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aadagio · 2 years ago

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Thursday was The Day!! I finally did it, I went skydiving!!

I had to wake up early to get ready and eat breakfast, and me and Craig left the house at around 10:30 am. There are no places to jump in Austin proper, since it’s a major city, so we drove about an hour out to this place called Fentress, sort of out near San Marcos. The place was called Skydive Spaceland and it was way out in the sticks, down a long gravel road with a bunch of RVs parked out front. They have a huge sign with a photo of someone jumping out of a plane where you’re supposed to turn, along with a crashed plane poised like it took a nosedive into the earth.

The drive out there was really smooth, we just took the highway and listened to music the whole time. The sky had this haze to it, though, almost like a thin smog that was slightly blurring out things in the distance. Craig wondered at one point if that would affect my ability to jump that day, but no one at SS ever mentioned anything about it once we arrived, so I guess it was considered fine jumping weather.

We parked 10 minutes before noon, and headed inside so I could check in. I had already filled out all the waivers online — it was a multi-page document that basically tells you to accept the fact that you could very much die while doing this, and that if you do die, or just sustain any injury in general, you can’t sue SS. Honestly, death has really never felt like a concern for me when it comes to this. Like I know in the back of my mind that it’s obviously possible and that skydiving is risky, but I’ve just wanted to do it for so long that the risk hasn’t ever concerned me. But filling out all the paperwork beforehand made checking in go a lot faster, which was nice.

I had ordered an add-on package where they have a videographer jump with you and you receive a flash drive with your skydive video and about 100 photos from your jump afterward. So all I had to do at check-in was show ID and then fill out a form specifying how I wanted my jump video to be edited. They have these sort of generic royalty-free music options like techno, country and R&B that you can choose from, and I chose classic rock since it seemed the least grating of all the options.

I was given a nametag with my name and group number on it to stick to my shirt. After that they told me to just chill out in the lobby while they waited for the rest of my group to check in, and they'd call my group number when it was time to go and watch the safety videos.

The lobby was basically just this large room with several booth tables lined along the walls, which were covered in multiple large posters depicting tandem and solo skydivers screaming and laughing for the camera. There were also three large flat screen TVs mounted around the room, running constant footage of skydivers. There were a lot of clips of groups jumping together and holding hands mid-air to form these huge circle formations in the sky, as well as videos of tandem jumpers making their first dives. They also had lots of board games, cards, and skydiving magazines and books scattered across every table. It was all very themed -- everywhere you turned, there was skydiving.

I woke up pretty gently on Thursday morning, which I was really grateful for, because I have a habit of jerking or startling awake most mornings and that usually results in a panicked feeling to begin my day with, which I hate. And especially after all the other stress that was building and building for a week leading up to this day, I was so glad to just be able to wake up calmly and get ready for this thing that I've been looking forward to for such a long time now. I felt really calm all during the drive out to SS, and I was maintaining that calm really well up until we watched the safety videos.

After sitting together in a booth for about 10 minutes, they called my group number and told us to head upstairs to watch the videos. I thought that would be the last time I'd see Craig until after I'd finished my jump, so I was trying to hug him goodbye, but the staff member calling us up said that it was just videos, and he could come and watch them with us if he wanted. So me, Craig, and this one other girl went upstairs and sat in this big room with one large flat screen in the center of the far wall, and about 20 or so folding chairs strewn about. The staff member clicked play on the TV, told us to just head back downstairs when we were done, and left.

The first video was one I'd already watched online, where Bill Booth, the inventor of the tandem skydiving harness, basically tells you once again that you could very much die while doing this, and that you are accepting that risk and signing all your rights away. Since I'd already seen it before, it didn't really psych me out, but the next video was different. This one was shot at Skydiving Spaceland, specifically to show to their students, and it basically talked about how SS is a skydiving school, so every jump you take with them can count toward getting certified, if that's something you want to do. Then it walked us through how we'd put on all our gear later, as well as how we'd board the plane, how we'd exit the plane, and how we'd need to position our bodies and limbs throughout the entire experience. The video finished by saying that they wanted us to take an active part in our jump that day, by pulling the cord to deploy the parachute, as well as take the reigns to steer the chute on our way back down to the ground.

Honestly, that was the part that finally got me to freak out. I read their website top to bottom while I was plotting out where and when I wanted to schedule this jump, and there was absolutely nothing on it that said we'd need to be in charge of any of that! I thought I was just there to enjoy the ride. So when the video started going into how we would be expected to be more active participants, my heart rate started speeding up rapidly, and I started feeling nervous for the first time. But I just tried to tell myself, "Ok, surely the instructors will go over this in more detail once you suit up, it'll be fine, just listen to what your instructor tells you."

After the last video wrapped up, I think I finally "woke up" a bit more and realized that it was literally just me, Craig, and this one other young girl in the room, and so I leaned over to introduce myself to her. She said her name was Hope and we both talked about how we were surprised that we were the only ones tandem jumping that day as we walked back downstairs.

Hope was there with her mom, so she went back to her booth to sit with her, and Craig and I went to another booth to wait for our names to be called so we could suit up. They had a smaller TV mounted near the front door in the lobby with a list of all the tandem jumpers and their instructor and videographer's (if they had one) names, as well as the wait time for when we'd be called. When we got downstairs, it said we had 25 minutes to wait, so I settled in with Craig to flip through skydiving books and try to keep calm.

At this point, every time I looked up and saw footage of people jumping out of planes on the TVs, I could feel my heart race and it just made me so nervous to watch. It was just all starting to feel very very real. So I had to force myself to keep my head down and focus on what was on the table in front of me, but after awhile of flipping through photos of barefoot skydivers doing crazy trickshots for the camera, I realized that looking at anything skydiving-related was just making my nerves worse. Several of the videos playing on the TVs had this macho-type copy pasted over them, with things like, "The hero and the coward both feel the same fear, but it's what they do with it that matters." and advertisements for their video packages that said stuff like, "If you don't record it, did it even happen?'

At one point, Craig pointed up to the TV that was mounted in the corner over my shoulder, and I turned around to see a compilation of fluffy baby Highland cows playing for some random reason. It was the first truly relaxing, sweet thing I'd seen all day, so I watched that for 5 minutes until the screen went back to playing skydiving clips. (After all of this, I can definitely say that I think they should stick to playing 100% fluffy cow clips in the lobby at all times -- those are sooo much more relaxing to watch before you jump than skydiving footage!)

About 15 minutes in to our wait, the name screen updated and bumped our wait time up to 40 minutes, so I had to be even more vigilant about distracting myself. Craig kept flipping through this skydiving photography book, but I focused on my phone and just kept scrolling Insta and Twitter trying to keep my mind off jumping. During the whole wait I also found myself getting up to go pee a lot. I've always been a nervous pee-er, like before any big event - graduation, concerts, flights, presentations, job interviews - I have to pee 3 times beforehand. But I guess my body was in nerve-overload or something because I think I literally got up to use the restroom like 6 times during our wait.

At another point, Craig suggested we go outside for a few minutes, and we went down the hallway past the gear room, the restrooms, and through this set of double doors out into the observation area that was set up for friends and family to watch jumpers land. The observation area was a gravel-filled stretch with a large white pop-up shade tent off to the left, and several wooden picnic tables. It was surrounded by a white fence and several signs warning not to go into the drop zone beyond, which was just a huge sprawl of grassy land where we could see several solo jumpers coming down to the ground. These people obviously had way more experience than me, because they were steering themselves into sharp turns just a couple dozen feet from the ground, and one guy even moonwalked his way to a light, standing landing on the grass. It was very impressive, but also not helping my nervousness at all, so after only a few minutes, I asked if we could go back inside.

Eventually, a tall burly man in jeans and a tan button-down shirt came out of the gear room that was off the side of the lobby and called my name. And this was when things started to go pretty quickly. I got up, hugged Craig and kissed the top of his head, told him I'd see him back on the ground, and then followed this guy into the gear room. He introduced himself as Joe, and said he was my skydiving instructor and that we'd be jumping together today.

We walked over to a rack full of brightly colored jumpsuits and after looking me up and down, he pulled a royal blue one off the hanger and handed it to me to put on. I noticed Hope being handed a hot pink one, and we both went over to these benches that lined the room to sit down, pull our shoes off, and step into our jumpsuits. The SS website had said to just wear comfortable, casual but form-fitting clothing and close-toed shoes to jump, so I showed up in bike shorts and an Iron Maiden T-shirt. The jumpsuit fit pretty tightly over me, but I zipped it up, put my shoes back on, and then walked back over to Joe in the center of the room.

There were 4 jumpers in there, myself included, and their respective instructors, and each instructor was in the process of harnessing and talking to their student. It felt very focused, like there was no group huddle or team lesson, it was just 4 pairs of people, each pair intently focused on one another. When I got up to Joe, he held up the pointer finger of his left hand and said, "Do you know why Taylor Swift never plays with this finger?" And I said, "No, why?" and he replied, "Because it's MY finger!" Which made me laugh.

He then started strapping a digital altimeter to my left hand, which is a device that tells you your altitude while you're in the sky. It sort of fits over your hand, held in place by a wrist strap and a loop that goes over your pointer finger. He also had a tandem harness ready to go for me, laid on the floor, and told me to step into the thigh loops and he'd take care of the rest. So I did, and then he pulled the whole thing up and started strapping me in and adjusting things. I had the thigh straps, a stomach strap, a chest strap, and a pair of straps for my arms to go into. The whole thing came together at the back, and there were 4 clips back there for me to be attached to Joe with later before we jumped together.

As he was strapping me in, he started to tell me about exactly how we'd be jumping together. He said, "Now when we exit the plane, you're going to put your butt on the floor and slide your legs out, and then I'll have you arch your back, put your head back against my right shoulder, and when you're arched enough, we'll jump out." And all of that was pretty much entirely different from the way that the safety video had told us we'd be positioned to get out of the plane. So I immediately asked, "So NOT like how the video said?" And he was like, "Yeah, not like how the video said." And so I pretty quickly realized that Joe had his own method that he wanted to follow to do this thing, and that the video, while informational, was not going to be the one strapped to me in freefall later on. I started to hit me that it would literally just be me and him, so I felt like I should just listen to whatever instructions he gave me and follow exactly those.

So he went over how we'd exit again, and then he asked if the harness was comfortable once he'd finished strapping me in. And I was like, ""Is it supposed to be comfortable?" because I was perfectly willing to be in discomfort if it meant I'd be safe, but he said it should be about as comfortable as a harness can be, which I suppose it was. Then he asked me if I wanted to pull the parachute cord later or not, and I kinda paused and eventually just spit out, "Uh ... not really!" And he was very nice about it. He just said, "It's your first jump, that's totally fine, you just let me do everything, sister, and you enjoy the ride." Which was 100% perfectly fine with me!!

At one point he asked me if there was a special reason I was jumping that day, and I said that I was turning 30 on Sunday, and he said, "I turned 30 once ... in 2008!" And I wasn't in a headspace to do the math at the time, but I did later and realized that Joe was probably 45, which he did not look. Like yes, he had his head shaved bald, but he just looked so much younger than that. I also didn't fully notice this at the time, but Craig pointed it out to me later -- all of the other instructors and skydivers at SS all had this "look" about them. It was like they'd all very much bought into the sport and the lifestyle, and they were all wearing brightly colored camo-print microfiber shirts, cargo pants, chrome wraparound sunglasses, rubber sport bracelets, bandanas on their heads, ect. And Joe literally just looked like he could be going to a BBQ or something after our jump, which, in hindsight is pretty funny.

But after I was completely suited up and ready to go, another man walked into the room - he was shorter than me, had chin-length black hair with a little grey in it, and was wearing a black jumpsuit. He introduced himself as Yoshi, and said he would be my videographer for the day. He led me out of the gear room and outside the same double doors that me and Craig had gone through earlier, and took me left past the perimeter of the observation area, over to a smaller shade tent right outside the plane hangar. I noticed on our walk over that moving with the jumpsuit and the harness on was not easy. It felt a little like what I imagine walking around in a space suit on Earth would feel like - just very heavy, a lot of resistance, and hard to raise my legs very much.

Yoshi had a GoPro for recording video, and he was holding a helmet that had a much larger camera attached to the top that I guessed would be for taking photos in the sky. He had me walk out into the field beside the hangar and started shooting the intro of my skydiving video. He asked me some pretty generic questions -- what I was there for (my birthday), how many feet high we would be going into the sky (14,000), how fast we would be falling through the air (120 mph), at what altitude we'd pull our parachutes (6,000 ft), and if I had anything else I wanted to add (not really, I was so focused on not psyching myself out, and remembering all of Joe's instructions that I couldn't think of much to say!). Then he took a few photos of me on the ground, and said that all there was to do now was wait for the rest of the group to gather and then we'd board the plane.

He told me I could sit under the shade tent, or I could follow him into the hangar and sit in front of this giant drum fan that was positioned on the floor near some chairs. Since it was about 100 degrees and humid as hell outside, I opted to sit with him in front of the fan. He told me that we'd be going up with a full load for our jump, and he estimated we'd have about 30-33 people in the plane altogether. A few of the other jumpers came over to where we were sitting, just milling about and talking to each other, completely paying me and Yoshi no mind. They all had that "look" I mentioned earlier, and seemed very focused on whatever they were doing, not having any interest in talking to tandem jumpers. I noticed that several of them were wearing beaded friendship bracelets with letter beads on them, and I wanted to ask them if they were Swifties or what that was about, but like I said they all seemed so in their own zone that I felt too intimidated to bother any of them. At one point, a guy in a electric yellow, neon green and hot pink camo wingsuit walked up to the group to sit in front of the fan, and I was so impressed by the design of his suit but once again felt way too intimidated to say anything.

Luckily, Yoshi was chatty, and he asked me where I was from and we got to talking. I found out that he was from Japan originally, but moved to California when he was 20 and that's when he started skydiving, and now he lived in Austin and worked at Skydive Spaceland. Through what he said, I was later able to figure out that he was probably 55 or so, which again, seemed a little wild to me, because he really did not seem that old. I've developed a theory after this whole experience that regular skydiving must keep you young or something.

But anyway, we talked to each other for awhile, and he told me that he would hold his hand out for me to take while we were in the sky for a photo, but that I needed to make sure to let go of it so he could keep doing his job up there. I also brought up to him how I'd read online that some people get addicted to the feeling of skydiving and get certified so they can keep doing it all the time. And he said yeah, that's what happened to him, but some people wind up trying it and don't like it at all. I kept this next part to myself, but I didn't think I would be one of the people who didn't like it, but I'd also told myself after booking my jump that I would NOT allow myself to get sold on further jumps even if I wound up completely loving it, because just doing this one was already expensive enough.

After some time had passed, the solo jumpers who had been milling about near the fan got up and headed outside, so me and Yoshi stood up as well and went back out to the shade tent where there was quite a big group gathered at that point. I saw Hope again, and her instructor and videographer, as well as the two other tandem jumpers who had been in the gear room with us and their instructors. Everyone else was going solo, and I realized at this point that Hope and I were the only women in the entire group.

I went over to Hope and asked her if she was there for her birthday, since Yoshi had made it seem like that was why a lot of people came through, and she said yeah, that her birthday was that day. She didn't say which one it was, but she looked maybe 18-21? Couldn't have been older than that. I told her happy birthday and that I was there for my 30th, and then she told me that I did not look 30, which I'll admit was nice to hear.

At that point, Joe found me again and told me that we were about to board the plane and that I'd need to duck my head a lot as we got in, since the clearance was low. The propeller was already going, so it was really loud and windy as I followed him up the stairs into the plane, with Yoshi filming the whole thing. I really don't know anything about planes, but this one was very small, at least to me - definitely the smallest aircraft I've ever been in. I was shocked once we got inside, because all that was in there were two very thin benches covered in a thin black foam padding. Joe immediately turned back to face me, sat down straddling the bench, and then started scooting back toward the back of the plane where several people were already sitting. I followed suit, straddling the bench and backing up until my back was to Joe's front, and then watched as Yoshi and everyone else in the group proceeded to do the same. I was worried about squishing Joe, but as more people got onto the plane, we kept having to scoot back as much as we could, which wasn't much to begin with.

Once everyone was on, a guy at the front of the plane closed the door, which was less of a regular plane door and more of a garage door the slid up and down. And almost immediately after it was closed, the plane started moving. It jerked forward, and I quickly realized that there was absolutely nothing to hold onto in there. There were no grab handles overhead like in a car, no arm rests, you couldn't even use your thighs to brace yourself on the bench under you because we were packed in so tightly. I didn't want to grab onto Yoshi in front of me because I didn't think that was polite, I didn't want to startle him, and also it was really loud in there and hard to hear, so I knew I wouldn't be able to communicate well. We left the ground very quickly, and then began the longest part of the entire journey - the 15 minute ride up to 14,000 feet.

I spent all of that ride using my left hand to brace myself by just holding it against the side of the plane next to me, and then holding my right hand in a tight fist. I alternated at several points, sometimes clenching both fists, sometimes clasping my hands together, sometimes opening and closing one or both of my hands. Through it all I just kept trying my best to take deep breaths and stay calm. I kept thinking to myself, "This is it, this is the thing you've wanted for so long, and now you're finally doing it!"

At a few points, I turned to look around at everyone else in the plane -Hope was to my right, a few people back, and we'd smile at each other every so often, and then everyone else was mostly just preoccupied with adjusting their suits or fiddling with their neck gaiter or the helmet. I think every single one of the solo jumpers had helmets, and a lot of them were covered in stickers and had GoPros attached to the top of them. Yoshi took his camera and held it out in front of him at one point to snap some pictures of me and Joe inside the plane, and I noticed Hope's videographer do the same. I really wasn't looking out the window much ... I don't know, I just didn't feel like that was something I wanted to do a lot of since I guess I figured I'd be seeing the view from a much more unique vantage point soon enough, but I noticed Yoshi putting his GoPro to the window a few times to get some footage.

Pretty early into the flight up, I turned to Joe and started going over all his instructions, trying to confirm that I had everything right, and he just told me, "Don't overthink it." But as we got higher and higher, he leaned closer and started repeating his directions and reiterating what we'd do to exit the plane. Toward the end of the journey, he told me he'd be clipping us together and pulling the harness tighter, and he was not kidding about tighter. He scooted me closer back against him and I could feel when he attached the clips at my shoulders to his harness. One leg at a time, he pulled my thigh straps really tight, and then he put a pair of goggles over my eyes and had me turn my head left and right to adjust them.

It was so very hot inside the plane the entire ride, and I could feel sweat pooling on my face, and my bangs sticking to my forehead as we ascended. But eventually, when we finally reached 14,000 feet, one of the guys at the front of the plane moved position and hoisted up the door, and suddenly this very cold, never-ending gust of wind came rushing into the plane. Shortly after that, guys started jumping out of the plane one by one. I'm honestly not sure how to describe what was going through my head at this point. Like, I was using my eyes and I was aware that people were jumping out of the plane. I could see clouds through the doorway. I could feel the wind on my face. I could feel myself putting my hands into the loops at the front of my shoulder straps, where Joe had told me to put them. Things were happening. But I really could not tell you what I was thinking. It was so weird. I wasn't thinking words, I wasn't thinking about fear or anything, I wasn't scared, exactly. It was more like, "Okay, this is happening. It's going to happen, get ready. You're going to do The Thing." But it wasn't even processing as words, just as a feeling.

And then all of a sudden, Yoshi was getting up and positioning himself at the door of the plane, and Joe was using his legs to crab walk us forward on the bench. With how securely I was harnessed to him at that point, I really couldn't do much, but I just moved my legs as best I could so he could manage to get us to the end of the bench and the onto the plane floor. I'm really not sure how I made it happen, looking back, but I sat myself on the floor and I think Joe was really the one who got us scooted toward the doorway so my legs were hanging out of the lip of the plane. And then I could feel him guide my head back onto his right shoulder, and he kind of rocked us a few times to get some momentum to jump out, and then HE JUMPED.

Now, everything I read online leading up to this experience said that the scariest part of skydiving is that last second before you jump out of the plane. The internet said that if you can overcome that fear and jump out, then you're gonna be golden. But that was not the case for me at all. For me, the absolute scariest part of the whole thing was that first single second after we had left the plane. I could see the hazy blue cloudy sky, and then I could see the ground, so far away from us that it just looked like a green patchwork quilt, dotted with tiny little trees and houses. And in that moment, we had no parachutes above us, no safety net below us, nothing slowing us down or blocking our fall -- we were literally just free falling through the sky.

In that first second, I felt this reaction from my body that I've never felt before. It felt like my whole body was trying to tense up because it realized, "Oh my god, we are NOT!!! supposed to be doing this!!!!" But then I just WAS, and extremely quickly my concerns shifted. I took one slow, involuntary blink, and then things started happening. After that first second, my overwhelming feeling was realizing that my ears fucking hurt. Immediately after we left the plane, I was hit with this severe ear pain unlike anything else I've ever felt. I looked it up after I got home, and apparently the tubes inside of our ears that regulate pressure and help us balance, can't really calibrate fast enough anymore once you throw yourself into 120 mph freefall, and that leads to sharp, intense, pressurized ear pain during your jump. So that was the first major feeling that hit me right away - pain.

And then very quickly after I realized how much my ears hurt, I also realized that I couldn't fucking breathe. Now Joe had told me while we were suiting up that if I felt like I couldn't breathe once we jumped, I just needed to scream, because I was holding my breath. After we jumped out, we went from kinda falling on our sides to being sprawled flat, back to the sun, parallel to the ground. And I could feel myself take about half a breath when we first entered that position, and then I couldn't breathe anymore. So, I tried to scream. And that did not help in the slightest. I still wasn't able to draw breath in through my nose. And all of this was happening so, so quickly, and I was watching Yoshi come into view with his camera helmet, and I was feeling Joe take my hands off of the loops in my harness and stretch them out beside me, and I was looking directly down at the green patchwork quilt beneath us, instead of up and out at the sky like I was supposed to be doing, and I was also realizing that I couldn't fucking breathe. And I just sort of told myself, in the span of another second or two, "If you can't breathe for the rest of this, then that's fine. It's not going to last forever. If you can't breathe, then you can't breathe. It's fine."

And then Yoshi was in front of me in the air. He was motioning with his hands, like kind of paddling them in the air, and I think now that he was trying to signal to me to move my hands around and emote so that he could snap pictures, but I was genuinely so overwhelmed by everything that was happening that I could barely function, so at first I just took my hands and kind of doggie paddled them in front of myself. But then I got it together, realized I needed to smile for the camera, and managed to position my hands into half-way decent thumbs ups, and then into solid rock horns, and forced myself to smile as wide as I could. It was actually more difficult than I thought it would be to smile -- I could literally feel my cheeks flapping in the wind since we were going so fast, which made control over my face really difficult. Then Yoshi held out his hand to me, and once again I was still so incredibly overwhelmed, that Joe literally had to grab my wrist and take my hand and put it into Yoshi's hand and then take it away, and to be honest, I wasn't even completely aware of him doing that until I saw the photos and videos of it afterward.

Really, the entire freefall aspect of it was just so overwhelming that I'm not fully sure of anything else that happened during it. I asked Joe while we were suiting up how much attention I would need to pay to my altimeter and he told me not to worry about it, and I don't remember looking at it once during the entire jump. But there are pictures I saw later of us where he is grabbing my wrist again and holding the altimeter in front of my face, and it looks like I'm looking at it -- but I literally don't remember doing that at all! Honestly, once we were out of that plane, I feel like every intention and thought I had going into the jump about what I wanted to do and how I wanted it to be just FLEW out of my brain completely and I was just doing the best I could with the circumstances!

And then before I knew it, Joe was pulling the parachute cord and we suddenly went from parallel to the ground to sitting upright, and I immediately could breathe properly and the pressure and pain in my ears lessened a little bit. I am SO freaking glad that I had someone else taking the reigns on that because I'm telling you, after everything I just described going through, there was no way in hell I would have been able to pull that cord at the right time.

But then there we were, sitting upright, falling significantly slower, gliding down really. I had put my hands back into my harness loops at that point, I think kind of involuntarily. And then I was able to actually look out and around at the sky and properly enjoy the sights, which was so nice. I remember having the thought in my head of, "Oh, this is what it looks like when you look out the window on a plane ride!" and then quickly following that up with, "BUT YOU'RE NOT IN A PLANE!!! YOU'RE JUST HANGING OUT IN THE SKY!!!!" So that was a trip.

I turned my head to the side to ask Joe if I could put my arms out, and he told me to hang on a minute, and I have to assume he was doing some steering or something with the parachute, and then he gave me permission to stick my arms out and THAT was the actual best part of the whole thing. I don't know if I can adequately describe the joy. I was thousands of feet up in the sky, my arms spread wide, wiggling my fingers in the breeze, looking all around me at the fluffy clouds and the horizon line in the distance, and just giggling and laughing and whooping and smiling so much, trying to open my eyes as wide as I could to take everything in. It was so fun and amazing. And, ironically, it was the one part of the entire journey that was not captured on film! I assume Yoshi was preoccupied with pulling his own chute and landing safely, so there are no photos or videos after a few quick shots of Joe pulling our parachute. The footage doesn't pick up again until we're just about to land. So all that amazingness and pure joy is only recorded in my head, just for me.

At a certain point as we were descending, Joe told me that he was going to loosen my thigh straps and get me situated in a different position -- this was information that he did not brief me on while we were on the ground, but at this point he had carried us safely through everything else, so I was just along for whatever he could have told me. He instructed me to pull my legs up and then wiggle my butt back, so that basically I would come into a more seated position, with the thigh straps holding my mid-thigh area up, instead of hanging out almost completely straight with the straps near my hips as we had been. I also had to put my hands back in my harness loops from this point on. But I did all that, and then Joe steered us into a spin in the air! That was really fun. He did another couple of turns, and I could finally see the drop zone come into clearer view. There was actually a giant orange arrow that they had built in one corner of the field, I guess to help jumpers know where to go.

Landing was actually extremely smooth -- Joe told me to pull my legs up as high as I could and point my feet toward the sky, and that we'd slide in on our butts. When you tandem jump, you want your instructors feet to hit the ground before yours do, and that's exactly what we did. It was so light, literally like sliding on a playground slide, but even slower. And then we were on the ground and there were two SS employees who had run up to us as we were coming down, and they moved to help Joe with the parachute as soon as we finished landing. I felt Joe unclip my harness from his, and then I turned and asked, "Was that a good landing? Did I do it right?" And he was just like, "Yeah, you're fine!" And then I was just kind of sitting there, feeling a bit dazed by it all.

I realized then that my legs felt very funny. And my ears still hurt so much. And I felt this sort of headrush feeling that I had never felt before, almost like the wind was still whooshing past my temples even though it wasn't anymore. Like a phantom wind, maybe. And then all of a sudden Yoshi was there with his camera, extending his hand out to help me stand up. And I was so grateful for it too, because I would not have been able to stand up on my own at that point. I think the first words out of my mouth to him were, "My legs feel weirdddd!" and he laughed. Then he asked me how I liked it and I said it was awesome, and he asked, "Would you do it again?" and I said, "I don't know" because I was worried if I said yes that he would try to sell me on a second jump and that would forever be memorialized on my skydiving video lol.

But then Joe was behind me again, this time standing up, and Yoshi was directing me to stand next to him for a photo, and my legs still felt so funny that I could barely function. But we took some photos together, giving a thumbs up and everything, and then Joe told me to walk back inside to the gear room and take my harness and jumpsuit off and he'd meet me in there. So I started walking toward the main building again, and that's when I finally saw Craig! He'd been watching from the observation area and waiting for me. And the first thing I did as soon as I got past the fence line was reach for him and give him the biggest hug. It felt so, so, so nice. Like seriously, I cannot recommend enough -- just hugging the person you love most in the world super tightly immediately after jumping out of a plane for the first time! Best feeling ever.

Craig had his phone out and he took some selfies of us after that, and that was when I realized just how windswept I looked -- my bangs had been completely blown back and my hair, which had been in a very tight, high ponytail before we jumped, had been blown halfway out of the pony due to the force of the wind on us.

I managed to walk myself back to the gear room on tingly, shaky legs, and I was so relieved to be able to sit down again on a bench to take everything off. That's when I met up with Hope again, and I was further relieved to realize that I wasn't the only one with sore ears. All the things I'd been feeling - tingly legs, sore ears, unable to breathe in freefall - she'd felt them all too! I was just glad to know I wasn't alone. Another one of the tandem jumpers came in while we were talking too and complained about his legs feeling funny as well, and that's when Joe came back in the room and I asked him if his legs also felt funny or if this was nothing to him and he said, "Yeah, I don't feel anything."

I looked it up online later, but apparently to become certified to be a tandem skydiving instructor, you have to complete at least 500 jumps. And it sounded like both he and Yoshi had been doing this for at least a couple of decades at this point, so I have to imagine the number of jumps he's done is in the thousands. And I guess after jumping out of a plane several thousand times, your body acclimates to all the overwhelming feelings! And at the end of the day, what I wanted out of this experience was to be strapped to someone who this was going to be a walk in the park for, so that worked out.

After I'd taken all my gear off and got my shoes back on and gone to the bathroom once again, I came back to the lobby area where I'd been instructed to wait. Joe eventually came out with a logbook for me, which SS gives to everyone so they can log their jumps if they decide they want to do more or go for a certification or something. It tracks things like the wind speed, equipment used, the aircraft flown, the maneuvers executed, the smoothness of your landing and the date of the jump. Joe filled the whole thing out for me and said I did a good job and wrote A+, which I feel pretty awesome about. Privately, I do not know if I really earned the A+, since he was literally doing all the work, but I'll take it.

After we'd filled that out, he told me I could book my second jump for $99 today only, and then said that a staff member would come out with my jump video and photos on a flash drive in about 10-15 minutes and that I could watch my video on one of the TVs in the lobby. And then I honestly don't know where he went after that, maybe to get ready for the next student or something, but Craig came and sat next to me and I just sort of tried to come down and recover from everything.

Seriously, I just felt so odd afterward. Like, when we landed and I was trying to stand up and everything, my body felt this strange sensation like, "Why are we standing? Why are we walking?? Shouldn't we just be flying everywhere now??" I guess it's sort of like how after you go roller skating, even after you take your skates off, your legs still feel this weird urge to skate instead of walking normally. It's so funny.

After waiting around for a little bit longer, a girl from the front desk came over and handed me my flash drive and said my video was about to play. So me and Craig, plus Hope and her mom, and a couple of other people who were sitting in the waiting area, all gathered around the TV to watch it. It's very weird to watch back something you just experienced right after experiencing it, but it was cool too because I was able to see more of what Joe and Yoshi were doing while I was freaking the fuck out in freefall. It was funny to see Craig's reactions to the footage as well, as I was describing what I was feeling during certain moments to him.

After that was done, it was almost 3 pm, and we headed back out to the car. My legs were still feeling so so weird and my ears were still hurting and my head still felt that strange whooshing sensation, but it wasn't as bad as it had been immediately after landing. Craig drove us to a BBQ place nearby and we had a very late lunch that I completely devoured. Turns out, skydiving makes you very very hungry. I also noticed myself developing a headache around this point too, which sucked, so I took 2 Advil with our food and that helped a lot. Getting food in my stomach and just being able to sit and rest for awhile really helped bring my body back down to Earth again, which was nice. I hadn't felt up to driving at all when we left SS, but after we ate I was able to get behind the wheel and drive us back to Austin. I will say though, driving feels sooo much more dangerous than skydiving, and statistically, it is, but I guess going skydiving really put that into perspective for me.

It's interesting, because I think a lot of people believe that skydiving is about facing your fears or overcoming something, and for me it wasn't really about that. I did feel scared when we jumped, but then I felt so many other things too! The whole experience wasn't just any one singular thing -- it was terrifying, it was exhilarating, it was painful, it was fun! It was a completely unique experience. I've never felt anything else like it. But at the same time, it didn't lead to any revelations or anything for me. I didn't find God up there. I didn't suddenly feel like all my other problems in life were so tiny. I didn't even feel proud of myself for doing it, to be honest. I just felt like, I'd had this goal and this wish for so long, and I finally did it! And that was awesome, but I was still just me.

I think one of the funniest things about all of this is just seeing other people’s reactions to it. Like they seem to think I’m so badass or fearless or something and I don’t see myself as any of those things at all. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, and I did it! I had tons of fears before I jumped, and I still have all of them after I came back to Earth. I just feel like I always have about myself — I’m just a person.

Several people have asked me if I'd jump again, which I was completely not expecting. In a way it sort of feels like how I've watched friends have one baby, and then immediately be bombarded with questions like, "When are you going to have another??" and, "Are you going to give them a sibling soon??" Except in my case I took a completely different path -- I fucking jumped out of a plane, and people still want to know if I'll jump out of a plane a second time!! I guess it goes to show that no matter what you do with your life, it won't ever be enough for some.

But honestly, I've been thinking about it more over the past several days, and I think I could be convinced to go again, but very conditionally. I'm proud of myself for going it alone after my friend who had initially wanted to join me was told not to by her doctor. I'm glad I did it by myself, for myself. And so I think the only way I'd want to do it again would be if a friend wanted to go with me. That just seems like it would be a really fun experience.

But otherwise, I think I'm fine if I never jump again. I feel like I got everything I could have hoped for out of the experience, and I feel very fulfilled about the whole thing. I can put a firm checkmark next to "skydiving" on my bucket list. It finally happened! Maybe I'll check in again in 5 years or something, maybe I'll get the itch again. I wouldn't ignore it if I did. But right now I'm happy to say that I feel perfectly satisfied and content with my jump.

On Thursday, after me and Craig had eaten, we drove back into Austin and met up with our friends Bryan and Amy for dinner and drinks at this bar we found. We haven't seen either of them in awhile, so it was nice to catch up, and it was fun to regale them with the tale of my epic skydive. We hung out there for several hours, just catching up. Bryan told me about a guy we went to high school with who had a crush on me. I never knew!

Eventually we wrapped it up and headed back home. I drove, since Craig had been drinking. It wasn't even that late, maybe 9:30 pm, but I already felt so tired on the drive home. I took a shower when we got back and then got into bed, but falling asleep proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I imagined that after such a crazy thrill-ride adventure like that, I'd just immediately fall into sleep, but instead, every time I closed my eyes, I would just see the sky as we jumped out of the airplane, and feel this rush in my stomach like I was about to free fall again. It wasn't scary, per se, just interesting, and it made it hard to relax and fall asleep.

You know how sometimes when you're about to fall asleep, you suddenly feel like you're falling, and your muscles tense and your body jerks? I experienced that on Thursday night, too, except this time was so much more intense than usual, because I literally did feel like I was about to fall out of a plane thousands of feet in the air. It was a very harsh, full-body jerk. Eventually, I finally did get to sleep, but as the morning came, I noticed myself tossing and turning more and more because my back and neck had begun to ache in the night. I had started to feel an ache in my inner thighs from the harness on Thursday night while we were at the bar, but when I woke up on Friday, it was so much more intense, and so was the newfound ache in my shoulders and underarms. I didn't have any pain around my middle (I guess I have too much padding lol), and the back and neck pain I felt was significantly less than what I've felt after going to concerts in the past, but it was still deep and present. My ears also still had a small soreness to them. All of the aches and pains lasted for about the next 48 hours, but at this point I'm fine and back to normal.

I think that's pretty much everything from the experience. I'm so glad I finally pulled the trigger and just went and did it -- I think my teenage self would be so happy for me. As my 30th birthday has come and gone, I've been reflecting a lot on how I never imagined myself making it this far in life. Living this long. I am literally now double the oldest age I ever thought I'd make it to at one point. That's so crazy to me. And it's been hard, it's been so fucking hard, but it's experiences like this that make me so glad I've stuck around. I'm just really pleased that I went skydiving to ring in my 30s. I don't really know what other wild or crazy things I'm still hoping to check off in life, but I guess now I get to figure that out!

#This whole post has taken me a couple of days to finish writing #and I'm honestly not sure who the hell will even read this but I'm glad I recorded this even just for myself #personal #Adventures In Real Life #dumb dumb mushy stuff

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sysig · 3 years ago

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I MISSED MY DEADLINE, TIME ISN’T REAL, STREAM LINK

COME HANG OUT

#My art #I originally wrote that caption when I was feeling considerably more chaotic lol it's been a few days since I missed my deadline #I haven't streamed in ages! Come hang out and chat and vibe if you want #I don't have music on because listening to royalty free stuff while drawing is Worse Than Hell #So bring your own music and/or video essays I will most likely be listening to CJ The X for the 12th time #If I finish my thing it turns into a Request Stream #I'll explain the rules if we get there #I'm also still using my new tablet to get more practice in - this was the warmup for the day #Technically I already warmed up traditionally but I think this is a more successful warmup than my first one #It's a good drawing day! I'm grateful #Update: Stream link still works it just directs you to the video now #Good stream am happy

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wonlouvre · 4 years ago

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pairing: doctor!wonwoo x lawyer!female oc genre: modern royalty, arranged marriage, fluff and future angst word count: 5.2k!! WARNINGS: is an awful lot of fluff a warning?

author’s note: FINALLY!!! AGAIN!!! i can’t believe we have reached part 5, you guys ;_; i never imagined this fic would even be liked by so many of you. i am so grateful to even receive notes from the first part up to the latest. i appreciate all of you! please let me know what you think. this is the part i have been excited for, so i hope you are excited too! enjoy!!!

five: the one | masterlist

What happened at the hospital made you cling to Wonwoo in the most subtle way possible. You wouldn’t even consider messaging his phone clingy. But yes, you have finally taken a hold of his phone number. Back then, Jeongyeon was the one who contacts him about your joint schedules. And now, it’s you that personally calls or messages him. Mostly messages. Aside from talking about the official duties you have been assigned together, one of the main reasons why you took the initiative is you just want to hear about whatever from him firsthand. You did notice, however, during the first time you sent a hello, it surprised the Prince a little but he just shrugged it off. You’re embarrassed but you brave through it because it’s only normal to communicate with your future husband.

You try to start and hold conversations with him from time to time but it doesn’t last long. It’s alright though. It’s not like you want to talk about his childhood through message bubbles. You’re also aware that a buzzing phone is the most unwanted item when he’s on duty unless it’s an emergency call. It’s also the same for your job. Staring at your phone while waiting for his reply has caught Jeongyeon’s attention already and she has not hesitated to reprimand you.

“What’s gotten into you?” Jeongyeon asks and drops two lunchboxes on the center table of your office. “Are you still sick?”

You purse your lips and shake your head no, eyes not leaving the bright screen of the small device.

“Come on,” she calls and steals the phone from your hand. “It’s time to eat. I prepared this especially for you.”

You scoff in disbelief, but the smile on your face says otherwise. You stand from your chair and follow her to where the mouthwatering food is at.

“I didn’t hire you to cook for me though,” you say, reminding her how she doesn’t have to do this.

“Ey,” she dismisses your words and hands you the spoon to start eating. “I’m just helping His Highness out.”

Your ear perks up at the mention of the Prince. “What?”

“He didn’t tell me to cook for you, don’t worry,” she quickly informs, noticing your face forming a frown. Then, she smiles. “He just wanted to make sure you’re eating right and well. And, it just so happened I had the time earlier to prepare this. Ta-dah!”

She opens the lid of the first food container and your stomach growls in hunger at the sight. A set of colorful vegetables, fully cooked meat and warm rice were presented before you. By the looks of it, she really did have the time earlier.

“Should I thank you or the Prince?” You ask in jest.

“Of course you should thank me!” She holds her chin up and points to her chest proudly. “I’ve been taking care of you for the longest time while His Majesty just started. He can actually learn

a thing or two from me, you know?”

He’s taking care of me, your thoughts echo, making you smile.

You’re definitely calling him later.

The wedding planning resumes in no less than two weeks after navigating back to your usual routine. And on this one fine Saturday afternoon, Wonwoo decided to drive his own car and have you with him to go to your wedding planner’s office together. He messaged you and you welcomed the thoughtful gesture. He picked you up from your apartment, much to both of your security details’ dismay. Jeongyeon sent you a bunch of heart gifs afterwards and you can picture her screaming (silently) at the top of her lungs.

This is the first time you’ve seen Wonwoo in the two weeks that passed and it’s kind of awkward to be alone with him in one small space. This is also the first time you have witnessed him driving. Security is tailing behind though. They are really not fond of letting the two of you out of their sight.

This car ride is quiet aside from the radio playing some mellow music. Wonwoo has his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road. Which is good because as much as you want to stare at his handsome face, you need to hold yourself back. You let your eyes wander to the view outside the window instead.

Wonwoo doesn’t seem to notice your shyness and that eases your worry because you really don’t want him to think you’re shying away from him. You actually want to talk. Talk about anything and even everything. But, how?

After you called him that one time, you’ve started speaking to him by call here and there. Before his shift starts, after his shift ends, before he goes home or when he’s at home and even before he goes to bed. They’re just casual calls that didn’t even last longer than ten minutes. That’s about it. Phone calls. But now, you are face to face and you don’t seem to know how to form words anymore.

Unbeknownst to you, Wonwoo noticed your dilemma and spoke up first.

“Do you want to grab something to eat after?”

“Huh?” You ask, snapping yourself out from the thoughts occupying your mind.

“I figured it would be nice to catch up and all,” he explains, sparing you a small glance before quickly bringing his eyes back on the road. “Coffee or tea will do if you’re not that hungry.”

Warmth surged to your face. What kind of question was that? Of course you’d love to! You’re just holding yourself from shouting a loud YES! with a bite of your lip because you don’t want to sound overexcited.

After a beat of silence, you boldly answer, “I’d like that.”

Wonwoo smiles and reaches his hand out to yours, squeezing them not only once but twice. His touch reminds you of how he held and kissed your hand that one time he accompanied you back to your apartment. Your breath hitches and you hide your surprise with a small smile. He lets go after a few seconds but those few seconds almost made you faint.

You gulp, heart attack is inevitable with this man.

The meeting was short so you and Wonwoo decided to drive to the nearby coffee shop you passed by earlier. The place wasn’t packed and the facility was notified by security to make sure that distance and privacy from the public is observed. Such protocol is not enacted all the time and you are free to go out and about together or individually but sometimes these measures are taken into consideration to make sure that your safety is not compromised. Especially if there are topics or discussions that should be reserved only for the parties involved.

Such as now when Wonwoo just casually dropped an engagement party bombshell to you like it’s the morning paper.

“An engagement party?”

“Yes,” Wonwoo confirms, a nervous smile drawn on his face. “My mother, in her own words, thought it would be lovely to hold an intimate and simple party back home.”

“Oh,” you mutter and place the cup of coffee back on the table.

“Do you mind leaving us for a moment? I’d like to speak about this with the Princess alone,” Wonwoo politely dismisses the security detail and they obeyed with no protest.

Once they’re gone, Wonwoo stands from the chair he sat on when you arrived and takes the space on the loveseat you chose. He takes hold of your hand, an action you noticed he’s been confidently doing lately. You opened your palm for him because you don’t mind. But a little warning next time is much appreciated because your heart can’t take any more of his surprises.

“I didn’t know we had to hold an engagement party,” you start and he agrees in a heartbeat. “I thought after going public, that would do it.”

“I know and I’m sorry,” he apologizes in a pout and that gave you the strong urge to squeeze his cheeks. Which you actually did. Your urges are becoming stronger than your own will whenever you’re with him.

He smiles at your touch and you roll your eyes when he winks at you. You guess it’s not only the hand holding that Wonwoo has been confident of lately. He has started to always search and meet your eyes and stay as close as possible to you. Earlier after locking the door of his car, he held your hand and the wedding planner couldn’t hide her pleased grin when she opened the doors of her office.

He also has the same confidence to escape from trouble, just like now. Although, of course, you’re not saying Her Majesty is causing trouble. It’s just nerve wracking to go to your future in-laws house for the first time. You’re sure any soon-to-be wife would feel the same way.

But then again, you’re not just any ordinary soon-to-be wife.

“I heard the beaches there are lovely,” you mention to lighten the mood.

“Yes, they are,” Wonwoo guarantees, his arm now completely around your shoulders, fingers grazing the skin of your shoulder every once in a while. He’s completely warm and you wonder if he’s warmer when you finally get to see him in his hometown.

You exhale and reach for a napkin to wipe the remnants of the cupcake he took a bite of off the corner of his lips. “Well, I guess I’m gonna have to file for a vacation leave then.”

Wonwoo’s eyes light up, an excited smile forming on his lips. No words were needed to describe how ecstatic he is to visit home.

With you.

A week went by and you are now officially invited by the neighboring kingdom for a two-week stay at their Royal Residences. Your parents, the King and Queen, have received the official invitation and they have given orders for you to travel at the convenience of your time. They wish to come along but they do respect the Prince’s parents wishes to spend time with their future daughter-in-law.

This is your last day of packing and preparing before the long car trip tomorrow and Jeongyeon is all smiles while helping you. She had mentioned before that when she was younger, her family annually travels to the beach there because of how breathtaking and relaxing they were. You can tell she’s very excited through her humming as she zipped the last of your bags.

Jeongyeon placed everything you’ll be bringing near the door of your bedroom to not miss out on anything when you depart tomorrow. She then leaves after resting for a few minutes, bidding you an excited goodbye and see you tomorrow.

A while later, after scanning your whole room with hands on your hips, you let yourself breathe out and plop down on your bed. The week that went by was oddly busy and tiring. It scared you for a moment because you thought this might hinder you from leaving. But thankfully, after meeting your deadlines and satisfying clients that asked for your legal counsel, the two weeks to come is all yours and Wonwoo’s for the taking.

You draw your phone from your pocket, thinking of ringing Wonwoo to check on him. But the sound of your doorbell distracted you from doing so. Your brows knit in confusion. You’re not expecting anyone other than Jeongyeon today. Well, you don’t expect anyone other than Jeongyeon ever.

Nevertheless, you stand up and walk outside the comforts of your bedroom.

You peek at the monitor near your door and your eyes widened like saucers when you saw the person waiting on the other side.

Wonwoo.

It didn’t take your fingers long to punch your code and unlock the door. You didn’t even bother checking if you completely unlocked the door because your feet sped to open it yourself.

“Hey,” you greet and finally get a good look at his form. He’s wearing an oversized grey hoodie and black jeans outlining his long legs. It won’t take a minute to guess he just finished his shift.

“Hi. Sorry. Did I come at the wrong time?”

“Did you drive here?” You ask instead of answering. Exhaustion can be clearly heard from his voice and it makes you frown in worry.

“No, no,” he assures, giving you a tired smile. “I am way too exhausted to drive.”

You didn’t need words to let him in. You just opened your door wider and turned around to walk back inside, certain he’d follow.

You can’t see it, but Wonwoo’s tired smile brightens when he sees you comfortable around him. The first time he stepped foot here was brief and today he’s hoping it lasts a little longer. The moving car earlier almost lulled him to sleep, but he resisted to not miss telling the driver where to drop him off. “I’m sorry again. You were probably busy.”

“Don’t be,” you say and sit on your couch. You then give him a smile and pat the space next to you. “Now sit.”

Wonwoo returns your smile and takes a seat, dropping his small backpack beside the couch in the process. He lets his head rest sideways and closes his eyes briefly to regain some energy.

You pout and reach out to remove the fringe blocking his eyes. “Have you eaten?”

He gives you a quiet nod before snuggling closer to the couch. “I just wanted to see you before we leave tomorrow.”

You’re rendered speechless with his words, heart definitely swooning. Without thinking twice, you pulled him close to your body by his arm before securing his head to your chest. His eyes blinked in surprise, but he welcomed the affection anyway. He closes his eyes again and nuzzles his nose to the crook of your neck. Soon, his arms are wrapped around your waist and your legs are over his lap, almost sitting on them. A cozy silence is shared between the two of you.

“You have two weeks to see my face uninterrupted,” you whisper while running your fingers through his soft locks.

Wonwoo’s lips stretched to a blissful smile and you can feel it against your skin. “Can’t wait Princess.”

Your first day at Wonwoo’s kingdom has you booked. Similar to the act of kindness their Majesties extended to your kingdom, your parents returned their generosity by donating for the construction and development of a public hospital.

Although a courtesy call to their Majesties should have been your first agenda, their Majesties granted you permission to attend the ceremony commemorating the official start of the project.

Wonwoo’s arm served as your anchor as the two of you stand before a cheering crowd. You make sure to keep a genuine smile and give enthusiastic waves whenever they shout for you. But, you are aware that they are much more excited to finally see their Prince back on their soil. You smile and give Wonwoo a glance who does the same. He holds the hand that’s snaked around his arm, a comforting touch to help keep you calm.

After the Secretary of Health gave his closing remarks, the ceremony ended. The two of you bid farewell but not before you have extended your greetings to everyone present and wave one last time to the persevering crowd.

The climate here is no different from your home. However, you must say that there are still some distinctions after seeing the port and the view of the sea. Even though you have been here before, this trip is a whole new experience because you’re about to be wedded to someone who belongs here.

“Y/N, my dear.” The Queen joyfully opens her arms after you formally greeted their Majesties with a curtsy. You gladly reciprocate the gesture and hug her back.

Wonwoo greets his father on the other side with a bow, but His Majesty wanted to envelope him in a hug instead. His embrace definitely says how much he missed his son after a long while.

“I am so delighted to have you here,” the Queen says, rubbing both of your arms to warmth. “I hope the car ride wasn’t exhausting.”

You shake your head while smiling. “It was alright, Your Majesty.”

Her smile grows bigger. “We’ll let you settle down first before we proceed. We have prepared a room for you and the rest of your staff. But, I’m sure Wonwoo wouldn’t mind sharing his with you.”

You blush at her cheeky wink and you can see Wonwoo grimace from your peripheral. His Majesty just laughs at his beloved’s antics.

“Your mother is joking,” the King assures and gives his son a pat on the shoulder. He then moves to your direction to finally give you a hug.

Wonwoo steals you away from the loving couple, afraid of what else his mother will blurt out. He holds your hand again and you just giggle when you see him narrowing his eyes at them.

“We’ll be taking our leave then, Your Majesties,” you say and bow once again.

Their Majesties nod and wave goodbye. “See you later!”

There are still some instances where your home is called The Palace, however as times have changed, the Royal Family has opened its doors to modernity. It’s now usually referred to as the Royal Residences. Wonwoo’s home had done the same and you’re a little relieved that their customs are not that different from your homeland.

Jeongyeon follows behind as Wonwoo gives you a brief tour to help you navigate around necessary rooms you’d be going to such as the kitchen, library, entrances and exits. All the while, his hand remained clasped with yours.

The Jeon’s have made their mark on their residence and it’s not that hard to see. It’s too early to say but you can see how it is originally them. From the wallpapers, flooring, artworks, furniture and more. It’s nothing uncomfortable. It’s actually exciting and you’re looking forward to the days to come.

Shortly after Wonwoo’s tour, you have arrived at the door of your designated room.

“If you need me…” Wonwoo says, then pauses, hesitating.

You tilt your head to the side, trying to decipher where the sudden shyness is coming from. You try to hide your grin. This is one of the rare times you see Wonwoo not making eye contact.

“Your room is at the end of the hall, I know.” you finish his sentence for him and his eyes widen in surprise. Now, you are laughing indeed. “Her Majesty might have shared the information when she hugged me earlier.”

Wonwoo groans and palms his face, embarrassed. He loves his mother, a hundred percent. But, she’s testing it by how much she’s teasing him.

You squeeze his hand. “You should get some rest. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” he answers, face still red. “I just hope she doesn’t rub herself on you.”

You shake your head at his remark and let go of his hand, reluctantly.

“See you later, Princess.”

You adore the emerald dress that your mother had personally designed for you to wear on this special night. She actually surprised you three days before you left, presenting a huge box and smile when you arrived at the Royal Residences. She even told you how long she had this in store and she can’t believe that such a day she’d see you wear it would come.

It’s a long-sleeve and backless dress with intricate patterns you believe only your mother would ever come up to. Looking at yourself through the mirror clothed with such a dress makes you confident and strong, reminded by the Queen who’s much more than you already are.

Once zipped up, Jeongyeon helps put your official crown on the top of your head. The last time you’ve worn this was when your parents celebrated their wedding anniversary. And tonight it carries a different meaning and duty because you’re wearing it for the first time in a while, at your engagement to Wonwoo. You really wish your parents could be here. You’ll have to make sure to take and send a lot of pictures.

“You really look beautiful, Your Highness,” Jeongyeon praises, looking from behind you as she does some finishing touches for the last time.

You smile and thank her.

A knock on the wooden door has your breath hitching. This is it. You release the breath you briefly held before turning away from the mirror to walk towards the door. Jeongyeon helps you with the train of your dress then holds the doorknob, waiting for your signal.

“Whenever you’re ready, Your Highness,” she whispers.

You nod and hold your head high. “Let’s go.”

Wonwoo is no stranger to wearing formal clothes such as black suits with either a bow tie or necktie. Although he’s more accustomed to wearing scrubs and his white coat ever since he started working, he still remembers how his mother used to scold him whenever he arrives at events with a disheveled or mismatched tie. All the while, his father just laughs and fixes it for him, without fail.

But this time, he promised to do things right out of respect to the woman of dignity that you are. Well, he’s of age to know how to do such simple tasks anyway so he really does not have any excuses.

He humors himself and dust the invisible dust on his shoulders.

It’s been a long while since you and Wonwoo have been engaged and yet his thoughts and heart are still all over the place. It’s nothing bad to worry about. In fact, he has grown fond of your company already and he won’t deny that the affectionate moments you have shared are more than enough to leave butterflies flying in his stomach.

He then checks the time on the watch his parents gifted him on his graduation. He better get going if he’s to meet you at the banquet hall. He doesn’t want to keep you waiting like the day you asked him if he really wants to marry you.

He wouldn’t be late at all because he does want to marry you.

There. He finally said it and tonight will officially seal that with his parents, the King and Queen, and his people as witnesses.

He gives himself a last look in the mirror and then takes his leave before a knock on the door is even heard.

It came as a surprise when you saw the color of Wonwoo’s necktie that is visibly similar to the color of your dress. It may sound unbelievable and a tad bit cringey, but your heart can’t help but flutter when it catches your attention.

Wonwoo was already standing at the entrance of the banquet hall with his hands behind his back, eyes down on what seems like his brand new shoes and heart and mind patiently waiting for you, when you appeared before him.

When he looks up and sees you at last, his big smile welcomes you. You can see his eyes brighten up when he sees the color of your dress and your nerves are a little bit relieved.

“I didn’t get the memo, but I’m glad we’re matching nonetheless,” he says when he takes your hand to wrap around his arm.

“Are you saying that this is a remarkable coincidence, Your Highness?” You teasingly reply as the two of you face the closed doors, awaiting to be opened.

“Hmm. I think it’s our mothers,” he deducts, making you laugh. “But I’d like to call it meant to be.”

Your ears heat up at his last statement and you have to bite your lip to avoid smiling too wide.

After a few seconds and static exchange from walkie talkies, a loud voice announces your attendance followed by opening the huge doors of the banquet hall. Inside, a number of guests not exceeding a hundred and fifty are standing from their tables, clapping as you and Wonwoo enter.

You feel like the two of you started everything right from the very beginning until now. Your only hope is that it lasts, even just for tonight.

Wonwoo’s family was nothing but all smiles when you met them. Brief yet sincere greetings and hugs were exchanged when your fiancé introduced you to them, the family that you’re soon-to-be part of.

Wonwoo’s hand remained on the small of your back as you moved around the hall to meet every guest. You only got separated when his parents had to take you to different groups of people to engage and socialize. But still, from time to time, you and Wonwoo would meet eyes.

The dance floor was opened after dinner was served. You couldn’t eat much as your nerves hindered you from doing so. It concerned Wonwoo, afraid you could be sick or not enjoying it. But you dismissed all his worries. Telling him you’re more than okay, just nervous. You finally convinced him when you held his hand.

A little while later, Wonwoo excused himself to go to the restroom. He squeezes your shoulder and mutters a quick, “I’ll be back.” You were left to watch the King and Queen’s turn to dance their number and you cheered along with everyone watching the sweet exchange.

So far, you are enjoying the night and as the party is nearing its end, you feel grand.

What could possibly go wrong, right?

The presence of an ex-lover.

Okay, that sounded spiteful, even for you. But seeing them standing from the distance and chatting had your heart dropping a little. You turn your eyes away and remind yourself that a minimal change of your expression can be noticed by the hundreds of people present at this party and you can’t let your jealousy be the trending news for tomorrow.

You swallow the lump on your throat and plaster a smile on your face. You can’t and won’t let this get to your head. There’s nothing bad about catching up. Who knows, they may have chosen to remain friends. Even though you really don’t know how things ended between them.

Your knuckles turn white from tightly gripping the napkin placed on your lap and your cheeks hurt from how fake you are smiling now.

But then you ask yourself, why are you restraining yourself from going there and introducing yourself? Introduce yourself to the girl he once considered marrying. Introduce yourself as the one he’s marrying now.

The jealous side of you is screaming for you to stand up but the lawyer side of you is telling you to stay composed and-

The lawyer in you doesn’t win tonight because before you know it, you have already stood up with feet taking you to where your fiancé is.

Wonwoo’s back was facing you when you see and hear her giggle as you near them. You sneak behind Wonwoo, almost making his soul jump out of his body, startled by you. But when he realizes that it’s you, his tensed shoulders visibly relax.

You smile and hold his hand, purposely ignoring the other girl. “Can we dance?”

WHAT?

Your head grows dumbfounded at your question. You can’t believe yourself.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Your Highness,” Wonwoo’s ex-girlfriend introduces herself with a curtsy before he could answer your question.

You just nod, showing no interest at all. You could feel Wonwoo growing tense again as he grips your hand tighter.

You don’t have any intentions of staying and holding a conversation with her so you return your eyes immediately back to Wonwoo and repeat your question. “Let’s dance?”

Wonwoo didn’t hesitate to give in to your wishes, pulling you to the dance floor without looking back.

He smiles at you and you smile at him too, the other girl long forgotten.

Later in the night when the music died down and the crowd has dispersed, you find yourself growing guilty by your harsh and curt actions towards Wonwoo’s ex-girlfriend earlier. It was so wrong of you and the need to apologize is imperative.

“I’m sorry about what happened earlier,” you say while looking down on the floor. You and Wonwoo just arrived in front of your room and you have to do this before the night completely ends. “It was childish of me and I… I’m really sorry.”

Silence.

You brows furrow when you don’t hear Wonwoo reply or mutter at least anything. You’re about to raise your head but Wonwoo’s warm hands beat you to it when he holds it gently and lands a soft kiss on your forehead.

“She’s married,” he finally says something and that something makes you look up. “But I guess you didn’t notice because you only had your eyes on me.”

You punch his chest when he laughs, definitely not appreciating his teasing tone. “I can’t believe you.”

He’s still laughing when you pull away from him. You roll your eyes before turning to your door, ready to go inside and save yourself from further embarrassment.

Wonwoo doesn’t fail to notice and immediately takes hold of your hand, tugging you back to his arms. You avoid his eyes when leans down and tries to get you to look back at him. He smiles and sneaks a kiss on your cheek.

“Stop it!” You warn and push him away, but it was futile. “Are you drunk?”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “No.”

“Then leave.”

“But I don’t want to,” he whines and sways your bodies from side to side.

Wonwoo is now full on hugging your whole body to his and when you return his hug, he hugs you tighter and closer. He cradles your head with one hand while the other soothingly rubs your back.

“We were young and wanted different things back then,” he suddenly tells. “We were committed to each other but it wasn’t meant to last and as time went by, we realized we were better off as acquaintances rather than as a couple.”

You sigh and snuggle closer to his chest as you listen to his story. “What about now?”

“Hmm?” He hums as he breathes in your scent.

“Would you still want different things, even with me?”

Wonwoo backs off a little with his arms still around yours when he heard your question. That got him thinking. But it didn’t take him long to give you a sure answer.

“I would still, yes.” He smiles and presses his forehead against yours. “But regardless, I’d still marry you.”

Your face blushes at his confession and you try to hide away by diving back to his chest.

Wonwoo chuckles and finds your chin to lift your head up. “I hope it’s not too late, but you really look beautiful, Princess.”

You don’t know what has gotten to you but once you lock eyes with Wonwoo, you hold the back of his neck and gently pull him down to meet your height. You push yourself up to give him a kiss on his lips. He freezes, but quickly melts right after and captures your lips to fully kiss you. It was only supposed to be a peck, but Wonwoo had other things in mind.

A whimper can be heard from you when he deepened the kiss and you can only wish for this night to never end.

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

Wonwoo didn’t have to answer. He just holds your hand and runs.

#wonwoo #seventeen #seventeen scenarios #wonwoo scenarios #wonwoo imagines #seventeen imagines #wonwoo scenario #seventeen scenario #wonwoo imagine #seventeen imagine #wonwoo fluff #seventeen fluff #fic: ifliys

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under-the-cherrytree · 2 years ago

Note

Hello!! I saw that your matchups were open but I wasn’t sure if I was able to request one so just ignore this if I’m not supposed to- (I never request much so it’s pretty embarrassing if I mess up😭)

I usually go by she/her but I honestly don’t mind any pronouns, my zodiac is cancer and my mbti is esfp. I’m bisexual but have a slight preference towards men, I have a small group of friends and LOVE being the centre of attention just to make everyone laugh. But If I’m ever with someone I don’t know then I’ll be really awkward, not necessarily shy- just very awkward. My love language is physical touch, If I’m not held then I will probably feel unloved ☹️ I ALSO ALWAYS LISTEN TO MUSIC, like I’ll just vibe to literally any song and start dancing (my friends hate when I do but they’re just haters 🙄/hj)

I HOPE THATS ENOUGH… AGAIN SORRY IF I WASNT SUPPOSED TO REQUEST, I love your writing btw <33

HELLO!!!!

GOOD THING FOR YOU, THE MATCHUPS WHERE OPEN WHEN YOU REQUESTED IT

AND FEEL FREE TO REQUEST IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUESTS WHEN MY INBOX IS OPEN!!!

Now with the power invested in me, I match you up with…

AKANE AOI!!!

this boy will make you feel like the center of attention all the time

he focuses on you so much you feel like literal royalty

He is willing to talk about nothing but you all day if you want

you always make him laugh and he is very grateful for it

his life can be stressful too so it’s nice to have you to calm his nerves

You are his comfort-

If you ever act awkward, he wouldn’t mind

He would try and break the tentino if he can but if you want silence then he will gladly be silent!

Akane definitely has a clingy side to him that he doesn’t show

However, I think his love language would be personal time or gifts so to just loves to hold you as you two do anything together

If you want to be quite and listen to music in headphones, he’s fine with that and will be here to talk when you want too!

If you want to play your music out loud, okay anything you want!!

If you want to dance, he will gaily dance with you

Like if a romantic slow song comes on he will pick you up and ballroom dance with you-

He can dance to any song

He’s such a simp for you though and he will do anything to make you happy!!

#tbhk #toilet bound hanako kun #tbhk x reader #jshk #tbhk anime #hanako x reader #toilet bound x reader #hanako kun #jshk x reader #jibaku shounen hanako kun #akane x reader #akane aoi x reader #akane aoi #toilet bound hanako kun x reader #jibaku shoujo hanako kun

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kissinginkitchens · 4 years ago

Text

You Bring Me Home — Chapter One: Flightless Bird, American Mouth

a/n: I've been working on this story for mooonths now and I'm so excited to finally share it with the world! It's heavily inspired by Harry's Behind the Album mini doc, except I changed the setting to Hawai'i because I've personally spent some time there and as they say, write what you know! YBMH takes place in the period between One Direction's hiatus and Harry's first album/tour, but with that being said, this is entirely a work of fiction and some events don't follow the true timeline. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little story, I hope you love it as much as I do! It will be updated every Friday at 5 PM PST. My inbox is open, so feel free to talk to me once you've finished reading! I'd love to hear from you :) Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 5.5k

May, 2016

Harry watches LAX get smaller through the airplane window and visualizes all of his worries stuck at the terminal gate, their magnitude also diminishing as he takes flight. He sinks lower in his seat and skims through playlists on his phone when a nagging feeling at the back of his mind pulls his attention away from the screen. Looking up from the song choices, he spots a cell phone quickly lowered from his line of vision and a girl with flushed cheeks who quickly averts her gaze. Harry shoots a tight-lipped smile in her direction and goes back to his phone with a sigh. The days when he could roam the streets freely without fear of recognition—or worse, harassment—feel like an entirely different lifetime. He sometimes imagines that he’ll wake up back in his childhood bed as if the past five years had all been a dream, but he never does. In fact, his privacy and anonymity seem to dwindle with each minute of radio play that One Direction receives. It’s a bittersweet pill to swallow, but one he hopes will go down easier with some time in the Hawaiian sun.

His close friend and new manager, Jeff Azoff, had suggested the vacation as soon as the band privately agreed to take a hiatus.

“You’ll go home for a few weeks,” his voice had crackled through the speakers of Harry’s phone. “Visit your mom and Gem, lay low for a while until the smoke blows over,”

Harry mulled it over in his mind, eyes flickering over the rolling landscape outside of the tour bus window.

“Then what?”

“Then you go for a little vacation. The label offered to cover a house in Hawaii so you can start working on the album,”

“Alone?”

Jeff chuckled lightly on the other end before responding. “I mean, if that’s what you want,”

“No,” Harry corrected. “You and Tom should come. Mitch and Bhasker, too,”

“The dream team,”

“And there’ll be a studio there?”

“Yes,” Jeff started, almost hesitant. “But I don’t want you to think about that too much,”

“But you said the label—"

“I also said vacation. Look, Rob said ‘it will all happen in due time,' did he not?”

Harry twisted the rose ring around his finger, tracing over the silver petals and thinking back to his conversation with the CEO of Sony Music, Rob Stringer. Upon the proposal of his debut solo album, Rob had told him that the most important ingredient for a successful debut would be patience. The singer had agreed in the moment, but every day not spent in the studio felt like a test he hadn’t studied hard enough for.

“Yeah.”

“So you take the free vacation,” Jeff suggested. “You go out, live, get some writing material. Maybe mess around with some tunes. And then we come back to L.A. and get to work. But until then, I just want you to focus on taking it easy.”

So take it easy he had. Or at least he had tried to when he was back home in England. Harry quickly grew restless after what felt like the millionth awkward conversation with past friends and acquaintances, all of which eventually led to the topic of One Direction and it’s unexpected hiatus. After one month at home, his mind and journal were full of ideas for songs, things that he wanted to say before he lost his nerve. One night as he tossed and turned in bed, he shot Jeff a text, just two words that would kick off a three month getaway to the Big Island of Hawai'i:

I’m ready.

********

“Sounds great, I'll go put in your order.” Alani offers sweetly, trying not to overdo it with the customer service voice. After waiting on the family at her designated table, she heads back to the kitchen and finds her younger sister, Pua, crouched in the corner taking what appears to be a serious phone call.

“I don’t know, I just saw it!” Her sister cries in a hushed tone. “Where do you think he’s going?”

“Is everything okay?” Alani cuts in with concern.

Pua whispers into the speaker before bringing the phone to her shoulder.

“Harry Styles was just spotted on a plane this morning,”

“Who?”

“The guy from One Direction,” her sister explains with a hint of irritation in her voice. “The band who sings that song you secretly like, ‘Fireproof,'”

Alani vaguely recalls the melody, but she waits expectantly for Pua to elaborate. “And this is news because…”

“Because the band just broke up, so where could he possibly be going?”

"The unemployment office?”

Pua rolls her eyes and returns to her phone call while Alani envelops her in a tight hug.

“I’m just kidding!” Alani apologizes, squeezing tighter despite her sister’s attempts to break free. “I’m sure he’ll be living off of royalty checks until he’s, like, eighty,”

“Get off me, freak!” Pua cries out, finally breaking the embrace.

Alani clutches her chest and pulls out an invisible knife. “Ouch. I’m telling Harry you said that,”

“This is exactly why I don’t tell you things.” the younger sister huffs, storming out of the kitchen through the employee entrance where Alani’s best friend, Maleah, has just arrived.

“Looks like someone forgot to eat their Cheerios today,” she remarks, tying her curls into a high ponytail.

Alani shrugs and leans against the counter. “She’s going through something. Just discovered that boys in pop bands are, in fact, just regular boys.”

“Poor thing,” Maleah frowns. “We all have to learn eventually.”

********

The sky is a blend of cotton candy pink and burnt orange when Alani returns home from the café with a strawberry smoothie in tow. She empties the mailbox and sorts through the various bills and advertisements, but her stomach drops when she sees a familiar return address label. After a quick greeting to her excited dog who waits at the door, Alani bolts up the stairs and quietly shuts the bedroom door behind her. Breathe, she reminds herself before tearing into the envelope and discarding it onto the wooden floor.

Dear Ms. Hale,

We are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine. However, we regret to inform you—

She doesn’t read the rest, slumping to the floor in defeat. The sixth rejection letter from Rolling Stone lies crumpled at Alani’s feet and she kicks it across the room with a frustrated grunt. She had worked for over two months perfecting her analysis of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi and its allusions to the environmental impact of urban development in Hawaii. As part of her initial research, Alani had even traveled to both the Royal Hawaiian hotel in Honolulu, which is the famous Pink Hotel mentioned in the song, and Foster Botanical Garden that Mitchell referred to as “the tree museum.” She was certain that her effort and persistence would result in at least a consideration. The second third time's the charm! Maleah had joked watching Alani submit the piece. Six articles in the span of two years, each one facing the same rejection despite the increased effort Alani had put in over time. The fact that the rejection letter hadn’t changed over the course of the two years brings an incredulous smile to her face, and her stomach turns when she considers that the editors probably hadn’t even read her work, anyway. All that effort, she thinks to herself, all that time, for nothing.

“It will take time,” her favorite professor, Dr. Hudson, had reassured her three months after the Joni Mitchell article was submitted. “Every great writer faced countless rejection until that one piece. Yours will come. Keep your eyes open and your pen ready.”

Alani sighs and lifts herself off the floor, choosing to crawl into her unmade bed instead of slumping onto the hardwood. She hears a soft scratching at the door before her King Charles Spaniel, Freddie, pads into the room.

“Come here, bubs,” Alani whispers. He obeys and burrows into the duvet, giving her temple a gentle lick before nuzzling into the nape of her neck.

“You still love me, right?” she asks, voice cracking. “Even if I’m a failure?”

Freddie sniffs her ear in response.

********

“Right,” Harry says, his tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth as he reads the map. “No, left, sorry,”

“Do you actually know how to read a map?” Jeff teases, correcting the turn.

Harry pouts in response, his brows furrowing. “In my defense, we’re literally in the middle of fucking nowhere,”

“There are worse places to be,” Mitch pipes up from the back seat. “England, for example, where they say things like ‘litchrally’,”

“Very well said, Mitchell,” Jeff Bhasker adds with a fake British accent of his own.

Harry turns to his friends in the back seat with a finger pointed like an agitated mother. “If you lot don’t shut up, I’m gonna lead us to a volcano and push you in,”

“Where are we even going? I forgot,” Tom complains.

“To get food,” his manager responds from the driver’s seat. “I think,”

“Why can’t we just stop there?” Mitch asks pointing to a café pulling up on their right.

Jeff merges into the turning lane quickly without a second thought. “Good enough for me, I’m starving.”

“Sorry, H.” Mitch pats his friend on the shoulder.

Harry scoffs. “You’re the one who wanted poke.”

The Aloha Nui Loa Café is much more spacious than the exterior suggests, yet it still feels cozy. The walls are painted sage green and adorned with various local art pieces, as described by the plaques that accompany them. A skylight fills the center of the room with plenty of warm lighting, leaving the space along the walls in a bit more shade for an intimate feel. In one corner, a hanging disco ball leaves freckles of sparkling light along the walls where the sunlight hits, making the whole image very idyllic in Harry’s mind. As if he couldn’t enjoy the setting more, he hears the beginning of an Otis Redding song that he’s had stuck in his head drift through the restaurant speakers.

“Welcome in!” a voice calls, which pulls him from his survey of the room. His head whips to the source—a girl around his age with wavy, dark hair and honey skin. “For here or to go?”

Harry takes a hesitant step up to the counter. “For here,”

She smiles warmly and pulls some menus from under the counter. “How many in your party?”

“Five.”

“Great, follow me.”

Harry and his friends follow the waitress to the corner of the room under the disco ball and take their seats at the round table.

“My name is Alani,” she introduces herself, setting the menus down. “I’ll be serving you today. Can I get you started with some drinks?”

Harry continues scanning the restaurant while his group orders. His eyes land on the shirt that Alani is wearing, a white tee with the words “Enjoy Health, Eat Your Honey” in blue lettering that surrounds a picture of a cartoon bee.

“Harry,” Jeff says gently, catching his drifting attention.

The singer turns to his manager, who nods to Alani waiting with a pen pressed to her notepad. Harry feels a rush of embarrassment creep across his cheeks and he clears his throat to cover it.

“Just water,” he says, eyes glued to the menu. “Thanks.”

“You got it.” Alani nods, flashing a toothy grin at the rest of the group before turning back to the kitchen. Harry. Her mind repeats, finding a hint of familiarity, though she doesn’t know why.

When Alani arrives at the drink station, she finds her sister staring at her, mouth agape, while Maleah unsuccessfully conceals her laughter.

“What?” she questions, checking herself for any embarrassing stains or smells.

“You were—and he—” Pua stammers. “He was—and then he—”

“That’s Harry Styles,” Maleah translates, her voice hushed as she peers over her friend's shoulder.

Alani turns to steal a glance at the table she just seated, but Pua and Maleah latch onto her and shake their heads frantically.

“Don’t look!” her sister hisses.

Alani smirks, amused at their reactions. “No shit. That’s One Direction?”

Maleah snorts, clasping a hand over her mouth as Pua huffs. “No, dumbass! It’s just Harry. I don’t know who the other guys are,”

“But the blonde guy? That’s not—?”

“No!” Pua and Maleah giggle in unison.

“Okay, geez,” Alani relents. She manages to steal a quick glance at the table over her shoulder, immediately searching for Harry. Her eyes scan over the long, curly hair kept out of his face by a pair of white sunglasses that she had seen on Kurt Cobain once. All of his features are sharp and striking, from his pointed nose and defined jawline to the bright blue eyes. Or maybe they were grey? Alani wonders, trying to remember the exact shade. He doesn’t look anything like the fresh-faced teeny bopper she’d had in mind, the one from a music video her sister had shown her a long time ago. She would have never guessed that the What Makes You Beautiful singer had so much dark ink trailing down his bicep and forearm, though her knowledge of One Direction was very limited.

“What did he order?” Pua questions, her eyes wide.

Alani quickly snaps back to reality and resumes filling the drinks. “A water,”

“Oh my god,” Maleah swoons. “I’m never drinking anything else ever again,”

“I didn’t even know you liked him,” Alani teases with an eyebrow raised.

Maleah sneaks another peek at the table and catches her lower lip between her teeth. “I mean, I didn’t really think so either but look at him. What a fucking dream,”

Harry was objectively handsome, this Alani could admit, but she personally didn’t see the appeal and had a strong feeling that he was just like every other male celebrity. The fact that he hadn’t even bothered to make eye contact with her only served as further proof of what she knew to be true.

“Okay, well, your dreamboat is waiting for his water. So excuse me,” Alani winks, making her way back to the table.

The singer spots Alani returning out of the corner of his eye and the sight of her causes a strange flutter in the pit of his stomach that makes him want to duck for cover. Instead, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and pretends to be occupied with something on the screen.

“Okay,” she greets, setting the drink tray down. “I have a Blue Hawaii, a Mango Mama, two Loco Cocos, and a water,”

The group graciously accepts their drinks with a chorus of “thank you," but the only one under Alani’s scrutiny is Harry. He still doesn’t meet her almond eyes, and though she figured he wouldn’t, she can’t help the inkling of disappointment that washes over her. After taking their meal orders, Alani heads back to the kitchen, checking on her other customers along the way. Harry’s eyes follow her and he observes the way customers light up at her presence, indulging her conversation with laughter. He watches as she lingers by the jukebox in one corner of the room, a detail he had missed in his initial scan, and waits anxiously to see what song she chooses. Baby I’m-a Want You begins softly and Harry feels the corner of his lip curl ever so slightly. Good choice, he thinks.

********

“He’s still here,” Pua muses, peering through the tiny window in the kitchen door. It had been nearly two hours and the five men were still seated around their table cracking jokes and doing a lot of talking with their hands.

Alani doesn’t look up from her bowl of sliced kiwis, offering a hum in response. “And what do you want me to do about that?”

“Nothing,” Pua shoots back. “Don’t bother him,”

“What kind of girls do you think he’s into?” Maleah asks, attempting to peek through the window.

Alani shrugs, bored of the conversation and of thinking about Harry. “I don’t know, but I’ll bet he’s a real sucker for the ones who stalk him while he’s eating,”

“How does he make eating a salad look hot?”

“Can we talk about something else now?” Alani whines, poking holes in a lone kiwi with her fork.

Pua tosses a wet dish rag in her sister’s direction and cheers when it lands in her face. “Go see if he wants more water, he looks thirsty.”

“I already refilled it,” Alani defends. “Twenty minutes ago. I’ve refilled it a hundred times, I’m surprised he hasn’t peed his pants.”

I’m gonna piss myself. Harry thinks, his right leg bouncing to distract himself. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. Like clockwork, she would return to fill his glass almost as soon as the last drop had been drained, and so what began as a little experiment slowly turned into a bladder hazard. But if the trend was to be trusted, she would be back any minute and he wasn’t going to miss it; afterall, there were only so many ways to casually linger in a small café without making it weird. Unable to bear it any longer, he heads to the restroom and hopes that Alani doesn’t clear their table before he has a chance to see her again.

Harry pads down the back hallway with his eyes cast down at the floor, which proves to be a mistake when he walks directly into another person.

“Sorry!” they both apologize quickly, Harry’s palm taking purchase on the other person’s upper arm.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he offers, finally meeting the dark, mocha eyes already looking back at him.

Alani presses her lips into a tight smile. “Me either,”

Harry’s heartbeat picks up when he realizes it’s her, and he isn’t aware of how close they’re standing until he detects the faint scent of kiwi on her breath. He takes a step back and rakes a hand through his hair.

“So I guess I’ll just—”

“Yeah, sure.”

Green. Alani notes to herself. His eyes are green.

********

Shortly after Harry returned from the restroom, him and his friends settled their bill and headed out. Alani cleared their table and her eyes nearly fell out of her head when she saw the hefty tip left behind. The word mahalo was also left behind on the receipt, underlined twice, and she wondered if it was his handwriting.

Later that night, she settled into bed with her laptop and hesitantly typed his name into Google. As she expected, countless articles about the split of One Direction emerged, most of them speculating what was next for each member. To her surprise, however, Harry’s name seemed to be mentioned more than his fellow bandmates as various sources labeled him “the next Justin Timberlake” and rising star of the group. Upon further investigation, she learned that the demand for information about the elusive Harry Styles was high, especially concerning any possible solo music. No news had yet been confirmed by Styles himself, nor anyone claiming to represent him, but she still wondered if his presence in Hawaii had anything to do with a possible solo project. Almost as soon as she thought it, Alani dismissed the theory in favor of the idea that he was most likely just taking a vacation. And from the buzz that she saw surrounding the news about One Direction, she couldn’t blame him.

The more Alani read, the more she wanted to know, and something deep down told her that his was a story worth telling. Of course, the only problem was that she had hardly talked to him, and there were only so many things she could say about the fifteen glasses of water he downed. There was no way of knowing if she would ever see him again, either, or if he was merely stopping in Hilo on his way to another island or somewhere else entirely. Alani sighed, thinking back to her most recent rejection from Rolling Stone. She knew that there was no possible way she would ever see or talk to Harry ever again, and even if she did, why would he bare his entire soul to a stranger? Still, she let her mind wander through the possibility.

Dear Ms. Hale, the letter would read, we are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine and are pleased to inform you that your piece on Harry Styles will be featured in next month’s issue. Additionally, we would be honored to have you on staff, effective immediately.

It was far-fetched, Alani knew this, but she dozed off that night with endless ideas swimming in her head.

********

By the third day after his visit, the only trace of Harry is in Alani’s search history. She would have completely forgotten about him if it weren’t for her sister’s constant reminiscing and multiple attempts to rename the house salad to the “Harry Special.” As a result, a part of Alani’s thoughts periodically linger back to that day and the subsequent hours spent on Google that she’d rationalized as research instead of stalking. Somehow the knowledge that she’ll never see him again only adds fuel to the questions still burning in her mind, but a customer clearing their throat while she sorts menus below the hostess podium interrupts her thoughts.

“Welcome in!” She calls, standing. “What can I—”

She stops in her tracks, unable to believe her eyes. Harry blinks and waits for her to continue.

“What can I get started for you?” Alani tries again, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her shock. Luckily for her, Harry had been too focused on choosing his next words to register her mistake.

“What’s in the Honu smoothie?” he asks, mentally kicking himself for asking such a stupid question when the menu just inches above her head clearly spells it out.

Alani hums, thinking back to the times she had made the smoothie herself. “Kiwis, spinach, mango, avocado, and a hint of lime,”

“I’ll take one of those,” Harry says, reaching for his wallet.

Alani punches in the order with trembling fingers and nods. “For here or to go?”

“To go,”

Disappointment fills her chest. Sure, she hadn’t planned on seeing him ever again, but the fact that she did felt like a sign. If she wanted to take the chance, she’d have to do it fast.

“Anything else?” she asks, weighing her options while he skims the menu.

“No thanks.”

Alani makes the smoothie quickly, head spinning. She had spent most of the night after their initial meeting planning out exactly the type of questions she hoped to ask him and what kind of article she would write. She was used to writing about what she knew—artists and music she’d admired for years— but she figured that starting fresh with someone she hardly knew would be a good challenge. Not to mention that it seemed like just the thing Rolling Stone would jump for. Alani finally works up the courage as she finishes his smoothie, but when she returns to hand it to him and hopefully strike up a conversation, his ear is pressed to his cell phone. She holds out the drink and he graciously accepts, giving her a small nod as a “thank you” and rushing out of the restaurant.

Two days later he returns and is seated at the counter, typing away on his phone. Alani feels both a rush of optimism and annoyance at the universe for dangling his presence so unexpectedly. She starts heading over to him, but Maleah cuts in.

“Trade me?” she proposes, eyes wide.

Alani blinks. “Oh, I would but I—”

“Please,” her best friend pouts. “I’m leaving to see my grandparents in stupid California for two months. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to see him again?”

Alani sighs, but gives in, reluctantly exchanging Harry for the family of four seated by the window. A strange feeling settles into the pit of his stomach when he sees that she heads in the opposite direction after a hushed conversation with another waitress. He doesn’t know why she traded him for a different customer, but he takes the hint.

A week goes by without another sighting of Harry and Alani has permanently taken on the role of greeting hostess in hopes of seeing him again. Her heartbeat temporarily speeds up when she sees a long haired customer approach the door, but her spirits quickly fall when the face doesn’t match his.

Another week brings another disappointing realization that Harry might be gone for good. One rainy morning when the restaurant is quiet and only two customers huddle together in a booth near the back, Alani hunches over the hostess podium and doodles on a stray receipt— a sunflower, a crescent moon, and two hearts. The bell above the door jingles but she doesn’t look up, too absorbed in her scribbles.

“Do you serve coffee?”

The familiar accented voice stops Alani’s pen dead in its tracks. She lifts her eyes first to confirm, and then straightens up when she sees that her ears haven’t deceived her.

“Yes,” she swallows.

“Great. I’ll take it to go,”

She slightly deflates, but Harry thinks he’s reading too much into it.

“Actually,” he corrects anyway, just in case he isn’t. “I think I’ll stay for a while,”

Alani flashes a warm smile and nods in the direction of the counter. “Right this way,”

Harry sheds his windbreaker onto the back of the seat, revealing a black and white Rolling Stones t-shirt that makes Alani’s blood pressure rise. A sign, she thinks.

“What do you want in your coffee?” she questions carefully.

“Nothing,” he responds, shaking out his damp hair gently. “Or actually, uh, butter...if you have some,”

Alani blinks, not sure if she’d heard correctly or if there had been some transatlantic miscommunication.

“Butter?”

“Yeah,”

“Like the—”

“Spread, yeah,” Harry confirms. “It’s weird, I know,”

She lets out a light-hearted laugh and nods. “It’s a...unique request,”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Harry confides. “It’s not bad, actually. But maybe I’ve just been in L.A. for too long.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She offers a polite smile and heads to the kitchen where the cook and two other waiters talk amongst each other. Alani is grateful that the restaurant is slow this morning because she knows that it means minimal interruptions to her time with Harry. To ensure this, though, she asks one of the other waiters to cover the podium and returns to Harry with his coffee.

“One butter coffee, free of judgement,” the waitress announces, setting it down.

Harry grins softly, stirring the drink with the spoon Alani provided. “You can judge, it’s alright,”

“I just wanna know why,”

The coffee had been part of a fad diet while on tour in order to boost Harry’s energy on stage and stay trim for the hundreds of photo-ops he would be a part of. He doesn’t know how to communicate all of this to Alani, however, not sure how much she knows about that part of him, so he shrugs and tells a simplified version of the truth.

“I read about this trend a while back, it's called bulletproof coffee. Supposed to get your energy up and I needed it for my job,”

“Which is…” Alani trails off, downplaying the knowledge that she had acquired from Google.

“I make music,” is all Harry says and he takes a sip of the drink to avoid elaborating.

“Anything I would have heard?”

He swallows hard and listens to the faint rumbling of thunder outside before replying. “Possibly,”

“Try me,” Alani challenges.

He narrows his eyes and takes another sip of coffee. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself first?”

“What do you wanna know?”

Everything, Harry responds internally, though he reigns it in. “How you got into waitressing,”

Alani sighs, resting her elbows on the counter across from him. “There’s not much to tell, it’s a family business. What I really wanna do is write,”

“Music?”

“Articles. I’m studying Journalism at UH,”

Harry hums in response, filing the detail away in the back of his mind. “Sounds interesting. You ever publish anything?”

“Not yet,” Alani shakes her head gently, toying with the sleeves of her green University of Hawaii crewneck. “Hopefully soon, though,”

Harry racks his brain for something else to say, but before he can, Alani speaks up again.

“Is it my turn to ask something now?”

He offers a curt nod and stirs his coffee.

“What kind of music do you write?”

Harry chooses to be vague again. “Different stuff. Pop, usually. Been messing with some classic rock, though,”

“Explains the shirt,”

He peers down at the design on his tee and agrees. “Yeah, I guess so,”

“Do you like it?” Alani asks, her eyes begging to make contact with his again. “Writing music, I mean,”

“Yeah,” Harry confirms, tapping his spoon against the rim of the mug. “I really do,”

Alani’s heart pounds. This is her chance, a moment to finally secure her breakthrough piece. She doesn’t know how to approach it, so she opts to dive right in without looking back. The worst he can say is no.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“That’s cheating,” Harry teases lightly. “It's my turn,”

She pouts playfully, but obliges. “Fire away,”

Harry doesn’t know which question to ask first, but when he glances down at the crescent moon inked on her wrist, he decides to start there.

“What’s with the moon tattoo?”

Alani isn’t sure what she expected him to ask and wonders what purpose such a detail could possibly serve him, but she answers anyway.

“Oh, well,” she begins, tracing her index finger over the outline. “It’s kinda the meaning of my full name. It’s Mahealani, Hawaiian for ‘heavenly moon,'”

Fitting, Harry comments to himself. Every detail he learns about her makes him want to learn that much more, from her favorite foods to the last thing she thinks about before falling asleep. Studying her expectant eyes, he suddenly remembers that it’s his turn to respond.

“That’s cool,” is all he says.

Alani doesn’t know what to make of the faraway look in his eye, but she decides to pose her most burning question while he appears to be in good spirits.

“I know this is gonna sound totally out of the blue,” she starts, working past the lump in her throat. “But when you mentioned how you write music, I was just reminded of this assignment I’m working on in my class,”

Harry waits for her to continue, nursing his now lukewarm coffee.

“I’m supposed to write a piece about someone who I don’t know that well,” she continues. “You know, to practice our interviewing skills. And, well, I was just kind of wondering if you might be interested in helping me out—being the subject, I mean,”

Alani had every intention of telling Harry the truth, about how she really planned to submit the article to Rolling Stone in hopes of securing an internship before her college graduation next Spring. But as she started speaking, she quickly realized how it would come off: a complete stranger asking for personal information to submit to a well-known publication. She knew that there was a chance he would shut down and never return, so she lowered the stakes and hoped that this route would be less risky. Was it ethical? Alani hadn’t decided yet, but she would work out the details later. After six failed articles and two years of rejection, she saw a ray of hope and wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Harry ponders her offer for a moment, which confirms that she had recognized him. Normally he would be off-put by such a request, and to a certain extent he is, but there is something sincere in her voice that he trusts deep down. Before he agrees, however, he decides to fish around a bit to test her reaction.

“You know who I am,” he says gently. “Don’t you?”

Alani’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach, not sure what to say next. She hopes with every fiber of her being that she hasn’t upset him, or worse, ruined her chances, so she decides to offer some truth to throw him off her scent.

“My sister recognized you,” she explains. “That day you came in with your friends. I thought they were your bandmates at first,”

This lets Harry know that she isn’t a total stalker, which is comforting, but he wouldn’t have been minded if she were a fan simply engaging in conversation.

“Oh,” he laughs weakly.

“I totally understand if you say no,” Alani offers quickly, trying to smooth things over. “I just thought it was worth a shot. And that it might be more interesting than interviewing our produce guy,”

Harry decides to give her one last scan for any sign of insincerity. He’d always felt that his gut instinct was strong and it hadn’t led him astray thus far.

“An interview?” he clarifies.

“Just one,” Alani promises. “An hour, tops. And you can proofread all of it once I’ve finished, too.”

Harry waits a beat, already knowing his reply, but he wants to see how she will react to his silence. She doesn’t budge, almond eyes set and determined.

“Okay.”

next chapter

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles writing #harry styles x oc #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #ybmh #she's here she's here she's here!!!!!

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pillage-and-lute · 4 years ago

Text

In All that I Have Done

Sad. I recommend listening to Arvo P ärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel while reading. Very, very sad, cannot stress this enough. Non-explicit major character death. (Happens of old age but still)

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More than forty years after the fall of Cintra one Professor Pankratz put down his pen. In the last ten years his hands had lost some of their surety, but his quill didn’t shake when he put it down.

He ran one hand down his face. His beard had started going silver just after he’d adopted the style, but both it and his hair were now fully steel grey, with not even a hint of their former color. He adjusted his spectacles, tweaked the fashionable, but less than flamboyant hem of his doublet, and began to read what he’d written.

The last will and testament of Professor Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove.

I am writing this, sure and sound of mind, if not of body, in the event of my death. For many years I had a living, de facto will, that is, who ever found me dead by the roadside could loot my body for what they wished. As I got older and my body forced my errant heart to settle down I realized that this could no longer be the case. I fear I have put this off much too long, but happily, it seems I was not too late.

To my remaining family, my baby brother Alfons and his wife Iwona, I leave the rights to my songs and other works, and the royalties to them. Have fun. Alfons, Iwona is a beautiful woman and I would have wooed her, but that you were so in love I couldn’t bring myself to steal her away. I write this with a chuckle, Iwona my dear, because if you’ll remember we met first, and I introduced you to my brother only after you’d hit me in the head with a frying pan for flirting.

I have also set up a trust, a portion of the royalties will be funneled into it for your son, Mikolaj, although he is a strapping young man who may never need it because he is a fine craftsman, as these spectacles he made me can attest. With luck he may spend it on marriage, should he ever woo that baker lad who made those charming blackberry tarts.

To the grandson of my friend Priscilla, Gaj. You have just been born and are a wonder beyond belief. Your parents are lovely people and you are lucky to have them. They should feel lucky to read this since I fear I shall be long dead before you learn your letters. However; there are times I wish I had fathered children. There are also times I remember what those who do go through and am thankful I did not, but you are a miracle. In the hope that you are given the very best of education, I have put in a word with the university. Should you choose, you will have the best schooling the Continent can offer, free of charge, with the compliments of Oxenfurt. Just, when you are someday a raging young student, sloppy drunk on a night out, think of me, if you can think at all.

As I have of late stayed in quarters provided for me by the university and their gracious staff, I shall relinquish it all in return, as well as whatever items are held within not listed here. There shall be money in the vase by the fireplace for my funeral, as well as a generous tip for the maids, who have been wonderful and kind to an often forgetful and frail old man who is too much in his feelings.

My wardrobe I leave to whoever wants it, apart from my best blue doublet. (The sky blue one, which brings out my eyes) I should hope to be buried in it.

And finally, to my dearest and truest friend, Geralt of Rivia I leave a note, a song, and a gift.

Jaskier once again scrubbed his hand over his face. His study held a chill, despite the fine summer day, or perhaps it was just him. He got cold so easily these days. His breath rattled a little as he took a deep breath and hauled himself out of his comfortable chair. Melitele’s great gorgeous thighs, but his knees ached today. Jaskier paused at the mirror to tease his hair into place, advancing years never having divested him of his style. He flashed a wink into the mirror and shoveled a little coal into the small fireplace.

He settled again at his desk, a different paper in hand, separate from the will, and began to look it over. This letter held none of the fine penmanship of the other, instead the letters were blocky and easy to read, better for the eyes that may have gained much in a mutation but skipped lightly over letters and switched them about.

My dear Geralt, it read. In all that I have done, I have had but one masterpiece. Critics may disagree on my greatest work, but I know it exactly, and have since the day of it’s birth. My opus was not Toss a Coin, or even the rehabilitation of yours- and all witchers- reputations. My masterpiece was my relationship with you, a wonderful and awful secret masterpiece of the heart, mind, and soul.

I know you do not dally about with words, but lest you misunderstand this last, most important of missives, we must discuss them. The word awful is now so said as to mean the same as terrible, but this cannot be true at all. Terrible is that which inspires terror or creates fear. Awful, or aweful, if you will, is to inspire awe. To be full of it. Sometimes that awe is fearful, sometimes reverential, perhaps a condemnation and sometimes a blessing. You, my friend, inspire awe. And in me you inspired something much greater than that. In all my years, which are so few compared to yours, nothing has so inspired love in me, as you. It has been my life’s greatest blessing.

When this letter comes to you, regardless of how it comes, it means I am gone from this world. I fear it shall indeed be soon, but I do not fear death. Weep not for me, my friend, instead let me bury in this parchment what there is left for me to say.

More than forty years ago I asked you to come away with me. All these decades later I still dream that you would, yet, I understand why you did not, and why you pushed me away. I offered you my heart that day, but it was the heart of a being you would watch wither away, as I’ll admit I have done. You could not be my forever, knowing that I cannot also be yours. There is no apology, no tears, no explanation needed there.

Indeed, even for casting me away I need no words, and you have always had few to give, my friend. You didn’t keep me away for long, after all. I am like a magnet, drawn to you. Even now I feel your pull, like the tide to the gentle lady moon, but I cannot follow.

After the mountain we met up again and again, our lives orbiting eachvother like planets, but we never clung so close as those first twenty years. That is the fault of Dame Time, a tricky mistress, as she collected her dues for twenty years of hard travel and ill care on my body.

I wish I could have given you more of my years. I find I am angry, and yet not so. At once, I could have had more time beside you, had somehow things been otherwise, but I know I had more time with you than might have been, perhaps more than I could reasonably expect. Someone, some goddess, or Life, Time, Destiny, or Fate, gave me enough time to finish the masterpiece that is my love for you, and that is enough.

You read here the ramblings of an old man, but I shall burden you with a few more sentences.

You may recognize the case to which this letter is attached. Inside is my lute, as given to me by Filavandrel. I wish you to have it. I know you have never been musically inclined, but to me this instrument means so much more than music. This is the physical being of us, and all that may entail. I hope that you keep it, and treasure it how you will. If ever there comes such a person that you wish to play it, for whatever reason, gift it to them, but I beg you, tell them to whom it belonged, and how it came to belong to you.

And finally, I leave you with a few unsung verses that I feel someone ought to read.

To the edge of the world May this letter be born That it comfort and heals you Although it brings you to mourn

I wrote every song And traveled along For my faith in a witcher and my friend before all

I hope you be blessed and continue your quest To be a friend of humanity As I go to rest

That's our epic tale My champion prevailed Defeated every villain And continues the tale

Toss a coin to my witcher, O valley of plenty...

love, Jaskier.

Professor Pankratz carefully rolled up the parchment and slipped inside a waterproofed tube, tying it with a blue ribbon that would likely only be lost in the parcel’s travels. He did it anyway, then he trailed his fingers over the finest instrument he’d ever played. Hand tremors meant it had sat silent for many months, but he plucked a few, slightly out of tune strings in a familiar tune. Then he put Filavandrel’s lute away, slipping the note in it’s packaging into the outer pocket of the case.

There was a funny feeling, he felt as he sat back in his large desk chair, to completing your greatest work, but he knew at least one being would remember it forever. He took off his spectacles and leaned back in his chair, the fire in the grate convincing him to doze. His eyes slid shut, and Jaskier greeted eternity with open arms.

#hurt no comfort #some closure though #tw major character death #post mountain #geraskier #you can read it as platonic #but he says the word love #jaskier #julian alfred pankratz #geralt of rivia #angst #sad #really really sad #i cried #why did I write this

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mimipagemusic · 4 years ago

Text

An open letter to Lorin Ashton (Bassnectar) from Mimi Page: A call for true accountability, responsibility, and healing action on behalf of the music industry.

Dear Lorin,

You have willingly and openly invited healing on your part with anyone you have hurt in your past. While I am aware you are calling every past sexual partner you’ve had, you haven’t bothered to consider the trauma your actions have caused to your female colleagues. You haven’t reached out to me once. I am taking this opportunity to respond to your offer of healing by “calling you in” in this open letter. I am a relatively private person and would have preferred to call you and read my letter to you directly. The truth is, I don’t trust you. You have claimed to care about the healing of those you’ve harmed, but the recordings released prove that you manipulate and gaslight whoever confronts you. I privately confronted you about “Butterfly” back in 2016, so I’ve directly experienced your manipulative behavior. Because you have harmed so many people in your personal and professional life, my hope is that this open letter will bring forth clarity and healing to anyone who reads it. Healing to me, to you, to the young women you have sexually and emotionally abused, to the creative collaborators you have taken advantage of creatively and financially, to the professional team members you’ve betrayed and let down, and to the dedicated fan base you’ve mislead and abandoned.

While I am processing my own feelings of anger, confusion, and disgust, I am also writing you from a place of love. Tough love, that stands for healing, integrity, and transformative justice. Principles you claimed to stand for as a leader in the music industry. This situation is devastating on so many levels because you’ve also created a lot of good in this world. You have inspired millions of people and played a pivotal role in our culture. You’ve provided a platform for so many independent artists to be heard, myself included. I am forever grateful to you for that. But with the platform you helped me build, I am now speaking out on it. My hope is that deep inside your soul, you can listen, learn, and take accountability with an open heart. My own heart is broken, but it is also open. So with this open letter, I will address the evidence of both your “romantic” victims and my own negative experience with you, from my own perspective. If you can take true accountability and healing action with our best interests in mind instead of your own, then I believe you can still be a catalyst for the true change and healing we need in not only the music industry, but in our world.

My personal reasons for coming forward:

In response to your sexual abuse allegations, you have publicly denied “the rumors” yet claim to welcome responsibility and accountability. You have admitted to the possibility of hurting others, yet you have not clarified what pain you have actually caused. You have claimed your own romantic relationships were “positive, consensual, legal, and loving.” You have claimed you are an “ally of women” offering free therapy to “true survivors of sexual abuse.” As an action, you have chosen to step away from your musical career and abandon your non-profit organization without further clarity or closure with all of us. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at ages 5, 13, and 16, I have lived with the PTSD that comes with experiencing both Pedophilia and Ephebophilia. I have spent many years in therapy unpacking my own trauma, healing it, and learning what true sexual health is. As a “true survivor” responding to your statement, you have absolutely no right to define what a “true survivor” is. To do so gaslights the women coming forward about the abuse you inflicted, and manipulates the public into doubting their truth. This creates victim shaming and I won’t stand for that.

The legal definition of a child is ages 0-17. Rachel was 17 when you groomed and pursued your sexual relationship with her. The definition of Ephebophilia is an adult who is sexually attracted to adolescents between the ages of 15-19. Ephebophilia is not a sexual preference, it is a sexual perversion. While the argument stands that some teenagers welcome a relationship with an adult partner, many survivors realize they were psychologically damaged by that relationship once they mature in their mid 20s. Clarity and healing takes time, I speak from experience. There’s a reason that by law, teenagers are still considered children. While it’s completely healthy for teenagers to date other teenagers, they have no business being sexually groomed and manipulated by adults, especially those with power and influence. Ephebophilia has been glamorized and normalized in the music industry for generations and it needs to finally change. Countless rockstars like you have gotten away with this illegal and psychologically damaging activity with their underage fans. Many of them are still massively successful to this day. As an artist who has built your brand and activism on the principles of compassion, equality, and integrity, why are you grooming and dating your teenage fans? According to your victim Lauren’s statement, you explained why you don’t date women your own age. You told her you aren’t interested in older women because “they have too much baggage.” Lorin, it is men like you that create this “baggage” for women. And because of this, perhaps it is you who actually needs the therapy you are offering your victims. There is something very wrong with the way you view and interact with our world.

As a female artist and collaborator of yours for over 8 years, I wish I could speak up in defense of your character and your treatment of women through the reflection of own relationship and your treatment of me. I can not do this. While I hate seeing your career destroyed, I can’t help but honor the karma. I have carried your baggage for far too long. You have leveraged your power and your fame over me during every creative negotiation we have ever had. Always manipulating me into taking less of a writing percentage than my actual creative contribution because you claimed your platform, “the bassnectar factor” as you called it, would benefit me as a “smaller artist.” You hid behind a public mask of humility and activism when in private you lead with entitlement and greed. As a collaborator of yours, I am also a survivor of you. Not of your sexual abuse, but your psychological manipulation and financial abuse. You have taken advantage of my vulnerability and creativity since I was in my early 20s. You used your charm to manipulate me into thinking you cared about me while you stole my creative credit and royalties. You used your fame and influence to manipulate me into feeling grateful for the benefits I did receive from working with you, gaslighting my own reality and pain. You strategically belittled me creatively and financially in order to assert your dominance and control in ways where I was brainwashed into continuing to work with you. You have said some incredibly inappropriate and hurtful things to me over the years which negatively affected my self esteem to the degree that I almost quit music. Like so many others, I put you on a pedestal and looked up to you before I experienced your darkness. Even when I experienced your darkness, it was like I was under a spell. I have been conflicted for years and your name has been brought up in my own therapy sessions many times. You are a master manipulator, and I believe that is your greatest talent. In light of these allegations from both your victims and collaborators, so much becomes clear. The spell you cast not only on me, but the world, has been broken.

Your undeniable abuse towards women:

The evidence and statements being released by women who you say have been your “consensual, legal, and loving partners” provides contrary evidence to the innocence you claimed in your public statement. In an audio recording with Rachel, you verbally admit to her statutory rape when she was 17. She explains to you that at age 17, she “had no idea who she was.” She expressed that she was impressionable and that a relationship with someone your age with such an extreme power dynamic was beyond inappropriate for her. You validate this by agreeing with her and regretting your actions. You then offer to take accountability directly with her, but ask if that accountability means being “raped and beat up in a Tennessee jail.” This type of response to someone you’ve harmed is not called accountability, Lorin. This response is called gaslighting and manipulation, and it is equally abusive. It subliminally asks your victim to doubt the severity of her own experience and put your well being above her own.

In an email correspondence that Rachel shared during her senior year in high school, you congratulate her good grades on a school paper. You then request she spend 4-5 hours writing you an essay for your own pleasure. In a second email, you admit “she is overloaded with school work” but confess you are “so curious about what goes on outside of school in her social life.” You then tell her she “so rarely reaches out” and you “want to hear her voice.” Rachel wasn’t a groupie who pursued you as so many of your defenders claim. You groomed, pursued, and manipulated her. This isn’t the behavior of a mentor, a teacher, or a caring friend. You were an adult celebrity taking advantage of your teenage fan. This is called predatory behavior. You were a grown man in your mid 30s who chose to groom and sleep with an underage teenager, knowing full well how old she was at the time. In seeking the truth for myself, I spoke at great lengths with Rachel over the phone and heard her entire story. I also spoke to Lauren and have heard hers. While I was disgusted by the trauma you inflicted on these women, I was equally inspired by their grace, wisdom, and bravery to stand up to you.

Rachel (age 17), Lauren (age 21), and another young woman have claimed you put thousands of dollars in cash in their purses and backpacks after their sexual encounters with you. They all have clarified that they did not ask for this money, were surprised and confused by it, and had to hide it from their parents and friends as they were sworn to secrecy by you. According to them, you were paranoid and made them communicate with you through encrypted apps so that your communication was hidden. In Lauren’s public statement, she claims she was “sexually groomed and manipulated” by you as your fan. According to her story, she was hand selected via Instagram and won a meet and greet with you. After thanking you on Twitter, you provided her your private email and asked her to continue communicating with you. When telling you her age, you said you were “surprised” because she “looked younger than 21.” You then requested she travel alone to visit your home. When telling you she wanted to inform her parents so they knew where she was, your response was that her parents “had no business knowing the details of her personal life”. If she was to inform them of her travel, she was to lie about your identity and say she was “dating a teacher named Gabe.” While demanding her sexual exclusivity with you, you refused to be sexually exclusive with her. You also requested she consider you a “life coach” as you would help guide some of her “biggest decisions.” Some of your advice included informing her that “every man she would ever meet would only want to have sex with her and would do anything to get it.” You offered to “protect her” from this. This is not a loving relationship Lorin, this is a manipulative, controlling, and psychologically abusive relationship. There are many other women you have harmed who have privately come forward but are too afraid to publicly share their stories. Several of them have stated that they were under the age of 18 when they had sexual relations with you. The amount of young women you’ve harmed is mind blowing, and they are all your “true victims.” In order to take true accountability, you have to be willing to own up to your actions and take legal responsibility for what you have actually done.

Our professional relationship:

I’ve spent the past few days going through my own emails and memories with you, trying to find clarity and understanding of who you really are and how you could have harmed so many people in the ways that you have. While going back to my early correspondence with you, I was disturbed to find the same style of inappropriate communication with me. Our relationship has always remained professional and I’ve considered you more of a dysfunctional “big brother” type throughout the years. An email you sent me back in 2012 reminded me that this wasn’t always the case. I had completely blocked out this email because it made me feel so uncomfortable at the time. I now remember that I chose to shelve this away in my psyche because I was conflicted with how excited I was to get the chance to work with you.

(Email Context: I had just sent you my vocal hook for our song “Butterfly")

As a female artist who has endured the gender inequality in this industry, I am used to putting my head down and tolerating inappropriate jokes and conversations with men as long as it never escalated to a place where I felt unsafe. Fortunately our collaboration was remote, and I was in the safety of my own home studio when I read this. Your email response to my creativity was not only disrespectful, it was completely inappropriate. It’s alarming you felt entitled to speak to me in this way, being that I was a professional collaborator and I barely knew you at the time. I responded to your email with a “haha thank you” but I wasn’t laughing. I was extremely uncomfortable and afraid to tell you how I felt because of your power and celebrity. I wanted to work with you and was afraid I would jeopardize that so I put the opportunity to work with you above my own comfort. I regret doing this. I am only sharing this email now as it corroborates the evidence of your language and inappropriate communication with the other women who have come forward and shared their own email correspondence with you. They are being attacked and doubted for sharing their truth, and I won’t stand for that. I’ve spent the majority of my time these past few weeks processing this horrific situation. I’ve had a lot of tears and a lot of sleepless nights, as I know so many others have. In the process, I had an epiphany. Your email of wanting to “fuck my voice” was actually a metaphor, foreshadowing our future dynamic as collaborators. You did end up “fucking my voice,” not as an artist but as a human being. While my voice in our collaborations soared throughout stadiums and radio stations around the world, my actual voice was silenced.

In 2012 when we negotiated our splits for “Butterfly”, you manipulated me into believing that music didn’t make money anymore because of music piracy. As a young artist that was new to the industry, you told me that touring was the main source of income for artists, and buying me out of 100% of my share of the master royalties of “Butterfly” would be in my best interest. I spent 3 months alone in my apartment writing and creating “Butterfly” for you. Your offer was to pay me $1,000 for each month I worked on the song. You convinced me that because music didn’t make money, "Butterfly” may make nothing. A $3,000 buyout would ensure that I would be protected and taken care of financially. I had requested an equal split of the writing and publishing of “Butterfly” because I had clearly created the majority of the song. You took that opportunity to lecture me on what “equal” actually was working with an artist of your caliber. That because of your administrative fees and expenses due to your platform, a 50/50 split of writing and publishing wasn’t fair to you. Regardless of my creative contribution, 33% was the number I actually deserved. As the main composer and co-producer of our song, you knew I wrote and created the majority of the creative content in “Butterfly.” Not only did I write and perform the vocals and piano, I composed, produced, and sound-designed the synths and ethereal pads. You never gave me credit for this. Not in the liner notes, and not in the press. You took full credit of the production of our song, allowing me to be viewed as a vocal feature with a piano performance. When your album Vava Voom came out, I saw that every male producer who collaborated with you had an “and” producer credit. I was young and naive at the time, I didn’t know what a producer credit was and you knew this. As a self-proclaimed feminist and someone promising to protect me in this industry, you knew better. You should have done better.

Watching our song "Butterfly” find it’s wings was a dream, but also a complete nightmare. It became the staple of your live show, to the degree that Butterfly confetti fell from the sky. I had fans tattoo butterflies and my song lyrics on their bodies. “Butterfly” was ranked the #4 best song of your entire catalog by Billboard. It was in rotation in terrestrial and satellite radio, licensed to network TV shows, films and video games, and was even featured in an art instillation at the Disney museum. While I did get my 33% cut of my writing and publishing, I watched you absorb 100% of every sale and stream. I saw how many sales “Butterfly” sold in the mechanical royalty statements from Amorphous Music, your own record label. That small $3,000 “buyout” you gave me under the pretense you were “helping me” covered 2 months of my rent. Had you given me an equal share of my writing and publishing and literally any percentage of the master royalty of “Butterfly”, it would have drastically changed my life. Had you given me the creative credit I deserved on our song, doors would have been a lot easier for me to open as a female producer and composer in this male dominated industry. I continued to work with you over the years because I was brainwashed into believing this was how the music industry worked. I was brainwashed into feeling “grateful” for the opportunities I received and the success I did generate from your platform. I convinced myself that I was less than you, and I had to pay my dues like everyone else in order to earn my worth as your creative equal. This equality never came. While I continued to fight for a small share of my writing and publishing on every song we did, you still refused to offer me a percentage of the master royalty. To this day you still collect 100% of the master royalties on every one of our collaborations.

I tried justifying our creative dynamic by your invitations to perform live with you. While it was only 3 times, those performances were, and will forever be, some of the most beautiful and magical moments of my life. What was odd to me was the way you financially treated me when I performed live with you. At Lighting in a Bottle I performed for free and got changed in a port-o-potty. After my performance you thanked me and handed me a bottle of wine as compensation. At Red Rocks and Bridgestone Arena you offered me $1,000 as an appearance fee. A fee that I had to deduct the airfare of my manager, my wardrobe, and all my food and traveling expenses from. I’m not sure how much income you take home after each one of your sold-out stadium shows, but I’m sure you could have afforded to treat me a little better. At the end of the day, I actually ended up paying out of my own pocket to perform with you. With what’s come to light, I now understand that you’ve had huge expenses paying out thousands of dollars to these young women, several underage, with the hopes of buying their silence and loyalty. As your female collaborator, I can verify that you are no feminist. You are a hypocrite, and the way you have treated me as an artist is absolutely disgusting.

In 2016 I was unaware of the extent of your corruption behind the scenes, but I found the courage to confront you about my own situation. I texted you that I was uncomfortable about our business dynamic with “Butterfly” and we hopped on a call to discuss it. We had a long conversation about my feelings, and you validated my belief that you were wrong and that you should have given me producer credit. You agreed that my deal wasn’t fair and said that you wanted to make it up to me. While I was grateful for this, the end of our conversation ended up haunting me for years. When talking about “fairness,” you lectured me on the difference between us as artists. You told me that if I were to release a song of ours by myself, that it wouldn’t sell nearly as many copies as it would if you released it. That your “Bassnectar factor” was the reason for the success of Butterfly, not the creative content of the song. I agreed that you clearly had the bigger platform, but argued that my creative contribution to your art not only rewarded you financially, it helped define your brand in a new way. That the majority of your music is intense and aggressive, and my feminine, ethereal, and peaceful aesthetic helped diversify your musical catalog. I opened up and told you that if you had treated me equally and hadn’t taken 100% of my master royalty, my life would look very different because of the success of our song. That I have bills to pay just like any other person, and that my husband also battles multiple sclerosis which is a hardship we privately face. Your response to me was cold, and cruel. You told me that the music business is really hard. That many of your friends are extremely talented like me, and that you tell them all the same thing. That if it’s too hard for me to keep going financially in this business, that I pursue music as a hobby and find something else for work. Even so, you would find a way to make “Butterfly” up to me. You would get with your team and figure out a way to make me “happy.” Lorin, I can’t tell you how painful this conversation was, it crushed my soul. Writing one of my favorite songs with you and watching it receive commercial success while you took 100% of my royalties was one trauma. Seeing my worth through your eyes was another, it damaged my self-esteem. For a while, I did contemplate quitting music. If it weren’t for the love and support of my family, friends, fanbase, and my own inner work in therapy, I probably would have quit music.

A week later you got back to me after discussing my request with your team. You indicated that you couldn’t renegotiate the terms of Butterfly, that the deal of that song was over and done with. What you did offer was a deal for a new song. This song would be credited as “Bassnectar and Mimi Page” so I would receive a producer credit. I would also receive 25% of my royalties across the board. I asked you why I wouldn’t receive 50% if I actually write an equal share, or even 33% like you offered me in Butterfly. You refused to negotiate and stated that’s the offer that was on the table. You then sweetened the deal by offering me an advance of $10,000 of this song, with no deadline to create it. At the time I not only needed the money, I foolishly believed that you actually wanted to create another song with me. Over the past 5 years I’ve sent you so many creative ideas for this song, and your response to me has always been the same. You were “too busy" to work with me. The only song we created together since then was “Was Will Be,” a last minute topline request with another small publishing cut and no master royalty. As always, this collaboration was attached with more empty promises to write our “actual song” with no followthrough. With what’s come to light in the accusations against you, it’s alarming to see where so much of your time has actually gone. Like your female victims, I can’t help but look at that $10k you gave me as hush money for my own silence against the issues I confronted you with. Watching other legal cases appear by other artists over the years brought me a lot of clarity on how you’ve been taking advantage of not only me, but other artists this entire time. I never spoke out publicly about my dynamic with you because I valued the peace and healing of the fans who enjoyed our collaborations. Now that you have destroyed not only your reputation but the trust and peace of your community, I am choosing to share my story now. Not just on behalf of me, but all the artists you have taken advantage of and ripped off throughout your career. There are so many.

After speaking with several of your victims, I’ve been horrified to learn that “Butterfly” was the song that lead many of them to the actual discovery of you as an artist. That the beautiful and euphoric qualities of “Butterfly” didn’t only function as a catalyst for peace and healing like I intended. Many of these women were mislead into believing those gentle, peaceful, and ethereal vibrations actually came from you because you took full credit for the song. My most grotesque epiphany of all, is that you never did care about me or actually value my talent and wellbeing as an artist. Instead, you used my artistry as bait for the facade you projected to the world, ultimately luring more young women to you. As a survivor of sexual abuse, music has always been my saving grace and escape from the horrors of my own reality. I can’t tell you how traumatizing it is for me to be associated with you after realizing what you’ve done. I am deeply disturbed and depressed in regards to our creative relationship. I am grateful that our songs have brought peace and healing to so many, and I will forever stand by the love and light that I personally contributed to it. I won’t let you take that away from me. Had you lived your life with the actual care and integrity that you claimed to lead with, we could have created so many more beautiful songs together. Instead, you chose the darker path and in the process, took advantage of my talent, my time, and my respect for you.

Our last and final collaboration was on your new album “All Colors,” and this was the final straw for me ever working with you again. During a pandemic that is killing people, destroying our economy, and shutting down our industry, you sent me an email “checking in”. Like always, your emails have tons of smiley faces indicating you “love me.” You reminded me that we “still need to do our song” but asked for a “little favor” on your new album. You wanted me to replace a vocal sample of another girl singing “dreaming of you.” No writing, no harmonies, no creative contribution, not even the consideration of me knowing what I was contributing to as you wouldn’t let me listen to the song. Just “a little favor” of singing and recording for you, for free. I almost said no, and I wish I had. The only reason I didn’t, was because you had just offered me a spot to perform my own acoustic set on the main stage at your festival Deja Voom. A gesture that shocked me and actually meant a lot to me. After years of you blowing me off creatively and taking advantage of me financially, that was a gesture that felt like it validated my worth to you. I will humbly admit that deep down, I have always wanted you to care about my art and creativity. So, like always, I did the mental gymnastics in my head and justified the reasons why I should do your little favor and I did it. I did it against the wishes of my own manager and attorney, that’s how strong your influence has been over me. After I sent you my vocal file, I also took the opportunity to tell you that we experienced a food shortage during this pandemic and I learned how to garden in hopes that I could feed not only myself, but my neighbors. This must have struck a chord, because you changed your mind about asking me for free work and you sent me this email:

It’s almost August and I’ve yet to receive your $250 for pumpkin seeds. In regards to my creative contribution on your new album, I found my vocal sample on the end track you called “Optimism.” I wasn’t credited as a featured vocalist, and I checked the liner notes and there was no reference that I even sang on the song. After 8 years of working together, you didn’t even give me a shoutout on social media, telling our mutual fans about my contribution being that they loved our past collaborations so much. After all these years, and the massive amount of income you have earned off the back of my own creativity, this is what you have reduced my talent to. During the horrific times we are living in, your expectation of an independent artist giving you free work is absolutely despicable, and $250 for pumpkin seeds is ridiculous. It is clear the amount of healing I have needed to do in regards to reclaiming my self esteem. I am saddened by the dynamic I allowed myself to participate in with you for so many years. I have been battling a lot of shame for this. Thanks to several of your colleagues who have experienced similar dynamics with you, I have found a lot of healing. I am saddened to see this is a trend with so many of your collaborators, but I’m also grateful to be in their company as we all try to find the light in this darkness. I am now shifting my perspective and looking at all of us as hard workers who believed in the original vision you claimed to have for humanity. We took your creative and financial abuse because we are all trying to survive in this dark and difficult industry and shine our light within it. One day I hope the industry changes, and hopefully this entire situation will be a catalyst for it in some sort of way.

It is painful, but also healing to write this letter to you. I feel like a giant weight is being lifted from my soul. It is healing to see corruption being outed on a mass scale in our society, and ironic that you were one of those activists that spent so much time outing that corruption. For years you’ve used Twitter as a platform to call out the corruption of political leaders. Now that you are the subject of your own corruption, you’ve gone silent and disappeared. I will remind you we are experiencing a pandemic and the state of the world is in a very dark and fragile place. Your fans no longer have a safe space to turn to and this hurts their mental health. A lot of your fans are getting bullied for following you, having your tattoos, and being a part of your community. While you take your millions and “go off the grid” I won’t stand for your hypocrisy. I have received over a hundred emails from fans expressing their own private traumas and being survivors of sexual abuse themselves. How damaging it has been to discover they have been mislead by you all these years. You have accumulated your wealth and lifestyle from the money and dedicated support of your fanbase. You have built the diversity of your brand off the backs of collaborators like me, Dylan, and so many others. You owe us way more than an apology. The time you have spent manipulating and abusing your teenage fans could have been better spent creating with the artists who have contributed so much to you and your community. How you’ve treated Dylan (ill-Gates), an artist who inspired and nurtured your own talent, is utterly repulsive. The sad reality is, your behavior isn’t just a reflection of the darkness within your own psyche, it’s a reflection of the power-hungry, abusive, and narcissistic behavior in the music industry. We need a deep healing and change in perception with the ways business is run inside the music industry. We need a safer space for artists to create and fans to experience our art. Music is sacred, it brings healing and unity to our world. We need to make an example of the mess you have created and transmute it for positive change.

As you walk away from your musical career, you also walk away with not only my royalties, but all your collaborators royalties as your future financial stream. I wouldn’t label your career cancellation as “unemployment,” I would label any future income as theft from those of us you collect from. As a collaborator of multiple songs, the only control I have to help save the integrity of my songs and heal this community is a promise to donate my own small writing and publishing percentages to non-profits that support sexual abuse survivors. After learning that you have spent thousands of dollars to silence your own victims, you need to rectify this behavior with all of us. You manipulated our bad business deals by using your fame to convince us the “exposure” we would receive would benefit us. While it did in the past, it is now traumatizing us. As a survivor of sexual abuse and an actual ally of women, I find it unacceptable for you to have committed criminal behavior with my royalties being a source of your income. I don’t find it acceptable that you continue generating any future income from my creativity moving forward. I want my royalties back and I want to use my royalties for goodness. I’d love to partner with a non-profit or even start my own with the royalties you’ve taken from me and will continue to take from me. I’d love to incorporate your past collaborators, ambassadors, and fans in whatever healing endeavors I pursue from these royalties. My goal would be to focus on sound healing and meditation for survivors of sexual abuse and use the symbol of the Butterfly as the emblem. This would redefine my song and represent that we actually transformed some of this darkness into beauty. This is one idea I have of how you can take accountability and healing action directly with me, on behalf of everyone in your community.

The abusive dynamics in the music industry have existed for far too long, we can use this experience to help stop it. While you were a part of this problem, I hold space for your healing and redemption. You can take true accountability for your actions and use this experience as a catalyst for massive change. The only way we can create actual change in this world is by living by example and being the change we need to see. Lorin, please step up. Stand in your integrity and take true responsibility and accountability for your actions no matter what the cost to you. At the times you caused harm to others, you didn’t consider the cost to them. Own up now to what you did, publicly admit it, and take the healing actions required to make true amends. Use your wealth and platform for the goodness you originally intended, it’s not too late.

Sincerely,

Mimi Page

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snowonthebeachmp3 · 4 years ago

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April 2016

Apr 1st - Taylor's first Apple Music ad, in which she falls off a treadmill, is released. (x) Her partnership with Apple comes several months after Taylor wrote an open letter in June 2015 calling out the company for not paying royalties for music streamed during their three-month free trial. In response, Apple immediately reversed their policy and announced they would pay artists during the free trial. (x)

Taylor visits Disneyland in Anaheim with Lily Aldridge and her three-year-old daughter. (x)

Apr 2nd - Taylor presents an award to Ruby Rose at the GLAAD Media Awards in Beverly Hills. (x)

Apr 3rd - Taylor attends the 2016 iHeartRadio Music Awards in LA. She walks the red carpet separately from Calvin, but they sit together during the ceremony (both are nominated for awards). (x) In her acceptance speech for Best Tour, she says, 'I had the most amazing person to come home to when the spotlight and the crowds were all gone, so I want to thank my boyfriend Adam for that.' (x)

Apr 4th - Taylor says goodbye to the 1989 era, as she tweets, 'What an unbelievable run we’ve had with 1989. I’m so grateful for all of these memories & all of you.' (x) She also likes several tumblr posts from fans saying goodbye to the 1989 era and thanking her for it. (x)

Taylor is seen out in LA getting lunch at Wockano with Kennedy Rayé. (x) (x)

Apr 5th - Taylor goes out for dinner with Lily Aldridge and Behati Prinsloo to Gracias Madre in LA. (x)

Apr 6th - Taylor goes out for dinner with Calvin to Giorgio Baldi restaurant in Santa Monica. (x)

Apr 7th - Taylor is seen shopping at the Saint Laurent store in LA. (x)

Apr 8th - Renovations are underway on Taylor's new mansion in LA, which she bought for $25m in autumn 2015 and which previously belonged to the family of Old Hollywood film producer Samuel Goldwyn. (x)

Apr 9th - Kanye talks about Famous when he plays it live for the first time at a concert in the Philippines, saying that the 2009 VMAs incident ultimately led to the song's creation. He referred to the 2009 VMAs as 'the beginning of the end of my life' and said of Famous, 'This is the song that broke the writer's block for me, because it was something I wanted to say so bad.' (x)

Apr 11th - Taylor joins Lily Aldridge and Rosie Huntington-Whitely at Nobu restaurant in Malibu. They are apparently attending a surprise birthday party for another VS model, Alessandra Ambrosio. (x)

Apr 13th - Taylor and Lily attend Alessandra Ambrosio's 35th birthday party at The Nice Guy in LA. Camilla Belle is also there (lmaooo). (x)

Apr 14th - The May issue of Vogue is published. Taylor is on the cover with bleach-blonde hair. (x)

Britany and Ben seem to be visiting her as Taylor tweets a photo of them and Meredith in her LA house. (x)

Apr 15th - Taylor debuts Bleachella on her Instagram and Easter eggs the cover art for This Is What You Came For. (x) She is already at Coachella, as this photo is taken by the pool of the house she is staying at.

Apr 16th - Taylor is at Coachella along with Lorde, Jack Antonoff, Martha Hunt, the Haim sisters, Serayah, Kennedy Rayé, Austin, Britany and her husband Ben. (x)

In the afternoon she flies to San Antonio to attend the wedding of her backup singer Eliotte, before returning to Coachella for the evening. (x) (The time difference means she would only have lost about an hour flying back from Texas so it's not quite as impossible as it sounds.)

In the evening Taylor and Kennedy Rayé go to Neon Carnival, the invite-only unofficial afterparty. Karlie is also photographed there, although she and Taylor are not photographed together that night. (x)

Apr 17th - Taylor is in the crowd during Calvin's DJ set on the closing night of Coachella's first weekend, along with Lorde, Todrick, the Haim sisters, Martha, Serayah, Camila Cabello and Karlie. (x) (x)

Apr 19th - Taylor's 73 Questions interview with Vogue is released (filmed back in February).

Apr 23rd - Gigi Hadid spends part of her 21st birthday on a private plane with Taylor and Calvin, en route to the second and final weekend of Coachella (Sat 23rd and Sun 24th). A day or two later, Gigi and Calvin post several pictures from her birthday showing Gigi and Taylor on the plane with a birthday cake, and Gigi third wheeling Tayvin at Coachella. (x)

Taylor was not papped anywhere between the first and second weekends of Coachella, but she probably spent the week in LA, since Gigi had a birthday celebration with her family in Malibu before she, Taylor and Calvin departed for Coachella together. (x)

Apr 28th - Calvin releases a preview of This Is What You Came For, ahead of the song’s release at midnight. (x)

Taylor and Lily Aldridge go for lunch in LA. (x) Later that day Taylor is seen shopping with Kelsea Ballerini. (x)

That evening, Taylor, Lily and the Haim sisters go for dinner at Il Piccolino, before heading to Gigi's birthday party at The Nice Guy. (x)

Apr 30th - Calvin is asked about the possibility of working with Taylor while on the radio promoting TIWYCF, and says he 'can't see it happening'. (x) At this point nobody knows that Nils Sjöberg, his cowriter on the song, is a pseudonym for Taylor.

Taylor is seen in New York heading to a pre-Met Gala dinner. She is a co-chair for the 2016 event. (x)

She also goes out to Martha Hunt’s birthday party at Up & Down Club and takes selfies with Todrick Hall and Jamie Bennett. (x)

Throughout April - Joe Alwyn is in LA doing reshoots for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (screenshot taken from the LinkedIn profile of a production assistant).

(Additional article which briefly mentions the Billy Lynn reshoots in LA that spring. Ang Lee borrowed a military consultant from the film Thank You For Your Service, which began filming in February 2016.)

It is speculated that this is when Taylor and Joe met for the first time. The lyrics to Taylor's reputation track Gorgeous describe her reaction to meeting someone with blue eyes and a different accent ('got drunk and made fun of the way you talk') around the intersection of Sunset and Vine in LA. Interestingly, there was even a gastropub called The Bowery nearby on Sunset Boulevard, until it shut in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is likely that they were introduced through mutual friends. Taylor spent a lot of her time in LA that spring with Lily Aldridge, Lily is married to Caleb Followill, and Caleb is good friends with Garrett Hedlund, one of Joe's Billy Lynn costars.

In the lyrics to Dress, Taylor sings, 'Flashback when you met me, your buzzcut and my hair bleached.' Joe had a buzzcut for filming Billy Lynn. This lyric also suggests they met sometime after the 15th, since that's when Taylor got her hair bleached. There are no sightings of Taylor from the 18th until the 23rd, and from the 25th until the 28th, so she could have been doing anything around LA.

Intro // February // March // April // May // June // July // August // September // October // November

#taylor swift #hiddleswift #tayvin #swiftwyn #jaylor #toe #taylor swift in 2016 #timeline

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tabloidtoc · 4 years ago

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National Enquirer, March 15

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Tiger Woods' car crash

Page 2: Bruce Springsteen has beaten the DUI charges leveled against him after federal prosecutors couldn't find a drop of evidence he had been drinking over the legal limit -- with an acceptable blood alcohol level of 0.02 well below the 0.08 threshold at the time of his arrest in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, prosecutors backed off two of their charges for drunken and reckless driving -- the rocker did plead guilty to a third charge, admitting he had two small shots of tequila on federal parkland and for that, he was fines $500 plus $40 in court costs

Page 3: Patrick Dempsey's dreamy return to Grey's Anatomy was a big hit with fans but his well-received cameo left series star Ellen Pompeo seething with jealousy -- Ellen may have permitted Patrick to revisit his old stomping grounds in Meredith Grey's fever dreams in season 17 but she doesn't want him coming back permanently and swiping her hard-earned glory and she considers herself the anchor of the show and thought she was rid of this guy after making the show her own, but now fans are begging for him to be brought back and Ellen is furious -- it's no secret Ellen hated the first 10 years of the show when Patrick was the star and she feels the series got better after he left and she became a big-shot producer, something she'd been demanding for years -- she likes being in control and calling the shots and clearly thinks she got this deal on her merit alone but it's also because she's the star who's lasted the longest; most of the original cast had already left and bosses had to cave in to keep her -- unfortunately being in charge hasn't amounted to better ratings and show has been slipping consistently in recent years and the main reason they brought Patrick back on was to spike the ratings, which it did and now producers are considering offering Patrick a full-time gig but Ellen will do everything in her power to prevent Patrick from stealing her thunder again

Page 4: Home reno gurus Chip and Joanna Gaines are clashing over his wild spending, and she's desperate to rein him in before they land in the poorhouse -- Chip and Jo are rich on paper and worth $20 million in property and assets but they were hit hard by the pandemic like everyone else and recovery has been sluggish to say the least -- they're just getting back on their feet and under a ton of pressure to get their Magnolia network off to a running start but Chip, as usual, is casual when it comes to money and it frustrates Jo to see him buying things they don't need, like new tools and equipment when the old ones work just fine and overpaying on lumber and masonry -- Chip is always shopping and not always for the house; he's got a boot fetish and has dozens of pairs, plus he treats the crew to free cappuccino and treats from their coffeehouse several time a day and Chip wants the best of everything for himself and everyone else

* Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are ready to welcome baby number four through adoption -- the couple who are parents of daughters James and Inez and Betty hope to find their next child in South America and they've invested time and money sponsoring immigrant children and they're warming up to the idea of providing an orphaned baby or toddler with a forever home -- a 16-year-old girl they sponsored through the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights was deported back to Honduras and they were heartbroken, and Blake and Ryan are now determined to provide a child with a happy home and opportunities he or she wouldn't have in their native country

Page 5: Newlyweds Pamela Anderson and Dan Hayhurst are itching to start a family and are already trying for a baby of their own -- 53-year-old Pam tied the knot with the 40-year-old handyman on Christmas Eve at her Vancouver Island home and she's been telling pals they hope to have happy news soon -- Pam wants to build a whole new clan with Dan and he's on board even though they each have kids with their exes and Dan's two kids from a previous relationship are living with the couple at Pam's pad -- the couple love the idea of adopting or going the surrogate route and it's not something they want to waste any time over

Page 6: Weary Kelly Clarkson is juggling her skyrocketing career and brutal divorce battle with estranged husband Brandon Blackstock on less than six hours sleep a night and Kelly has also been pushing to sell her homes in Nashville and Encino, while running her L.A.-based talk show and recording new music -- she's been running herself ragged for months and she's feeling the burn in a big way but despite her exhaustion, she can't sleep and nothing she tries works and the most shut-eye she catches is two, three hours at a time; she lays awake in bed at night worrying and crying

* Suddenly remorseful Kanye West has spiraled into depression and despair since soon-to-be ex-wife Kim Kardashian filed for divorce -- for all their problems, Kanye realizes she was the one person who was there for him whenever he went off the deep end and now he knows he's alone and seriously doubts he can hold his life together -- without Kim and her family to keep his wild impulses in check, he may succumb to the poor judgment and wild mood swings that have marked his chronic bipolar disorder as they were the ones who reminded him to take his meds and steer clear of recreational drugs and now all he has is a circle of yes-men he doesn't listen to anyway -- since the split, Kanye has shuttled between his ranch in Cody, Wyoming and a hotel in L.A. near the sprawling mansion he once shared with Kim and he's been blowing up her phone to beg forgiveness, but she won't take his calls and it's driving him off the deep end again

Page 7: Kourtney Kardashian is fed up with Shanna Moakler's online barbs and is plotting her revenge against the ex-wife of her new squeeze -- since Kourtney and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker went public with their romance last month, former pageant queen Shanna has been throwing social media shade and Kourtney's tired of taking Shanna's crap and she's going to fire back soon and Kourtney's using her wide network of contacts in Hollywood to bad-mouth Shanna and she's placing calls to casting directors and perspective suitors to put as many potholes in her love rival's path as possible and she plans to make Shanna regret messing with her

Page 8: Nearly two years after Johnny Depp was forced to exit Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise following ex-wife Amber Heard's allegations of abuse, the company has kicked him while he's down by considering her for a plum part -- Johnny is fuming over news that Amber is reportedly in contention to play fairy-tale heroine Rapunzel in the studio's upcoming live-action remake of Tangled -- for Amber to be in the running for a Disney pic is the ultimate insult to him especially because he believes the company made millions of dollars off his name

Page 9: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle had a whopping $500 million motive to betray Queen Elizabeth -- outraged at being cut loose by the British royals, the couple retaliated by secretly negotiating backroom Hollywood megadeals and going public on TV -- Harry and Meghan see themselves as victims of an out-of-touch monarchy and want revenge and selling out Harry's family is the way to get it and cash in big-time; Meghan's convinced they'll have deals totaling $500 million by the end of the year but they better act fast because Hollywood is a fickle town where even royalty can be chewed up and spat out

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Amelia Hamlin stuck to the shore while pink-haired beau Scott Disick made waves in Miami, Steve Martin nibbled on a pretzel while filming Only Murders in the Building in NYC, Floyd Mayweather turned 44 and celebrated with a birthday bash in Miami, Bachelorette reject Tyler Cameron showed off his toned tummy in Florida

Page 11: Drew Barrymore feels deeply for dad-controlled Britney Spears because she's been there: she said her mom locked her away in a loony bin for over a year when she was just 13 -- Drew said it's hard to grow up in front of people and she empathizes with Britney and Paris Hilton and any star who can't escape the glare of celebrity -- Drew's mom put her in a place that was a full psychiatric ward and says she used to laugh at those Malibu 30-day places because she was in a place for a year and a half called Van Nuys Psychiatric and you couldn't mess around there and if you did, you would either get thrown in the padded room or put in stretcher restraints and tied up

* Eddie Murphy famously bragged he has never changed a diaper in his life despite having so many kids and now he's set on having another baby with fiancee Paige Butcher and this will make baby No. 11 for Eddie -- he says his genes are incredible as ever, so why stop; he's super fit and Paige is in amazing shape at age 41 and wants at least one more baby so they're going to go for it and are already trying

Page 12: Straight Shuter gossip column -- CNN could blitz news veteran Wolf Blitzer as the network revamps its lineup and TV is a young person's game and no one knows that better than Wolf and after 31 years at CNN, he sees new faces getting promoted and knows his days are numbered and Jim Acosta and Poppy Harlow are the future of CNN, not Wolf -- although Wolf's airtime has been cut as Jake Tapper's role expands, he isn't bitter or angry but instead he's grateful for an amazing run

* Love It or List It star Hilary Farr is moving on to her own show and leaving partner David Visentin in the dust -- Hilary's new show is basically the same one she and David have been doing for years, with him edited out and David was blindsided by the news and he knows HGTV has sent out a casting notice for the new show and he's hurt and angry especially because Love It or List It hasn't been renewed yet

* Sacked Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron has reached out to Chris Harrison after he stepped away from The Bachelor amid a racist scandal -- Tom wasn't fired over a scandal, but he knows exactly what Chris is going through because both of them thought they had a job for life, but nothing lasts forever -- Tom is a good guy and wants Chris to know he's around if Chris needs anything

* Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, spruced up for the camera (picture)

Page 13: Brooke Shields isn't letting a busted leg keep her down but she's taking her recovery one step at a time -- she shared an Instagram video showing her cautiously hobbling on crutches and explained she broker her femur and she was beginning to mend -- she didn't reveal what caused the unlucky break

* Outspoken actress Rose McGowan is living a charmed life in Mexico and the Harvey Weinstein accuser has headed south of the border and vows never to return to the United States -- she got her permanent residency card from Mexico and is grateful to have it and says it's a really healing land and it is truly magical -- she moved at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic because she knew it was going to get really bad in America and she had a moment to figure out where she wanted to be

* Picky perfectionist Blake Shelton listens to around 300 songs to choose what to record for each of his albums, according to his longtime producer -- music pro Scott Hendricks said he wades through nearly 3000 tracks by professional songwriters to select tunes for Blake to consider and then Blake methodically whittles down the nominees until he's certain which songs he wants to record but Scott admitted that process is more difficult for him culling the 300 from the 3000 -- Scott, who has worked with Blake for most of his career, said of their close professional relationship that the chemistry works and they have recorded several hundred or more songs together and they are getting ready to go do some more

Page 14: Crime

Page 15: Killer kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's busted beauty queen bride will be marked for death behind bars -- if Emma Coronel Aispuro snitches to the feds about the bloodthirsty Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel long run by her caged husband, she'll put a big fat bulls-eye on her back -- according to a federal complaint, Coronel was intimately involved in her husband's multibillion-dollar drug-running racket and acted as his criminal agent while he was on the lam and the mother of El Chapo's two young daughters helped mastermind her spouse's daring 2015 tunnel escape from a Mexican prison and also paid him $100,000 for another failed bust-out a year later -- they are going to put the heat on her to spill more details on other top operatives in the cartel and take them down, too, but if she spills, it will be open season on her on the inside

Page 16: Dr. Dre appears to rap about estranged wife Nicole Young in a song filled with angry, explicit lyrics calling someone in his life a greedy bitch -- DJ Silk previewed part of a new track from Dre full of digs presumably at Nicole, with whom he has been locked in a nasty divorce -- his lyrics include: Trying to kill me with them lies and that perjury/ I see you trying to f--k me while I'm in surgery / In ICU death bed on some money s--t / Greedy bitch take a pic / Girl you know how money get

* Hollywood Hookups -- Lorenzo Lamas is set to wed for the sixth time to model Kenna Scott, Justin Hartley and Chrishell Stause are officially divorced, Adam Rippon is engaged to Jussi-Pekka Kajaala

Page 17: Former Home Improvement kid Zachery Ty Bryan has pleaded guilty to two felony counts of domestic violence -- Zachery, now 39, has been sentenced to three years of probation and will also have to take part in a batterer intervention program

* John Mayer has dated a succession of famous singers including Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Halsey and he hopes they write chart-topping songs about him and admitted he'd be jazzed if his exes enshrined him in song, saying sometimes a song is so good he hopes it's about him and he even scours their lyrics for clues -- Taylor already has several tracks that have been linked to John including Dear John

* Ruthless chef Gordon Ramsay said he's cooked up his own plan to keep his kids humble -- he has five kids with wife Tana: Megan, twins Holly and Jack, Tilly and Oscar but said he plans to leave most of his reported $200 million fortune to charity -- Gordon explained his kids must tidy up after dinners, can only fly coach and are expected to learn how to cook for themselves and he's forbidden them from taking costly taxis and the foulmouthed foodie insisted they don't swear

Page 18: American Life

Page 19: Roseanne Barr was blindsided by a humiliating new scandal after risque photos from the early '90s recently emerged which appear to show her teenage daughters licking her boobs -- Roseanne posed for the shots with her two youngest girls at a Glamour Shots studio in Iowa more than 25 years ago and the photographer who claimed he snapped the fake lesbian lovefest but did not want to be named dished Roseanne and daughters Jessica and Jennifer who are now in their mid-40s happily hammed it up for the camera but decades later Roseanne and her daughters are all mortified and embarrassed by these pics; they were horsing around years ago and never thought they'd see the light of day

Page 20: Cover Story -- Still recovering from agonizing back surgery, Tiger Woods was pushing himself to the limit when he flew off a California cliff into a career-crushing car accident -- lawmen said the golf legend was lucky to be alive after the horrific wreck that shattered his right leg -- the accident only added to Tiger's physical problems; his movement has been restricted since a fifth back operation in December and he was unable to play golf despite an appearance at a local tournament the weekend before the bloody wreck -- at a press conference days before cheating death, Tiger admitted he was worried about his physical condition and his ability to play again, saying a lot of it is based on his surgeons and doctors and therapist and making sure he does it correctly and he doesn't have a lot of wiggle room left -- Tiger could barely move, and it seemed to get him down and his back rehab has been brutal and he was hobbling around and distraught but he refused to give into his condition and his tough-as-nails mindset could have contributed to the crash: when a person is overwhelmed by physical pain, that dominates everything they do and if you're behind the wheel of a car and in physical pain, it can distract you and likely lead to this kind of disaster -- Tiger was eager to get to a TV taping on the morning disaster struck and he seemed impatient when he left the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, an L.A. suburb, just after 7 a.m. and although traffic cameras show he was driving within the speed limit, his Genesis GV80 SUV crossed the center median onto the opposite side of the road and flipped -- authorities said Tiger appeared lucid to first responders and there were no signs the recovering addict was under the influence of alcohol or drugs and they did not request a blood test when Tiger was rushed to the hospital from the crash site and the incident was an accident -- Tiger was taken to nearby Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where doctors said his broken bones protruded through his right leg and they put a rod in his leg and used screws and pins to stabilize the break and his ankle -- it will take three to four months to heal and then eight months of physical therapy and it is unlikely he will ever run again and he may have a limp and in terms of golf, just walking for extended periods of time will be a big deal and recovery will be agonizing; it's a very real possibility that Tiger's taken his final swing

Page 21: Addiction experts warned Tiger Woods' recovery will test his sobriety after his stint in rehab for prescription painkiller use and it is very, very common for a patient in recovery to relapse after a trauma like the one suffered by Tiger and exposure to painkillers administered directly or prescribed after a physical trauma is highly likely to trigger a relapse -- Tiger will probably need painkillers to get through this, but he'll also need to be connected with like-minded people to keep him away from his old thinking that pills are the solution to his problems

Page 22: Desperate Ghislaine Maxwell has offered to renounce her British and French citizenships in a new bid to get out of jail -- the disgraced socialite's last two stabs at freedom including one package offering $22.5 million as bond money were rejected by a judge who deemed her a flight risk -- now according to her lawyers, Ghislaine will formally commence the procedure to renounce her foreign citizenship to satisfy any concerns the court may have that she may try to seek a safe haven in France or the U.K. -- Justice Department officials were concerned Ghislaine would flee to France, where she was born, since the country has no extradition treaty with the U.S.

* Woody Allen claimed his own words are being used to attack him in the bombshell Allen v. Farrow documentary -- Woody has repeatedly denied adopted daughter Dylan Farrow's claims he sexually abused her when she was seven at her mom Mia Farrow's home -- Woody blasted the documentary which rehashes the claims as a shoddy hit piece and a hatched job riddled with falsehoods adding the filmmakers stole from his autobiography

Page 26: Twice-divorced Ricki Lake's engagement to California attorney Ross Burningham has insiders fearing she may suffer yet another heartbreak -- she announced her happy news on Instagram but Ricki has seen far more than her share of bad luck in the romance department and everyone is praying this final shot at love doesn't end in despair and it's never Ricki's fault, but she's never found a man who could keep her happy

Page 28: A lurid landscape of drug-fueled orgies, suicidal thoughts and fake sexual enthusiasm will play out in a new television series based on model and reality star Holly Madison's X-rated confessions from her shocking 2015 biography Down the Bunny Hole -- Madison first exposed the sleazy details of how she and other young women were plied with drugs and coerced to participate in sex parties with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in exchange for acting as his girlfriends and getting to live inside the iconic L.A. mansion along with a weekly $1000 stipend -- the limited series will star actress Samara Weaving as Holly, who was a member of Hef's harem between 2001 and 2008 -- Holly, Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt became the notorious stars of the reality show The Girls Next Door which debuted in 2005 and focused on their seemingly glamorous life with Hef but glossed over the dark secrets behind the scenes -- in her bombshell confessions, Holly revealed the 22-bedroom manor was actually a foul pigsty filled with stained mattresses where Hef's live-in ladies were forced to perform weird bedroom rituals and look excited by it

Page 29: Jack Osbourne has listed his sprawling California home for rent at $16,500 a month -- the 35-year-old son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne is offering the five-bedroom, 5600-square-foot home in Studio City unfurnished -- Sharon was recently seen outside the home with moving vans helping Jack prep the property -- Jack, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, bought the home in 2014 when he was married to Lisa Stelly; the couple divorced in 2018 and share three children: Andy, Pearl and Minnie

* Heidi Klum has snipped all threads tying her to dad Gunther Klum after the cosmetics and modeling honcho skipped her wedding -- Heidi dumped her manager dad after he snubbed her August 2019 ceremony in Capri with guitarist Tom Kaulitz of the band Tokio Hotel and she has also ended her German enterprise Heidi Klum GmbH, originally overseen by Gunther -- Heidi and her dad had a falling out over Tom and Gunther never really approved of him and was dead set against the marriage and it drove a wedge in their relationship

Page 32: Health Watch

* Ask the Vet -- an African Gray Parrot with a feather-picking problem

Page 34: Barack Obama broke a buddy's nose over a racist remark -- he revealed the two classmates were playing basketball when his friend hurled a racial slur and he popped him in the face and broke his nose, Obama told Bruce Springsteen on their podcast Renegades: Born in the USA -- Obama said he doesn't think his pal even knew what the word meant, just that it was meant to be hurtful

* Country singer Keith Urban has shrunk to 140 pounds as the former addict is hooked on a bizarre diet of nuts and berries and even worse, the five-foot-ten crooner appears to be growing thinner and friends are worried the stress of his demanding career and his desperate desire to be a good husband to Nicole Kidman may push him over the edge -- no one sees him eating much more than handfuls of raw almonds or sunflower seeds and berries washed down with gallons of water -- though he's been sober since 2006, pals fear the struggle to avoid giving in to temptation as well as hearing Nicole purportedly mended fences with ex-hubby Tom Cruise may be weighing on the star -- despite his bony appearance, Keith thinks he looks great

Page 40: Evil ISIS terrorists are using the COVID-19 pandemic as cover while they rebuild their network and mastermind new attacks and both Iraq and the U.S. are in their crosshairs -- because the West has been focused on dealing with the pandemic, ISIS and new groups sprung from their shattered forces have been reloading and plotting revenge, according to Ryan Mauro of the terrorist-monitoring Clarion Intelligence Network -- the pandemic has brought decreased confidence in Western governments, which has emboldened the terrorists to launch sleeper cell attacks on foreign soil

Page 42: Red Carpet -- Anya Taylor-Joy

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booknerdproblems · 4 years ago

Text

Immortals

Hello! This is the first chapter of my new fic, Immortals. It is set in a world where Elena did her job and banished Erawan, and Aelin’s parents were cool and got her trained. I’ve been working on this fic for a while now, so I hope you like it. Likes are appreciated and reblogs and comments make my day! You can also read it on Ao3. My masterlist is here. More chapters to come!

TW: none

Rowan Whitethorn had a gods awful day.

First, he had been awakened at a gods-awful hour by a tug on the blood-oath, Maeve wanting him to get to training early that day. Queen Maeve was throwing a ball for all the nobles in Doranelle, hosted in her palace in the City of Rivers, meaning he was on gods-damned guard duty for all the vendors and hired personnel for this event.

Now, the music was playing, the nobles chatting and mingling, and thus the ball had begun.

The stuffiness of the combined perfumes and scents overwhelmed his Fae senses, and his green and silver tunic was much too restricting, in his opinion. He was required to be there, for what he didn’t know, since Fenrys and Gavriel were on guard duty, scanning the room beside Maeve’s stone throne, from where she sat inspecting the room.

All the high fae were there, along with some royalty travelled from faraway lands, all pure-blooded Fae, of course. The lavishness of these events made Rowan grind his teeth, he’d seen the struggling demi-fae and poorer aspects of this fucked-up world, but, after all, it wasn't his place to question Maeve. Not with the blood oaths constraints. It was beginning to seem like an honour less and less, with all he and his… companions were forced to do. Especially Fenrys, behind closed doors. The male grated on his nerves endlessly, but he was loyal to those he loved to a fault, and he, under all his arrogance and swaggering, was a good male.

Rowan was hiding from Remelle, a female with whom he had a… past, as he had been for the last hour.

He was nursing a glass of strong faerie wine, wishing he could drown himself in it.

Nothing at this gods-forsaken ball was remotely interesting, and he found himself wondering whether he’d even enjoy training his cousin’s younglings rather than being in this gold-gilded hall.

-x-

Two painful hours later, just as true night had fallen, was when Rowan felt it. Power. An alluring tug in his blood at the sheer amount of it. He saw Fenrys perk up, and Maeve sit a little straighter, just as the tall stone doors at the end of the room opened with a flourish.

A female strode in, flanked by two others. She was unfairly beautiful, flowing blonde hair and turquoise eyes, highlighted by black cosmetics around her eyes. She wore a floor-length, rich black velvet dress, completely covering her arms and back, but the modesty of it undone by how tightly it hugged her generous assets, and the leg slit revealed just enough of a tanned thigh to push the boundaries of propriety. Tall, strappy silver heels were on her feet, and although no crown or tiara decorated her head, she radiated status and demanded respect. And she was completely blooded with power. It was like she oozed it, and as she took a swaggering step forward, sparks flashed at her feet. Embers rippled through her hair, revealing her pointed ears and flames flickered in the depths of her eyes. Nobody would ever mistake her for anything but regal.

Her companions, flanking her, one a human man armed to the teeth despite his finery, and one female, beautiful beyond measure, no weapons to be seen despite the feral look in her eyes. A strange, ever-changing scent reached him. A shifter then. Rare, formidable opponents, capable of slipping anywhere unseen, unequalled spies and assassins.

The strange trio had reached Maeve, and although the shifter and the man bowed at the waist, the Fae female at the head of the company simply stared directly at Maeve, her gaze flicking over and Fenrys once, a cool, calculating glance, pausing slightly at Gavriel, before returning to the Fae Queen.

She gave Maeve a once over, a feline smirk curving her painted lips.

“Cute dress.” The newcomer’s voice was as smooth as silk, her voice revealing a foreign accent. It sent unexpected shivers down Rowan’s spine.

Maeve looked down from the dais, her expression telling Rowan that no, she was not expecting these guests.

“Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, “ was all Maeve said, disregarding the female’s earlier comment.

Holy burning gods. Rowan’s shock hit him like a blow to the face. Aelin Galathynius, freshly crowned Queen of Terrasen, after the assassination of her parents, Rhoe and Evalin, just last year. Aelin of the Wildfire was rumoured to have unparalleled fire power, and be a formidable opponent in battle, after she helped defeat an Ironteeth uprising two years ago, at the side of Crochan Queen Manon Blackbeak.

The nobles around them were tittering, on edge from this god-like presence.

“Hello, Aunt.” Aelin replied smoothly, her honeyed voice sliding over Rowan’s skin.

“What a...lovely surprise.” Those words were a threat and a question.

“Well,” Aelin snagged a glass of fizzing wine from a table nearby, not at all fazed by the eyes on her, “since I figured my invitation got lost in the mail,” another smirk and sip of her drink, “I thought I’d come see what my predecessors made such a fuss about.”

“And how long will you and your,” Maeve swept her gaze over the rounded ears of Aelin’s friends, “companions, be staying, exactly?”

“We merely wish to enjoy Doranelle, a nice little break from ruling, maybe set up a few trade contacts.”

Rowan didn’t believe that for one second, and from the twist of Maeve’s mouth, she didn’t think so either.

“Of course, my dear niece. And will you be needing accommodation in your… free spirited stay here.”

“Only for tonight, in the morning we will find more… casual accommodation.” Aelin looked faintly amused at the way this conversation was going, and took a sip of her drink, maintaining eye contact with Maeve all the while.

The Fae of Doranelle were watching this exchange like a sporting match, never daring to re-start the music, less they find themselves at the end of Maeve's wrath. Or, Rowan supposed, the wrath of this new queen, daring to address Maeve without her proper title or respect that came with being Queen of the Fae. Aelin Light-Bringer was a female, perhaps, of equal power and standing, maybe the only one in a thousand years to rival Maeve. And that made her a threat. One of the biggest threats Rowan had ever faced, despite his admiration for this bold female.

Indeed, Fenrys was staring at her with poorly disguised reverence, as well as running his eyes over her lithe body repeatedly. Gavriel was watching with interest, maybe a hint of fear and confusion and Lorcan, who Rowan saw entered at the waves of power, was glaring at the young Queen of Terrasen with violent promises in his eyes.

Maeve was watching her with caution, and almost a gleam of hunger in her eyes. Hunger for this female’s power, youth, spirit.

Yet despite the unspoken threats and power that rippled in the room, the Heir of Fire just seemed endlessly amused, as if she had just made a move in the game of realms. Aelin simply downed her glass of wine and stepped onto the dancing floor as Maeve nodded to the entertainment, the music starting up again and the Fae hesitantly murmuring among each other.

Yes, it seemed Aelin Ashryver Galathynius had made quite the impression on Doranelle, and didn’t seem likely to stop any time soon.

#aelin galathynius #rowan whitethorn #maeve #fanfiction #fanfic #magic #sarah j maas #sjm #books #fae #fenrys moonbeam #lorcan #gavriel #lysandra #angst #fluff #chapter one #throne of glass #tog

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ask-the-clergy-bc · 5 years ago

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How would the papas and copia do on their anniversary with their S/O? Whether its their first or like, sixth.

Papas + Copia on Their Anniversary

Papa Nihil:

~Always extravagent gifts for you- like it’s your birthday! Nihil gets a kick out of making sure you get everything materialistic your heart desires. As a kind of tradition he ALWAYS gets you something made of gold and ivory, his colors. Once it was a really nice outfit, another time it was your favorite piece of jewelry. He’s joked about maybe getting you a car in those colors.

~ Nihil makes sure every Anniversary that everyone has STRICT orders to not bother either of you, unless the world is ending. This is YOUR time together and he won’t see it interrupted. Nihil already has to deal with his idiots sons, this Cardinal usurp, and a Ministry that doesn’t know what it’s doing. He REALLY doesn’t want attention taken away from you.

~He loves having the tradition that you always have dinner at the first place he ever took you for a city date- an old fashioned club with big band music and amazing food. Always hopes you want to get up and slow dance with him on the dance floor!

~After dinner he loves romantic walks anywhere. The park, the gardens, the beach- where ever you think is best! He likes it at night when the stars are out, but insists you are the brightest star.

~So much sweet talk- he’s got a silver tongue! Also looks forward to some pillow talk as well!

Papa I:

~Whether you know it or not, Papa praises Lucifer every anniversary he shares with you when he wakes up. A lot of people might roll their eyes at the idea that he takes today to pray when he does it EVERYDAY- but you know today it means so much more. Papa genuinely thanks Lucifer for all his unblessings, strengths, and gifts in life. You, by far, are one of the biggest gifts the Dark Lord has brought you. You are precious and he is grateful for you being in his life.

~It’s one of the few times a year he will actually take some sort of leave from his work. He always wants the weekend of your Anniversary to be special and without interruptions.

~Papa is definitely not above giving you extravagant gifts regularly- especially on your anniversary! BUT- this day is usually a bit different. See, for gifts like this Papa likes to put in a lot of thought and meaning behind each one. He’s very much a love language through action and gift giving is a way for him to show you he loves you through what he got. Always a LOT of custom gifts made just for you. You’ve gotten things in the past like a Grucifex Rosary in your favorite colors of gems, rings, and other sentimental items.

~One of the rare times people see him just take you to the city to have a good time together. Papa is usually down with where ever you want to go but he always plans a nice day if you let him take over! He LOVES having a nice breakfast in good cafes, walks in the park, boat rides, touristy things, but his favorite? Taking you to museums! Papa always says cute little things to you on these days, “You are by far the most amazing work of art here.”

~Always wears his Burberry scarf and a very nice outfit when you go out.

Papa II:

~Like’s to go big, but likes to keep it far more intimate in setting! Prefers it just to be the two of you and whatever staff might be needed for the night. Papa is normally a man who loves lavish parties or night life, but he saves that for a more partying occasion like a birthday. For him, anniversaries of romance are a very private and intimate day!

~Papa always likes to book a suite at a private resort or somewhere fancy. A weekend where you both can get away from everyone and everything and just live it up like royalty. Somewhere idiots from the Clergy can’t bother him, and your work isn’t hounding you as well! Did you ever see those rich couples that go to spas in matching fine robes? That’s going to be you two!

~He loves the typical wine and dine- picking the fanciest and finest places to eat for all meals (especially if you both share a favorite!) Papa doesn’t really NEED an excuse to buy the best wine and most expensive meal, but the anniversary makes it ideal! Papa isn’t the ‘lovey dovey’ honeymoon talking type, but he IS the romantic at dinner! Always has some sort of soft, live music playing while you dine. Even has your favorite dessert brought out in a flourish to be gifted to you. The works!

~If you like flowers, he always has great arrangements and chocolates for you at your room. Strawberries and champagne for you to toast with later as an extra treat!

~Let’s be real- the real special occasion will be in the hotel room (should that be your thing!)

Papa III:

~This is just one of those days Papa gets to be as extra as he wants and spoils the absolute shit out of you. Plus this is a day he can be as crazy as he wants for the BOTH of you! Gifts, outfits, jet rides, hotels, Jacuzzi? You’re about to have one HELL oh a Holiday!

~Oh, he forgot to mention? Yeah you aren’t just having a weekend or a day... he booked an entire week Holiday for you two. Don’t worry it’s your FAVORITE place you’ve always wanted to go! He already got his private plane on stand by, what are you waiting for- go pack!

~Like his brother, books the most over the top suite for you guys. He wants no expense spared and he wants you to be treated like utter royalty. If you didn’t know him so well, you’d think he really just wanted this for himself. But you know better! Papa admittedly doesn’t always express his deep feelings- and often hides behind romantic gestures and sweet words. But you always know your anniversary is his way of trying to give you everything he thinks you deserve!

~ You always get the typical sappy lines and romantic gestures. If you are near any sort of slow music he can and will slow dance with you. All the while whispering sweet nothings and why he’s lucky to have you, and how you are the Morning Light in his life.

~You can always expect lots of sexy times, that’s a given. But even more so, you might see him be a little bit vulnerable after. Where he really drops his guard when you both are in each other’s arms at night. Papa will let you know how he really feels before you go to sleep. All the genuine, meaningful things he’s so scared to say in the daylight.

Cardinal Copia:

~Actually a huge fan of getting you both cheesy couples gifts or couple activity bookings- like the spa or a lesson of something fun you can do together. Copia has a lot of interests and anything you want to do sounds fun to him! He doesn’t care what, as long as it’s relatively stress free and you two can be alone he’s golden!

~Copia values the uninterrupted time you have together. You could literally just be in bed all day eating pizza and watching tv and he would be happy. Work life for him has been busy and he rarely gets a day to just have you to himself. As over the top as he would LIKE to be, for Copia, less is more as long as you both are happy.

~Dinner is a must though. He refuses to go the day without you two being pampered and spoiled with good food and the finest champagne Ministry money can buy! Something quiet, romantic- dinner on a balcony by moonlight, and MAYBE some live music depending on the mood. He always dresses in his white suit.

~Somehow every anniversary always ends up with him on his knees, holding your hand, and singing to you. And it’s always your song together as he holds your eyes.

~Gifts are very nice but not completely frivolous. Not that Copia has any problem dropping thousands of dollars on the luxuries of life- he too just values meaning over mindless indulgence. Wants something that you can look at that reminds you of him and his love for you every time you see it. Possibly a ring or bracelet that you can have with you forever. It’s always inscribed with a lovely phrase from him.

#the band ghost #ghost bc #Ghost headcanon #reader insert #fluff #papa nihil #papa emeritus i #Papa Emeritus II #papa emeritus iii #papa emeritus iv #cardinal copia

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chilling-seavey · 4 years ago

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Amoureux (c.s./d.s.) - Epilogue

A/N This story has received even more amazing feedback than my other ones have and I feel so sad that it’s over but so happy that you guys loved it just as much as I did. Even you Team Christian people who yelled at me a little ;) Anyway, here’s the final chapter. Do you think Louisa really got her happily ever after she had been dreaming of?

Jamestown, Virginia ~ January 18, 1822

Louisa carefully slid the knife over the skin of the potato in her hand, the scraps falling onto the wooden countertop as she worked by light of the early evening sun seeping through the window in front of her. When the potatoes were peeled, she chopped them up and slipped them into the pot of cooking stew that was hanging over the fire for their supper. She wiped her hands on her apron and pushed her tied back hair from her face with a sigh before tidying up the food scraps and glancing in their storage to check on their winter stock.

It was starting to get chilly, so Louisa bent down to tend to the fire in the kitchen, trying to warm up the single storey house. It wasn’t a huge place, definitely not what they were used to in England or France, but it was all they could afford for the price of the diamond engagement ring that they sold the second they set foot in the United States. At only sixteen, and coming from very privileged lifestyles, Daniel and Louisa were oblivious to the cost of the necessities of life, especially in a new country. They didn’t know that they got completely ripped off by the pawnshop owner who was willing to take advantage of the youthful runaway Brits who stumbled into his store, fresh off the ship. Regardless, they ended up with a bit of cash in their pockets and a (somewhat) sturdy roof over their heads and that was enough for them, having been married by the captain of the ship the first day at sea, ready to start their new life together.

Louisa barely sat herself down at the kitchen table before a soft cry came from the bedroom across the hall. She rushed over, making sure her hands were clean against her apron as she leaned over the small wooden crib in the corner to pick up the baby. He was born in August, just over a year since Louisa had first arrived at Kensington Palace although he was not born to any regal destiny. He was conceived during their first winter in America; the young couple nearly frozen to the bone in their drafty single storey and desperate for any warmth, he was carried almost full term by seventeen-year-old Louisa who had gone into labour a few weeks early due to her tendency to overwork around their small house, and he was delivered by candlelight to parents who had more love than money.

The five-month-old baby was a little cold to the touch and Louisa tucked the wool blanket around him as she picked him up and carried him to the kitchen so they could warm up by the fire, shushing his cries softy as she sat down. It was often that she found herself sitting alone, tending to the housework and the baby, Daniel busy with work or, rather, trying to find something better for them.

One thing that Louisa and Daniel had learned after moving to United States was that they were not liked very much. Still freshly independent from their ties to Britain, America didn’t enjoy having Brits around and Daniel’s accent was a dead giveaway, Louisa’s English also tied up in European taste, and from the start they were always treated poorly by their colonial counterparts. The only people who seemed to lend a hand were their neighbours, property owners on the land north of them and the husband took Daniel in to work at his blacksmiths shop for pennies. It was better than nothing and Daniel was grateful, but it was grueling work and he hated every second he was there.

Louisa glanced up at the sound of the front door creaking open and being shut and the boots being stomped clear of snow before Daniel was in the doorway to the kitchen, his hat in his soot covered hands. He sent a tired smile to his little family and trudged over to press a kiss to Louisa’s head and then to the baby’s.

“How was it?” Louisa asked softly as he pulled out a chair and sat with them at the table. Snow fell from his coat and he brushed it onto the floor as he pulled out the papers from his inside pocket.

“Nothing again.” Daniel sighed, tossing the stack of scribbled lines onto the table and leaned his elbow down to rest his chin in his hand tiredly.

“Did they say anything worth repeating?” Louisa set her hand on his thigh and he tucked his fingers around hers, still wearing his gloves that were dotted with holes.

“They said plenty. None really worth repeating.” Daniel sighed. “Laughed in my face, called me names like they all do, telling me how I won’t amount to anything…that I am a joke of a composer and I make their mare giving birth sound like angles singing.”

“That’s not true.” Louisa mumbled, giving his hand a squeeze.

“I was sitting at that piano and I couldn’t play.” Daniel breathed to the tabletop. “I haven’t practiced since England. It’s like all the pieces have vanished from my memory and I was so choppy and messy and I keep making an idiot of myself.”

“We can find you a place to practice. Maybe the librarian knows a building with an old piano where you could practice.”

“And be away from you two longer?” Daniel frowned sadly, reaching with his free hand to rub gently against the baby’s chubby cheek. “I can’t.”

“We need the money, Dani.” Louisa whispered. “Our food stocks are running low and the winter is barely over. We won’t make it at this rate, we need more money.”

“I know.” Daniel ran his hands over his face tiredly. “I’ve been working all I can, but David can only spare so much. He said he’s running himself thin too.”

“Someone’s going to want your music, I’m sure of it.” Louisa assured him, although her own words didn’t do much to even comfort herself.

She passed over the baby to Daniel who instantly smiled at his young son in his arms as Louisa moved to tend to the supper. The sun was setting quickly, meaning they were sitting in the near dark when she served the two bowls of watered-down stew, the light of the fire being their only illumination. Louisa hated eating the same tasteless soup every night, only being watered down more and more as their winter stock lessened. They ate in silence, the baby sat on Daniel’s lap and held against his chest by his gloved hand and tucked warmly in his open jacket, Louisa trying to hold in her own shivers of cold, the fire not doing much against the brutal winter wind that leaked through the thin walls.

“Have you heard back from your father?” Daniel asked softly, as if hesitant to ask.

Louisa shook her head, letting her spoon fall against the side of her empty bowl so she could run her hand tiredly over her forehead.

“I’m sure they’re alright.” It was Daniel’s turn for a failed attempt at reassurance, setting his hand on hers against the tabletop.

Louisa didn’t reply as she stood up to put their empty dishes on the counter and began to wash them to put away. Daniel sighed deeply from behind her and he looked down at the baby on his lap who was nibbling on the edge of his open jacket. He pulled it out of his son’s mouth and the baby smiled up at him with dimples that mirrored Christian’s own. Daniel figured it was fate punishing him for fleeing and stealing the future Queen with him; giving his son features of his brother so every time he looked at him he was reminded of his own guilt.

They never knew what happened to their families after jumping onto the ship bound for America, ties completely cut and bridges burned. Louisa always assumed the worst, knowing that France had probably fallen under English control when she fled and she couldn’t help but think of her family being sent to the guillotine for their daughter’s terrible behaviour in putting the future of the British Royal Family at risk. Christian wouldn’t let that happen though, would he?

Even Daniel didn’t know the capabilities his own brother, especially in the last few weeks before they fled, hardly recognising the young man who had threatened his life. They could only hope Christian’s love for Louisa would have spared her family, although there was no way to know for sure. It would forever be an unknown.

Daniel looked up at Louisa, watching her back as she scrubbed the dishes by the window in the rising moonlight. He picked up his sheet music with the hand that wasn’t holding the baby and scanned it over, eyeing the scribbled notes and trembling handwritten bars, stained in dried alcohol where the panel of men had thrown their drinks at him from crystal glasses. Similar crystal glasses that once fit in his own hand in gold trimmed ballrooms in expensive clothing, sitting next to Louisa in her diamond tiara and her rouge coloured cheeks, the light glinting off her ring on her left hand. Now he couldn’t afford to even put food on the table yet alone buy her a wedding ring.

“I wish I had more to offer you.”

Louisa turned around at his sudden statement, dishes drying on the counter and she wiped her damp hands on her apron, before bending down to stifle the fire, “Why do you say that?”

“You were set for a life of riches and royalty and status and now…now we can’t even afford to keep the fire on through the night. You have nothing with me.” Daniel mumbled.

Louisa sighed and stood up as they were engulfed in darkness and cold as the fire died out, and she walked around him to wrap her arms around his shoulders, resting her head against his, “I have you. And our boy. That’s all that matters.”

Daniel nodded weakly, sending her a small smile before she kissed him once, her lips cold from the winter weather. “I love you.”

Louisa kissed his cheek, tightening her arms around his shoulders as she stared out the window in the snow coated countryside, swallowing back her tears for another uncountable time, “I love you too.”

#daniel seavey #christian seavey #why dont we #wdw #why dont we music #jonah marais #corbyn besson #jack avery #zach herron #limelight #daniel seavey imagines #daniel seavey fanfic #why dont we imagines #why dont we fanfic #historical fiction #👑

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dherzogblog · 4 years ago

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songs/20

Happy Holidays Everyone! I started making these yearly playlists in 2001 as an attempt to connect with friends in the wake of 911. It was just before the dawn of ITunes, and way before social media. We were not in touch like we are today. I burned dozens of individual cd’s one at a time, printed up customized jewel case covers and snail mailed them all out. It was an annual month-long labor of love. Over the past few years, streaming music has made it much easier and faster to compile and distribute, and frankly much more fun. I still look forward to putting the playlist and blog together and sharing it with all of you. Particularly this year as it gives me a chance to connect with so many friends I haven’t seen in quite some time. It was a tremendously challenging year for all of us. I was grateful to have had my family here in LA the entire time, we remain healthy and well. The west coast Herzogs know just how lucky we have been. The next year will not be without its own challenges, but I'm hopeful we are able to move past this pandemic and the exhausting events of the past 4. More than that, I look forward to seeing each and every one of you in 2021. Until then, be safe, be well, and be good to one another. Enjoy the music.

ox peace, dh

Los Angeles CA. December 2020

Khruangbin - Time (You And I) Don’t ask me to pronounce the name of this eclectic trio from Texas, but this dubby disco tune had me returning to its chilled out groove often during the last few decidedly “un-chill” months. Dreamy and funky, the groove takes me back to NYC’s early 80′s club scene and Ze Records releases from the likes of Kid Creole and Coati Mundi.

Anderson .Paak- Lockdown Scenes from the front, June 2020

Bill Withers (1938-2020)- Use Me The legendary Bill Withers left the playing field at the top of his game in the early 80′s, hardly heard from again. And while he didn't pass from Covid, his healing pop hymn Lean On Me seemed to be everywhere as people found music to help them cope with the challenges of the pandemic. Withers left behind a legendary and enduring group of hit songs that moved easily from soul to folk to pop, not to mention the subtle rolling funk of this one.

Black Pumas- Fire Strong debut from an unlikely Austin duo that garnerd both buzz and grammy nods. The critics are calling it “psychedelic soul”. Not quite sure that nails it, but like the artists coming up next, they’re carving out new ground while drawing inspiration from classic sources.

Gabe Lee- Babylon

Marcus King- Wildflowers and Wine

Charley Crockett- Welcome to Hard Times

Three artists that are literally changing the face of Country and Americana music. Soulful, authentic and diverse, reaching back for inspiration but always looking forward. If you like this sort of stuff they are all worth checking out. Each album is filled with quality songs.

Low Cut Connie_ Private Lives Philly’s Low Cut Connie are back at it with a double album that plays like the soundtrack to a boozy night at your favorite bar. Sweaty, funky and not a little bit messy. If Peter Wolf and Bruce had a kid it would be this blue eyed soul boy. Adam Weiner grew up in the shadow of the Jersey shore and can't help but have a bit of that E Street hustle.

Willie Nile- New York at Night One of New York’s beloved adopted son’s dropped this love letter right into the jaws of a battered metropolis driven to its knees by the pandemic. It was heartbreaking to listen as the “city that never sleeps” came to a full stop. Somehow I still found myself coming back to it, imagining night’s ahead, when NYC is back on its feet and I’m roaming its streets. Looking for music, a beer, or maybe just a slice, and fueled by the irreplaceable energy and promise of the greatest city on earth.

The Long Ryders- Down to The Well Americana pioneers the Long Ryders reunited last year for a surprisingly solid album. This single sounds like it could have been recorded during their 80′s heyday featuring their trademark Byrds like jangle and harmonies, but the lyrics mark this song as unmistakably 2020.

The Speedways- Kisses Are History UK power pop outfit reach back to the the 60′s on this sweet slice of retro pop perfection.

Billie Joe Armstrong- That Thing You Do

In the early days of the pandemic we had all our kids (+ a significant other) at our house for a few months. It worked out great and we were luckier than most. The biggest issue was keeping enough food, weed and wine around. There were some great nights with amazing meals, followed by gathering around the TV together. We re-watched The Sopranos, binged Billy On The Street, and revisited some of our favorite movies. One night we went back to a old family favorite, Tom Hanks’ underrated love letter to the one hit wonders of the post Beatles era, That Thing You Do! I’ve seen the movie several times and it never fails to please. A true feel good film and a perfect Kodak snapshot capturing a simpler time in American pop culture.

While we watch the unlikely chart topper’s The Oneders fizzle as fast as they rose to fame, its not really the point. The movie is really an old fashioned love story. Playing like a perfect hit song you can listen to over and over, full of both hooks and heart. I always thought the title track, written by Fountains Of Wayne leader Adam Schlesinger (who we lost to Covid), brilliantly captured the British Invasion sound every group wanted after The Beatles stormed America. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong must agree. During the pandemic he cut an album’s worth of cool covers including a faithful version of this one.

Gerard Way (W/Judith Hill - Here Comes the End A tale of discovering music in 2020: Heard this on a Netflix trailer for the series The Umbrella Factory. Turns out it is performed by Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) who also writes the comic book the series is based on. (got all that?) He’s joined on this searing garage/psych rave up by the talented and versatile Judith Hill doing her best Merry Clayton.

Hinds- Spanish Bombs I’ve been following this Madrid based, all female outfit of punky garage rockers for a few years now. I think they are pretty great. This track, recorded for a Joe Strummer tribute bursts with an unbridled joy the stone faced and politically minded Clash could never muster. I bet Joe would love it though

The Secret Sisters- Hand Over My Heart Have enjoyed their harmonies for some time now. This one gives me vague Wilson Phillips vibes and I don’t really mind.

Tame Impala- Breathe Deeper I know I’m supposed to like this guy, all the cool kids do, I’ve even seen the band at Coachella. Over the years very little of the music has stuck to me, but the pandemic offered a bit more free time to dig into this funky dubby, chilled out jam, and it stuck with me. Not to mention that 2020 was all about deep breaths.

Ledisi (feat.Corey Henry)- What Kind of Love Is That Ledisi is back with some slinky, sultry R&B and jazzy vocals

Dinner Party- FreezeTag An R&B/Jazz collective featuring Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder and Kamasi Washington use sweet soul on heartbreaking and all too familiar tale..

Toots and The Maytals- Time Tough I’ve written an awful lot about my love for Reggae over the years. Right after Bob Marley kicked the door down for me, Toots showed me around the house. Ska, rock steady, and roots. He was true reggae royalty and sadly we lost him to Covid, just after he released what would be his last album. Check my Toots tribute blog and playlist.

Mungo’s Hi Fi- The Beat Goes SKA! These clever UK roots reggae collective never fail to surprise. This kitschy Sonny & Cher cover managed to make me smile every time I heard it. No mean feat in 2020

Stone Foundation (feat. Durand Jones)- Hold on To Love Frequent collaborators with Paul Weller (he appears on a track on the album), Stone Foundation are back with another batch of their UK soul revival stylings. This one features Durand Jones ( of Durand Jones & The Indications) on vocals and some great reggae style horns at the top.

The Pretenders- You Can’t Hurt A Fool Can’t resist a good torch song, especially sung by the smokey voiced Chrissie Hynde. Was kind of shocked at how many good songs were on this album.

Shelby Lynne_ Don’t Even Believe in Love Sultry country soul and one of her strongest albums in awhile.

Jaime Wyatt- Neon Cross Outlaw country has a new bad girl. And in case you didn’t think she was serious, she enlisted producer Shooter Jennings (and his mom Jessi Colter on one track) to help make her point.

Daniel Donato- Justice 25 year old guitar prodigy call his music “cosmic country”. Ok, now I’m listening. You should be too.

The Jayhawks- This Forgotten Town 30 plus + after their debut this Twin Cities alt country group led by founding member Gary Louris continue to deliver. They find their inner Neil Young on this one.

Lucero- Time To Go Home God I wish I was in a bar right now listening to this, even if I might be crying in my beer.

John Prine (1946 -2020)- Lake Marie We lost so many this year, but this one really stung. A true American songwriting treasure, who was still making great music against all odds right up to his untimely passing. His songs are known for their simplicity, and economy of words. but this one goes against the grain. I’m still not exactly certain what it’s about. Sorrowful and haunting, yet somehow uplifting and redemptive. I heard him perform it live here in Los Angeles a just over a year ago and it has stuck in my head ever since. There is surely a place in heaven for the great John Prine. He sang about it on his final studio album in 2018. Ironically it became the last song on his last record.

Thanks for making it this far....

***Play the entire songs/20 Spotify playlist HERE!***

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