of course, is trusting only yourself and your family. Or, as Margaret Thatcher liked to say, "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families."

We are living in the tail end of a 40 year experiment in structuring our world as though "there is no such thing as society." We've gutted our welfare net, shut down or privatized public services, all but abolished solidaristic institutions like unions.

This isn't mere aesthetics: an atomized society is far more hospitable to extreme wealth inequality than one in which we are all in it together. When your power comes from being a "wise consumer" who "votes with your wallet," then all you can do about the climate emergency is buy a different kind of car – you can't build the public transit system that will make cars obsolete.

When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about animal cruelty and habitat loss is eat less meat. When you "vote with your wallet" all you can do about high drug prices is "shop around for a bargain." When you vote with your wallet, all you can do when your bank forecloses on your home is "choose your next lender more carefully."

Most importantly, when you vote with your wallet, you cast a ballot in an election that the people with the thickest wallets always win. No wonder those people have spent so long teaching us that we can't trust our neighbors, that there is no such thing as society, that we can't have nice things. That there is no alternative.

The commercial surveillance industry really wants you to believe that they're good at convincing people of things, because that's a good way to sell advertising. But claims of mind-control are pretty goddamned improbable – everyone who ever claimed to have managed the trick was lying, from Rasputin to MK-ULTRA:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Rather than seeing these platforms as convincing people of things, we should understand them as discovering and reinforcing the ideology that people have been driven to by material conditions. Platforms like Facebook show us to one another, let us form groups that can imperfectly fill in for the solidarity we're desperate for after 40 years of "no such thing as society."

The most interesting thing about "egging my car" slop is that it reveals that so many of us are convinced of two contradictory things: first, that everyone else is a monster who will turn on you for the pettiest of reasons; and second, that we're all the kind of people who would stick up for the victims of those monsters.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/29/hobbesian-slop/#cui-bono

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[delopsia]

Ok so I’m assuming Rhett is 30 ish because Lewis is 30 (almost 31 in like a month) but like Rhett with reader who is younger than him by a good number of years (reader being 23 at youngest probably) what’s the relationship like? Was he super reluctant at first because of the gap? How do we meet him? How does the family feel? What if he’s her first “real” boyfriend? How would he react to reader asking him to take their v card?

When I tell you that this has been stuck in my head since you sent me this, oh my GOD. I've been meaning to write this concept with Rhett and Bobby for over a year and keep forgetting to 🤤 I got a little carried away. Hope y'all don't mind 🤍

Canonically, Rhett is twenty-four, but I think we as a collective have chosen to ignore that 💃 here's my proof post on that, if you're curious 💕 TLDR: Rhett was born June 12th, 1996, and OR S1 takes place in November 2020

For the sake of this post, I'll just leave it and say he's noticeably older than the reader ✨ I don't want to set a specific age for him and accidentally exclude someone :(

I like to view an older version of Rhett as someone who's still into the rodeos; he's gotten up there in the bull riding ranks, and though he's a year or two away from aging out of it, he's still up there kicking ass when you first encounter him. It's your first time coming to this rodeo, and you're not sure what to think when you see him leaned up against the fence in that quiet, rugged glory so many cowboys seem to carry. Older than the rest of the riders, so jaded by buckle bunnies that he hardly notices the ones trying to get his attention.

The first time you walk past him, he lifts the corner of his lip and nods his head toward you as if to say hello. Some simple little thing that gets you smiling, hoping to high heaven that your friends don't notice the sudden weakness in your knees. Three Sundays in a row, you go to the rodeo with your friends, and three Sundays in a row, you walk past him on your way to the food trucks. Three Sundays in a row, he smiles and nods his head at you.

You think he's just being nice.

Rhett just thinks you're hot.

But he's too tired of entertaining relationships with folks who only want him for what lurks beneath his championship buckle and to tell all their friends they fucked a real cowboy. It was fun when he was younger, but after a while, like most things, it gets old.

So when he sees you at the bar after a rodeo one night, he doesn't think too much about it. Sneaks a few glances at you out the corner of his eye, sure, quietly wondering how pretty his name would sound coming out of your mouth, but that's it.

Until some hotshot decides that he's going to give you hell while your friends are in the bathroom. And Rhett's within the perfect earshot to get rightfully pissed off. He's not particularly one to get into someone else's business, but he's also not too fond of this whole "badger someone 'till they give what you want" technique the younger boys have been employing recently.

"'s this guy botherin' ya?" He asks, in that gravelly voice, his elbow propping against the bar, speaking to you but his eyes never once leaving the steer wrestler giving you trouble. He's got a history with this kid; this isn't their first confrontation.

Of course, you don't know that when the younger man goes nose-to-nose with Rhett. But oh, if it doesn't make you the slightest bit dizzy when Rhett's jaw hardens at your meek 'yes.'

He only means to scare the guy off and go back to watching his buddy eat shit at the pool table, but your friends are taking forever to come back, and he's found himself offering to sit with you until they do. You're asking his name, and he's ashamed to admit that his heart jumps at the sound of his name on your tongue.

You don't seem to care all that much about the age difference, and Rhett's got no reason to be concerned; your age doesn't end in 'teen,' and you can legally drink, but he's found himself a touch hesitant to flirt with you. Isn't all that fond of breaking his heart over another sweetheart who stumbled into Wabang.

But you just keep running into each other. You're in line with him at a food truck; he sees you at a rodeo bonfire and chats you up until your friends are begging to head home. He's given you his number, and he's catching himself looking for you at the end of his rides.

And then he's busting his left shoulder after a ride, and somehow, he's found himself outside of the ambulance, being backed up against a wall as you kiss him hard on the mouth. It's the first kiss he's had in years, and your hands on his big chest are the sweetest thing he's ever felt. It's everything, and it takes every ounce of his will to draw your hand off of his belt buckle.

"Y' don't wanna do that," his whispered warning drips off his tongue like honey, and oh do you want a taste, "'m 'fraid if I let ya have me, I might follow ya 'round for the rest of my life."

He really doesn't know what to do when you smile and ask, "But what if that's what I want?"

How he survived that, he doesn't know. But a kiss-filled conversation ends in him agreeing to take you on a real, proper date. He takes you to Odessa's diner for lunch, pulls your chair out for you, and never lets you touch a door, and he gets along with you so well. It helps a lot that he's been on a funky little life path that has given him many of the same experiences as you. There's an age gap, sure, but his stage of life isn't too different from your own. Especially because he was a bit of a late bloomer with this whole 'adult' thing. The perks of being emotionally stunted by Royal...

Rhett doesn't differ that much if he's your first boyfriend; he's sickeningly sweet, regardless. No amount of experience or inexperience will stop him from going all out on you; if there's one thing his momma did, it was raise him right. You might as well be royalty. That being said, he's happy to take the lead (or give it up) depending on your experience level.

The relationship isn't all that different from how it would be if he was your age. There are some generational references that take time to understand, and Rhett's age shows the most when you try teaching him to use Instagram, but that's a given. He's a little bit smug when you're with him in public, especially at rodeos. He knows he's struck gold, and he intends to show you off as much as you're comfortable with. Protective, too. Those bull riders know better than to linger and try their luck with you. More times than you can count, you've overheard the whispered warning, "That one's Rhett's."

Rolls his eyes when you (affectionately) call him old man...

To be fair, Rhett does try to wait until a few weeks into your relationship to start getting intimate; he wants to take things slow with you, but then you're cupping him through his jeans, and he's breathless as you massage him through the fabric. And when you sit in his lap, wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, and grind your ass down into him? He's a goner.

If you're a virgin, then he's extra careful with you. Takes some more time to draw your clothes off, slow as he kisses down your belly until he can run his tongue up your sweet little pussy. But he's obscene about it, regardless. Groaning around your clit, letting you yank on his hair all you need. Frustrates you to no end because you're trying so hard to get him to fuck you, and all he wants to do is eat you out. Four times. Four times, you rile him up, and the most progress you make is getting his jeans off. He doesn't mean to upset you, he's just a whore for giving oral.

Until that one time at the bar when you hauled him into a bathroom stall, dropped to your knees, and wrapped your mouth around him before he could get under your skin.

That got him. You couldn't take all of him, gagging every time his plush tip hit the back of your throat, but his knees were shaking. Moans muffled by the palm of his hand. Trying his best to pull you off when he came and damn near hit the floor when you instead chose to swallow him down.

Again, if you're a virgin, then there isn't a huge difference in how he treats you when he takes your virginity. Not out of impatience or anything of the sort, but it's your first time together. He's going to treat you like a virgin regardless. Overusing the lube as he introduces you to a thick, calloused finger, watching your reaction for the slightest hint of pain. "'s this hurt? No? You sure?"

Annoyingly pushes the tip of his cock against you, then lets it slide through your folds, obsessed with the sight of it. But just as you're going to complain, he finally nudges inside, and it silences you completely.

If there is one thing about Rhett Abbott, it's that he's huge in more ways than one. Splitting you open in all the right ways, big hands stroking up and down your skin, whispering the filthiest things into your ears. "Think 'm almost too big for your lil pussy, angel." "Shhh, we'll make it fit. Jus' relax 'round me." "'s that feel good, sweetheart? Y' like bein' stretched 'round my cock like that?"

He ruins you either way. You never pegged yourself to be this insatiable, riding him in his truck, fucking him outside the bar, in bathroom stalls, cheap hotel rooms, bending over the hood of his truck while he had a flat tire. It's not your fault; Rhett's just that damn good, and he's somehow able to match you entirely. Rolls his eyes a little, sure, but he's just doing that to annoy you. "This old man fucks you that good, hm? Cute little pussy ain't satisfied 'till I pump it nice 'n full of my cum?"

Sometimes, he tells you he's too tired for sex and then turns around and pounces on you because he heard you whimper once and had a second burst of energy.

Which...is how your relationship gets found out. He's left a mark on your collar, and at some point, you bend down to pick up a fork you dropped, and it gets noticed. So you either got in a fight with a vacuum cleaner and lost, or you have a little someone.

The worst part is telling everyone how old he is. Rhett's got this funny charm where he looks younger than he actually is, and it nearly makes someone choke at the dinner table. And Rhett's not the best with people, but he's quick to make a good impression. He's like a fine wine; he's gotten better as he's aged.

You'll likely never meet Rhett's family, and if you do, it's a handful of times for no longer than two hours. After Rhett moved out, there's been tension every time he sees his folks. He was supposed to stay and spend his life helping the ranch, to honor his family loyalties, not run off and find love in someone else. Cecelia's sweet, doesn't say anything about the age gap, so long as you're both happy. Royal...you don't know what he said, but you had to grab Rhett by the belt to reign him in.

All that being said, Rhett's a sweetheart to you, regardless of your age gap. There are some differences that wouldn't be there if he was your age, but he's keen to work on those things together. Rhett doesn't fall in love often, but when he does, he falls hard, and he's going to give you the world. Even if you do call him old man every now and then.

Like I said...I got carried away

[echantedtoon]

A Lovers' Circle (Poly Haishira x Reader) Ch12 The Heart's Not Just A Muscle P2

(Hearts conquered so far: Mitsuri, Kanae, Sanemi, Gyomei,Giyuu, and now Shinobu is getting her time to shine.

Warnings for Shinobu/Y/n getting soda thrown at them.)

Taglist: @shadyd3ar @jcrml

@tengensangel @miniverse-zen @mysteri0uz @jjamsbangtan

@the-unknown-fandom

@lavenderdropp @mimisweetz. @purplesoulsapphire

@kksmush @denkpanda18 @whomisi @lessthanimperfect @silver-rin

Remember if you want to be added to the taglist lemme know

The next morning was better. He felt less tired and more energized than last night and was able to get some house chores done. At the moment he was enjoying the peace and quiet of the calm morning. Sipping on some coffee she gave him and just all around enjoying not having to do anything else right now.

That was until the doorbell rang.

DING DONG!!

The sound of it had both look up from the kitchen table and towards the door that was clearly visible from the kitchen.After a second he sighed and slowly made himself stand up. He eventually got up to get it as she was busy compiling the footage of their work so far and labeling the dates with the right videos. She was more tech savvy than him so she'd be better at doing it anyways. So she went back to transferring most of the video files to a series of hard drives with dates and time stamps edited into the video. She'd hand over the hard drives to the professor when they turned in their project at the end of November. For now she'd get what files they already had organized along with their notes.

Giyuu's footsteps echoed in the apartment before he opened the door. From where the kitchen was and where she was sat, she could clearly see who stood in the doorway if she looked up from the screen 

"Hi, Giyuu!" The familiar voice made her pause before looking up from the screen and raising a brow at the woman bundled up smiling in the doorway. "Chilly today isn't it?"

Y/n? What was she doing here this early?..And why was she holding a giant paper bag?

He stared at her with his back to his girlfriend. "Yes." Eventually he answered slowly. "I thought we weren't going to meet until later."

"We weren't but I have something for you." She blinked as a giant paper bag was heaved up and into his arms. The paper crinkling with the shift of ownership.

"..What is this?"

"Some new food you can try. You mentioned getting a bit tired with your usual food so I made you some new dishes to try out for a few days." Her hand gestured to the large bag "You got some saba no shioyaki, tonkatsu, a container of onigiri in there somewhere, katsudon, oyakodon, a salad, and some homemade taiyaki. Oh. I also made you some salmon Daikin and there's one container of ginger tsukudani for Shinobu. They might not be very good because it's my first time making them."

"Why?"

"Your sister mentioned that it's your favorite food, and Kanae told me when I asked about-"

"No. Just..." His face slowly slipped down to the bag again. Just staring at it. "Why?"

"Oh... It's because sometimes we all just need someone to reach out and help." Purple eyes slowly widened from behind the screen. "I've noticed that you've been stressed lately and it's fine that you don't want to talk to me about it, but if you'd ever like to I'd be happy to listen to you."

And then there was a tense silence between the two of them before the wind blew making her shiver again.

"You go ahead and take today off. I'll just do the project myself today and email Shinobu the video when I'm done walking around. Relax and get better soon. Ok? If you need to call me just ask Mei or Shinobu for my number. They both have it. And don't worry about my tupperware. You can give it back to me when you're all finished. No rush."

He continued to stare but flinched as a warm hand patted one of his still holding onto the bag before she turned and began walking away from the door until she couldn't see Y/n anymore. Giyuu stood there for a while before slowly turning around back to Shinobu's still wide eyes, allowing her to see his red face. Slowly the door was closed using a leg with a click and his footfalls sounded out as he walked himself back into the kitchen.  Paper crinkled as the bag was slowly placed the bag on the table between the two.

And then they stared in silence some more. Before they exchanged looks with each other. And then slowly Giyuu reached out slowly and opened up the large bag, pulling the edge back enough to peek inside. Dark Blue eyes blinked before a hand reached inside and a second later a medium sized Tupperware container was pulled out.

Giyuu weighed it in his hands with a hum despite the pink to his face. "Still warm."

"Open it."

He did so and immediately the smell of pork and cabbage filled the air. "Tonkatsu." He looked at her.

"Well don't just sit there. You haven't had anything to eat all morning." She nodded to him. "Eat it."

Giyuu took his time turning to go dig out chopsticks from a kitchen drawer before sitting himself back down at the kitchen table in front of the warm meal. Dark Blue eyes just staring at it for a long moment before he reached inside and pulled out a small piece of the breaded pork cutlets. It smelled so good even to her just sitting there. He slowly placed it into his mouth.

Blue eyes WIDENED. Going as wide as plates as he slowly chewed on the food. Before his chewing increased as he immediately dipped back down into the container. A moment later he so sweetly held up a piece to her wanting to try it obviously. She did accepting his offer and immediately the sweet taste of pork and spices filled her mouth with the punch of a firecracker. 

Shinobu hummed. "That is actually very good."

 She watched as he just continued to eat his fill. A twinge of pleasant color rising to his cheeks. Contentment as he sighed through his nose and let a satisfied him leave him as she silently watched. How long has it been since she's seen him so happy about food? Usually neither one of them has time to really cook so it was usually leftovers, take out, or instant meals like frozen TV dinners or instant ramen. He offered something again to her but she held up a hand to stop him.

"Oh no. Those she made for you. Eat something and feel better."

"But she did make you something." He again shoved a arm into the bag and pulled out a small Tupperware container before pushing it out towards her.

She did huh? Taking it and opening it let the scents of ginger and soy sauce fill the air. Ginger tsukutani. That was her favorite food. Hm. It smelt good and it was still warm too. The pleasantly kind of warm, not too hot but not cold at all. ..It must've taken her all night to make them all of this, and she insisted on not worrying them about their project. Her hum echoed in the kitchen as Giyuu continued to eat in content. His happy stomach welcoming the rare addition of homemade goods. 

"Interesting. This might require a little more consideration."

She decided to look into it a bit more starting the following few hours. As promised, Y/n had sent her an email and with it was attached a video file of her doing a series of jumping jacks, jogging in place, and then ending in her doing yoga the rest of the hour. Gyomei's voice was heard in the background asking what-

"Honey, what take out do you want to order tonight? I can make something instead so you don't have to worry about cooking tonight."

His caring nature had her smiling. Gyomei was always so considerate of everyone around him, and since starting a relationship with Y/n he's only gotten much more happier. She was genuinely happy for him. Y/n was genuinely a very happy kind woman and Gyomei couldn't ask for a better girlfriend.  However what she wasn't expecting was for some of her own partners and even her own sister to also fall for her. 

She supposed Mitsuri was predicable and Kanae was understandable if surprising. But Sanemi? Giyuu?

Perhaps it was the curiosity that prompted her to email her back-

'Shinobu:

                  Hey. Thanks for the file! Sorry we couldn't join you today. Giyuu won't be able to join us for most of this week, so are you alright with working with me on it this week?'

It took her only a few minutes to respond back.

'Y/n:

           Hi, Shinobu! Yeah that's fine. Did you guys like the food? I have to be quick because Mei n I are watching a movie Mitsuri leant us. Yeah that works. Do you want to meet tomorrow after classes and work?'

'Shinobu:

                  I can't. I'm working late. But I'm free Tuesday afternoon. You free then?'

'Y/n: 

              Sure! I can meet you after work by the park. See u then!'

Well that certainly sounded like a good time. Alright then. Tuesday. That was when she was going to be getting a few answers to her curiosity.

******************

"Shinobu! Hi!"

She happily waved over the purple eyes woman with a big smile and a thick turtleneck sweater draped over her top. It was a bit nippy today just going into November, however she was surprised when she saw a bouncing pink haired woman next to her not so subtly giving Y/n a loving expression. 

"Hello," she greeted them both and with a curious tilt looked at Mitsuri. "I'm surprised to see you here. I don't think you're doing the project with us."

She shook her head braids swaying. "Nope! Obi's going meditating with Mei and my dance classes were cancelled after the teacher sprained her ankle." She gushed looking at them both. "So I had nothing to do but Y/n invited me to come along with you guys!!"

"I hope that's ok." Y/n tilted her head. "I'd really like to get to know Mei's family better, and I genuinely like hanging out with you guys. I figured Mitsuri could film while you take notes again so we're not trying to juggle everything ourselves."

Ah right. Sunday and Monday Y/n had to both do the project herself because Giyuu and herself were busy, and she had to finish compiling everything into thumb drives IN order with labels and dates along with her notes. Honestly she was surprised when she got a second email Monday night with another email but you were doing the project with them so it made sense.

"No problem at all. I think the extra hand will be very useful!"

"Oh that reminds me. I made you both copies of class notes from today and yesterday!" She gestured to the backpack slung over her shoulders. "Figured you'd be needing them too."

"I appreciate that. So what exactly are we doing today?"

"I figured we'd just walk around the park again. It's easy enough and we could go for some food afterwards. My treat!" She happily smiled at Mitsuri who lit up. "MacDougal's sounds like a good place to get burgers. Five burgers for ten dollars is a good deal and I can get you ten for only twenty dollars!"

"Oh you don't have to do that for me!"

"I want to! You're always letting me use your employee discount at the cafe so it's only fair! You're a kind person!" Mitsuri squealed out in delight clutching her cheeks. "And you deserve it!" She squealed out more excitedly bouncing on her heels. A sight that even made Shinobu smile wider. "Of course I'd get something for you too Shinobu."

She held up a hand to her. "Oh no. I couldn't ask you to buy me anything."

"Not even one of their famous cappuccinos?"

"...Ok. A coffee then." 

That only pulled out a few giggles from the both of them before they actually got to work. Shinobu taking notes as Mitsuri bounced beside her as she wrote happily filming as Y/n walked. The crisp cold air chilling them the closer to December. 

"Hey, Shinobu. How's Kanao doing?" The sudden name drop of her baby sister was something that had gotten said woman to snap up in question. 

After a moment she looked back down. "She's doing fine."

"I hope she likes her dress! I bet she'll look beautiful in it!"

Ah yes. Her dress. The one for almost three months Kanao had been eyeing every time she passed it on her way to home and school. It was rather pretty but expensive so that's why it took their parents so long to save up for it. Only problem was that the old crab in charge of running the store had refused to sell it to them once she found out that a teenager was planning on using it for a dance. Even denied Kanae when she offered to buy it instead. She thinks that she hated children but whatever the circumstances were..

Had Y/n not gone in to get her the dress, Kanao would have come back rather more disappointed. Instead she got to experience putting on the dress at home and smiling as their mother INSISTED on taking pictures for her scrapbook. Imagine her surprise when Kanae relayed the tale to her much later...Which begged the question-

"If you'd like, I'll reimburse you for the dress. It's not a problem."

"Oh no. It's perfectly alright." She smiled wider. "It wasn't fair she couldn't get it in the first place. I'm just glad she's happy now."

"You didn't have to help her."

"I know. I didn't do it because I had to, but because I wanted to. I'm just sorry Kanae had to deal with Jake after all that."

"How noble of you!," Mitsuri gushed nearly fumbling with the phone.

Shinobu only hummed again as she continued her work. Although she didn't miss the way f/c orbs seemed to linger on her a little bit longer than normal. She brushed it off as her waiting to continue the conversation with her.

"Did you like the food I made you?"

"Yes. The ginger tzukutani was delicious," she said bring honest because..well it WAS delicious. "Thank you. How did you ever find out?"

"Sanemi was talking to me about my ohagi recipe and Kanae mentioned some of your favorite foods. I hope you don't mind."

Ah. Kanae. Of course she'd mention it. 

"Not at all. Like I said it's delicious."

"What about the other things?"

"Giyuu let me have a piece of his tonkatsu. I think you might've used a bit too much breading but otherwise it was good."

"His? I made those for both of you because you were hungry."

Shinobu paused immediately. Feet stopping in motion and purple eyes snapping up. Mitsuri and Y/n had also stopped in their tracks to look at her. Silence resumed other than the distant ambience of others in the park around them. For a long moment no one spoke before Shinobu blinked.

"... Hungry?"

"I don't mean you're starving," Y/n explained calmly, "But Giyuu mentioned that  he can get worn out from the repeated pattern in foods he eats, but I've been noticing that the same happens to you. All you ever seen to consume is caffeine and I've noticed that you seem to skip meals... That's not exactly very good for you."

Purple eyes widened at her. Stunned by the observation but stunned still as she pointed at her. 

"Even now I can tell you're hungry. You haven't eaten anything yet today or barely anything at all. I know the look from my job. You gotta be alert and on look out for things with kids all the time. So after this, I'm getting you something to eat. And make sure you eat some of what I gave you guys later. You shouldn't be skipping meals."

'You shouldn't be skipping meals.'

Now where had she heard that before? Oh right. From nearly every one of her partners and sister. Mostly from Hinatsuru, Kanae, and Rengoku however. No one could've really known that she was doing that unless they were a close family or friend or very observant. The latter stunning her by surprise for a moment.

"...If that's what you want."

"Good! Because as long as we're doing the project together, I'm not going to let you two eat anything bland! I already got some recipes for o-taro sashimi and homemade mochi I want you both to try too!" Y/n smiled before reaching out to pat Shinobu's shoulder. 

"Hhhhhaaahh!! Do you know how to make okonomiyaki?!"

Y/n giggled at Mitsuri's nearly drooling expression. "I made it for Mei yesterday for lunch. If you'd like, I can make you some tonight and you can pick it up tomorrow at the daycare."

"KYAA!! YOU'RE SO KIND Y/N-CHAN!!  I COULD HUG YOU RIGHT NOW-!!"

"Let's finish up the project for today first. We're a few minutes behind now so we'll have to walk a little bit longer to make up for lost time."

Things thankfully got back on track and even if they were a little behind. She'd have to edit the footage later before adding it to the database.  Although purple eyes kept stealing glances at f/c eyes as she politely listened to Mitsuri babble on about her dance classes and favorite positions of ballet. But soon the hour was done, project for the day was finished, and appetites were heavy. It was near the end of the day now and it was only a little bit until the sun went down. So it would be a good time to get dinner. 

The local MacDougal's burger place was only a twelve minute walk away from the park and the smell of grilled burgers was enough to entice all three of them towards the fast food joint. The little bell above the door rang and as the three of them walked into the establishment. No one was in there except for a middle aged woman frowning and sitting by herself eating what looked like chicken tenders, and the cashier who was boredly spraying the front counter before wiping it down with a cloth. 

Although he looked up when he heard chiming from the bell. Dark blue eyes widened at the three familiar figures walking inside.

"HI, GIYUU!!," Mitsuri greeted loudly waving a full arm as the two women filed in behind her. "OH MY GOSH YOU'RE STILL HERE?!"

Said black haired man wore an orange and yellow uniform shirt with the letters MD stitched into a breast pocket and a visor was on his head. He watched as his partner, his girlfriend, and Y/n walked in. Three beautiful women smiling and waving at him making his cheeks go a light pink before making eye contact with Shinobu and slowly smiling a little. 

"Hi, Giyuu." Y/n greeted him next stopping in front of the register. "You look like about ready to close. Is this a bad time?"

He cleared his throat to not come off as flustered before speaking. "Not really. My shift ends in another hour and a half. I'm cleaning up before the night shift comes by. It's been a slow day so I'm almost done. I already swept and mopped everywhere."

"Are you alone?"

"No. The cook is cleaning up one of the grills. Did you three want to order?"

"Yes please! You still taking orders right?" He nodded before putting down said objects and standing in front of the register looking at her expectantly. "Can I get a two large strawberry milkshakes with two of those five burgers for ten dollars deals? With two double bacon burgers cola, and a cappuccino?"

"Would you like fries with all of those burgers?"

"Yes!"

"Your total is fifty two ninety seven," he stated after pressing a few buttons on the register as Y/n was already holding up her card. "I'll get the cook to work on it right away."

"Thanks, Giyuu! Did you like the food I left you?'

Again a deeper pink flushed over him as he nodded. "Yes. I had the taiyaki for my lunch today...T-Thank you."

"No problem. Let me know when you're done and I'll make you and Shinobu more!"

Giyuu again stared at her pink as Mitsuri giggled and Shinobu rose a brow but soon the food was paid for and being a fast food joint, the food was fastly brought out to them. Mitsuri wasted no time laying way through the two milkshakes and ten pairs of burgers and fries brought out just for her! Honestly Shinobu thought she'd jump across the table just to kiss Y/n for getting her such a big meal. Herself? Well Y/n had given her a look until she began eating the admittedly delicious food making her smile and only then did she start eating herself. About halfway through her burger she slid Mitsuri her own fries as she had already finished with her large order. Happily accepting them before also wolfing them down. 

"I'll go throw away the trash."

And so it was offered by Y/n as they all got up to leave. Well they were leaving, Shinobu was going to wait for Giyuu's shift to end before walking back to their shared apartment. But that was when IT struck. 

"Excuse me. There was something wrong with my food!" 

A rude sounding lady's voice cut through the air as they turned. Y/n being the closest to the voice dumping the wrappers into a trashcan sat between their table and the register. Standing at the register was a the woman from before. Standing before the counter arms crossed holding a cup of whatever she had been drinking, feet tapping, and scowl on her face. Glaring at Giyuu who blinked.

"...Oh. What's wrong?"

"I ordered a ten piece chicken tender meal!," she practically screeched into Giyuu's ever somber face. "There was only nine pieces! And they weren't cooked all the way!"

"Oh. Well if you return the meal I can see what's wrong and maybe we can get you a new one?," he offered.

"Just give me a refund on it!", she demanded.

"I can't do that unless I have proof of the food being incomplete and you show me a receipt."

"THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS!!" She wailed throwing her arms to her side fists balled up. "I WAS FORCED TO EAT A MEDIOCRE MEAL NOT EVEN FINISHED AND YOU WON'T EVEN FUCKING GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK?!"

"Wait.." His brow rose. "So the meal was bad..but you still ate it? And you have no receipt but you still want a refund?...I can't do that."

"WHAT?!"

"I don't make the rules, I just work here."

"I WANT THE MANAGER!!"

A tired sigh escaped Giyuu's mouth. "He's not here today. If you want, I can give you corporates phone number and you can file a complaint with them."

A Vien popped in her forehead as she growled. "HOW DARE YOU?! I SPEND HUNDREDS OF MY OWN MONEY HERE YOU'RE LUCKY TO BE GETTING MY BUSINESS!!"

Giyuu tired deadpanned face didn't change as she fired insults and curses at him. However he did notice when a smaller hand tapped her on the shoulder. The Karen snapped around so fast they were all expecting her neck to make a cracking sound as she whirled around to Shinobu who still smiled at her.

"I think it's really too unladylike to be having a child like tantrum.~"

"Who the hell are you?! Mind your own dam business!"

"I'm sorry but I'm afraid I can't do that. You see you are now they say acting like a bitch right now."

"HOW DARE YOU?! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!"

"Yes, yes. How dare you? Who's your manager? Do you know who I am? I'm calling the police. The usual Karen threats and questions." The woman trembled more with rage. "My you're entitled and extremely rude. I may not know who you are but I can make an educated guess.~" She smiled pointing at her. "You're an old bitch who thinks the world revolves around her so much that your gravitational pull sucks up everyone's time and energy.~" Her friendly tone and face still did waver other than closing her eyes. "You know this can be classified as harassment which as you know is against the law." F/c orbs widened as the arm holding the Karen's cup was pulled back. "So why don't you leave before someone actually calls the police on yo-"

S P L A S H!!

Dark liquid and ice went flying through the air. Sticky and syrupy no doubt some kind of too sweet soda from the fast food place. It all went flying through the air and splattered against the warmth of both wool fabric and soft skin with a splash sound. Mitsuri gasped loudly covering her mouth. Giyuu went wide eyed in surprise. The cook popped their head from the back hearing the noises. And Shinobu blinked at what happened.

Y/n spat out the too sweetened taste of cold root beer with a disgusted face. "PFFT!! UGH!!" With a sleeve she reached up in an attempt to get the sticky liquid off her face. "Man that's cold!"

Giyuu turned to the other worker. "Call the police! My girlfriends were assaulted!"

That's when the woman attempted to run, but was quickly snatched up by Mitsuri wrapping her arms around her middle squeezing hard enough to pin her arms to her sides before with a shrill shriek leaned back to lift the woman helplessly kicking her feet out in the air.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE YOU BRUTE!!," she shouted back with a frown. "YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR HURTING Y/N-CHAN!!"

"GUYS!! I'm not hurt! It's just some soda."

"That she assaulted you with!," Giyuu shouted over the incoherent screaming of the woman. Already reaching for the phone. "If it had been hot coffee you could've gotten incredibly hurt! I'm not going to sit back and let another selfish person get away with hurting you."

"YEAH! ME NEITHER! CITIZENS ARREST!!"

"It's really not that big of a deal. I've gotten stuff spilt on me me before. Tell them, Shinobu.....Shinobu?"

Y/n turned to the silently stunned woman in question however Shinobu just stared at her processing what exactly had been done.

Y/n...had gotten between her and the crazy Karen.

Her nice turtleneck was now all set down the front with cold root beer that had been meant for her. A sleeve was still wiping at her face which was also splashed by the unexpected attack from the crazy woman. That...That was going to be her. That was supposed to be her. But she had stepped out between the two to take the brunt of the attack. What if that HAD been hot coffee?! She would've been severely burnt or worse!! What if had been something else just as worrisome?! Or what if it had been a punch?! Y/n continued to stare at the stunned face of Shinobu wiping at her face and neck.

"Shinobu? Hey, Shinobu!" She waved a hand in front of her face making her jolt. "Are you ok?! You're not hurt are you?" She shook her head no and Y/n sighed. "That's a relief. Thank goodness no one was seriously hurt."

"I called the police. They're on their way. Press charges when they get here."

Her head turned to Giyuu. "You seriously called them?"

It was all really a blur of voices and screams. Long story short the police did come back and made Mitsuri drop the Karen who immediately demanded that they arrest every single person in the place and threatened to sue them then sue the MacDougal's company and then she the police for not immediately 'doing their job' and had yadda yadda. Typical Karen shrieking. They explained their side and luckily there was security cameras for them to look at. Another long story short, she was taken away cussing and shrieking in handcuffs and Giyuu had to go get a mop to clean up the soda spilt all over the floor.

"Are you ok, Y/n?," Mitsuri asked concerned as Shinobu wiped her face down with some wet napkins.

"For the hundredth time yes. It's just soda. I'll just change and take a shower when I get home. Nothing some water and soap can't fix."

They still fussed over her face. "You shouldn't have done that. I could've handled it myself. And what if it had been something like hot coffee?"

"I couldn't just stand by and not do anything. You're like a friend to me." Shinobu blinked with a hum as she smiled. "And as I said I do want to get to know you guys better. So don't worry about it. Everyone's alright and that's all that matters. I'm just happy YOU'RE ok, Shinobu."

Shinobu once again blinked before turning to Mitsuri who again giggled much to Y/N's confusion. "What did I tell you guys?~"

"Tell them..what?"

"Oh nevermind. Let's get you home so you can properly clean up."

[pudding-parade]

Hi, guys! Sorry I dropped off Tumblr for a while. I've just been busy. Summer is a busy time for me, taking advantage of brief warm weather to do outdoor things, but also I'm pretty heavily involved in doing on-the-ground political activisms right now, mostly down in Arizona for the Harris campaign, but also locally for down-ballot candidates. It takes up a lot of my time, and I haven't touched any video game in weeks.

But, I am looking forward to being back here after the US election on November 5, which will hopefully end well. I don't really want to be political on this blog, especially after being away for a while, but I want to encourage every eligible USian who follows me to do your research into candidates (not just for president), make sure you are registered to vote, and then vote, by mail or in person. I know it's said that every election is the most important one, but this time, this is actually the case. Please do not sit this one out, and please for the love of pie do not waste your vote on "protest" voting because you think it sends some kind of message. It doesn't. The time to do protest voting is in primary voting, NOT the general election. If you are voting blue, especially if you live in a swing state, remember what happened in 2016 with all the people "protest voting" against Clinton. We do NOT want a repeat of that.

Finally, thank you to the couple of people who sent me private messages here asking if I'm OK. I am OK, and I really, really appreciate your concern! <3

Take care and be well, all. I'll see you in about a month. :)

[musings-of-a-rose]

I'll Always Wait For You - Chapter 18 (Final Chapter)

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

Word Count: 6900+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. 

Notes: Well, this is it. The final chapter. I’m feeling very emotional about this one, as these 2 are my babies. This fic was the second thing I ever started writing AND my first series. I started it in November of 2021 and now I’m ending it in June of 2023. Thank you to everyone who has read it, left comments, reblogged it, talked about it off of Tumblr (I am still FLOORED that this has happened!). This is what keeps people creating. Even if you think you have nothing important to say, or if all you say is just a keyboard mash of letters, I can promise you ALL of it means the world to us. So I dedicate this fic to you, the reader. You’re the real star here and I can’t express my love enough. If you’re ever wanting more, I am always down to write one shots, drabbles, character insights, what ifs, etc for this fic (and any of my others).

Now excuse me while I go cry

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**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

I'll Always Wait For You Masterlist

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<&lt;Chapter 17

“You look so beautiful!” Olivia gushes over you after she tucks the last braid into place, watching you stand and do a little twirl in your white dress.

“You think so? It’s not too much?”

“Too much? Girl, it’s your wedding day. You can’t be too much!”

Smiling, you smooth out your dress as you take in your reflection. You’re marrying Frankie. Your Frankie. Frankie, whom you’ve been in love with since you were 19. This is real. It’s happening.

Ok, technically, in the eyes of the law, it happened a few weeks ago at a courthouse. But there’s something special about gathering in front of your close friends and family, wearing a beautiful dress, and getting to repeat those vows in front of everyone. A soft knock at the door brings you out of your head and Olivia walks across the room to peak her head outside. 

“Mosa, it’s the photographer. Are you ready for the first look?”

“It’s HERmosa!” Frankie’s muffled yell comes from behind the door and Olivia smirks. 

One last glance in the mirror at your reflection and you nod, turning your back towards the door. You hear some shuffling as Frankie is ushered in backwards and the photographers get into place. 

“Turn in 3..2..1..Turn!” Olivia says and then steps back.

You turn, your eyes finding his almost immediately, as if they were drawn there. He’s dressed in a tailored suit, fitting his form perfectly, his grandfather’s kerchief folded and poking from the pocket. But what you’re really interested in is his face, his eyes growing wider and glossier the longer he looks at you.

“Hermosa, you…you’re beautiful,” Frankie says, awestruck.

“You’re just figuring that out?” You say behind a smile.

“No, I mean I always knew but…wow.”

He walks up to you and cups your cheek, running his thumb across it as Olivia hisses something about makeup from the corner of the room. But you couldn’t care less. Frankie was here, marrying you. This is all you’ve dreamt of for well over 10 years. A tear runs down Frankie’s cheek and you wipe it away.

“Are you ok?”

He sniffs and smiles. “I’m the best I’ve felt in a long time. I just…I only wish we would’ve done this sooner.”

“We did. We got married in the courthouse, remember?” 

He smiles at you. “I meant more that we never…that we stayed together since that first kiss.”

“Me too. But we can’t dwell on what-ifs. We can only think about the here-and-nows.”

Frankie tips your chin up and presses a light kiss to your lips, the clicks from the camera going crazy. You pose for photos for several minutes before Olivia ushers everyone from the room, winking at you when she says she’ll give you 10 minutes of alone time before she came to get you. The second the door closes, Frankie pushes his tongue in your mouth, pulling you as close as he can. 

“I can’t mess this dress up, Frankie,” You say pouting.

“That’s ok. I can work with that.” Frankie grips your hips and spins you around, bending you over the back of the chair and clasping a hand to your mouth as he takes you, your hands desperately trying to reach behind you to pull him in closer. 

15 minutes later, Olivia knocks on the door and enters hesitantly, smirking when she sees you smoothing down your dress, Frankie’s face more pink than when she had left. 

“It’s time,” she says, tossing her thumb over her shoulder and looking at Frankie pointedly. He turns to you and kisses your cheek.

“See you out there?”

“Raging sharks couldn’t keep me away.” 

He kisses you once more before Olivia starts clearing her throat. When he straightens up a curl falls on his forehead and you softly push it back to where it was, feeling Frankie’s eyes on you the entire time. He opens the door and looks outside befire turning back to you. 

“Your gift is here.”

“You don’t have to get me a gift, Frank-”

Santi walks through the door, dressed in a nice tux and smiling from ear to ear. You hadn’t seen him since the day he confessed his love for you and you had missed him terribly. Frankie was your best friend, but Santi was a close second and you’d hated the idea of getting married without him there.

“Santi?”

“Hey, Hermosa.”

You catch a glimpse of Frankie’s smile before he closes the door as you wrap your arms around Santi, feeling him squeeze you back just as hard. Separating a few moments later, you dab under your eyes as you try to choke back tears. 

“If I smudge my makeup, Olivia may kill me.”

Santi laughs. “She’s Benny’s girl, right? She’s perfect for him.”

“She’s really great��but how are you here?”

“I uh…Frankie called me a few weeks ago and told me…well, everything. I’m sorry I was screening my calls, Hermosa. I just…I needed time.”

“I understand. But…you’re here now! Are you ok?”

“I’m doing alright, Hermosa. Actually, pretty good.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about her.”

He laughs. “I will. But uh, hey - do you need a Man of Honor? If…if that would…be ok?”

“I would love to have to as my Man of Honor! But…Benny already agreed and I don’t know how to tell him -”

Santi waves his hand. “Benny was in on this. He knows and already said it was ok with him as long as you wanted it.”

Your eyes go wide. “Wait. Benny knew you were coming and he didn’t tell me?”

“Yeah.”

You gasp. “That bitch!”

Santi laughs his hardest yet. “So…”

“Let’s go, Man of Honor.”

The next thing you know, Frankie’s kissing you, everyone whooping and cheering, Aurelia throwing more flower petals into the air as they announce “Mr. and Mrs. Morales.” The rest of the night was like a blur, between photos and eating, first dances and cake, you barely had time to sit until things started to wind down long into the night. When you tried to help clean up, Olivia literally slapped your hand away and glared at you.

“Absolutely not. Benny!” He walks over and play groans when she says she’s recruited him to help clean up. She pretends to twist his nipple when he starts to complain and he yelps, high pitched and smiling as they play fight for a few moments before he gives in, grabbing plates and stacking them to wash. 

Frankie looks exhausted and he’s limping a little, so you beg him to not carry you over the threshold. “You did that when we got courthouse married.”

“Yeah but-”

“No. I’m not having you throw your hip out on our wedding day. Not from this.”

He chokes and smiles, giving in, a dark twinkle in his eye. “Alright. If you insist.” But by the time you’d made it upstairs and gotten your clothes off, both of you were too exhausted to do much of anything aside from a shower and literally fall into bed. But Frankie made up for lost time the next morning, waking you with what he claims was already your third orgasm of the day, his curls mussed up from being buried between your legs. He presses his body to yours, swallowing your whimpers before he adds his own, hips shaking with release. 

You spend your honeymoon at the Miller family cabin upstate, the only clothing you wear being one of Frankie’s shirts and sometimes his hat, which drives him wild. He celebrates another sobriety milestone while there, smiling wide at your praise. When you get back home, you can see he has an extra pep in his step, always a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, always wanting to touch you, whether a hand to your wrist, a touch to your lower back, or a smack on your ass, chuckling as you yelp and smack him back. When you ask him why he looks exceptionally happy, he credits you. “I finally got the girl of my dreams, the love of my life.”

—-

Frankie and you settle into a comfortable routine. You were no strangers to living together, the adjustment taking no time at all. Life goes on as normal, except now, you get to live it with Frankie, no longer separated by a stupid argument, misconceptions, or a bitch of an ex wife. This was exactly where you were meant to be. 

Several months later, Frankie follows you into the family restroom at Target, slinging your purse over his shoulder as he rifles through the bag of stuff you’d just purchased.

“Pink dye first, right?” He asks, raising his eyebrows as he looks at you.

“Yeah. They’re more accurate supposedly.” 

Frankie tears open the box and studies the directions, as if he hadn’t done this several times already. He opens one of the sticks and hands it to you, turning around to give you a little privacy. 

“Start the timer,” you say as you zip up your pants. Frankie hits go on his timer and turns to face you, a pregnancy stick held face down in your hand. He can see your nerves, your worry and concern on your face.

“It’ll be ok, Hermosa.”

“Yeah I know. But what if it isn’t?”

“It will be-”

“We’ve been trying for months, Frankie. I know the OB said to try for a year before fertility testing but-”

Frankie walks up to you and pulls you to him, applying a gentle pressure as he hugs you close, kissing the side of your head. “If it’s negative, then we keep trying, ok? It hasn’t been a year yet and sometimes these things take time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Will told me that it took them months to conceive Liam. And they were trying too. Just…breathe. In….out…”

You breathe with him for a few breaths. “You always were annoyingly calm in a crisis.”

He smiles. “Wouldn’t help to freak out behind the joystick.” 

You open your mouth to reply, but his timer cuts you off. Your mouth jams shut, nerves taking over your body as Frankie holds your gaze. 

“If it says negative, we can keep trying. Remember that. I love you no matter what, Hermosa.” You nod, taking a deep breath. “Ready?”

“Ready.” You flip the test over and look, 2 bright pink lines staring back at you. Tears immediately fall as you laugh, turning the test around to show Frankie, who yells, grabbing you up in his arms and hugging you tightly. He kisses you for a moment, pressing his forehead to yours. 

“I fucking love you, Hermosa.”

“I love you, Frankie.”

He yanks the door open and whoops loudly, people turning to look at him as you follow him out of the bathroom. 

“I’m going to be a father again!” He pumps his fists in the air, smiling from ear to ear as people cheer, clapping and congratulating you as they finish their purchases, one older couple handing you a gift card on their way out, telling you to spoil that baby. 

—-

Frankie was hesitant at first with your pregnancy, despite being so supportive and actually wanting a child with you. A couple months in, you finally ask him why he seems afraid to touch you, that you won’t break. He finally confesses to you that when Elizabeth was pregnant, she did nothing but yell at him, belittling him and wouldn’t let him touch her at all, not her belly, not even to rub her back or feet. She called him horrible names and would blame it on the hormones. Your heart breaks for him and you have no words. Well, you have words but they aren’t nice ones. Instead, you sit next to him on the bed, leaning back onto one arm, and take his hand with the other, gently placing it on your lower belly. His eyes light up as he looks at your tiny for the moment bump, tears welling in his eyes as he brings his other hand up to take the other side. He pulls your shirt up just enough to see your belly skin, giving it a tiny kiss.

“Hey, little one. You grow strong in there and don’t give your mom too much of a hard time.”

From then on, Frankie is all in. Whatever you need, he gets it, even if it’s a ridiculous request at 3am. He’s constantly touching your growing belly, talking to it as much as you do. He finds Aurelia’s old crib in the attic, a few boxes of baby stuff and a bassinet up there as well. He sets up the nursery under your instruction, letting Aurelia help with the decorations when she comes on the weekends. You decide to wait to find out the sex of the baby, thinking it would be something fun to do. So instead you call it “Bean”.

“Think Bean will like this?” Frankie asks, pointing to a baby swing. 

“They might, but Frankie, that swing is nearly $150. We can’t afford that.”

His shoulder’s slump but he agrees. “Maybe we can check the thrift shop. It’s the one thing Will didn’t toss our way.”

He was there for all of the classes too, birthing ones, breathing ones, even the hypnobirthing ones. He signed up for a “birthing partners” class, learning the best ways to support you not just during labor and delivery, but during the 4th trimester, or immediately postpartum. He helped you practice your meditations, making sure you had everything you needed and that you remember to take your prenatal and drink enough water. 

When you’re 8 months pregnant, getting winded from walking down the hall, Frankie gets a call from his boss at Flyboyz on his day off, asking him to come in. He grabs his hat and gives you a quick kiss before leaving, reminding you to drink water. He’d been working a lot lately, trying to make extra money so he can stay home with you and the baby for the first month. You’re not sure how long he’ll be gone, so you plop yourself down on your bed, pulling over the basket of baby clothes that still have to be sorted and you get to work, separating the sizes, long sleeve vs short, nightgowns from onesies. A couple hours later, the front door opens and Frankie slams it behind him, the picture frames rattling on the walls. You set aside the footie pajamas you were folding and go to stand up, but Frankie comes storming into the bedroom before you can move, anger coming off of him in waves.

“Frankie?”

He yanks his hat from his head, tossing it onto his dresser, knocking some things off of it. “I can’t fucking believe her!”

Struggling a little, you manage to get up and cross the room to him, placing your hand on his mid back. He recoils, anger flashing in his eyes but it’s not directed at you. Unsure of what happened, you know he needs to calm down before he can tell you. You grab an ice cube out of your glass of water and turn to Frankie.

“Give me your hand.”

He looks at you, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Just do it.”

He stares at you for a moment before shoving his hand out. You flip it palm up, opening his fingers and place the ice cube in his palm. He yelps, but you hold his hand firmly so he won’t drop the ice.

“What the fuck, Hermosa?”

“The cold will help reset your nervous system.”

“I don’t think- it’s too fucking cold, Hermosa.”

“Just another few seconds.”

His chest, which had been heaving a moment ago, has slowed down, the anger still there but at a manageable level. You tip his hand and grab the falling ice into your own palm, putting it in the sink in the bathroom before coming back to the bed and trying to sit on it. Frankie is there, taking your hand and helping you into bed. He goes to stand but you squeeze his hand and pull him until he sighs, sitting on the edge, his shoulders slumped.

“How do you feel?”

“Fucking angry, but…the edge is gone. Ice…who fucking knew?”

“So..may I ask what happened?”

His eyes darken with repressed outrage. “I thought I was getting extra work. Instead, my pilot’s license has been suspended, pending a review.”

You sit up quickly, eyes going wide. “What??”

He nods, his jaw clenching. “Apparently, someone made a claim that I was using when I flew some clients and now they have to investigate.”

You knew that Frankie had been clean over a year, that he wasn’t using at all. “Oh, Frankie. Wait..who made the claim?”

He looks at you. “It was anonymous but I know it was Elizabeth.” He says her name with absolute disgust and hate that you nearly pull back from him. 

“Elizabeth? Would she-”

“Oh come on, Hermosa. You don’t think it was her? I’ve been clean for well over a year. She’s the only one who would have known that I used that would make claims.”

“What about Rick?”

Frankie shakes his head. “Nah. He left Flyboyz while you were…out of town. I told him he had to leave or I would report him for selling. He started to threaten to bring me down with him, but then remembered you were…not in my life and he could see the rock bottom in me, I guess. So he backed off, just left to go elsewhere. There’s no way it’s him. It’s her. It’s always her causing shit. I’m so fucking sick of it!”

Placing a hand on his back, you start to rub it, adding in little scratches here and there like he likes. “She is a bitch.”

“I just got my license back. I worked so hard on that.” He puts his face in his hands, resting his elbows on his legs. You scoot towards him wrapping your arm around him. 

“I know you did. But you said suspended? That doesn’t mean revoked, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t.”

“So…what does it mean?”

“It means, I can’t fly until it’s reinstated. I have to pee in a cup at random times during the week for 6 months to prove I’m clean before they will lift the suspension.”

“Well there you go!”

He looks up at you, his eyebrows pulling together. “There I go, what? We can’t afford for me to not have this income, Hermosa.”

“We’ll be ok-”

“You’re about to have a baby. Your income won’t happen for a bit, and that’s fine, but we needed this extra money and now I can’t provide that. All because of my bitch of an ex!”

“Frankie, we’ll be ok. If we have to borrow money, we can.”

“I’m not borrowing money.”

“Fine. Then I will borrow it.”

“No, I’ll…I’ll figure something out.”

“Frankie-”

“Just…can we just stop for tonight? I’m trying to process this.”

You open your mouth to argue but then see the exhausted look on his face. “Sure. Why don’t you come talk to us? That always makes you feel better.”

Leaning back against the headboard, you watch as Frankie scoots up the bed, getting level with your belly as you turn on your side so you’re not being squished. He chats to the baby for a while, about everything and nothing and by the time he’s done, his shoulders are relaxed and he’s not as angry anymore. 

Elizabeth never fully admits to being the one to make the claim, but you see the look on her face through the car window when you make your next exchange for Aurelia after Frankie confronts her and you know she did it. There’s nothing you can say or do except wait it out. Frankie getting his license back will be all the revenge you’ll need.

—---- (Skip to the next line if you don’t want to read about labor. It’s not terribly graphic at all, but I know it’s not everyone’s thing)-------

“I never thought I’d have to beg you to have sex with me!” You stomp your foot, furious that Frankie won’t follow the doctor’s advice. 

It had been a few weeks since his license was revoked and you were a week past your due date and not happy about it.

“Hermosa, I don’t-”

“Want to hurt me, I know, I know. But the midwife even said that sex is the best way to induce labor because of the prostaglandins in your semen.”

“You make it sound so sexy.”

“Frankie,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, taking a deep sigh. “I am the size of a house. I am miserable and sweaty and I haven’t seen my feet in months and I just want to have this baby already. If it’s my belly, I can turn around-”

“You are fucking gorgeous.”

“Then please?”

Frankie studies you for a long moment, his shoulders starting to slump and that’s when you knew you had him. “Alright, fine. We can try it. But we’re going slow, taking our time, ok?”

“No arguments here.”

Contractions started within an hour of Frankie cumming inside of you. You weren’t sure at first what you were feeling, but it sort of felt like a bad period cramp, so you assumed this must be it. Frankie timed them all for you, helping you breathe as they got more intense and closer together, and when they were close enough apart, Frankie helped you to his truck and drove to the hospital. In between contractions, you watched him as he drove, expertly winding his way through traffic, a look of focus on his face, a little furrow between his brow the only indication that this was not a normal day behind the wheel. How lucky you were to have this man, who can be calm in stressful situations, want to spend his life with you. 

“What?” Frankie glances sideways at you before turning back to the road.

“You’re cute when you focus.”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Remember how cute I am when you’re in transition.”

Before you know it, you’re in a labor and delivery room, barely spending any time in triage before they whisked you away. Hospitals can be a frustrating place to have a baby. Each nurse walks in and tells you to rest between contractions, try to get some sleep when you can, but then a new nurse comes along within an hour, always rousing you from sleep to take your blood pressure or put their fingers where you didn’t want them. You’d finally had enough of the latter and told a nurse to kindly fuck off, and denied internal exams unless it was a medical emergency. Frankie was by your side the entire labor, putting counter pressure on your hips when you needed it, pulling your hair from your face, sneaking you snacks because they forbid food and you said you’d chomp off your own fingers if they didn’t let you eat. Transition was hard, but all of a sudden, you knew it was time to push. Following your body, you get on all fours, taking your calming breaths, but then realizing that Frankie was not next to you. Turning your head, you see him, wide eyed and backing towards the door.

“I’ll just-” He points his thumb over his shoulder at the door.

“No, please. I need you here with me.” Another contraction has you breathing again and it’s a minute before he replies.

“You want me here?”

“Yes. I need you, Frankie.” 

His eyes start to water over and it doesn’t occur to you then, but later that night it’l come to you - he wasn’t trying to dodge out of the delivery. He was having a flashback to when Elizabeth kicked him out of the room right when Aurelia was making her way into the world, and your heart hurt all over again. Frankie is at your side in an instant, turning to yell for the nurse who had surprisingly not come in for some random check.

“No time!” You yell, letting out a low groan, a technique you learned to help move baby down and out. Frankie’s face slides into focus mode and he moves behind you, just in time to catch the baby as it comes sliding out. He gathers the baby up, holding it close as it screams into the world. The nurse comes running in then, having heard the baby crying as you turn onto your back, arms outstretched to hold your baby, skin to skin.

“Baby is here! I didn’t even know you were transitioning! You were pretty quiet.”

The nurse bustles around and does her thing while Frankie transfers the baby to your bare chest. Tears stream down your face as you look at Frankie, who has tears of his own. He kisses the top of your head. “I am so proud of you, Hermosa.”

A few moments pass, the baby calming against your chest. “Hey Frankie? Is the baby a boy or girl?”

He slaps his hand to his forehead. “I forgot to look! I was so focused on catching the baby and whether it was breathing and not dropping it that I don’t think I looked! Here.” He lifts the hip of the baby and smiles.

“We have a son. I have a son!”

—---No more labor/delivery details—---

Luis Christian Francisco Morales was born perfect. 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, skin glowing. He was the perfect combination of you both, although you say he favors Frankie mostly. 

You both settle into your roles as new parents, a lot of it being new to Frankie too, since Elizabeth had denied him so much. He was determined to not miss out on things this time, making sure you both had everything you needed and watching Luis when he stayed awake between feeds so you could have a nap. Aurelia cries the first time she sees Luis, big ugly sobs, and when Frankie finally calms her down enough to ask what’s wrong, she simply says “He…he’s…s-so so cute!” She happily takes up the mantle of “Big Sister” when she’s with you. Once, you wake from your nap only to find all 3 of them sleeping, Luis curled up on Frankie’s broad chest, Aurelia tucked onto his other side. You snap a photo and then quietly leave the room, taking the time to actually shower. 

About a month in, Frankie comes back from dropping Aurelia with her mom. His eyebrows were pulled together in confusion as he stares down at his phone.

“Everything ok?” You ask, shifting the bottle you were feeding Luis with so it was a better angle.

“Yeah. Uh…Santi just texted me.”

“Oh yeah? Everything ok?”

“Uh..he says congrats on Luis, that he’s the cutest, and that he was out of service for a bit and he’s sorry he didn’t text earlier.”

“That’s ok. I know he’s busy.”

Frankie is quiet for a moment. “He offered me some work.”

“Work?”

“Well, not just me. Benny, Will, and Tom too.”

“What kind of work?” When he doesn’t answer, you look up at him. He kicks his shoes off and sits next to you on the couch. 

“Consulting.” His eyes don’t meet yours, focusing instead on his fingers, where he starts to pick at the skin around his nails.

“Consulting.” You say in disbelief. 

“Yeah.”

“Wait, like a mission?”

Frankie shrugs. “No? I mean, it’s just scoping out a place and looking for weaknesses. We give our report to the government he works with and then come back. Easy peasy.” 

“If it’s so easy peasy, why aren’t you looking at me?”

He takes a deep breath and let’s it out slowly before looking at you. “It’s for a week. Just trying to find holes in a fence.”

“And why do they need you?”

“They need a pilot.”

“You don’t have your license.”

“It probably doesn’t matter over there.”

“Frankie, I don’t-”

“I’ts $17k, Hermosa. We need the money.”

“I don’t like it. So much can go wrong. Who’s house is it? Definitely no one that’s a stand up citizen. What happens if they find you first? No, I don’t like it.”

“Just..he’s coming to town tomorrow and we’re going to chat about it at Benny’s fight. Let me ask some more questions.”

“I don’t like it, Frankie.”

“I know. Just..let me talk to Pope.”

—----

It’s late the next night and you start to pace the floor of your bedroom, wondering when he’ll be back. He’d texted you to tell you Benny had won the fight and they were stopping at the bar for a quick drink before Olivia takes him home to play nurse. 

That had been 2 hours ago.

The door finally opens downstairs and you quietly make your way to the kitchen, where you were hearing Frankie move around. 

“Did I wake you?”

You shake your head. “I was awake. Luis is asleep.”

“Good, good. He go down ok?”

“Yeah, actually in his bassinet, but Frankie? How did it go?” 

He gets a glass of water, chugging half of it before setting the glass down on the counter. “It’s just a recce. No live fire.”

“There’s a possibility of people shooting at you??”

“I mean, we are casing a place. It’s always possible if guards see you or-”

“No.”

He looks at you. “Hermosa, we need the money.”

“No.”

“I don’t have a job. We need this.”

“No money is worth your life, Frankie. None of your lives.”

“I won’t be in any major danger. I’ve done worse.”

“Yeah but you didn’t have a family then.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No. No, I don’t like this, no.”

Frankie puts his hands on his hips, cocking one hip back as he looks at you. “We’re behind on bills.”

“So? I’ll borrow some money and you can stay.”

“Hermosa-”

“Or I can get another job? A new client. I can-”

“You just had a baby, so no.”

“Then I can-”

“Hermosa.” He says it firmly, that hip still cocked back as his eyes find yours, resolve in them.

“You’ve…you’ve already said yes, haven’t you?”

His tongue comes out to swipe across his bottom lip. “We leave Thursday.”

Silence stretches between you both as you stare at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you made that decision without me.”

“I made the decision for us. We need the money.”

“Oh, fuck you and the money! I said I could borrow it. You’re just being stubborn!”

“I’m taking responsibility! We needed money and this just happens to come our way? I have to take it.”

“So you’re saying it’s fate that Santi texted you to lure you down there with the promise of $17k? You’re telling me that it’s just consulting and nothing else? Can you promise me that?”

He shrugs. “That was the original deal.”

“But can you promise me?”

He studies you for a moment, his eyes lingering on yours. “I’m going, Hermosa.”

And with that, you turn on your heel and walk out of the kitchen, closing the door behind you, wishing you could slam it. 

The next couple days were torture. You kept trying to convince Frankie to stay, convince all of them to stay. You didn’t want any of them going. But they all said the same thing that Frankie said. “It’s just consulting.” Thursday morning, Tom comes to pick up Frankie pretty early. He leans over to kiss you in bed and you take one more shot at trying to get him to stay. Your fingers wind into his curls as you pull him to you, deepening the chaste kiss he had started. 

“You can still stay,” you say, your voice barely a whisper.

“I’ll be back in a week, Hermosa. I love you.”

Tears streaming down your face, you reply. “I love you too. Please don’t die. Don’t any of you die.”

Frankie chuckles. “We’ll be fine. I’ll call you in a couple of days once we’re settled, ok?”

—----

Except, Frankie did not call in a couple of days. Neither did any of the others, nor had they reached out to Stacy, Molly, or Olivia. There was no one to call, no contact. They needed it that way for whatever consultation they were on. Stacey brought the kids over and Olivia came too, all of you opting to stay together and support each other at least during the day. As the few days stretched into a week, which stretched into nearly another, Olivia split her time between you and Stacy’s, offering to watch the kids so you each could have a moment to yourselves. She was at Stacy’s tonight, Luis snuggled and tucked in beside you as you channel surf the tv, landing on nothing in particular. It was day 10 and about 2am so all of the infomercials were on. You landed on one for some random kitchen gadget when your phone rings. You jump, grabbing for your phone to quickly hit the silent button before it wakes Luis. It was an unknown number, but definitely foreign and so you pick up right away.

“Frankie?”

“Hermosa,” he breathes a sigh of relief, his voice wavering on the last syllable of your name. 

“Are you ok? Is everyone alright? Fuck, I’ve been terrified out of my mind.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Things got…out of hand. I can explain more when I get home.”

“I understand. But you’re ok?”

“I’m ok. A little banged up but ok.”

“Everyone else?”

The way he’s silent has your throat closing up, making it difficult to speak. “Frankie?”

“It’s Tom.”

While Tom and you never were best friends, there’s no way you would’ve wished death on the man, nor would you have wanted to have his girls without a father. 

—----

Frankie’s mom takes Luis while you drive to the airport, there to pick up Frankie as Olivia and Stacy were going to get Benny and Will. You had experienced all of the emotions these past 10 days, mostly anger and fear, but when you heard his voice, a part of you caved. You just wanted him home and were grateful that he was alive.

You spot Benny first, towering over a majority of the crowd as people file out security and head towards baggage claim. Then you see it - a dark blue standard heating oil cap bobbing next to Benny and suddenly, you’re running, pushing people out of the way as you run towards him, Frankie seeing you at the last moment, dropping his bag to gather you in his arms, burying his face in your hair. Olivia and Stacy copy your actions, Will hissing when Stacy throws her arms around him. He mutters “I’m ok.” before pulling her to him. Pulling back, you look up into Frankie’s black brown eyes, taking in all the features of his face, his laugh lines, the spot where his one dimple pops up, the fact that he had the audacity to shave his beard. 

“You shaved,” you said simply, running a finger along his jawline.

“Yeah. But I’ll grow it back just for you.”

His lips crash to yours, his hands cupping the sides of your face as you press your body against his, fingers twisting in his shirt. 

“I’m still mad at you,” you breathe out between kisses.

“Fair enough.”

Hugs were exchanged all around before everyone went to their homes. On the drive home, Frankie tells you everything, how it was just a consult but then they decided to try and do it themselves, how it would’ve all been fine if they hadn’t missed their window, or if Tom had listened when he said it was too much weight for the helicopter. 

“Wait..you crashed?” 

“Yeah. It was just a little crash.”

“Frankie!”

“It’s me. I landed us…mostly fine. We all walked away.”

He explains about the money and the people from the village, and how they had to trek up the fucking Andes mountains and down the other side. How a young man from the village had wanted revenge and got it, dying himself in the process. How they carried Tom down the side of the mountain, leaving a ton of money there, only to make it to safety and come back with a new chopper to get the money and safely make it back in a whole other country, which is where he called you from. By the end of the story you’re silent, tears quietly falling down your face as you realize how easily they all could’ve died on the side of those mountains. How one of them did. 

“We each put about $5mil in a trust fund for Tom’s girls, made sure Molly was taken care of. It’s what Tom would’ve wanted and it’s…it’ll never be enough.”

“Hey,” you squeeze his thigh and he looks at you, tears on his cheeks. “You are not to blame. Every one of you knew what you were doing, knew there were risks. And while I can’t say who shot first as I wasn’t there, Frankie, it was self defense. And, I’m sorry, but knowing you and knowing Tom? I’d bet money on him shooting first.”

Frankie nods. “Yeah I guess so…. are you mad at me still?”

“I was all prepared to be so pissed at you, but honestly? I’m just glad to have you here and alive.”

Frankie spends the next hour between your legs and you spend the hour after that washing his hair and tending to his arguably minor wounds. Once you were clean and dressed, you made him something to eat, as you’d have to go get Luis shortly. When you set his glass of water down, he grips your wrist, pulling you into his lap.

“How are you feeling? Do you need to call your sponsor?”

He shakes his head. “Surprisingly, no. I think I’m just so grateful to be alive. And there’s one more thing.”

“What?” You ask nervously.

Frankie leans in closer, speaking low in your ear. “We got the rest of the money.”

“The $17k?” You said stupidly.

Frankie smiles and shakes his head. “A lot more than $17k.”

Your eyes widen. “What?”

“Millions, Hermosa. Each. Millions. We’re set for life, as are Luis and Aurelia.”

“Can we stay here?”

Frankie chuckles. “What?”

“I don’t want some giant mansion. I want to stay here. In our house.”

Frankie smiles and kisses you lightly. “We can do whatever you want to.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Besides take care of my family?”

“Besides that.”

“Once I get my license reinstated, I want to start my business.” His eyes light up as he talks about it, how he had already looked into getting retired choppers, and had gathered up some possible contacts, even scouted out some property. The only thing that had stopped him was the money, which was no longer an issue. 

—----

6 months later, Frankie’s license gets reinstated, the owner clapping him on the shoulder and apologizing for everything. A month later, Frankie opens Chopperz, his veteran owned and operated helicopter tour business. It’s a instant success - apparently people really want to experience flying in various retired military equipment being flown by actual veterans. He even has repeat customers, although a lot of them are women and you catch more than one of them blushing when he talks to them. 

Will and Stacy build a new house, much bigger to fit their expanding family, ecstatic that they were finally having a girl. He quits giving speeches almost immediately, staying home with his family and helping Frankie out when he needs it. 

Benny and Olivia confessed that they had actually gotten married the day after Benny’s last fight, not able to wait any longer. When he came home, they took off to travel the world while their dream house was being built just down the road from Frankie and Will. 

Santi went to Australia to find Yovanna and her brother, following them around until they got settled. He and Yovanna stayed together for a while, and he took some time for himself, wandering the world to see things when he wasn’t in a uniform. He eventually came back, building a house down the road from Frankie and the Millers. But to his first get together with everyone, he brought a girl, which wouldn’t have surprised anyone, but you could see the way he looked at her, constantly touching her lightly, pressing kisses to her head, shoulder, lips, anywhere he could. And she was doing the same, her eyes lighting up every time they looked at each other, so when you asked him later, away from everyone else, he scratches the back of his neck and admits that he thinks she’s the one, that she gets him, understands him, and doesn’t give a flying fuck about his money, which she didn’t even know about until now.  

Frankie and you were finally happy, after all these years. Elizabeth finally stopped her shit, leaving you and Frankie to be happy and only communicating when it regards Aurelia. Instead of moving, you decide to expand your house, adding another couple of bedrooms because you want to eventually expand your family. Frankie is beyond happy, smiling at Luis and Aurelia as they run around their new treehouse in the backyard, feeling you wrap your arms around him from behind, kissing his broad back before moving to stand next to him, his arm around your shoulder as you both watch your kids.

“What are you thinking about?” You ask, turning your head up to him.

“How happy I am. How I wish we had started this all sooner, that it didn’t take such a shitty road to get here, and that it didn’t take us this long.”

You reach up and cup his face, pulling him to you as you kiss him, his soft lips lightly nibbling at yours. 

“I’ll always wait for you, Frankie.”

—----  

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[juanarc-thethird]

An Opportunity Has Arrive Part 15

At the White Fang Headquarters

*Knock Knock*

Jaune: May I come in?

Sienna: Oh Jaune, you came quickly.

Jaune: Well, you said it's an emergency so I came as fast as I could.

Sienna: Excellent and I see that you are wearing comfortable clothes as I asked.

Jaune: Yep, gray pants, a hoodie, and some sneakers. So what's the problem? What do you need me for?

Sienna: Of course. Are you familiar with the No Nut November challenge?

Jaune: Yes, it's very popular on the internet. I participated in that too.

Sienna: *Quielty* That explains Blake's behavior

Jaune: I'm sorry?

Sienna: Any way!… are you familiar with what happens after the month ends?

Jaune: Well… I say nothing. But if we go to the internet well… it would be… Destroy-

Sienna: -Dick December, that is correct.

Jaune: Why are you asking me this?

Sienna: Walk with me, Jaune.

Jaune: Okay?

Jaune follows Sienna as she walks towards a door on the other side of the room.

Sienna: Since I know you are very aware of what is happening. You know very well that sexually active women go through a difficult time during the month of November and release all that stress in the month of December.

Jaune: *Remembering how Willow and Winter acted on the first of December* I have an idea.

Sienna: Well, for faunus women the stress is bigger.

Jaune: So you want the two of us to have...

She stops at the door.

Sienna: Oh no, I don't need that… now. I mean, I don't mind the idea~ *Gropes his ass* But I'm really busy today. Returning to the topic. This problem that I mentioned to you only affects younger women. Women around your age, just to clarify. And unfortunately, for different reasons, they no longer have anyone to vent their frustrations with.

Jaune: What happened with their partners?

Sienna: *Sighs* Where to start, they found enlightenment, they decided to live a life without carnal sin, they don't want to "do it" anymore, take your pick. The fact is that this girls are alone and you are the only person I know who can help them.

Jaune: I don't know. I feel like it's a lot of work.

Sienna: Come on, isn't it like you've never been in a reverse-gangbang before?

Jaune: Yes, but this is… different.

Sienna: I'll give you a PS5.

Jaune: *Serious* Deal

Sienna: Wow, just like that?

Jaune: Do you know how hard it is to get one of those? So yes, I will take the deal.

Sienna: Ok then.

Sienna opens the door. Jaune sees that the room is dark and a very strong smell comes out of it, but not a bad one.

Jaune: *Worry* Why is it dark?

Without receiving a response, Sienna pushes him into the room and she announces at the top of her lungs.

Sienna: Ladies, the stud has arrived! *Slams the door shut*

Jaune: Hold on!

He can't see anything, but he can hear a little giggling. Without having a lamp he uses his aura to light up the room, showing him what awaits him~

Velvet: *Close to his face and happy* You finally arrived!

Jaune: AAH!! Oh my god. Velvet, you scared me.

Velvet: Im sorry it was not my intention.

Jaune: It's okay. You know, the way Sienna described it to me, I thought a girl in your situation would act more… aggressive.

Velvet: Oh, that's because I just got here. I can control myself a little better, but the other girls? They do need a good dicking.

Behind Velvet Jaune she can see several girls getting up from the floor like zombies. Jaune panicked, but Velvet comforted him.

Velvet: Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't get hurt....

Jaune smiles

Velvet: ...But I can't say the same about blake.

Jaune: Wait, Blake is here?!

Velvet: Yep, she is right above you.

Jaune looks up and sees yellow eyes looking out from the darkness.

Jaune: Hi-Hi Blake.

Blake: *She lunges towards him*

Jaune: Oh SHiT!!!

Meanwhile outside.

Sienna: *On the phone* Kali, the plan worked. You no longer have to worry about your daughter and the girls under my command can concentrate on their work again.

Kali: *Phone* Really?!

Sienna: Of course, listen. *Puts the phone near the door*

Blake: NYAAA!~💕

Kali: Oh, my baby sounds so happy. By the way, are you going to the Christmas party.

Sienna: Yes I'm going, I already confirmed to Nora that I'll be there.

Kali: Great. Did you buy tickets for the Christmas raffle?~

Sienna: Absolutely~

[taylor-on-your-dash]

Writing of Speak Now Timeline

Disclaimer: Hello! Just a quick note before you dive in. As I said in the Writing of Red Timeline, not every album has enough information to pinpoint the exact date on which its songs were written. Sadly, Speak Now is one of those albums, so I based this timeline more on the experiences that I think inspired the songs on the album. Of course, I'm not Taylor, I'm not in her head and I don't know people in the music industry that can corroborate this research. Therefore, there's always the chance that some of the conclusions might be wrong. You are more than welcome to take the sources listed here and come up with your own theories on the condition that you'll credit me. This is 100% my research, originally posted on Reddit on March 3rd, 2023.

Trigger Warning: John Mayer.

Introduction: The making of Speak Now was very different from Fearless which was recorded live, and closer to Debut. After Taylor wrote a song, the first step was to record a stripped-down demo at Nathan Chapman's studio Pain In The Art, where Nathan would play all of the instruments and Taylor would record the vocals. To understand better what "stripped-down" means in this context, listen to Let's Go. All of Speak Now started like Let's Go. Some of the demo instruments survived, and others were re-recorded by other musicians or overdubbed at a later date, between January 2010 and July 2010. Taylor's demo vocals ALL survived. They were not re-recorded.

[Nathan Chapman Interview] “With Speak Now, we deliberately went back to our initial way of working together. We had an unlimited budget, and could have gone and recorded the whole album in the Bahamas, used any studio we liked and whatever musicians we wanted. But we decided to bring it back to the basics on purpose, because we wanted to keep it about the music and our chemistry. [We were trying not] to over-compensate for the pressure we were feeling for a follow-up to Fearless. That's why we stripped it down and made the demos first. Taylor came to my studio and I played all the instruments on the demos, and because I have a good vocal booth, her demo vocals ended up being the vocals you hear on the record. After finishing the demos, we went out to different studios, and tried different combinations of engineers and musicians to replace some of the elements of my demos, mostly the programmed drums, and to do additional overdubs. So Taylor comes in, and plays me a song, and I chart it while listening to her. I then tap out a tempo, she hands me her guitar, I go into a recording booth, put on headphones, start the click‑track and hit record. She's hearing what I'm doing and singing along while she's in the control room, so I know where I am in the song. After that, I program the drums, usually using Superior Drummer in Logic. I play the drum parts on my Roland Fantom G6 keyboard, and then quantise. I then play the fills that I want to complete the drum part. After this I'll put down a bass part, and at this point we make sure we're really OK with the tempo and that we love the arrangement. I may add an electric guitar to make the track bigger, and then she'll go into the vocal booth and she'll sing the song three or four times. We may do a little bit of comping, but she executes these songs really well, and I don't want to mess with her takes too much. The audience wants to hear someone sing with real emotion. From there we'll listen to what we have and we'll maybe add some vocal harmonies and guitars, and I do a quick mix and she's out of the door.”

WRITING OF SPEAK NOW TIMELINE

November 2, 2006: Taylor writes Sparks Fly, after opening for Jake Owen in Portland, OR, on Halloween night. The secret message in the album booklet is Portland, Oregon. She will perform the song for the first time on April 6, 2007, in her native Reading PA.

[From MySpace] Happy Halloween! I'm sitting at the airport in Portland, Oregon... About to get on a red-eye flight (Oh yes, I just said red-eye. Meaning, all night. This should be interesting...)  to Toronto, Canada for another weekend of Rascal Flatts shows. Tonight was awesome. It was a show in Portland at a bar called Duke's, I opened up for Jake Owen. And a little back-story, I've had his album on repeat for the past couple of months... It's an amazing album and I literally cannot stop listening to it. I've got every line memorized, and if you see me on a plane.. Chances are, I'm listening to some song off that album, at a volume level that's probably going to cause long-term hearing damage someday. ANYWAY. I got to walk in on his sound check and meet him. Turns out he's extremely cool, and had bought my album on iTunes. :-) And since I had to leave after one song of his set, he played my favorite song "8 Second Ride" first. Which is another reason why he's awesome.

The writing date was leaked by Steve Hall from the IC on July 21, 2010. Since we didn't have the secret message yet, we didn't have any reason to believe it was written after the Jake Owen show. (thanks @backup-baby-backup!)

Original handwritten lyric sheet:

May 30, 2007: First performance of Sparks Fly in Oroville, CA. Steve Hall from the Inner Circle/Dark Blue Tennessee.com films it and posts it online.

Differences between the draft and the 2007 live version:

“You stand there in front of me” -> “you stood there in front of me”

“Get me with those brown eyes, baby” -> “get me with those green eyes, baby”

“Take your open hand and take me out” -> “reach out open-handed and lead me out”

“Dim the paper lanterns” -> “don’t need more paper lanterns”

“This night is the 31st” -> “my heart is beating fast”

“So let’s make it count now, baby” -> “I could wait patiently”

“I’ll run my fingers” -> “I run my fingers”

“And make no borderlines” -> “gonna strike this match tonight”

“Forgive me when I can’t take in everything you are” -> “and lead me up the staircase”

“You kissed me like you meant it, I swear I saw sparks” -> “I’d love to hate it, but you make it like a firework show”

There was also an additional section: We stood at the gate (and you kiss me) / With the moon on your face / And you’ll kiss me

September 2008: Taylor and Martin Johnson team up to write a diss track about Camilla Belle, called Drama Queen. This is one of the first steps in the Taylor-Joe-Camilla saga, which started with Forever & Always and Drama Queen and continued on Speak Now. There is no evidence that Drama Queen was considered for Speak Now, but for being an unreleased song, it made it as far as being mastered for the OG Fearless so it has to mean something. In my opinion, it would've taken Better Than Revenge's place, if BTR hadn't existed. Taylor talked about the Fearless mastering process on September 30th on MySpace: this song literally CANNOT be younger, since the mastering of a song is considered a legal document, necessary for copyright protection and the collection of royalties.

March 8, 2009: John Mayer tweets: "Waking up to this song idea that won't leave my head. 3 days straight now. That means it's good enough to finish. It's called Half of My Heart and I want to sing it with Taylor Swift. She would make a killer Stevie Nicks in contrast to my Tom Petty of a song."

Taylor's answer: "I freaked out when I heard [it], because I’ve been such a big fan of John for such a long time. I’m really excited about just the idea that he would even mention me in his Twitter!”

March 13, 2009: [From her Twitter] [second source] "A day off in Sydney. Drove two hours out of the city and spent the day on the beach. Wrote a chorus you'll hear on the next record. :)"

March 19, 2009: [From MySpace] ““I’m wiped out. I've been in the studio all day (I know, I know.. We JUST put out a new album. I think I have a problem, I cannot stop writing songs.) It’s so much fun knowing that you can take your time, because you have like a year and a half to make something you’re really proud of. I love recording a few songs, waiting a few months, recording a few more.. Instead of devoting a few weeks to “record the album” and then it’s just done. I like dragging it out, that way you can be meticulous about every detail. Daydream about different ways to put the songs together, and then take them apart. I’m pretty obsessed with the whole process. So needless to say, it was good to be back in the studio with my redheaded producer who I missed terribly.”

Speculation: One of the songs is possibly Mr. Perfectly Fine, since, as we know from Fearless TV, it was considered for Fearless Platinum. Maybe Haunted was also part of the same recording session. Haunted is the first Speak Now song to be copyrighted, so it has to be one of the first songs.

‘Haunted’ is about the moment that you realize the person you’re in love with is drifting and fading fast. And you don’t know what to do, but in that period of time, in that phase of love, where it’s fading out, time moves so slowly. Everything hinges on what that last text message said, and you’re realizing that he’s kind of falling out of love. That’s a really heartbreaking and tragic thing to go through, because the whole time you’re trying to tell yourself it’s not happening. I went through this, and I ended up waking up in the middle of the night writing this song about it.

The secret message is: "Still to this day".

Early April 2009: Taylor and Martin Johnson from Boys Like Girls write If This Was A Movie.

Speculation: I think it was written in April just because of the lyric "six months gone and I'm still reaching" and Taylor and Joe Jonas had broken up six months before, in October.

Literally nothing else is known about this song.

April 23, 2009: The Fearless Tour starts in Evansville, Indiana. Taylor will write most of Speak Now while on tour.

May 22, 2009: Taylor and John Mayer perform White Horse and Your Body Is A Wonderland at the LA Staples Center.

May 23, 2009: Taylor and John Mayer record Half Of My Heart.

May 29, 2009: [From MySpace] “Tomorrow, after the performance on the Today show, I’ll fly back to Nashville and record a lot of new songs I’ve written in the last few weeks.

June 8, 2009: [From Twitter] "In the studio. I don't know whose computer I'm using. Pssh.. Such a rebel right now.."

June 9, 2009: [From Twitter] "If I said I was in the studio with T-Pain, would you believe me?"

June 12, 2009: American publishes an interview with Taylor where she talks about her third album. The interview was probably done in April.

“There are definitely breakup songs on this record, but not too many. I like to balance out the amount of happy songs, breakup songs, sentimental songs, I-miss-you songs, angry songs. I don’t want to try and harp on the same emotion too much because I feel like if you make the ‘angry’ album, that’s going to lose people.”

June 16, 2009: the Jonas Brothers release their new album Lines, Vines and Trying Times, which includes a song called Much Better, that references Taylor:

I get a rep for breaking hearts / Now, I'm done with superstars / And all the tears on her guitar

This is likely the song that inspires Taylor to write Better Than Revenge, since the phrase "much better" is used multiple times in the song.

“The song "Better Than Revenge" is about a girl, who a few years ago, stole my boyfriend. I think she probably thought I forgot about it, but I didn't.”

Fun Fact: Joe Jonas changed the lyrics from "I'm done with superstars" to "I'm cool with superstars".

July 1, 2009: [From MySpace] “What else is new... Recording a bunch of new songs.”

One of them is possibly Better Than Revenge, maybe even Let's Go. Taylor seems still bitter about Joe leaving her.

July 11, 2009: Taylor writes on her diary about going to an antique shop. This is probably the inspiration for Timeless.

[Lover Journal] I just got back from a trip to Canada that was absolutely refreshing and good for the soul. I never really knew what a good thing having no cell or internet could be. But it was a great thing. I did things a little differently up there, and I actually liked it. I started reading self-help books. It’s really uplifting knowing that you can change your life today, tomorrow … just by doing a few things you never thought of. Or doing things differently than you’ve done them before. New things I adopted from a self help book: Get up early. Keep your cool. Don’t tee off on people you love. Laugh more. You can control your moods. Create a love account and make deposits, in other words, show people that you love them. Another new hobby of mine is ….. antique stores. And not just neat, organized antique stores. I really like the ones where there’s so much crap to dig through, you can find absolute treasures for nothing. I went to 2 antique stores in Saskatchewan, and one today in Winnipeg. I bought all these old glass mason jars. I’m gonna use them for candle holders. I bought old scales and watch faces and chairs and old trunks and a bird cage and 2 lamps.

July 21, 2009: [From Twitter] Hanging with my producer Nathan, discussing the next adventure. Album #3.

July 2009: Based on a Lover Journal, I think that Taylor wrote Never Grow Up in July 2009.

Handwritten Lyrics From a Lover Journal:

‘Never Grow Up’ is a song about the fact that I don’t quite know how I feel about growing up. It’s tricky. Growing up happens without you knowing it. Growing up is such a crazy concept because a lot of times when you were younger you wish you were older. I look out into a crowd every night and I see a lot of girls that are my age and going through exactly the same things as I’m going through. Every once in a while I look down and I see a little girl who is seven or eight, and I wish I could tell her all of this. There she is becoming who she is going to be and forming her thoughts and dreams and opinions. I wrote this song for those little girls.

[Nathan Chapman Interview] “The song 'Never Grow Up' is just she singing and I on acoustic guitar. We recorded ourselves live. That song probably happened in two hours.”

September 6, 2009: Taylor announces Fearless Platinum Edition on MySpace, out on October 26, 2009. It includes Jump Then Fall, which was originally written in the summer of 2008, while Taylor was dating Joe Jonas. The secret message of the song is "Last Summer Was Magical". It seems like Taylor doesn't harbor bitter feelings toward Joe anymore.

“We just put out Fearless last year? I know! We’re not putting out a whole new album. We’re re-releasing Fearless with SIX new songs added. I’m so excited for you to hear this new music, see the new pictures, and watch the 50 million hours of bonus content. I love you a lot and I’ll see you on the road!”

September 13, 2009: New York. Night of the VMA incident, where Kanye West interrupts Taylor while she's accepting the Best Music Video Award for You Belong With Me. Taylor starts writing Innocent shortly after.

Based on the themes of the song and on the fact that, according to the booklet, it was written in 2009, I think that Castles Crumbling was also inspired by the VMA incident.

[GQ] “When the crowd started booing, I thought they were booing because they also believed I didn’t deserve the award. That’s where the hurt came from. I went backstage and cried, and then I had to stop crying and perform five minutes later. I just told myself I had to perform, and I tried to convince myself that maybe this wasn’t that big of a deal. But that was the most happenstance thing to ever happen in my career.”

September 15, 2009 (morning): Taylor is still in New York doing interviews, like The View with Whoopy Goldberg. Taylor says that she bought her own condo in Nashville. Unsurprisingly, the main topic is the VMA incident.

September 15, 2009 (night): Taylor attends Owl City's show in New York. She and Adam Young (aka Owl City) had exchanged emails in the previous months. She writes Enchanted after their meeting.

[MTV Interview] “I started writing that in the hotel room when I got back, because it was just this positive, wistful feeling of ‘I hope you understand just how much I loved meeting you.’ Using the word ‘wonderstruck’ [in the lyrics] was done on purpose, because that’s a word which that person used one time in an e-mail... so I purposely wrote it in the song, so he would know.”

[Adam Young Interview] When Young met the 21-year-old music superstar backstage at one of his shows in New York, he was starstruck. "She was on her way up to meet me and that was the most nerve-racking few minutes of my life just waiting to meet Taylor Swift," he says. "When I met her she was glowing and I was too. It's hard to put into words, but I was definitely wonderstruck to meet her." Unfortunately for Young, nothing ever progressed beyond emails and one fateful meeting. "I think I'm not the most romantic and eloquent guy in the world," he admits. "She's just this endearing, wonderful girl and maybe I said something wrong. Who knows. It went on for three or four months, something like that."

Speculation: I think that the first verse of Enchanted is a reference to the View interview that Taylor did that morning.

September 26, 2009: While touring in Little Rock, Arkansas, with Kellie Pickler and Gloriana, Taylor writes a song, possibly Last Kiss.

“The song ‘Last Kiss’ is sort of like a letter to somebody. You say all of these desperate, hopeless feelings that you have after a break-up. Going through a break-up you feel all of these different things. You feel anger, and you feel confusion, and frustration. Then there is the absolute sadness. The sadness of losing this person, losing all the memories, and the hopes you had for the future. There are times when you have this moment of truth where you just admit to yourself that you miss all these things. When I was in one of those moments I wrote this song.”

[Drummer Nick Buda on the recording of Last Kiss, recorded in mid 2010 circa] On "Last Kiss," South African-born Nick Buda said there was an air of real excitement when they were recording the album. “She is awesome to work with and super-appreciative of her players. There was a real chemistry involved in this record.” Their desire to get exactly the sound they wanted extended to changing Buda’s modern drum kit to a vintage one on some choruses in order to get a different tone from some of the bombastic “teenage rock band” sound. “The songs were so well written that very rarely did they go past a third take,” he said.

The secret message is "Forever And Always".

October 17, 2009: [From Twitter] Travis: you look so out of it. Me: I'm writing a song in my head. Travis: oh, I apologize. I didn't realize you were working."

November 7, 2009: Taylor sings "Monologue Song (La La La) at the SNL, where she mentions her breakup with Joe and dating Taylor Lautner.

November 30, 2009: Taylor tweets: “If I had a dime for every time my producer and I blurt out the same thing at the same time, followed by an awkward, uncoordinated high five...”

Late November/Early December 2009: Taylor writes Ours and possibly Superman. Maybe they're the songs Taylor was talking about in the tweet.

[People Country] “I wrote [Ours] when I was about to turn 20. I was in a relationship I knew people wouldn't approve of and it was just a matter of time before everyone found out. When you're first getting to know someone, it's a fragile time, and then you add newspapers and magazine covers and it can get kind of rough. I wanted to have this song to play for him when it got difficult. Singing it for him was one of the sweetest moments I can remember. [I won't say who inspired it], to me, the song says something bigger, which is "I love you, and I don't care what anyone else thinks."”

(About Ours) “I’m excited about telling the beginnings of stories, like the story of this song called ‘Ours,’ where I wrote it about this guy nobody thought I should be with. So I wrote this song specifically just to play it for him, just to show him, ‘I don’t care what anyone says. I don’t care that you have tattoos. I don’t care that you have a gap between your teeth. I love you for who you are.’ And that song ended up actually making it on [Speak Now] and becoming a #1 song.”

That's how Taylor broke down the lyrics for People in April 2012:

“Seems like there’s always someone who disapproves” -> "I felt like I was on a tightrope. I knew that falling in love with the wrong person could freak people out."

“So don’t you worry your pretty little mind” -> "A lot of people have pretty little heads, but it's difficult to find a pretty little mind."

“People throw rocks at things that shine” -> "I kind of made up the phrase. It has a nursery rhyme feel, which I like."

“The stakes are high, the water's rough” -> "Those are the first lines that came to me."

“Lurking in the shadows with their lip gloss smiles” -> "It stereotypes girls who that pretend they're happy for your and are not."

“I'll fight their doubt and give you faith with this song for you” -> "My realization of what we were up against came out in that line. I was desperate to make it work."

“Cause I love the gap between your teeth” -> "My favorite part of the song. It's symbolic of "I love your idiosyncrasies."

“And any snide remarks from my father about your tattoos” -> "My dad thinks that this line is hilarious. He loves to tease me."

[About Superman] “This is about, well, a guy, as usual. This was a guy that I was sort of enamored with. This song got its title by something that I just said randomly in conversation. When he walked out of the room, I turned to one of my friends and said, ‘It’s like watching Superman fly away.’”

Dear John's secret message is "I Loved You From The Very First Day", which is a line from Superman.

The song also includes the line "Wishing the flowers were from you", which may or may not be the same flowers mentioned in Back To December ("You gave me roses and I left them there to die").

Gossip Speculation: This makes me think that Taylor was never deeply in love with Taylor L (-> "And I realised I loved you in the fall") and she left Taylor L for John Mayer (-> "And if you'd never saved me from boredom, I would've gone on as I was")

December 6, 2009: [From MySpace] “I just got back to Nashville this morning after being in LA all week. Today I was out and about and in the studio all day...”

December 11, 2009: Taylor and John Mayer perform Half Of My Heart at the Z100 Jingle Bell Ball concert in New York. After this concert, rumors of them dating surface.

December 13, 2009: Taylor turns 20.

December 22, 2009: [From Twitter] "I was writing a song and my pen fell into the piano. Still trying to figure out if I should do anything about this."

January 11, 2010: [From Twitter] "Studio-ness with all the same boys who played on Fearless. Home-made cupcakes were brought. Awkward fist-pumps happened. Onward!"

January 13, 2010: [From MySpace] Thank you January. I have had this month off. [...] I've written songs on napkins and sat at a giant table with my whole family on my mother's birthday, all of us in one place for the first time in too long. I've gotten to take what has happened to me and process it to my full capability, and celebrate it the way it deserved to be celebrated. I've made new music. I've gone over the memories and jumped up and down with my producer and floated around with nothing on my schedule other than just appreciating what my life has somehow turned into. So thank you for giving me so much to be thankful for this January. Thank you beyond what I know how to say.

[From Twitter] "More recording. So excited. So excited. So excited. See, I said that three times. Once for every album we've made in this studio."

[Music News.com Interview] “The weirdest place I have ever written a song is probably in an airport, and I got an idea so fast that I had to run to the bathroom at the airport, grab a paper towel and write lyrics on the paper towel. I still have it. I still have it in a box in my room.”

“Getting back in the studio with the same guys I trust and know and love.. (right, the pointing one: my producer Nathan Chapman) (Left, the waving one: Bass extraorinaire, Tim Marks. Clearly marked on his road case.) Nick Buddha is in charge of the drums.”

January 2010: It's possible that one of the songs recorded during the January session was Speak Now.

[MTV Interview] "One of my friends... the guy she had been in love with since childhood was marrying this other girl," she said. "And my first inclination was to say, 'Well, are you gonna speak now?' And then I started thinking about what I would do if I was still in love with someone who was marrying someone who they shouldn't be marrying. And so I wrote this song about exactly what my game plan would be."

“This song was inspired by one of my friends who was telling me about her childhood sweetheart, crush guy. They were kind of together in high school and went their separate ways, and it was kind of understood that they were gonna get back together. Then, she one day comes in and tells me he’s getting married. He had met this girl who was just this mean person who made him completely stop talking to all of his friends, cut off his family, had him like so completely isolated. And I just, kind of randomly, was like, ‘So, you gonna speak now?’ She was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And I was like ‘Oh, you know, like storm the church, speak now or forever hold your peace? I’ll go with you. I’ll play guitar. It would be great.’ She was just kind of laughing, and later on I just was wrapping my mind around that idea of how tragic it would be if someone you loved was marrying somebody else. Later I had a dream about one of my ex-boyfriends getting married, and it just all came together that I needed to write this song about interrupting a wedding.”

The secret message for Speak Now is “You always regret what you don’t say.”

In January 2010, things are starting to get serious. Taylor, Nathan and the rest of the group, are at the Starstruck Recording Studio to finish up some songs.

Mid January 2010: In a Rolling Stone interview, Taylor confirms she has already recorded some songs.

“‘I’ll be moving out, living on my own, experiencing relationships,’ she says. ‘All of that will be documented in sort of a photo-album-slash-diary, which will be this next record.’ I’ve written so much for this next record and recorded a bunch of songs already, but I don’t want to give away any of the titles – it’s still too early in the process. I don’t really write for albums as much as I just write for my life and process what I feel, whether that feeling is resentment or hope or happiness or a crush — writing songs helps me get through those moments.”

January 31, 2010: Taylor wins her first AOTY for Fearless at the 52nd Grammy Awards.

February 1, 2010: Bob Lefsetz posts his particularly negative review of her performance with Stevie Nicks at the Grammy's. Mean was likely written shortly after.

“When you do what I do, which is you put yourself out there for a lot of people to say whatever they want about it, there are a million different opinions from a million different people. I get it that not everyone is going to like everything that you do, and I get that no matter what, you’re going to be criticized for something. But I also get that there are different kinds of ways to criticize someone. There is constructive criticism. There’s professional criticism. And then, there’s just being mean. There’s a line that you cross when you just start to attack everything about a person, and there’s one guy who just crossed the line over and over again. Just being mean, and saying things that would ruin my day. […] There’s always going to be someone who’s just mean to you. Dealing with that is all you can control about that situation, how you handle it. ‘Mean’ is about how I handle it, and sort of my mindset about this whole situation.”

"There's a song called 'Mean,' that I guess you could categorize it into feelings and or relationships but it's actually about a critic."

In a later interview with 60 Minutes, Swift revealed that the critic was someone who attacked her performance with Stevie Nicks at the 52nd Grammy Awards, where she sang off-key.

February 3, 2010: Taylor writes Mean.

[InDemand] "There's a song on the record called Mean. I remember I started writing it sitting on my kitchen counter, just playing it. Then I took a plane and flew to the venue where we were gonna play that night, and finishing it in the dressing room.

I'm inferring the date but Taylor went to Australia on February 4th, so that's the closest date to the Bob Lefsetz's post. Alternatively, the other closest date is February 17th.

February 4, 2010: John Mayer is interviewed for Rolling Stone, and a friend of his says: "Nothing is what it seems. He operates in layers of meaning, where a poop joke is so much more than a poop joke. And he’d be a phenomenal chess player, because he knows all the moves so many steps ahead. That’s just how he operates.” (-> "And I lived in your chess game, but you changed the rules every day.")

February 5, 2010: Josh Farro from Paramore announces his engagement. Since he specifies that some people already knew about it, it is safe to assume that Hailey Williams, his ex-girlfriend and bandmate, knew before this date about it. Taylor's interviews imply that they were talking about the engagement, not the wedding.

I've got some news to share with you guys so here it goes... As some of you already know, I am engaged! So, as weird as it is to stay behind, I need to take some time off to plan the wedding and everything.

February 11, 2010: Taylor Lautner's birthday. Taylor doesn't call him, as she confessed in Back To December.

February 13, 2010: Based on a Lover Journal entry from this day, it seems like Taylor and John were no longer dating. Dear John must've been written around this period.

[Lover Journal, Flight from Adelaide to Nashville]: “My horoscope said today someone new is going to come into the picture and change my life in an exciting way. PLUS, its the 13th so it has to be true. Right? Right Well, I don't see it happening in the form of meeting someone. Maybe I'll get an email or a call. From someone fantastic and life changing. Or maybe I won't. That's more likely. I've been obsessing over the new album. I always do that until it's just right. I don't know if I have the formula just right for this one yet. I know there are great songs. I just need to figure out the strands that bond them together into a great album. And I will obsess until it's there. This album, any album, is the next 2 years of my life. It has to be more than amazing. It has to be great enough to keep MY attention for 2 years.”

“The song ‘Dear John’ is sort of like the last email you would ever send to someone that you used to be in a relationship with. Usually people write this venting last email to someone and they say everything that they want to say to that person, and then they usually don’t send it. I guess by putting this song on the album I am pushing send.”

February 22, 2010: [From MySpace] “I’ve been writing lots of songs.”

March 10, 2010: Taylor writes Mine.

[InDemand] "I wrote Mine somewhere on the road, I think in Texas, actually."

According to three different Reddit sources, Taylor was dating a non famous guy from Belmont University. The coffee shop referenced in Mine is a coffee shop in Austin, TX, by the water called Mozart's.

“This is a situation where a guy that I just barely knew put his arm around me by the water, and I saw the entire relationship flash before my eyes, almost like a weird science-fiction movie. After I wrote the song, things sort of fell apart, as things so often do. And I hadn’t talked to him in a couple months. And the song came out, and that day, I got an e-mail from him. And I was like, ‘Yes!’ Because that one was sort of half-confession and half-prediction or projection of what I saw.”

“Lately I’ve had this bad habit of running away from love. Kind of getting to the place where it’s about to commit, and then you just, like, run in the opposite direction. ‘Mine’ is about the idea that I could find someone who would be the exception to that, someone who would be so sturdy and so much of a sure thing that I wouldn’t run from it. Sometimes I look back on a lot of examples that I’ve seen of love, long term, and a lot of times it doesn’t work out. There are goodbyes and people get really hurt, so I tend to be a little ‘run-awayish.’ But I’m never past hoping that at some point that could change. This song is the first single because it has this… There was this moment between Nathan [Chapman] and I, my producer, when I brought this song in and when we made this demo in one day in his basement and we just kinda looked at each other and we were like, ‘This is it. This is the one.’”

[Nathan Chapman interview] “The demo for 'Mine' took less than five hours to record, and sounded almost identical to the record. After that we worked on the track for another four months, off and on [until July], and spent $30,000 to make sure it sounded perfect in the real world.”

[Scott Borchetta Billboard Interview] "Mine" was a turning point in the album’s development. Swift and Chapman had begun recording new songs almost as soon as "Fearless" was released. The two cut demos in his basement studio and would only take those songs to larger facilities once they felt they had an emotional foundation in the basic tracks. Still, it wasn’t until early 2010 when the album truly began to coalesce. Swift presented "Mine" to Borchetta in his office, just a few doors down the hall from the leather couch in the lobby.

"We probably played that song four or five times," Borchetta recalls. "I’m jumping around playing air guitar, she’s singing the song back to me, and it was just one of those crazy, fun, Taylor teen-age moments." And then it got serious. "I said, ‘Keep going,’ " Borchetta says. "She kind of looked at me like, ‘You’re challenging me.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. You’ve found true north here. Keep going.’"

Taylor will talk about being challenged by Borchetta to write more for Speak Now during the Red Era:

“During Speak Now, when I went to (label head) Scott Borchetta and said, 'The album's finished,' he said, 'No, it's not -- you need to keep writing.'”

Early March 2010: According to Scott Borchetta, shortly after he challenged Taylor to write more, she finishes writing Innocent, which she had started 6 months prior.

"Innocent," written after the VMA incident with Kanye West, for example, didn't come to Swift quickly. "Some songs take 30 minutes to write, and some take six months, which was the case with 'Innocent.'

“It took a while to write that song," Swift says. "That was a huge, intense thing in my life that resonated for a long time. It was brought up to me in grocery stores and everywhere I went, and in a lot of times in my life, when I don’t know how I feel about something, I say nothing. And that’s what I did until I could come to the conclusion that I came to in order to write ‘Innocent,’ " she says. "Even then, I didn’t talk about it, and I still don’t really talk about it. I just thought it was very important for me to sing about it.”

March 24, 2010: Taylor has lunch with Taylor Lautner. This meeting is likely what inspires Back To December. (thanks to @backup-baby-backup for locating the article)

[Interview Clip] Transcript: “‘Back To December’ is a song that addresses a first for me, in that I’ve never apologized to someone in a song before. This is about a person who was incredible to me- just perfect in a relationship, and I was really careless with him. So, this is a song full of words that I would say to him that he deserves to hear.”

[CBS Interview] She explained in the interview that she based the song on a conversation she had with the guy about whom she's singing. "It's not loosely based," she revealed. "It's almost word-for-word. It is a song and a conversation that needed to happen, because I don't want to hurt people. If you unintentionally do so, you've got to make that better."

April 3, 2010: Paramore's member Josh Farro marries Jenna Rice. Taylor attends the ceremony. She also goes to the studio in the morning.

[From Twitter] "Nathan you smell really good! Is that a new cologne?" "Thanks! Actually it's a two in one shampoo and soap. From Dial." My producer rules."

April 13, 2010: Taylor comes up with the title "Speak Now" after Scott Borchetta rejects "Enchanted". She also writes in her journal about getting tired of songs.

[From a Lover Journal] “So I've been obsessing over the new records to the point where it's all I can focus on. I'm majorly stressed and borderline losing it, with all these lists and chronic dissatisfaction. Perfectionist-ness. I keep growing tired of songs because I know I've raised the bar and I can beat half of the songs. Scott and I had lunch the other day. We were talking about the record and I had this epiphany. I didn't talk about it in interviews about how I felt about much of what has happened in the last 2 years. I've been silent about so much that I'm saying on this album. It's time to Speak Now. Scott freaked out. He loved it. We have a title, ladies and gentlemen!”

[Scott Borchetta Interview] “At one point, the record was not called ‘Speak Now.’ It was called ‘Enchanted,'” Big Machine president/CEO Scott Borchetta said. “We were at lunch, and she had played me a bunch of the new songs. I looked at her and I‘m like, ‘Taylor, this record isn’t about fairy tales and high school anymore. That’s not where you’re at. I don’t think the record should be called ‘Enchanted.'” Swift excused herself from the table at that point. By the time she came back, she had the “Speak Now” title, which comes closer to representing the evolution that the album represents in her career and in her still-young understanding of the world.

June 5, 2010: End of the Fearless Tour. Around this week, Taylor writes Long Live, scrabbling the chorus in her journal.

“This song is about my band, and my producer, and all the people who have helped us build this brick by brick. The fans, the people who I feel that we are all in this together, this song talks about the triumphant moments that we’ve had in the last two years. We’ve had times where we just jump up and down, and dance like we don’t care how we’re dancing, and just scream at the top of our lungs, “How is this happening?” And, I feel very lucky to even have had one of those moments, nonetheless all the ones that I got to have. ‘Long Live’ is about how I feel reflecting on it. This song for me is like looking at a photo album of all the award shows, and all the stadium shows, and all the hands in the air in the crowd. It’s sort of the first love song that I’ve written to my team.”

“"Long Live," (in parentheses "We Will Be Remembered"), is the first song where I've ever had parentheses in the title. Besides that, though, this song is about my band, and my producer, and all the people who have helped us build this brick by brick. The fans, the people who I feel that we are all in this together, this song talks about the triumphant moments that we've had in the last two years. We've had times where we just jump up and down, and dance like we don't care how we're dancing, and just scream at the top of our lungs, "How is this happening?" And, I feel very lucky to even have had one of those moments, nonetheless all the ones that I got to have. "Long Live" is about how I feel reflecting on it. This song for me is like looking at a photo album of all the award shows, and all the stadium shows, and all the hands in the air in the crowd. It's sort of the first love song that I've written to my team.”

June 9, 2010: Night of the CMT Music Awards, held in Nashville. 'CMT Music Awards' is the secret message of The Story Of Us.

“‘The Story of Us’ is about running into someone I had been in a relationship with at an awards show, and we were seated a few seats away from each other. I just wanted to say to him, ‘Is this killing you? Because it’s killing me.’ But I didn’t. But I couldn’t. Because we both had these silent shields up. I went home and I sat there at the kitchen table and I said to my mom, ‘I felt like I was standing alone in a crowded room.’ Then I got up and ran into my bedroom, as she’s seen me do many times. And she probably assumed I had come up with a line in the song.”

“'The Story of Us' is a song that I wrote about an awkward situation where, well… Let me just preface by saying that I have happened to run into exes in strange places lately. This is about one of those situations where the strange place that I ran into him was an awards show. I was seated a couple of seats away from him and there was so much that needed to be said, and neither one of us was willing to say it. We were both acting like we were engaged in conversations with people that we don't even know. It was just miserable. I was telling my Mom about it later, and I said I felt like I was standing alone in a crowded room. And then I was like, "Gotta go. Bye!" And my Mom is used to that at this point so, that's what this song is about.”

June 13, 2010: Taylor premiers Mine during the 13-hour Meet & Greet at the CMA Music Festival. Fans ask a lot of questions about Sparks Fly.

“'Sparks Fly' is a song I wrote a few years ago and played in concert. You guys have learned it and I think like it, which makes me really happy. When we did the 13-hour Meet and Greet at the CMA Fest, there was a comment I got over and over again. You guys were saying, 'So what about 'Sparks Fly?' Is it going to be on the next record? [...] I played that song at maybe one or two shows, and you guys just jumped on it and really made it something that I had to put on the album because you really showed interest in it.”

Comparison between the 2007 live version and the final one:

First verse: You say my name for the first time, baby, and I fall in love in an empty bar -> You’re the kind of reckless that should send me runnin’, but I kinda know that I won’t get far.

Second verse: So reach out open-handed and lead me out to that floor / I don’t need more paper lanterns / Take me down, baby / Bring on the movie score / ‘Cause my heart is beating fast and you are beautiful / And I could wait patiently, but I really wish you would... -> My mind forgets to remind me you’re a bad idea / You touch me once and it’s really somethin’ / You find I’m even better than you imagined I would be / I’m on my guard for the rest of the world / But with you, I know it’s no good / And I could wait patiently, but I really wish you would…

Bridge: Just keep your beautiful eyes on me / Gonna strike this match tonight / And lead me up the staircase / Won't you whisper soft and slow / I’d love to hate it, but you make it like a firework show -> Just keep on keepin’ your eyes on me, it’s just wrong enough to make it feel right / And lead me up the staircase / Won't you whisper soft and slow / I'm captivated by you, baby I’m captivated by you baby, like a fireworks show.

Speculation: I think that the line "I'm on my guard from the rest of the world" from Sparks Fly being written after "And you figure out why I'm guarded" from Mine is very telling of what Taylor was going through.

June 16, 2010: [From a Lover Journal] After the CMT Music Awards, Taylor works on The Story Of Us for a few days, before finishing it on June 16th, on her way to Nathan Chapman's studio.

[MTV Interview] “I was at an awards show, and there was a guy there, obviously — it all starts there, doesn’t it? It was a guy I had been in a relationship with, falling out, then we end up at the same awards show, both trying to act like we don’t care, both like, you know, chatting up the people next to us. Afterward, I just felt so empty, like we were both fighting this silent war of pretending we didn’t care that the other was there. And I went home, and I wrote this song about it. And at that point, I had this gut feeling, and I knew the album was finished.”

[Lover Journal Page Transcript] “So I've been a little studio rat since the tour ended [...] I wake up to my cell phone alarm around 9:30 each morning, throw on a sundress, skip makeup, tie my hair in a messy side-braid, and head out the door with no shoes on. Because the only walking outside I'll be doing is from my house to my car, then from my car three steps to Nathan's basement studio. I worked on a song for a few days, then basically finished it in the car on the way to Nathan's this morning. It. Is. So. Good. And I can safely say I am DONE writing this record!! This song is up-tempo, and hooky and sort a torn sounding... like this horrible stressed confusion that comes on when you know the person you're pining away for is in the room. There are these invisible walls keeping things from being okay. So you're not fine. And they're not fine. And I'm happy I wrote that song!! :)”

Video: Making of The Story Of Us Demo

It will be the last song she writes before having a writer's block that will end 6 months later with All Too Well.

[USA Today Interview] [All Too Well] came after a six-month writing drought that followed a particularly toxic relationship. "There's a kind of bad that gets so overpowering you can't even write about it," she says of that time. "When you feel pain that is so far past dysfunctional, that leaves you with so many emotions that you can't filter them down to simple emotions to write about, that's when you know you really need to get out."

June 18, 2010: John Mayer presents Taylor with the Hal David Starlight Award, at the 41st Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards.

John's speech: “You could put her in a time machine in any era and she would have a hit record. Don't confuse everybody loving one thing as hype. Sometimes that's everyone agreeing that it's fabulous.”

From now on, Taylor will only focus on the production of Speak Now, tweaking the songs and overdubbing the instruments.

June 30, 2010: Taylor tweets about Amos Heller recording the bass on Mine at the Blackbird Studio. Clips from this day are also released.

July 8, 2010: Taylor is spotted in Maine, while filming the music video of Mine. The final mix of the song is not ready yet.

[Source] Taylor Swift was in Kennebunk today, July 8, shooting part of a new music video at Christ Church on Dane Street. The Rev. Janet Leighninger, pastor of Christ Church said they had been contacted a while ago by a company that scouts film locations and happened to check the church out one Sunday. “Then they called about a week ago and said could they possibly film here,” she said. Leighninger said she was told it would be a country artist shooting a music video, but not who the artist was. “We wanted to make sure it was appropriate,” she said. On the morning of the shoot, Leighninger discovered the artist was Swift.

[People who were there] "It was a blast to watch! Both Taylor and the guy in her video seemed to be having tons of fun and at one point where he proposes and they kissed he looked up at the camera crew and said 'She said no by the way.' The scene lasted about 30 minutes and then they started filming in the house again."

[Mixer Justin Niebank Interview] "Interestingly enough, I'd done some kind of pre‑mix of 'Mine' for a video thing, with the original drums and bass, and Nathan and Taylor were like: 'This is cool, but we want to go a little bit more for a power approach.' So by the time it got to the final mix they had rerecorded the bass and the drums and it sounded great.

The rough version of the final mix is called "Mine JN Master Mix", where JN stands for Justin Niebank. You can also see "SF" which stands for Shannon Forest, the drummer. The old stems played by Nathan are also visible.

To sum up all of the known Mine demos:

First demo: Recorded in March 2010; all instruments played by Nathan Chapman; Mixed by Nathan.

Second demo: Mixed in June 2010, made for the Music Video; all instruments still played by Nathan Chapman; Mixed by Justin Niebank.

Third demo: Called "JN Master Mix": Mixed on July 21, 2010, bass played by Amos Heller, drums played by Shannon Forest, mixed by Justin Niebank, mix ready or almost ready to be mastered.

July 15, 2010: Taylor and Toby Hemingway are spotted shopping in West Hollywood. This is also the day when the orchestra strings for Back To December and Haunted are recorded, arranged by Paul Buckmaster. Taylor's interview in the studio here.

“I wanted the music and the orchestration [for Haunted] to reflect the intensity of the emotion the song is about, so we recorded strings with Paul Buckmaster at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. It was an amazing experience – recording this entire big, live string section that I think in the end really captured the intense, chaotic feeling of confusion I was looking for.”

Late July 2010: In the meantime, Justin Niebank completes the definitive mixes. Mine is completed on July 21st specifically.

[Nathan Chapman] For Speak Now we had to mix 17 songs in three weeks, and I knew that I would want to go back to tweak some of the songs we had mixed earlier, and I did not want to have to recall the mixing board every time. There just wasn't time for that.

July 2010: Taylor moves out to her own condo in Nashville.

“This summer I've been 99 percent focused on my new record and one percent focused on the fact that I actually just moved into my first place. I'm officially moved in! I'm so excited! As you know, I've been constantly talking about how I've been antique shopping and non-stop planning and construction on this place. It's been really awesome to figure out what it's like to be on your own, just cooking and stuff. I'm having such a blast with it.”

The Never Grow Up secret message is: "I moved out in July".

July 2010: Shooting of the Speak Now Photoshoot with her band, The Agency.

August 4, 2010: Mine is released. It was supposed to be released on August 15th, but since it had leaked its release was anticipated.

August 31, 2010: The Mine Music Video is released. Taylor has a get-together at her home in Nashville with the kids in the video and their families.

Taylor broke down the music video in 2012 in this very funny interview for Vevo Certified;

Behind The Scenes Footage: PART 1, PART 2, PART 3 from the Speak Now Deluxe Edition/Target. This is very unhinged.

[Director Roman White comment] Creating this piece was beyond fun, and I’ve honestly never had a better time on a shoot. Was it crazy hot? Yes. Were there tons of bugs? Yes. Was all of this offset by the insanely gorgeous scenery? 100% YES! We shot the entire piece near Portland, Maine and much lobster was eaten! My AMAZING producer, Tameron Hedge, actually got accosted by a HUGE seagull who took off with her lobster roll (that’s how good they were). Other than that one little incident, Maine was absolute perfection. On the first day, we shot on a private estate with more than 2,000 acres and a private beach, rounding out the second day in a small harbor town. There was a lot going on, and I had a BLAST with the entire gang!

September 12, 2010: Taylor premiers Innocent at the VMAs, a year after the Kanye incident.

“You have to try really hard to regulate what you feel, what you let in, and what you don’t… but then when it comes to making an album, if you make everything general and kind of gloss over your actual, raw feelings, that doesn’t benefit anyone. As far as what to feel and what level to feel it, I can’t really control any of that. It’s just how things hit you, and what you let in is definitely something you’ve got to find a balance for.”

“I think a lot of people expected me to write a song about him. But for me it was important to write a song to him.”

October 25, 2010: Speak Now is finally released.

“There is also the fact that the album is called 'Speak Now,' and that pertains to the album as a concept and as an entire theme of the record, more than I can even tell you," she says. "I've been working on it for two years. Ever since we put out 'Fearless,' I've been writing for this record and conceptualizing it and putting it together in my head, what I wanted it to be. I like to take a lot of time between albums to work up the next one and see what it is. We did the same thing with 'Fearless.' We put two years in between it [and her self-titled debut album] and that gives enough time for me [to] write everything that I live. You have got to give yourself time to live a lot of things, so you can write a lot of things.”

“I wrote all the songs myself for this record. It didn't really happen on purpose. It just sort of happened that way. I'd get my best ideas at 3:00 AM in Arkansas, and didn't have a co-writer around and I'd just finish it. And that would happen again in New York; that would happen again in Boston; that would happen again in Nashville. The songs that made the cut for the albums are the ones that I wrote by myself so – wish me luck!”

“In life you have a lot of situations that pop up and people that come into your life, and sometimes you don’t get to tell them what you wish you would have told them,” Swift said. “This album is my opportunity to do that track-by-track. Each song is a different confession to a different person.”

“Some of the things I wrote about are things everyone saw me go through,” she added. “Some of the things I wrote about are things nobody ever knew about. I’m beyond excited for you to hear these stories and confessions.”

Bonus: The Vault

“My favorite thing to do is make a list of what the album can be, even when I'm in the beginning stages of writing the album and I've got three songs on the list. I still make a list of what the track listing would be like. Which [song] is track one, two or three. And then you keep writing more songs and writing more songs and all of a sudden you've got a list of 25 songs. What I would do is keep bumping off songs that I felt I had overwritten. As you keep writing more songs, your list gets better and better and better. And I did that so many times I can't even count!”

The Vault Titles:

Castles Crumbling

Someone Just Told Me

His Lies

Wonderful Things

I Can See You

Let's Go

Foolish One

Timeless

Bother Me

Electric Touch

When Emma Falls In Love

All of them are self-written.

This post will be edited once we will have additional info on the songs, especially the Vault Songs. Thank you for reading!

[thedinanshiral]

Time is an illusion

After trying to calculate an estimate for Emmrich's age, i thought "hey, why not calculate what Dragon Age year would be my birth year?" and next thing i knew i was falling down a black hole.

Unfortunately i don't have the exact source as this was said earily on during the glorious week of reveals and news and we were all so very excited i forgot to take notes then but i remember it was first said the time skip to The Veilguard was of 9 years since Trespasser. Then it was said to be 10 years since Trespasser. And yesterday someone asked Weekes on his socials and he replied he thought they'd said the year was 9:52 but we'll have to wait until someone releases an "official answer".

Well, here is my non-official answer: the year is Harvestmere 9:53 Dragon. But most of the game should occur during 9:54. How did i reach that conclusion? A mix of in-game and IRL time estimates.

First a disclaimer: I believe Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released in November 2024. I only have my gut feeling and DAI's 10th anniversary, and DAO's 15th anniversary to go by to claim that; this whole thing hangs on a November release.

Ok so I went back to my first point of reference which is The Flame Eternal short story from 2021 which states said story happened "thirty years ago" in 9:22 Dragon. This sets the present of Thedas at that time as 9:52 Dragon.

In Inquisition if you ally with mages, during In Hushed Whispers when asking what year is it in that demon infested future the Inquisitor is told it's "Harvestmere 9:42" and Dorian comments you've missed a whole year. This would mean Inquisition -the game- starts in Harvestmere 9:41 Dragon. Let's say the events of the game take a whole year so it ends in 9:42 Dragon. Then Trespasser makes a jump two years ahead of that, to 9:44 Dragon. This is the year we should center these calculations on. Everything up to that point, DAO, DA2, and even DAI occur asynchronously, meaning they don't happen at the same time we're playing them. That's how a 10 year difference between the Fifth Blight in DAO and Inquisition only took 5 years of ours, and how in the span of a few months of ours 2 whole years passed between DAI the Exalted Council in Trespasser. While we as players experience these events in our present time, they do not correspond to our present time, this is specially clear in DA2 when not even the events of the game happen in the present of Thedas as it's Varric telling Cassandra the story of Hawke. The game begins already letting us know this already happened, more or less as Varric narrates it.

But why should the calendar of a fictional fantasy game match with ours? Well it shouldn't necessarily, but they've set the game roughly 10 years after the previous one, and 10 years have passed IRL as well, and thats enough for me. The short story saying 9:22 was thirty years ago published in late 2021 also matches this. So after establishing that our present and Thedas' seems to be marching at the same rate now, sort of, i took a look at their calendar. Without going into much detail they have 12 months as well and the calendar in use originated in the early Tevinter Imperium, so the months have an original Tevene name used for official records and academia, and a common name used by the people; i'll be using the latter. DAI begins in Harvestmere 9:41, Harvestmere is the 10th month of the thedosian calendar but just because our times kinda match now that doesn't mean Harvestmere is equivalent to our October. It seems it's equivalent to November. The following month, Firstfall, is when thedosians celebrate Satinalia, which obviously sounds awfully much like Saturnalia, a roman festivity that took place during December. Tevinter Empirium is based on Rome, so i think taking this into consideration is enough to say Firstfall is equivalent to December but since we're here the other detail that adds to this is Harvestmere seems to be November also because DAI begins in Harvestmere, and it was released in November 2014.

Following this train of thought i looked at Trespasser's release date, September 2015. If Firstfall is our December, that'd make our September their Matrinalis, so we could estimate then that the Exalted Council takes place around Matrinalis 9:44 Dragon. The All Soul's day is celebrated at the beginning of Matrinalis, so the lack of mention of it during the Exalted Council tells me the day had already passed.

But 10 years after Trespasser IRL would be September 2025, so how do i make it make sense?

If September 2015 coincides with Matrinalis 9:44 Dragon, then September 2025 would do so with Matrinalis 9:54 Dragon, there's a 10 month difference between Sept. '25 and Nov.'24, so that'd make Nov'24 match with Harvestmere 9:53, merely 2 months away from 9:54 Dragon. Nobody's saying the time skip is exactly 10 years down to a precise date so i think just the year being 9:54 should suffice.

This little difference made me look back at the trailers and realize hey, that's not where the game begins, right? Can't be. What do you mean we immediatelt get hired by Varric and go after Solas at Level 1??? Where's the tutorials??? Is Rook always Tevinter or that's just in the case of choosing Shadow Dragons as a faction? What if Rook's faction is the Mourn Watch, what's a Watcher of Nevarra doing in a Minrathous bar fighting Venatori? What's a Veil Jumper from Arlathan Forest doing in a Minrathous bar fighting Venatori? What's a Grey Warden doing in a Minrathous bar fighting Venatori?? Who says "yeah sure let's go" when a couple of dwarves approach them at a Minrathous bar after fighting Venatori like "hey we gotta stop an elven god from taking down the Veil and destroying the world, wanna come?"?????? The cinematic trailer was just that, ilustrative, but the gameplay trailer was more intentional in everything it showed, and what it didn't show at all. We are introduced to a Rook who happens to be of the Shadow Dragons so them being in Minrathous needs no explanation, and they start at lv.1 and immediately thrown into combat with nothing resembling a tutorial ( except for some commentary edited in to present different aspects of the new system, as it's a gameplay reveal trailer).

So my guess is, yeah the game starts in Harvestmere 9:53 Dragon, and in the two months left until 9:54 Dragon maybe we're shown Rook at their home, or where their faction is, maybe establishing some relationships within said faction ( friends, family, rivals, etc) and thats' when we get a quick tutorial and some context because remember, technically one doesn't need play the previous games first to play The Veilguard. New players must have some introduction to the world of Thedas, what's what, who's who, where's where and what's at stake. So i think the two months difference is when all that -plus a trip to Minrathous if they're not already there- can be crammed into so the action truly starts in 9:54, more or less 10 years after the events of Trespasser.

Not saying i'm correct in my estimations here, and as i mentioned at the beginning all this hangs on a November release, and the time skip being of more o less 10 years. If in the end any of that turns out to be different everything i presented in this post falls like a house of cards. But hey, it was fun putting it up.

If you've read this far, thank you and congratulations, you're a very patient person.

[shae-la-hyene]

Ok since nobody asked, I'm gonna liveblog eating gluten while most likely coeliac, maybe as a cautionary tale.

To be clear I did not get a coloscopy to prove it so I do not have a definitive diagnostic. From what I've experienced I am 90% sure I'm coeliac, and let's face it the last ten percent are denial.

After about three years of miserable gluten free lifestyle, I snapped. It went like this :

October 6th (2024) : had a plate of terrible crispy chewy and sticky all at once pasta, had a breakdown, decided 'fuck it'

October 8th : bought donuts, ate two, keeping the other four for breakfast tomorrow. Go to sleep, trying to avoid a panic attack

October 9th : no reaction from my body, I'm pissed that I stopped gluten for so long for no good reason. Psy says it might be a nocebo. I'm mad at the entire world. I feel like shit and all my muscles are sore but I convince myself it's the fibromyalgia.

October 9th (at night) : nevermind I got diarrhea I'm definitely reacting. Less painful than last time I ate bread, though, so I keep going. Not giving upnjust yet.

October 12th : I want a kebab so much it dominates my thoughts

October 13th : everything hurts, especially my back and joints. I need an ice pack and I take more breaks time than actual active time. I give up and just go to bed

October 15th : spent the last week exhausted and sore, but still in denial.

October 16th : Everything hurts. If it's because of the bread ? Worth it. I can take painkillers. I can NOT eat gluten free pasta ever again.

October 18th : the absolute luxury that is bread and butter... Having fresh pasta because I might as well

October 20th : I feel so bad I don't even know what to do that might help. I have a headache the size of a watermelon and my body is just a blob of pain and exhaustion. My lower back is sending me sharp constant pain. I google how to know if I have kidney stones. Sure sign is blood in urine. Bitch I'm on my period.

October 21st : spent an hour and a half maying in the dark and silence and the headache is receiding a little so now I want to eat (I'm starving constantly). I feel like shit all the time. Best friend is worried I'll die. We all die someday. If pasta kills me, I win.

October 22nd : ate an entire baguette today, with different toppings. No regrets.

October 23rd : I am of the opinion that my body should not hurt after I spent ten hours sleeping on my brand new bed. Alas, my body and I rarely agree. I think it's shutting down, hard. I google the symptoms for coeliac disease. It's not really helpful since half of those I already experience thanks to my other chronic illnesses. ''The consequence of that is an alteration of quality of life'' no shit sherlock. My main way of knowing is if I have a dramatic weight loss. If I'm coeliac, gluten will damage my intestines and will make it unable to absorb nutrients. I don't have a scale at home so it'll wait til I see my doc. That means that until I see him I can stay in denial. I wish I had a body that worked... You know what will fix this ? A big bowl of pasta.

October 24th : I'm constantly hungry. It ain't looking good.

October 25th : I'm sick again. I'm sick every other day now. Things start tasting off, not the way they're supposed to. Weird. Bad weird. No matter, I finally understand lactose intolerant people risking it all for cheese.

October 29th : I'm so overwhelmed I'm inches away from brutally murdering my cat for standing on my chair's arm. Not her fault but my kneecap has been in the wrong position for hours and won't go back to normal so the pain of it is enough to break the camel's back

November 2nd : I'm so exhausted I can't do anything. Took a mix of painkillers, muscle relaxants, and anti inflammatory meds. Went to lay in bed for a while, end up taking a 8 hours nap. Forced myself to stay awake three hours, and then go back to sleep.

November 3rd : obviously wake up famished. Slept with a bucket next to my bed since I got very close to puking my meds out last night. Everything I have available to eat is unappealing, especially anything with wheat in it. My body is craving proteins. Try to eat, but everything, up to the most basic black tea, tastes so weird. Still exhausted, still in pain, considering taking anti inflamatory meds again today. Reconsider my most recent life choice but too stubborn to give up bread. I'm really not doing good...

That's it for now. I'm not going to the doc yet so I'm gonna keep up with the experiment. Wish me luck.

[renjibozo]

episode 8 trailer dropped, you know what that means !

guess who's back for another prediction.

ok first off before i put the cut, i just think rei's english is so pleasant to the ears that's all

okay spoiler territory time

(edited a little to add in a little something)

it seems we're finally at that point of PV 2 and 3 where they started planning and preparing a birthday !

but first let me just cry about how cute the conversation between kazuki and rei are before i get into the topic of the scenes playing in the trailer

(don't trust my translation 100% i am only going off of how i understand it with limited knowledge)

Rei: Because Miri came, I started to feel the seasons. Kazuki: That's true∼ Rei: And I thought summer was just hot. Kazuki: You do become more of a hikikomori when the summer comes... Rei: Summer was just limited to coolers, but... Kazuki: But? Rei: There were... also days where I thought the sunlight was nice

also this

Rei: It's the first time that I've ever thought that I liked this weather Kazuki: Barbecuing on tiles sounds good too Rei: I'll have to refuse. Kazuki: Eeh?

i love how rei's a little more talkative and especially about his likes and dislikes when it comes to summer

anyways onto the scenes!

kazuki and miri are preparing but i'm still not sure if they're preparing for rei's birthday because putting kazurei's conversation aside, it should be related to the episode still like the previous trailer for episode 7

since miri's zoo trip is over and the rainy season was shown in episode 7, and kazurei talked about the summer weather, i can only guess that it really is gonna be a rei birthday thing because no way is it miri's birthday bc hers is in november, and her acquisition was in christmas eve

rei bday might be somewhere between june to september

i will cry if i get this correct

the suwa manor i assume??

we don't really see rei outside of the house on his own especially in work attire so this is new new

this implies that despite kyutaro once looking at rei saying he knows the consequences of betraying the organization the most, he is in contact with his boss (father)

did he have an escape attempt once? is this episode going to elaborate on that? this seems more of a rei backstory episode after kazuki's backstory episode

local malewife malewifing as usual, nothing out of the ordinary except he looks just a bit more natural in his position rather than vaguely distressed

im willing to bet kazuki's the one who did her hairstyle because i feel like rei would just accidentally tug on her hair every few seconds but i might be proven wrong or they never show us

favorite child and unfavorite child face off? they have similar facial structures and hair strand placement

the color contrasts is screeching into my face as well

(also i just think rei looks like slender man in that screenshot jesus christ he is terrifying)

now why is this man here

he cannot be related at all so whats he doing here !! was he hired by rei's boss to take care of him or something !!!! curious. so curious

i really do wonder what sort of conversation they're having in the midst of a gunfight inside a ship

maybe the organization found out about miri and them taking in miri?

the infamous "Rei-papa looks lonely sometimes" scene which really just wants me to think its a rei bday episode

NOW WHAT IS THIS !!!! HELLO !!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT HAPPENED LITTLE CRINGEMAN

he's showing too much emotion so i'm convinced that there was a threat made to miri and kazuki by favorite poster suwa child

we never see this man with any kind of scratch or wound from episodes 1 to 7 during gunfights, but we see him a little roughed up in this scene for once which really screams this man might be nearly superhuman but he is not Immune to physical damage (nor is he immune to psychological warfare)

this episode has me hyped because it seems like a tenser vibe compared to kazuki's more melancholy confrontation with his past which he ends up coming to terms with

hopefully rei does get back home safe and sound even if he gets a wound or two, manifesting!!

thats all folks, thanks for coming to my newest installment of yuzu loves overanalyzing 40 seconds of footage

[fourseasonsfigs]

Tian Ya Ke Music Box + Whirling Wenzhou

This is the first of 3 music box (and figure toppers) posts, and we're starting off with the original box and waist hug figures.

The inspiration for this incredible music box and waist hug is of course the iconic twirling scene from the end of Episode 13. This is impossible to catch in still form, but I tried anyway:

Yep, nope, impossible. The scene cuts to Gong Jun's hand wrapping around Zhehan's waist right here anyway, so we really need the behind the scene footage to further enjoy this.

I did, however, get MANY captures of Gong Jun's and Zhang Zhehan's immaculate faces, of which I will limit myself to one each. This is of course (of course!) relevant to our future fig perusal.

I bought this music box way back in the day - it was one of my first orders through a buying agent (Superbuy), just as I was starting to (slowly and painfully, with a lot of mistakes) figure out how to buy things from Weidian. I will say no other order has stressed me out like this one, and I'm not naturally a high stress person.

This launched for pre-orders November of 2021, and it felt like a real leap of faith purchasing something that I had no idea would work out or not. At the time I didn't belong to any chat group or Discord that had helpful people to explain how to order these sort of things, and I didn't have any friends that knew either. I had picked up here and there from Twitter that items bought on Weidian had this thing called "virtual shipping", everything you bought was totally non-refundable, and if you missed secondary interim or final payments you would lose the entire order.

Sounded...dicey. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? The artwork sale listing was beautiful, and it seemed like something unique and very special:

So, in the finest tradition of A-Xu himself, I took a gamble. The listing I actually bought was for this, for a "Round Circle with BGM":

Hahaha! I forgot how excellent this artwork is! The shocked look on A-Xu's face! His flying ponytail! The smirk on Lao Wen's face! Too, too good.

I worried the entire time (7 months) this was in production that I would miss a supplemental payment and/or the postage payment and lose the whole thing. I set reminders to myself and obsessively checked the maker's page every week. Which was good, because the maker came out with the other music boxes and toppers that I'll post about later.

I had successfully prepared myself so well for the potential disappointment of messing this purchase up, that I was actually a little surprised (and delighted!) when it finally landed in the warehouse. And then I worried a little bit about getting it overseas to me safely.

Luckily, the packaging the seller does is incredible. The music box came carefully nestled into a foam lined box (this is all three music boxes, if my memory serves this particular one came in the bright blue box):

The figs came in a custom plastic clam-shell tucked inside a box with artwork of the bridge. I love the clam-shell packaging, it's the absolute best - it protects the figs beautifully.

The music box itself is just gorgeous. The detail has to be seen to be believed, so let's roll some footage!

First, let me just note there's no need for sound on, because there isn't any - I thought about winding up the box and then playing it so you could hear it, but figured taking detailed video of the box itself was better than simply hearing a delightful but slightly tinny rendition of Tian Ya Ke. Since my outstanding figthusiast readers only deserve the top quality best, I provided white glove treatment for you! (Sadly, the white glove service extends only to not having to watch my manicure twirl the box around, I left these out on a shelf for a bit and did not realize I should have dusted off the lint on the top! 😬)

Ok, now let's actually roll that footage!

Beautiful, isn't it? I'll admit I was mesmerized by watching the box turn myself as I was typing out these words. All these iconic landscapes.

The hairpin came separate, tucked on the top of the music box, and fits just as neatly into the lock as you might expect. The key does not actually wind the box - you wind the box by turning the base itself. The key starts and stops the music, as far as I can tell - I have only played the music a couple times. I'm babying it!

This is the underside. The felt base isn't glued to the inside of the box, and yes my heart skipped a beat when I held it with my fingertips on the base and it popped up into the box innards. I could tilt it and see the music box mechanism inside, but I didn't do that for more than a few horrified seconds before I quickly adjusted it back into place. I was worried I might have knocked something into the mechanism and broken it, but it was fine.

I seem like a nervous wreck, don't I! I'm not actually, but after figuring out how to buy this, waiting all those months, watching for and paying all those interim payments, arranging shipping overseas and then it finally getting to me, the thought of breaking it due to my sloppy handling is understandably a bit nerve wracking!

Here they are on the music box. The figs all have magnets on the bottom of their feet, so they almost snap right onto the top of the music box when you get them close enough. They're very secure.

Alright, since Tumblr only gives me one video per, I'm just going to do a full 360 degree photo circle panorama:

(cute, Lao Wen!)

Ta-da! One circle completed! Beautiful.

Here's the magnets I was talking about on their feet. Great detail and quality here on the robes and pants and shoes.

The seller also included an extra bonus - a small roll of washi tape with the same pattern as the music box. Also incredible!

[Washi tape not actual size! It's about 3.5 cm tall, or about 1.3 inches for us metrically-challenged folks]

Come back tomorrow for the second music box, which is equally incredible!

Material: Metal and magic for the music box, PVC for the figs

Fig Count: 193

Scene Count: 15

Rating: I just don't like anyone bullying my A-Xu!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[daydreamgoddess14]

My bad habits lead to you pt. 5

MASTERLIST

Sequel to We lie awake in love and fear

From a prompt by @lilacmermaid25:

5 times Ted returns from Kansas for a wedding, one time he returns 'just because'.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Here we go... nearly at the end now. Sorry in advance for the cliffhanger! 😘

Chapter 5

Colin and Michael - New Year's Day 2025

From: rebecca.welton@richmondafc.com

To: henlasso@gmail.com

Date: 31st November 2024

Subject: Stuff

Hello Henry,

Thanks for your email, I hope you've recovered from Thanksgiving? How's the TIE Fighter coming along? You'll have to send me a photo next time. I was thinking of getting a Millenium Falcon for Christmas but I'm not sure your mum would want it taking up her house! Maybe I can get one and you can keep it here. I'm sorry to hear about your dad and Marie, you were right - he didn't tell me. I hope he's OK, he told me what you said when you came over last time. He wants to be close to you, and I can't blame him - you're so much fun to hang out with! Next time you visit we'll have to plan some days out - as long as you don't mind me tagging along?

Speak to you soon!

With warm regards, Rebecca

(Hi Michelle, of course I don't mind, it's lovely to hear from both of you. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if Ted hadn't been so stubborn in keeping his UK and Kansas lives so separate. Take care, R)

From: henlasso@gmail.com

To: rebecca.welton@richmondafc.com

Date: 7th December 2024

Subject: Christmas 

Hey Becca (can I call you that? Dad does so…?),

I hope you're ready for Christmas? I can't wait to visit again, I hope I can get dad to agree to take me in the spring. It would be so cool to have a Millenium Falcon! But it is huge, mom said it could live at yours and we can build it together when I visit. I asked mom whether I could visit more but she said it's up to my dad. 

Thanks for the Roblox credits! There's a way cool new game on there I want to try!

Love H xoxo

Hey Rebecca, at this point I think Henry’s ready to hop on a plane alone to visit. He misses Richmond so much! I think I'll join him! It's a shame Ted can't understand that it's not just about where he is. I'm guessing you haven't spoken to him recently but he's probably less present a few blocks away than he was 4000 miles away. How can I persuade him that home isn't a place? After what I've heard about/from Marie, I get it now. It's you. Will keep trying, but you know how stubborn he is! Speak soon, Chelle xo

From: rebecca.welton@richmondafc.com

To: henlasso@gmail.com

Date: 18th December 2024

Subject: Christmas 

Hi both! 

Did you get the Christmas box OK? Just some things for both of you. The Falcon is safe in my office ready for when you visit! 

You're both welcome to visit whenever you want - without Ted if you wish! 

(Here’s the boring bit for mum! If only you knew the things I suggested to him. Schools for both of you - anything you wanted or needed. I know it was too much to ask of you though. Just as I'd never ask Ted to leave Henry, he'd never ask you to uproot your lives in Kansas. It's not about me, I know this is the sacrifice he believes he needs to make as a parent.)

We had a crazy Christmas party this week - Isaac dressed as Santa again and we somehow managed to get Jamie to dress up as an Elf! I've sent some of the tamer pictures for you, but it did get wild! Nate has got a new Karaoke machine and it gets a bit of a workout every Friday after training. I’m pretty sure it’s just so Roy can go and do some work in peace though and he knows they won’t bother him. I’m going to Leslie’s for Christmas dinner this year, but first I have to go and take some gifts to some families in the community. I’ll pop in and say hello to Mae for you, H - she asks after you all the time! She suggested one of the gifts in your box - I wonder if you can guess which one?!

Love, Becca (of course you can call me Becca, darling. I love it!) xxx

From: henlasso@gmail.com

To: rebecca.welton@richmondafc.com

Date: 24th December 2024

Subject: Christmas 

Hi Becca,

Merry Christmas!

Your gift box was way too generous - thank you! Henry loved all of it - especially the dart board! And I'm so grateful for the things you included for me, you really shouldn't have! 

Hen told his dad that we'd been mailing you, I think he was a little surprised! 

I don't think you overstepped by looking into schools etc. It just shows how much you care for Ted - for all of us, really. Things were obviously a bit strained at the time with Jake around. Turns out he wasn’t as great as I thought - always the way!  

Have a great Christmas & hopefully we'll get to see you soon. 

Love, Chelle & H xoxo

~~~~~~~~~

Rebecca beamed at her inbox, the month she’d spent exchanging emails with Henry and Michelle had been lovely - her responses had gotten less and less formal and she’d really been able to see Michelle in a new light. Though she hadn’t heard from Ted personally and therefore wasn’t supposed to know about his split with Marie, she was grateful that Henry had told her. It had brought her so much joy to send a huge gift basket over to them for Christmas. She’d laughed hysterically at the thought of Henry and Michelle trawling through the big box with gifts for both of them while Ted looked on utterly bemused. She’d sent a box to him too, a separate one with new LASSO Richmond shirts - she hadn’t taken him off the staff workwear order list so every few months a handful of new training polos arrived for him, she’d taken to sleeping in them. She’d also put a really great picture of the two of them from Keeley and Roy’s wedding where they’d been laughing together in the box along with the snacks she knew he’d come to love which he couldn’t get in the US. She’d had the guru in the IT department burn a CD for her - to their horror - of songs she’d noted that reminded her of Ted. She could picture him driving Henry to school and the Macarena coming on. She’d had a wonderful Christmas dinner with the Higgins’ and members of the team who didn’t have family locally. Since the year when everyone had descended on his house, the event had remained popular and once she’d done her gift deliveries she’d joined them. She’d taken photos of the huge table - the surfboard needed to be used again, selfies with half the team and Julie, and sent them to Ted. She’d video called Keeley, Roy and Jamie who’d had a quiet morning but were expecting Phoebe for a sleepover, she’d caught up with her mother, Sassy and Nora and exchanged messages with Trent. By 10pm she was back home and exhausted. She poured a large glass of wine and took it to her sitting room where she could put her feet up and Netflix on. Her phone buzzed on the arm of the sofa with a call from Ted.

“Hello stranger. Merry Christmas.”

“Hey Becca, Merry Christmas. Sorry it’s been a while.”

“I’ll forgive you. How’s your day going?” She checked her watch, late afternoon for Ted.

“So far so good. Been at Michelle’s with Hen and both of our moms.”

“Hmm… ouch?”

“Something like that. I keep running into Michelle in the kitchen trying to hide from them. Henry keeps dragging us back in so he doesn’t have to handle them alone.”

“Poor boy, you can’t do that to him!”

“Good job someone sent him a heap of lego to keep him busy?”

“If you think that’s a lot of lego, you should see my home office.”

“You didn’t have to, you know?”

“I wanted to. Henry means a lot to me, he deserves to be spoiled.” 

“And Michelle?  I didn’t realise my ex wife and my… you had gotten so close.”

“My you? We’ve made a connection, that’s all. And I remember you said she’d heard about my skincare routine so I thought I’d send some products. One of those luxuries she’d never purchase for herself.”

“At 200 dollars a bottle?”

“Ted, we’re in our forties, I have no intention of looking like my father when I get to 70 and ‘m sure neither does Michelle. We have to take care of ourselves.” He didn’t respond. “Ted, are you mad that your ex wife and son and I are emailing each other?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. Why does it feel like you’re all conspiring against me?”

“We would never do that. I don’t know what kind of woman you think I am, Ted, but I distinctly recall telling you that I would never influence your choices when it came to Henry. And Henry and Michelle are looking out for you.”

“Some would call it meddling.”

“Some would call it loving you. If you’re going to be a prick, I’m hanging up. It’s Christmas day and You’ve Got Mail is on.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. Of course Henry isn’t meddling, he’s a kid.”

“He knows more than you give him credit for. He knows his own mind, and he knows when the people he loves aren’t happy.” Silence again. “Are you coming over next week? For the wedding?”

“Of course, I’ve got a streak to maintain.” Rebecca choked on her wine. “In that, I haven’t missed a Richmond wedding yet?”

“Right, that streak. Well Colin is very excitable. Everyone is looking forward to seeing you.”

“I’m surprised they’re not sick of me. Is it me or has there been a lot of weddings since I left?”

“No, there has. Keeley and I were talking about it. They all seem to be happening in very quick succession. I’m ready for a break from them now. But you know us, any excuse for a good party.”

“True.” He mused. "How've you been?"

"Good, I've not long gotten back from Leslie’s. Half the team were there, it was a lovely day. Thierry is awful at charades and Richard brought his new Victoria's Secret model girlfriend."

"Sounds fun, what's she like?"

"Oh she's lovely, she's doing a PHD in mechanical engineering. The modelling is just a side hustle."

"Sounds like the premise for a romcom."

"It does, doesn't it? Suffice to say all of the boys were very enamoured with her. Though I think she's far too smart for them."

"Someone I know is remarkably similar, actually."

"Keeley? That's what I said."

"You, sweetheart."

"Don't be silly."

"Underestimated by anyone and everyone."

"Except you."

"Oh I'm definitely stupid enough to have underestimated you in the past. I try to avoid it now." She heard hushed voices in the background of the call, "hang on a sec." She waited for a minute and her phone beeped with a request to switch to video. She accepted and the screen filled with Ted and Henry. 

"Henry!"

"Becca! Merry Christmas!"

"You too! Having fun?"

"Both grandma's are asleep on the sofa. I came to get dad to do some lego."

"You guys had better run then! Can't miss out on lego."

"Have you had a good day?"

"I have, thank you, all the better for seeing you though!"

"Mom says hi, she's starting the book you sent her."

"That's wonderful, darling. You've still got the rest of the day to have fun, it's nearly bedtime for me." Ted watched back and forth, first surprised by Henry calling her 'Becca', then by her calling him 'darling'. "I'll let you both go, thank you for calling me. It was so lovely to hear you both. Ted, I'll see you in a few days? And H, we'll work on a Spring visit? See you soon my love!" She said with a wink.

"Go choose a lego set, Hen, I'll just say goodbye to Becca." Henry disappeared from view, "A Spring visit?"

"We've got some great days out planned. You should join us." Rebecca said with a smirk.

"You're trouble."

"Only occasionally."

"I'll see you in a few days."

"You will. Goodnight, Ted. Merry Christmas."

"Goodnight, Bec. Merry Christmas."

~~~~~~~~

Ted was due to arrive the day before New Year's eve. Rebecca and Keeley had planned on attending the match late afternoon on New Year's eve and then a low key team celebration to see in 2025. Roy had given strict instructions for everyone to have a tame night, nothing wild or crazy, so that they could all be fresh and ready for Colin's wedding. 

"Come on, Jamie!" Rebecca roared alongside Ted as Jamie received the ball from Dani and found space through the center of the pitch. They were 2-0 down and the second half had just started. They needed three goals in the next 45 minutes to avoid struggling in the second half of the season. He hit the post and Rebecca growled in frustration, the ball bounced back towards Sam who managed to get it under control and take a shot of his own. Nelson Road went crazy as Sam's shot found the goal. Rebecca was on her feet, as were Keeley and Ted. The ball was barely back in play when Dani took a shot of his own to make it 2-2.

"I don't know whether I like watching from up here more, or down by the pitch. I didn't realise how excited you get." He said with a knowing grin. 

"Ted, this is nothing - I thought she was going to run down to the pitch during your last game!" Keeley laughed. The match frustratingly slowed down and Richmond were unable to score again, luckily neither did the other team so they settled with a tie. Beard did some complicated math over dinner at Ola's and tried to come up with the various combinations of final standings until Rebecca took his notebook away with a glare, 

"We are 5 months away from the end of the season. We're only halfway through." She sat back down next to Ted and stashed the book into her bag. Isaac's hand came down to knock on the table. 

"Get the karaoke out - Jamie's gotta sing Britney!" he ordered. 

"Why?!"

"You hit the post. Thems the rules bro."

"Nah man, we got the goal!"

"Sammy got the goal. You got the post. Sing for me, pretty boy." Jamie cursed and grumbled while Nate set the machine up. He soon warmed up to his audience and treated them all to a rendition of Toxic - complete with saucy dance moves. 

"It's no Macarena, but that boy can dance." Ted pointed out. 

"One day, I'm sure he'll teach you how to Macarena if it means that much to you." Rebecca soothed. 

"I'd rather learn it from you. Them hips definitely don't lie, honey." They’d hardly left each other's side since he arrived at Nelson Road just in time for the match, they'd also not said a word about Marie. Rebecca could feel the knowledge that he was single coursing through her veins, it both put her on edge and comforted her all at once. It seemed to put more tension between them. Should anything happen, neither of them would be in the wrong this time, but the arrival and departure of both Matthijs and Marie hadn't never really been the issue. They'd just been disguising the original blocker of Ted's move back to Kansas. The karaoke continued despite Roy trying to tame them all. When it became clear that Colin and Michael were also up for a party, no one else had any excuse to leave early. If the grooms wanted to sing karaoke the night before their wedding then the team wouldn't let them down. After much persuasion from Rebecca and Keeley - who'd both worked their way through the Spice Girls back catalogue - Ted was finally on stage. He'd refused to sing alone though so Keeley cued up a duet for him to share with Rebecca. 

Don't go breaking my heart

I couldn't if I tried

Honey if I get restless

Baby you're not that kind

Don't go breaking my heart

You take the weight off of me

Honey when you knock on my door

Ooh, I gave you my key

They bumped hips in time to the music, Rebecca’s arm over his shoulder and a shared microphone between them. Around the room, the team loved every second. 

Woo hoo

Nobody knows it

But when I was down

I was your clown

Woo hoo

Nobody knows it

Right from the start

I gave you my heart

Oh-oh

I give you my heart

Rebecca pointed at Ted, singing every word to him. He joined in, laughing and spinning her around. Jamie watched curiously,

"Ey, are they together or what?" He nudged Roy.

"Fuck if I know." 

"I mean, they look like they're together. They act like it. Do ya reckon they've fucked?"

"Course they have." Despite having asked the question, Jamie still nearly fell off his chair in shock. 

"Fuck offffffff! How'd you know?"

"Cos I fuckin' know."

"Keeley told ya dint she?"

"No, she wouldn't tell me anything. I guessed. And I had to go back to our room at Beard's wedding so I overheard them. Scarred me for life."

"Obviously dint scar ya that much, me an Keeley had a great night." He teased. "I can't believe it. I mean, I can, it's just weird to think about."

"Too weird to think about?"

"Too fuckin weird."

"What's weird?" Keeley asked, squeezing between them. 

"Ted and Rebecca fucking."

"That's not weird. That would literally be the hottest thing in the world. I'd combust."

"Hang on, hang on, you've got us… but you wanna watch that?" Jamie asked, affronted. Keeley nodded her head, 

"Duhhh! Anyway, it's nearly midnight so get ready for a snog boys!" Sam managed to wrestle the microphone from Beard and gave them a two minute heads up. He switched the speakers to the radio for the countdown and went back to drag Simi away from the bar where she was lining up row after row of shots. Ted returned to Rebecca after catching up with Nate for a while. 

"So, boss-"

"Not your boss, Ted."

"If you say so. Who ya kissing at midnight? Keeley Jones-Kent? Beardo the Weirdo?"

"You?"

"Me? You sure about that?"

"I'm not fully convinced, but I don't exactly have long left to find an alternative." Ted turned to face her. 

"You want an alternative? How 'bout Dani?"

"Hmm. Both girlfriends are here."

"Jan?"

"You?" She suggested again, an exasperated smile forming. 

"Back to me again, huh? Wow you're really limited on options." In the background, the team were counting down. 

"Oh, I think you might be the best option." She leaned in towards him, 

Six, five, -

"In fact, you're the only option."

Four, three, two, -

She hesitated briefly halfway to a kiss, but of course, he met her in the middle. 

One! Happy New Year!

The noise of their family around them faded into the background as Ted's hand cupped the back of her head and his fingers tangled into her hair. He pulled her closer, sliding along the bench to bridge the gap between them. 

"Happy New Year, Becca." He whispered, resting his forehead against hers. 

"Happy New Year." She went to lean back in to kiss him again, "Will you come back with me tonight?"

"Sure will, sweetheart, if that's what you want?"

~~~~~~~

The party quickly began to fade with the new year coming in. Colin and Michael left to try and get some rest before the next day. With Leslie, Julie, Trent and the other older members of the group heading out, Rebecca and Ted decided to join them. They all jumped into a selection of waiting Ubers, calling out goodnight, blowing kisses and looking forward to the wedding. No one said a word when Ted got into Rebecca’s cab. She leaned against him in the back seat, her hand on his thigh and his hand tracing patterns down her arm. At her house, he helped her out of her coat and followed her upstairs where he unzipped her dress. She sat on the edge of the bed while he removed her high heels, a hand stroking up her calf. She pulled the dress up and over her head, leaving her in the lingerie set she told him she brought with him in mind. He sat back on his heels with a smile.

"You look beautiful."

"Thank you," she said shyly. "I missed you." She reached out for him. "I've had enough of quick, stolen moments."

"Tell me what you need, baby?"

"I need you to make love to me, Ted." He stood up to remove his clothes while she watched. He blushed, but she pulled him towards her by the waistband of his boxers and kissed a line from one hip to the other. She palmed the hard line in his boxers but he gripped her wrist before she could touch him any more. He pushed her gently back onto the bed, still holding her wrists, and raised them above her head. 

"Keep those hands right there for me, honey."  He muttered against her skin, then he kissed a hot path down her body, his mustache scratching against her stomach and hips. "I just realised the most terrible thing." He said, pulling her lace knickers down. He pulled her thighs apart and dragged her down to the edge of the bed. "I haven't gone down on you since the first time."

"That can't be true." She whined as he licked through her folds. He stopped to reply, making her moan with the loss of contact. 

"Sure is baby, it's been more than a year of quick, stolen moments, remember?" Before she could reply again, his mouth was on her clit and he was pumping two fingers inside her. He had her on the edge almost immediately, knowing exactly where and how she needed him. She came hard, her hands still above her head but frantically gripping the sheets. He didn't let up as she came, he continued to suck and tease her until her thighs clenched around him again. Unable to touch him with her hands, she ground her hips against his mouth, desperate for more contact, more of him. He took his time so he could really see her fall apart, he'd missed being able to drag it out for her - they’d had such little time together. When he released her clit with a pop, she moved her legs and reached to pull him up the bed. "Where d'ya want me, sweetheart?" He asked, hands coveting her body, biting a nipple through her bra. 

"Sit up." He did as she asked, back against the headboard. She straddled his lap and wasted no time in sinking down onto him. 

"Hmm, thought we were taking our time?" He asked, grunting into her collarbone as she settled. She stopped moving, 

"Maybe you were. Shall I go slow?" She teased, bringing his face up to her. She ground her hips so slowly, it was like she'd barely moved at all. They both groaned deeply. She fucked him slowly, languidly, rising and falling onto his cock at an agonising pace. The friction against her clit was exquisite each time she rolled her hips. The tension built until they were both mumbling each other's names and little else. Rebecca captured Ted’s mouth in a filthy kiss, sending them both over the edge as he gripped her hips tightly while he spilled inside her. He held her against him as they caught their breath.

"Fuck, Becca. I love you." They fell asleep together quickly, knowing that for the first time in over a year, they'd also wake up together. Their morning together reminded Rebecca of the morning after their first time - right before Ted had left. Before Matthijs, before Marie. She woke to him spooned around her, hands roaming her body. He pulled her leg back to hook over the back of his knee and open her up to him. His hand snaked across her waist, dipped to guide himself into her and then rolled around her clit until she reached behind her to pull him into a messy kiss. Then in the shower, he’d gotten to his knees while she was trying to wash her hair. In the kitchen, bent over her kitchen table, just as he’d dreamed about. And then finally, on the stairs before they left for the wedding.

~~~~~~~~

Rebecca watched Colin fiddle with his tie again. The young Welshman looked more nervous than she had ever seen. She couldn't hold herself still any longer. She passed Ted her bag and brushed past him. It was only a few steps to the front of the room where she took his hands away from his tie and held them gently. Ted watched her smile at the young man, she talked quietly to him as she released his hands, unknotted and retied the tie. She kissed his cheek, also turned to Isaac alongside him, and held his hand for a second before popping back to her seat.

"Soccer mom." Ted teased. 

"Fuck you."

"Please do. That was very sweet, is he OK?"

"Have you not had enough of me since midnight?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "He's nervous. He'll be fine. The very public declarations of love are the hardest part." Michael appeared in the doorway, appearing far calmer than Colin. 

"There's no such thing as enough of you." He whispered. Once again, Rebecca cried during the ceremony while Ted supplied tissues and held her hand. Once the ceremony was over, the attendees headed toward the bar. Colinand Michael had chosen a lovely boutique hotel in central London for their venue, both families had descended en masse along with seemingly all of Richmond. 

“Someone had a good night.” Keeley said to Rebecca while Ted was at the bar with Roy and Jamie.

“Are we talking about you guys? Because, I would probably pay to watch that.”

“Aww babe! I’d let you watch for free. I meant you though.”

“You’re too kind.”

“You’re glowing. The kind of glow that only comes from about 5 orgasms.”

“Pretty sure it was more like 7 or 8.” Rebecca muttered.

“Fuck me!”

“I’m a bit tired actually, can we reschedule?” 

“I’m not surprised you’re tired! How are you still standing?!” Keeley asked gleefully.

“No idea. Gin and the promise of more?”

“Yeah that’d probably keep me going too. So are you… together? Giving it a go?” Ted was on his way over with Roy and the drinks.

“No idea, haven’t talked yet. Mostly just fucked.” Rebecca managed to admit just before they were in earshot.

“Hi Ted!” Keeley greeted him with a knowing grin. “Get back to Mae’s ok last night?” She asked innocently.

“Hey Keels,” he kissed her cheek, “did you guys have a good night? I stayed at Rebecca’s last night, shared a cab y’know. New Year's Eve, crazy Uber prices and all that.”

“Hmm yeah. I mean, it’s not like you’re both filthy rich or anything. Who needs to spend an extra 30 quid on a taxi, that would just be reckless.” She raised an eyebrow. Rebecca cleared her throat.

“Excuse me, I’m just going to the ladies. Keeley?”

“Nope, I’m good right here thanks babe.” Rebecca hesitated,

“Sure?”

“Yep, off you pop.”

“What is it with you two and off you pop?” Ted questioned as Rebecca disappeared from view.

“I’m asking the questions here, pal.” Keeley spun to face him. “What’s going on?” Ted had a caught in the headlights look about him.

“I… don’t know?” Roy stood behind Keeley shaking his head.

“Wrong answer. You’re in for it now.”

“Wrong answer. You’ve got this whole perfect boyfriend vibe going on since you arrived yesterday, loving on her like you two haven’t been torturing each other for over a year. And she told me about last night. Or this morning. Whichever, whatever.”

“Keeley, I-”

“I want to make sure that you’re not going to hurt her. You have no idea how brightly she shines when you’re around - those little infrequent visits and the hot, sneaky sex and then you bugger off back to Kansas and it’s like she’s not sure of herself.”

“She always shines.”

“She does, yes. But when you’re here it’s… honestly it’s something else. And maybe you don’t see it, but when you’re not here there’s a piece missing.”

“Let me guess, the lemon in the gin? The salt in the tequila?”

“Yes! See - you do get it!”

“Beard said something similar. So did Becca, actually. But they were referring to…” he gestured around the room, the team. “All of this. Everyone.”

“It is everyone, don’t get me wrong. But we all have something, someone. I’ve got Roy and Jamie, Leslie’s got Julie, the team are the team. We all pulled each other along when you first left and we got by, but you just don’t see how much harder it is for her. Going home alone every night? She’s the only one with no one.” Ted looked down into his whiskey. “I, we,” she looked around the room, “care too much for her for her to be alone. We care too much for you too.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Thanks Keeley.”

“I love you , Ted.”

“I love you too, hon. You’re the best.” He put an arm around her.

“Don’t fuckin’ tell her that, she’ll get a big head.” Roy groaned. “She’s already got enough people under her thumb.”

“Including you, baby!” Keeley replied with a wink and a finger gun.

“Oh god, are we telling Keeley how great she is again?” Rebecca rejoined them.

“I’m the best, apparently.” The younger woman beamed.

“Yes you are, darling. I certainly can’t live without you.” The party soon got into full swing, despite hangovers from the previous night. With Keeley’s comments echoing in his mind, Ted focused on Rebecca. Slow dancing with her, joining her with the team and staying by her side. No one questioned it, no one asked what they were to each other. He stayed at her house again that night. He made her a cup of brown water in the morning to take back up to her in bed, eager to get back to her.

“Goodness me! Ted, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Mornin’ Deborah, nice to see you again.”

“Good morning. Nice to see you’re wearing clothes.”

“Yeah well, Rebecca warned me you have a habit of dropping by unannounced. I’ll go and get her.” They spent the day together, went out for dinner with the coaches, their partners, Leslie, Julie and Trent. Rebecca could almost believe that it was real, that this was their life together. She watched as he packed up the small suitcase he’d retrieved from Mae’s after apologising to her for not once sleeping in the bed he’d paid for. She sat cross-legged in the center of the bed wearing one of his coaching t-shirts. He’d found the drawer full and she’d had to come clean about why she had them. 

~~~~~~~~~

The following morning, he left her with a kiss at the front door to go to the airport. She managed to wait all of 20 minutes before she was hurriedly dressing and following him out of the door. Habit again saw her purchasing another first class ticket.

“Well this feels a lot like deja vu.” He said, stepping away from the ticket desk. “Another first class ticket? Where for this time?”

“I need to say something.” She replied nervously. “I didn’t say it last time, I was too scared. But I can’t let you leave again without saying it. We’ve both ruined potential new relationships because we can’t seem to let go of whatever this is. I need you to know that I love you, Ted. I love you more than anything in the world and I’d do anything if you’d stay. I want-” her voice broke over her tears as she voiced everything she hadn’t said previously. “I want you to come back to me. I want you to come back for me. If it means I spend half a year in Kansas with you, I’d do it. Whatever it takes, I need you to know that I’ll be all in, just say the word. But we can’t keep doing whatever this is. I love you too much to keep stringing this along. I love Henry too much to take you away from him. So we either find a way, or we don’t.” He stepped forwards to hold her as she cried in his arms again. 

Last call for passengers to Paris, France.

“Let me… let me think. Let me talk to Michelle and Henry. God, sweetheart I’d give anything to be selfish right now, but I can’t. I love you, Rebecca. I’ll love you forever, but I need to figure this out first.” She nodded through her tears, her fingers holding onto his until the last moment as he stepped through the gate to his waiting flight.

[celestias-selfships]

Promo

The old Anastasia can’t come to the phone right now.

Why?

Oh, cause she’s dead!

Hi, I'm Anastasia, I'm 19, and I love selfshipping. I left the community and kept this blog for a while because I was not mentally ok and I was healing. I wanna be here and make friends here. I don't care about politics. I don't care what views you hold, I just wanna make friends. I'm a huge Swiftie. I'm down to share F/Os, if you don't want to and you don't want me to interact, let me know. If you have rules for people who have the same f/os, let me know and I'll follow them and tag.

turbulent INTJ, Hufflepuff (not supporting JKR, just liking the vibes of the hufflepuff common room and the double entendre), Reputation stan, harbinger of chaos, princess

Favorite artists: The Doors, Taylor Swift, Palaye Royale, Elle Lexxa, Siouxie and the Banshees, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails

Self insert: Celestia, an ex disney actress turned popstar.

tag: #I'll be the actress staring in your bad dreams

Celestia's wiki

F/O list with tags (in case we share, you can filter those tags if you want) and statuses (if no status, assume we're still dating)

Geralt of Rivia (not Liam Hemsworth, married, The Witcher) #linked by destiny

Alucard (Hellsing) #Hells Bells

Jareth (Labyrinth) #dance on fire as it intends

Damon Salvatore (weird on/off again fling, The Vampire Diaries) #maybe we got lost in translation

Enzo St. John (The Vampire Diaries) #with every guitar string scar on my hand

Elijah Mikaelson (The Originals) #never let me go

The Darkling/Alexsander Morova (Shadow and Bone) #Moonlit Drive

Dean Winchester (Supernatural) #november flush and your flannel cure

John Reese (Person Of Interest) #my knight in shining armor

Silco (Arcane) #we got the love in automatic

Viktor (Arcane #Gold Rush

Malcolm Bright #brighten up my life

Leon Scott Kennedy (Resident Evil) #whiskey on ice sunset and vine

Reno Sinclair (Final Fantasy 7) #aint it funny

Ferid Bathory (Seraph of the End) #nocturnal serenade

Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer on Netflix) #Don't blame me

Daryl Dixon (The Walking Dead) #the archer

Astarion (Baldur's gate III) #i was enchanted to meet you

Undertaker (Black Butler) #angel of small death and the codeine scene

Sebastian Michaelis (Black Butler) #carnations you had thought were roses

Connor (Detroit Become Human) #Can we always be this close

Karl Heisenberg (Resident Evil Village) #a shot in the darkest dark

Killian Jones (Once Upon A Time) #today was a fairytale

Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) #is it cool that I said all that

Robert Montague Renfield (Renfield) #a love for the ages

Blade (Honkai Star Rail) #love the void

Patrick Jane (The Mentalist) #crazy = genius

August Ruthven (The Case Study of Vanitas) #red are the arms of luxuriant chairs and you won't know a thing until you get inside

Noe (The Case Study of Vanitas) #good old fashioned lover boy

Vanitas (The Case Study of Vanitas) #mr doctor man

Dwayne (the Lost Boys) #wait for the signal and I'll meet you after dark

Jerry (2011 Fright Night) #take the highway to the end of the night

Kaeya Alberich (Genshin Impact) #like snow on the beach

Tartaglia/Childe (Genshin Impact) #Ocean blue eyes looking in mine Alhaitham (Genshin Impact) #life was a willow and it bent right to your wind

@canongf Hi, I'm the anon who is returning after a bit. thank you for letting me tag you!

[bardicbeetle]

So it seems like a lot of your vampires are pretty young, where/when (ish, it’s OK if you don’t have concrete things for all of them) did they all start? Are there any particularly old ones hiding out, or are they a newer phenomenon in your world? Does being young affect them? Would being ancient?

Oooooh alright nonnie.

Yes, a lot of my vampires are quite young, only dead a few decades or so. But there's a handful of older ones we meet along the way. They aren't a new phenomenon as far as the world at large, but the older ones are definitely few and far between.

So, lets go backwards shall we? And then at the end I'll get more into what age does to them.

Starting with the youngest, Alex is turned present day. The how is still shifting and uhh, frankly I hate that I haven't decided. Current iteration: Eric suggests (read: fucking vampire hypnosis) they just bite the bullet and drink from the bottle Daniel gave them when he and the rest of the vamp!house offered to let Alex stay permanently. They remain in a halfway state between human and vampire before making their first kill, which is one of their parents, which one is also constantly changing.

Next is Moira. She's turned sometime in the early 00s, though she's technically lived with Jesse and Daniel since the 90s. She wanted to settle into the town they bought a house in without doing it in the dark. Which, fair. Jesse is the one who actually gives her his blood, per her request.

Jesse is turned sometime between 1987-1989, exact year pending, but early november whichever one. On the way back to California after his younger sister Sarah goes missing. Originally the plan was for Daniel to kill him, since it was what he wanted (ish, dying on his own terms was better given circumstance). Daniel offers to make him a vampire instead so he can go looking for Sarah (and because both idiots caught feelings, what else is new).

Before this, a brief sidestep from the vamp!house residents, we get Eric. Eric is turned by Carter on Amalthea's orders, though it's somewhat a joint effort (Carter's blood, but Daniel's the one who has to force him to kill). This happens around 1976. Exact location currently unknown. Eric resists (or plays at it) but eventually takes probably too well to vampirism. By the time we reach present day, Eric is a patchwork mix of color and monochrome, saturation leeched from flesh and hair from the amount of Amalthea's blood he's consumed by then.

Aaaand we're back. Daniel is turned by Amalthea in 1967, after blacking out drunk and waking up in an unfamiliar forest. She torments him for a little while, and forces his first kill to be his fiancée's younger brother. None of this goes well for him. He remains under her complete control for about six years before regaining some semblance of himself again.

Carter is next after Daniel, a "casualty" of the revolutionary war. He's turned by Amalthea when she finds him mostly dead on the battlefield. He's mostly content to do as he's told, with the understanding that it keeps him alive and mostly well.

Lila is the eldest of the trio when Daniel is taken into Amalthea's group. She never really mentions how long she's been around, but she does know Madeleine which puts her at least firmly around the 17th century. She's an experimenter, and it ends up getting her (and eventually Carter) killed after she pushes the limits of Amalthea's patience one too many times.

There are a whole host of people between Lila and back but lets get into the proper meat of the question.

Amalthea.

She is, old. There's something consistently unsettling about her, in whatever body she happens to be using at the time. Her original body has been lost to time, and the ones she's taken down the line have just been whatever she's managed to make use of (this was originally Lila's purpose, but that didn't go as planned). Every part of her is color leeched, looking more carved marble than flesh. Everything except the eyes, which stay so bright red they seem to glow. Even if she's just taken a new body, the saturation is going to leech away immediately, as though it can't hold with her presence inside it.

This sort of thing does happen to my vampires once they get beyond a certain age, starting to fade. Not tonally any different, but rather, someone has taken the saturation slider all the way down to nothing. Starting in extremities, in hair, creeping inwards until there is nothing left untouched by the monochrome except the eyes.

Most vampires don't survive that long.

But enough of Amalthea's (or, strictly speaking, any vampire old enough to be fully faded already) blood can start to do it too. In bits and pieces. We see this with Eric, his hair and skin going more and more colorless every time he shows up, a walking neon sign saying he's still in Amalthea's pocket and all the stronger for it. We see it with Daniel when he's taken back, when he's bleeding out everything he can to keep Amalthea's new group weaker and unable to threaten her.

Thanks for the ask!!!

[chimpoozle]

chimpoozle's Maison Ikkoku Facts #1 - Godai's Remark

Maison Ikkoku by Rumiko Takahashi is one of my favorite manga\anime of all time, if not my #1 favorite. And now that I am here on tumblr I will use it as an outlet to share things I find interesting about this series that I expect most people don't know. Since this is the first post in this series of posts I will start at chapter 1 of the manga, with an examination of a speech bubble whose nuance and context have been lost amid their travels through the barriers of language, culture, and time.

6 pages deep into the very first chapter of Maison Ikkoku, we (and the rest of the cast) have just met Kyoko Otonashi for the first time when she unexpectedly appears and announces that the previous manager of the main setting's boarding house has retired and she will be moving in and taking over as the new manager. It is clear from this first interaction that our protagonist Godai is feeling some kind of way towards Kyoko from the outset.

Below in Japanese is the scene I want to discuss:

Kyoko: 明日管理人室に入ります��で.......きょうはこれで失礼します． Yotsuya: は, お待ちしております． Akemi: 土下座することないでしょ!!

Ichinose: まだ若いじゃないの．勤まるのかね？

Godai: いいなー，あれ．

Rough\literal English translation: Kyoko: Tomorrow I'll be moving into the manager's room, so please excuse me for today. Yotsuya and Godai: (extremely formal and polite) We will await your return.

Akemi: "You don't need to get down on your knees over it!!" Ichinose: "Isn't she still quite young? Do you think she's up to it?" Godai (watching Kyoko leave): "Nice...."

The line in question is the last one: Godai's "いいなー，あれ." To break this short utterance down:

いい = "ii" = Good/Nice/Attractive/Something you like なー = "naa" = A sound you stick on the end of a sentence or comment when you are just musing to yourself and not seeking approval or agreement from the listener. あれ" = "are" = "that"

いいなー together is a commonly used expression to indicate that you like something and you wish you had it, especially if you are jealous that somebody else has it. If somebody shows you their new car and you say いいなー！ It means "nice! \ It's so nice! \ Lucky you! \ I wish I had that! \ I'm jealous!"

As you can hopefully see, it is fine to make this statement when you are talking about an object, but when you direct it towards a human it sounds like a crude objectification akin to ogling someone and saying "nice. I want that." In fact he does call her "あれ" which = "that." It isn't a great look for our protagonist Godai whom we have only just met.

Let us look then at the original English translation of this line translated by convicted felon Gerard Jones and see how it was handled:

Here Godai's remark becomes "ain't that nice?" and I suppose it somewhat retains the feeling a skeevy, lecherous, ogle. I don't love this translation, but it's ok based on the Japanese. But there is also a brand new Viz translation of Maison Ikkoku which is so new that it (at the time of writing) still has 1 volume left to be published. So let's see what they went with for this line:

Here Godai's line has been significantly softened to "she's so pretty..." I would say that in this translation he escapes without looking like too much of a perv.

So which of these two English translations better conveys the nuance of the original Japanese? Well it is actually a bit more complicated than just a simple answer, because we are missing important context for this line that was known to the readers who were there when it was first published.

Maison Ikkoku chapter 1 was serialized in the debut issue of Big Comic Spirits (November, 1980 on the cover date, published in mid-October 1980.) If you lived in Japan in October of 1980 and read this chapter, you would be aware that Godai's line, "いいなー，あれ," is a reference to a series of currently-running television commercials advertising the Yamaha Towny Moped.

In these commercials, the owner of a parked Towny would return to find some stranger gawking over their bike who will then enviously get into a conversation with them regarding how いい it is. As the owner hops on the bike and rides away, the on-looker will say to themselves "いいな，あれ" as they watch them drive off into the distance. Just as Godai is watching Kyoko walk off into the distance from behind. Here is one such commercial on youtube:

Looking at this youtube upload now, I notice there is a 2 year old comment from someone mentioning this panel in Maison Ikkoku chapter 1, and how this seems to be the inspiration for that line. Many of the other comments mention how famous or nostalgic these commercials were, with one commenter saying he still uses "いいなー，あれ" to this day. Further down the page someone mentions the ad is parodied in volume 1 of Kariage-kun, a famous gag manga, which is another indication of how well-known this ad campaign was to people living in Japan at the time. You are meant to hear Godai speak this line in your mind with the same intonation as the on-looker in this commercial.

And for that reason, I would rather give Godai the benefit of the doubt for this comment that the new Viz English translation gives him. Perhaps even in-universe he is referencing these moped ads.

Unfortunately for him, even in Japan young people no longer remember this ad campaign, and Godai is doomed for eternity to be condemned by young readers as a lecherous, ogling, womanizing, perv just a handful of pages into reading this manga.