#but she LOVES their last folk album

[hayleylovesjessica]

Oh oh oh! One of my favorite string quartets, the Danish String Quartet, whom I've been lucky enough to see live two or three times, is releasing a new folk music album in August, Keel Road! For me, this is like when Taylor wins an award somewhere and announces her next album.

[hopeinthebox]

i was tagged by the effervescent @cordiallyfuturedwight and i bow to her selections once again. magnificent stuff. somewhat delayed but tagging some favs @aprylynn @thvinyl @banghwa @yooboobies @pauls-mccharmly @kimchokejin @kithtaehyung 💜

[starsinthesky5]

you are in love: l'amour de ma vie || joe burrow x reader

description: a little bridge between the last part of YAIL into part 5 which will be coming soon! little moments from the france trip and some stuff from home 🖤

universe: you are in love (click for parts 1-4 of the series)

a/n: been in my drafts since June of 2024. and here she is :) would love some feedback and if you’d like to see more of this for this series!

taglist: (ask to be added): @joeyfranchise @joeyb1989 @joeyburrrow @softburrow @burrowbarbie @yelenasbraid @lovelyburrow @majestic87 @grittysbiggestfan @definitelynotdomanique

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📍cannes, france

liked by: joeyb_9, lahjay10_, killatrav, y/bsf_21, taylorswift, and others

tagged: joeyb_9

y/n_y/ln: ocean blue eyes, looking in mine

comments:

joeyb_9: la plus belle fille que j'ai jamais vue

——— y/n_y/ln: tu me rends le plus heureux 😙😙

——— fan14: he said she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever laid his eyes on. shut the fuck up oh my god

——— fan938: did she just say he makes her the happiest? oh pack it up fellas it's wraps

fan6: i can’t believe we’re back to her casually posting my relationship era. thank you joe burrow for your services 🫡

fan1348: i don’t even know who’s winning in this relationship like they’re both HOT as fuck

y/bsf: 🛥️ the ship has sailed folks

fan_71: the heart on his back? god when is it my turn

fan273: they’re so cute 🥲

fan28288: that caption feels oddly like song lyrics y/n 😟

fan1717: i am so happy for her 🥺 she deserves this after all these years

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📍cannes, france

liked by: y/n_y/ln, lahjay_10, jjetas2, killatrav, y/bsf_21, and others

tagged: y/n_y/ln

joeyb_9: photo dump?

comments:

y/n_y/ln: he’s learninggg 🤞

——— joeyb_9: creds to the best 🧎‍♂️

y/n_y/ln: wear that alo two piece more often. damn 🤤

——— joeyb_9: yes ma’am 🫡

—————— lahjay_10: aye 🤨

fan226: y/n has joe doing photo dumps now? are we in heaven?

fan9191: everytime they pop up on my feed my jaw drops because I still can’t believe it’s true

fan8877: he brought her with him to the events 🥺

fan5874: atta boy joe! winning on and off the field like a true king

fan2727: that last photo of her...hello. HELLO

lahjay_10: i was in baton rouge for 5 seconds and shiesty went hollywood? damn

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📍french riviera

liked by: enews, bengalslover47, y/ncollective, ybsf_21, wasitover_10, and others

tagged: y/n_y/ln, joeyb_9

gridback_news: love is officially in bloom under the french riviera sun! 🌹��� multi-platinum and grammy award winning artist, y/n and superstar NFL quarterback of the cincinnati bengals, joe burrow were spotted on an intimate stroll through the charming streets of cannes, looking completely smitten with one another. from soft smiles to stolen glances, the chemistry between these two is undeniable. after months of speculation, their outings in france seem to confirm what fans have been buzzing about: romance is in full swing and the fans are here for it! could this be the new power couple we’ve been waiting for? 🖤

#cannesinlove #yxj #couplegoals #romanceinfrance

comments:

bengalslover47: the king of cincy has finally found his queen everyone. may she bring us good luck and make joe the happiest he's ever been. amen

y/ncollective: ARM PLACEMENTS? and she looks so small next to him 💗

y/nfan0: oh joey b you are so loved by us.

fan8: qb1 scoring touchdowns on and off the field. y’all are the ultimate power couple

fan38: can we talk about how joe went from breaking defenses to breaking hearts? he just bagged the woman of the CENTURY

——— fan.18: every man and woman in america just fell to their knees

fan9_: oooooof her new album is going to HIT

——— fan!6: new album? did i miss something

—————— fan9_: grammy's coming up...she always goes out with a bang then 👀 just connecting some dots

rulethejungle5: and they said i was crazy when i said i heard some things around town about these two

xoxogossipgirllover: i need to get the scoop on these two! damn 😍🔥

fan3893_0: INJECT IT INTO MY VIENS MY WORLDS ARE COLLIDING

fan84: anyone notice y/n's best friend liked the post? tea ☕️

fan82828: oh the album is coming everyone. it’s coming soon. WE MADE IT

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📍paris, france

liked by: y/n_y/ln, joeyb_9, usweekly, bengalslover47, y/ncollective, ybsf_21, wasitover_10, and others

tagged: y/n_y/ln, joeyb_9

gridback_news: spotted: y/n and joe burrow turning heads in paris, strolling hand in hand and serving effortlessly chic looks 👀✨ with fashion week just around the corner, fans are buzzing about whether this stylish duo might make an appearance. whatever the occasion, one thing’s for sure—they’re absolutely owning the parisian streets!

an exclusive source has confirmed their relationship, revealing that joe and y/n are very happy together and share a connection built on trust, understanding, and mutual respect. their relationship has been growing behind the scenes for much longer than anyone realized, and their bond is stronger than ever. y/n has fully embraced life in cincinnati, and together they’ve created a solid foundation that balances their busy lives with a love that feels effortless. right now, they’re focused on enjoying each other and making memories—and it’s safe to say, happiness looks good on them. 💕

#parislove #yxj #styleandgrace #fashionweekvibes

comments:

fan9493: FIRST PAP WALK? IN PARISSS? oh we are so back y/n nation. that girl is in LOVE

y/ncollective: they look phenomenal

y/nfan0: manifesting a fashion week appearance

fan02: peep both their likes on this post...

fan-19: wonder if their gonna go to vouge world?

——— gridback_news: 👀👀

fan521_: this photo would do numbers on wattpad a few years ago

fan91: she seems so much happier and comfortable with joe. that’s how you know she’s thriving again. just look at them

fan18_brq: embraced life in cincy? and that’s a big fuck you to her ex! wack him again for me HAHAH

xoxogossipgirllover: i heard that they'll be at YSL's show tomorrow...watch this space

fan0101: wait…how long have they actually been together because-

fan3939: i need football season to come faster. need her in the stands this year!!! she has such great style

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📍paris, france

liked by: joeyb_9, lahjay10_, jjetas2, y/bsf_21, taylorswift, gracieabrams, ysl, sabrinacarpenter, and others

tagged: joeyb_9

y/n_y/ln: thank you for an amazing night @ ysl 🖤

comments:

y/bsf_21: god damn you look amazing

——— y/n_y/n: i love you 💞

joeyb_9: starry skies 🌌

——— y/n_y/ln: ...starry eyes?

—————— joeyb_9: ....darkest nights?

———————————— fan3010: what are they talking about 🤨

lahjay10_: lookin fly mademoiselle

——— y/n_y/ln: feelin fly uno 😴

fan9393: oh they absolutely ate this up. 10/10 no notes

ysl: thank you both for joining us!

joeyb_9: beautiful as always

——— y/n_y/ln: lover 💘

bengals: 👑 🐅

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📍vogue world

liked by: tmz, y/ncollective, rulethejungle, bengalsfan4949, enews, and 1.5 million others

tagged: y/n_y/ln

gridback_news: breaking alert 🚨: y/n spotted looking absolutely stunning at the vogue world fashion show, where rumors are swirling that her boyfriend, joe burrow, is set to make his runway debut alongside friend and fellow nfl star, justin jefferson 🏈✨ sources say y/n is here to cheer joe on as he steps into the world of high fashion for the first time, sharing in what’s sure to be a monumental moment for him. from the field to the runway, this power couple is proving they’re unstoppable 🔥

#vogueworld #joeburrow #yxj #fashionmeetsfootball

comments: have been limited under this post

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📍pfw

liked by: y/n_y/ln, jjetas2, lahjay10_, bengals, y_bsf21, samhubbard, vouge, killatrav, and 5.6 million others

tagged: vouge, y/n_y/ln

joeyb_9: with @ vougemagazine doing some new things :)

comments:

y/n_y/ln: i am so so so proud of you joey ❤️

——— joeyb_9: my biggest cheerleader. ilyttmats

—————— fan383: did he...did he just quote "seven"? OH MY GOD HE QUOTED SEVEN

—————— fan29: im going to be sick this is so 🥲

jjetas2: shiesty in all black

samhubbard: nice 😎

fan302: peak couple behavior is the matching loubitans. we're witnessing the couple of the decade y'all. buckle up

y/n_y/ln: put the back away joseph lee there's people around 😦

——— joeyb_9: why don't you come help me out then ;)

—————— y_bsf21: guys...there's people watching

————————— y/n_y/ln: oopsies 🙊

bengals: alright joe! 🐅

killatrav: 🔥

vouge: a natural star 🌟

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📍fashion week

liked by: joeyb_9, lahjay10_, y/ncollective, rulethejungle, bengalsfan11, y/bsf_21, taylorswift, and others

tagged: joeyb_9

y/n_y/ln: come here dressed in black now

comments:

joeyb_9: bestest week with l'amour de ma vie

——— y/n_y/ln: 🥹

—————— y/ncollective: joe please keep her this happy im not okay :(

——— fan39: LOVE OF HIS LIFE!! HE SAID LOVE OF HIS LIFE

—————— fan30303: WHAT

taylorswift: love it!!!! you both killed it :)

——— y/n_y/ln: 💗

fan3003: love seeing them happy together! they both deserve this

fan1991: has anyone noticed the black theme/aesthetic she has going on? her last few posts have been…dark

——— fan181.y/n_: wait a second. you’re onto something??

fan111: give me that album now rachel. GIVE IT TO ME.

loverofy/n: girl we need new music. like NOW

fan9339-_: already the most iconic couple we've seen in years.

lahjay10_: y'all killin it 🙂‍↕️

——— y/n_y/ln: we miss youuuu

——— joeyb_9: dinner at our place when we get back?

vouge: a beauty ✨

fan2882: how much y’all wanna bet that her caption is song lyrics

y_bsf21: STUNNER? HOT? JOE MOVE OVER

——— y/n_y/ln: im in tears joe's giving me a frowny face because he feels threatened

—————— y_bsf_21: good.

——— joeyb_9: I will NOT be moving over ma'am

enews: setting the streets of paris on fire as well as all our hearts 💕🥰

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joeyb_9 via Instagram Stories

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y/n_y/ln via Instagram Stories

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--The End--

stay tuned for you are in love V

[eddiesghxst]

PRICE OF FAME (PART 12/12)

AHHH !! friends, we've come to the end of my first fully done series, and she's not perfect in a lot of ways but she's mine and I'm so happy and thankful to have shared it with you lovely folks

i hope I've done them justice, enjoy <3

18+ — MINORS DNI

pairing: rockstar!eddie x journalist!reader

summary: you decide to visit eddie for a chat

contains: enemies to lovers trope, drug and alcohol use, smut, oral (m receiving), mentions of anal, mentions of death (readers relative), sexual themes, angst, heavy mutual pining, fluff, and eddie being so head over heels that it's hot <3

word count: 10.6k

| previous part |

| series masterlist | -main masterlist- |

“So, from the new album— Wasting Love.”

Over time, Eddie’s learned that he can’t stand interviews— especially interviews with questions aimed towards nothing but tabloid gossip and headlines. The first big interview that Corroded Coffin booked was exciting because— well, it was their first one! Maybe the questions weren’t as intricate and thought-out as the ones they gave David Bowie on TV, but it was something.

That excitement wore off quickly, though, and unfortunately, interviews are one of the top ways to spread publicity so— “Wasting love,” Eddie huffs, tipping his hips forward as he shifts on the couch. He’s bored out of his mind, aching to leave and be done with the shitty questions about his love life or the people he hangs around or whatever. He taps the heel of his foot into the ground, lips twisting as he chews at the inside of his cheek, “What about it, man?” Eddie asks.

The rest of the band is in the fucking clouds— why would they answer a question about a song entirely unrelated to them? Plus, Eddie’s 99.9% sure they did a few lines without him, which, fucking assholes.

The interviewer shrugs, “Well, why didn’t it make it to the final cut? And what’s it about? Tell us more about that track.”

What a bullshit fucking question. 

Wasting Love is one of the most, if not the most, straightforward songs Eddie’s ever fucking written. The only reason why he’s asking about this is because, well, there’s been rumors of Eddie and his most recent love affair— none of which are true, but Eddie doesn’t bother to come out and tell the truth because what’s the point? What’s the point in telling the truth if it will get twisted anyway?

Either way, Eddie shrugs, blinking behind his dark sunglasses, “I mean…” He purses his lips and tips his head side to side as if thinking, “Kinda self-explanatory with the lyrics, man.” He finally responds.

And in the background, Eddie can see Richie practically constructing his next ‘I know you hate it, but it’s good publicity’ lecture. So, Eddie relents— “It’s about… meaningless sex basically. And it didn’t make the cut because it was a shitty song.”

It wasn’t, actually, Eddie thinks it was a great fucking song, but the intentions behind it— not quite so.

“I think the fans would disagree on that.” The interviewer jokes.

Jeff takes a deep breath and shifts in his seat, “I mean, part of it was because it just didn’t flow with the essence of the album.” He adds, and Eddie mentally thanks him for taking over and so easily diverting the topic to something else. For the rest of the interview, Eddie’s mind is elsewhere, thinking about everything outside of this room, thinking about what he’ll eat later, thinking about the show tonight, thinking about you.

Yeah, you haven’t left his fucking mind in the past six months you’ve been apart from one another. It’s been six months, and Corroded Coffin has released two albums and started their second leg of tour since he last saw you— and you’re still all he thinks about.

You’re still in his dreams, still dancing behind his eyelids when he shuts his eyes, still vomiting all over his fucking journal when he writes. It’s madness, really. Eddie can’t remember the last time he was this hung up on someone— he wasn’t even this distraught when Chrissy left him.

Sure when he and Chrissy ended, he wallowed in it for a month or two, but it wasn’t long before he got fixed on uppers and groupies. Chrissy was heartbreaking in the sense that she was his first love, his first real relationship— but this… this is different. Eddie doesn’t know why it’s different, can’t really pinpoint where the colors change, and the memories start to jab at his chest differently, but he feels it.

He feels it when he’s sitting backstage before a show, feels it when he steps into a new hotel room every night, feels it when he’s ruffling through his suitcase and comes across that journal that’s been haunting him for ages now, and he definitely feels it when he reads the fifth page in the Rolling Stone magazine where the description of Eddie resides, the one where you’d crafted and molded Eddie into a shape he’d never been able to see before, the one where Eddie first came to terms with the true sight of you and your intentions.

Yeah, it’s fucking bullshit, Eddie thinks.

He doesn’t know how he ended up in this predicament, but by god, he would never fucking recommend it because— fuck, you won’t even talk to him!

And sure, you don’t owe Eddie anything, you don’t owe him a call or a chance to visit or anything of the sort, but Eddie was holding onto that sliver of hope you gave him before you left. 

He asks about you when he can, because, unbeknownst to you, Eddie’s quite familiar with your boss, Anna, and she’s like an annoying older sister to him. Anna tells Eddie how much of an idiot he is occasionally, but she always cracks and tells Eddie that you’ve been good and how you sometimes mention him, but it’s always quick, and nobody ever has room to pry about it. And when Anna tells Eddie about how you crossed paths backstage with a certain red-headed girl and read her to filth, Eddie chuckles and mumbles something along the lines of, “That’s my girl.”

Anna nearly gagged then. 

Still, Eddie only catches glimpses and whispers of you, never really getting the full fix to last him a day, but it’s enough to keep him alive and wanting. 

“Maybe she doesn’t get your calls, man.” Gareth shrugs, leaning into the mirror as he ruffles his hair. It’s been hours since the interview now, and showtime is in… Eddie doesn’t know when because he didn’t listen when Richie was rambling on about tonight’s schedule.

“She gets my calls, dude; Anna said she does,” Eddie grumbles.

“Okay, well, then maybe she’s just, like, over it. I don’t blame her; you're a pain in the ass.”

Eddie kicks his boot into Gareth’s shin, and the boy hisses, tossing a red Rillos wrapper at him. “Ow, asshole. It’s not my fault she hates your music.” He snips. Eddie makes a face, “It’s your music too, dumbass.” 

Gareth scoffs, “Yeah, but you wrote an entire fucking album about her. Our album is literally about her, you know that, right?” And Eddie thinks he should just kick Gareth’s teeth in at this point, maybe that’ll get him to shut up. “How would you know it’s about her if I never told you it was?” Eddie prods.

Gareth rolls his eyes, dark eyeliner casting a shadow on his face as he turns to glare at his friend. “Is there another chick you’ve been fucking that’s got you by the balls that we seem to have forgotten about?” Gareth sarcastically asks. Eddie glares at him, reaching for the cigarettes on the vanity table and sparking up.

He speaks around a cloud of smoke when he answers, “No.”

Gareth makes a face, eyebrows raising in an ‘I rest my case' manner. “And she’s not a chick,” Eddie adds.

Gareth hums with a tight grin, reaching out to poke at his friend's face, causing Eddie to grimace and bat him away, “You’re in love, Munson. Fix it or get over it,” He says shortly before making his way toward the door. Eddie can hear the dull scream of fans when Gareth opens the door, and Eddie thinks about the tickets he’s sent you every show— prays to whatever false god there is that you decided tonight is the night before he decides hope is useless and you’ve gotten over him. Gareth cuts through Eddie’s thoughts, “Come on, I can hear Richie’s bitching from here.”

Eddie’s mind is never in the game until he steps onto the stage, with bright lights blinding him, screaming fans, and his adrenaline at an all-time high. He comes back to earth then, comes back, and does the fuck out of his job— because this is the best part. The best fucking part, and it’s always been that way.

And it gets better when Eddie scans the crowd, coming down from the first song of the night and finally taking a look at his audience, and there he sees it— he sees you. There you are under flashing lights, drowning in a sea of people with that glint in your eyes. 

Eddie thinks he’s imagining it because, fuck, he’s been dreaming of this for weeks on end; surely his delusion can reach the heights of hallucinations, right? But no, you’re real.

You’re so fucking real. So fucking insanely real beneath Eddie’s fingertips when he reaches out, ignoring the screams and clawing of fans as his fingers loop around your wrists and he says your name.

God, you’re really fucking here.

Eddie looks prettier than you remember when you first see him— curly mane draped over his shoulders and dark tattoos glistening on a bare torso, white lights framing him like he’s some kind of fucking archangel.

He’s gotten thicker in the few months, beefier around his arms and chest, and the long chains and pendants he wears from his neck rest down the valley of his torso, smeared in sweat and sin. You want to drag your tongue across his chest, taste the salt and his cologne, tug the silver cross between your lips, and suck and make him whimper.

His eyeliner is smudged and dark, and his smile when he gets a moment to take in the crowd makes your chest ache. He’s so pretty it hurts. He’s a dream and a nightmare all at once.

You missed him. God, you missed him so much.

His smile falters when he sees you, and you don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but his eyebrows pinch like he’s in pain, and you only want to wrap yourself around him and breathe in that scent that’s been haunting for nights on end.

He’s insane for jumping down to the barricade, like, completely-lost-his-fucking-mind, down-in-the-gutter, insane. But you can’t find it in you to protest when he steps up to the fence, reaching out and looping his warm finger around your wrist. “What the fuck?”

Your lips twitch into a smile at his words, but the crowd is getting rowdy with their beloved rockstar so up close and an elbow is being shoved into your side and Eddie moves quicker than you can comprehend, tugging you forward to the very front and motioning you to jump over.

“You’re insane!” You yell over the noise of the crowd. Eddie grins, damp curls dangling over his eyes as he peers down at you, “Unless if you wanna get crushed, be my guest.”

It’s slightly difficult, and there are a lot of gangly limbs and yearning hands reaching out everywhere, but Eddie eventually gets you over the barricade, and you’re gazing up at him with a warm grin when you sway on your feet. You wish you and Eddie could just walk away and have each other like you’ve been imagining for months, but Eddie has a job, and he’s working.

His eyes are blown wide, and his lips are so kissable, and his warm hand is squeezing your hip as he nods toward a security guard. “Keep an eye on this one, Rob,” He shouts over the screaming fans. You’re eyeing Eddie as he steps back toward the stage, sinking his in-ear back into place with a sly grin as he winks, “She’s real sneaky.”

The show is great, as it always is, and Eddie tries to be deft about it, but it’s evident to just about everyone how he practically clings to the side of the stage where you’re standing in front of. It’s cute, you’ll admit, but you feel bad for the fans, so you try to move around a bit.

The last song comes, and the show ends with Eddie and Jeff practically climbing over one another as they shred their guitars and the crowd goes insane when Eddie leans forward to drag his tongue up the side of Jeff’s face, grinning when the other boy rolls his eyes and walks off.

You’re being pulled backstage quicker than you know it, just in time to meet the group as they jog off the smokey stage with big grins on their faces.

Jeff is smothering Naomi in a sweaty hug and smattering kisses all over her face, and you’re glad to see they’re still together. Gareth is twirling his drumstick between his fingers and scanning the room for someone, but you don’t have time to try and figure out who because the one person you’ve been waiting for steps out next, and he’s got the biggest grin on his face as he practically jogs up to you.

You’re smiling and giggling out a greeting as he steps up to you and grasps your face between his hands, “No kisses!” You warn before he can lean in, and Eddie’s too excited to even pout about it. “You’re gonna fucking kill me, you know that?”

You reach up to slink your fingers around his wrists as his thumbs caress the soft skin beneath your eyes, “Got enough life left in you to talk?” You ask. Eddie’s eyes dance across your face, taking you in like it’s the last time he’ll ever get the chance to before he nods. “Always.”

The dressing room seems to be the altar of truth for you and Eddie.

It’s dawning on you that most of the pivotal moments between you and Eddie have been in a dressing room, so it’s not irrational for you to feel a bit uneasy when you step in, and Eddie closes the door.

He’s like a kid in a candy store, trying not to touch what he sees. His eyes are so bright, but you can tell he’s holding himself back from doing and saying the things he wants, and you appreciate that he’s giving you the space, waiting for you to give him your yes or no.

Eddie plops onto the couch in the middle of the room and looks at you with a glint in his eyes. You deeply breathe, shifting in your spot before leaning back against the door, tipping your head as you study him; thighs comfortably spread, inked stories fluttering to life with each rise and fall of his bare torso. He’s a dream.

“I thought you’d be way more upset.”

Eddie’s lips tug like he wants to smile at the sound of your voice, or maybe it’s the sight of you, and he shifts in his seat with a shrug, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a cigarette and sticks it between his lips, and when you see him pat himself down, you’re already moving like it’s muscle memory.

You pick up the lighter on the coffee table and walk over to Eddie, sparking the flame as you speak, “You’re allowed to be upset, you know?” You remind him. Eddie’s gaze flickers in color as he looks up at you, and you try to ignore the goosebumps that rise up on your skin when his hand reaches up to rest on your hip, thumb caressing you over the material of your skintight dress. Streams of fire are licking up your spine as he leans forward to burn the end of the paper stick, and your center aches when he gently squeezes the fat of your hip. All throughout this, Eddie never lets his eyes fall from you.

He mumbles a short thank you once the cigarette lights, leaning back to rest against the seat as he looks up at you. You fight the urge to comb your fingers through his hair or do something dumb like climb into his lap. No doubt talking would fly out the window then.

You gently toss the lighter onto the coffee table and sit on the loveseat across from the pinnacle of your thoughts from the last six months. Eddie speaks around a cloud of smoke, “Do you want me to be upset?” He asks.

You shrug, trying your hardest not to break beneath his unwavering eye. “I don’t know.” 

Eddie smiles then, and the strings of your heart play a symphony to the notes of his voice when he speaks, “I was for a little bit,” He admits, tapping ash onto the carpet, “But then Wayne told me to get my head out of my ass.”

You huff out a laugh at that, and Eddie grins. “How is he?” You ask. Eddie tips his head back and forth like he’s thinking, “Same old man as before. Think he’s got a girlfriend now. He’s being an asshole about the details, though.” He rolls his eyes, and you snort. You’re happy to hear Wayne has a person for himself now; if anyone deserves it, it’s him.

You shift, like you can’t seem to get comfortable enough, and you know you’re stalling, and you can see Eddie fighting to not call you out, so you try to ease into it; “Is that when you stopped calling?” You ask.

Eddie stiffens under the question, and you know the answer. He grimaces and runs a hand over his face with a soft groan, “Fuck,” he curses, “Fuck, yeah, it was.” He answers. “I’m sorry, I’m a fuckin’ hothead. I had made it a goal to call every night and then—” “I upset you.”

Eddie’s eyes are soft, and you have to force yourself to keep your eyes on his, “It wasn’t fair what I did, Eddie; I’m sorry—”

Eddie shakes his head, briefly shutting his eyes as he waves you off, “Nah, fuck that. You don’t need to apologize—” “But I do. I told you I wanted space, and then a week later, I’m plastered on a fucking cover with Baine fucking Carter.” 

Baine Carter is a well-known songwriter within the industry. He’s got tracks spread all over the top charts, and he has a way of talking that can make just about anyone fall into a trance until you realize most of what he’s saying is just made-up bullshit. In hindsight, Baine wasn’t much different than most people in the music industry— it was a moment of weakness and pure vodka-weighted thinking. And, of course, it’s the moment when cameras find you.

“Kinda my fault too,” Eddie shrugs, “Camera’s wouldn’t have found you if I didn’t have press riding me.” And he’s right, but shitty press isn’t his fault, so how much of that can you really blame him for?

Eddie snickers at the memory of you painted on the cover of several magazines, “Think you’ve got a type, sweetheart.” He teases. Your face screws up in defense, and you scoff, “What does that mean?”

Eddie raises an eyebrow, “Come on, you’re gonna tell me you didn’t say my name when he—” “We didn’t do anything— firstly— and even if I did say your name, I would never in a million years admit it.” You point out with a raised eyebrow. 

Eddie smirks with a playful glint in his eye and he deeply breathes as he ashes his cigarette and rises to his feet. “I don’t care that you hooked up with Bain fucking Carter,” Eddie softly admits with a hint of a mocking grin, “Did it deeply wound me to the point where I almost thought I was gonna die? Yes.” He jokingly says, to which you want to roll your eyes at, but he’s stalking over to you like he’s some lion on the prowl, and all you can muster is a small huff with a mumbled, “You’re dramatic.”

Eddie stands in front of you and leans over to press his palms onto each side of your seat, leaning down until his face hovers above yours, “I’m kinda known for it, darling.” He winks.

Your core stirs at the proximity, and you can feel his breath against your top lip. “I will admit, though,” Eddie lets his hand drop to round over your bare knee, callused fingertips caressing your soft skin, “It gave me a huge ego boost seeing you with a literal replica of me.” He snickers, fingers dancing into the inside of your thigh. You huff, a playful glint in your eyes as you run your tongue across your teeth, “Yeah, I imagine your head couldn’t fit through the door for at least a month, huh?”

Eddie shrugs, “Depends. Which head we talking about, honey?”

You huff out a laugh, rolling your eyes when he gently squeezes at the warm skin of your thigh. You tip your head lower, holding your gaze on Eddie as you lowly speak, “I’m not having sex with you tonight, Eddie.”

Brown eyes flash with a familiar look you’d missed before they drop to your lips. “What about a kiss? Just one.” He presses. Your eyes narrow, “I doubt you could ever do just one.” 

“You’ll never know if you never try.” His lips twitch up into a sly grin, taunting you and pushing you until your brain is just a muddled mess of yes, no, yes, no, yes, n— fuck it.

It’s like a sigh of relief to have Eddie’s lips on yours after such a long time. Weeks of nights and days spent trying to remember how it felt having his plump lips pressed onto yours, how he tasted, how warm his tongue was when it slunk into your mouth. None of those times you’d try to remember, none of those phantom feelings that would breeze through your body could ever amount to how it actually feels— it’s as if you’re seeing color for the first time.

It’s a fucking kiss, that’s for sure.

It’s long, and it takes you both a second to relearn the kinks and maneuvers you both favor, but then it’s as if time never passed between your bodies— you’re moving like one unit, like every second of your lives has built up to this moment.

Unfortunately, air is a necessity to living, so you’re pulling away sooner than you’d wanted to. Eddie’s other hand is digging into the cushion beneath you, and you can practically hear his thoughts spinning as he wills himself to pull back. You shiver as his fingers squeeze your thigh one last time before slipping away. 

“How's that for a kiss?”

Brown eyes with pools of liquid gold, you missed the searing pain it gave you each time you reached out and touched. You purse your lips, tasting him on your tongue as you tip your head in thought— menthol and whiskey. “Care to answer a few questions? Pick up on our game?”

Eddie huffs out a laugh, breath tickling your nose as he snickers with a glint in his eyes. He studies you for a moment, like you might pull out and say never mind, but you only raise an eyebrow as you await an answer. “Your place or mine, honey?” He drawls.

You preen at the open door he’s lent you, “It’s your city, isn’t it?”

You don’t take the same car with Eddie to his place.

It’s not that you didn’t want to take the same car, but something about that look in Eddie’s eyes said that he absolutely wouldn’t be behaving on that car ride, and you immediately suggested separate vehicles. You’re unsure if you trust yourself to hold your promise in a confined space with Eddie… or maybe you don’t trust him… or— yeah, it’s both of you. Eddie wasn’t ecstatic about it, but you don’t care because you swear to god you aren’t going to fuck Eddie before you talk— like, really talk.

There are things that you both need to say, uncover, and express feelings about, and god forbid you get dicknotized before the words can come out correctly.

Eddie’s home is everything you thought it would be: chaotic in taste, lively, musical, whimsical, and all things that scream Eddie. The entryway is open and vast, with a clear view into the living room, where you can see a sunken living room build with guitars and papers strewn about. 

Eddie’s ushering you further into his home before you can look deeper into the entrance, but you don’t mind because his living area is like an artist's wet dream. There are comfy couches, red, cream, and colors alike, and there’s a rug in the middle that looks like a psychedelic trip of dark colors, and along one of the walls is a long shelf of endless records.

“I moved in like a year ago, so it’s not perfect, but… this is me,” Eddie says. You hadn’t been paying attention, but now that he walks into your line of vision, you can see his shoes are off, and his loose blouse is fully open. He looks like a fantasy; lean body dripped in expensive clothes and clinking jewelry, shoulders broad and sculpted beneath his wavy hair. Fuck.

You slip your shoes off and let your feet sink into his home's fluffy, deep red carpet, never once dropping your gaze from him as you walk over to the couch. “It’s beautiful, Eddie. It’s very you.”

You sink into his couch, turning so you can face him with your arms crossed over the back of the sofa as you watch him pick a record and set it up. Through the surround system of his home, the familiar riff to Tommy Bolin’s Shake The Devil rings. You watch Eddie sink a hand into his hair, shaking out his messy curls before pausing. The guitar is loud and you’re leaning forward when he snaps his head to dramatically look over his shoulder. You stifle a laugh, intrigued to see where he’s going with this— and you hate to admit that you begin enjoying the show when he turns around, fingers crafted and messily playing an air guitar to the track.

His stomach and chest flex with each of his moves, the buckle and button to his jeans open to flash you a dangerously low view of his happy trail leading to sinful places. He’s walking sex; head tilted back as he shreds the imaginary guitar, hips moving with the song as he walks toward you. He sinks to his knees in front of you, and with his living room being sunken and him still being on the higher level, you’re just in line with the view of his spread legs, crotch on full display. His teeth sink into his bottom lip as he gazes at you, switching to air drums before the words kick in. You can’t hide the smile that graces your lips as he dramatically sings along, leaning forward until his face is just inches in front of yours, ringed fingers reaching to cup your face. Standing face to face with the devil, huh?

Your hands have a mind of their own apparently because they reach out and coast up Eddie’s jean-clad thighs, nails scratching up against the material until your fingers hook into the belt loops of his jeans. You lean forward on your knees, sharing a breath with the pretty boy, and you smile. Eddie groans low in his throat, the breakdown of the song blasting in both your ears and your heart racing. His teeth dig into his lips like he’s trying to physically hold himself back, and you softly laugh. “Laughin’ at my misery?” He asks.

You shrug, “Maybe. You look fuckin’ hot.”

Eddie groans again, eyes rolling back into his head before he dives forward, nuzzling his face into your neck and faking a bite as you squeal. “Can’t say shit like that to me, princess. Wanna fuck the shit out of you.” His teeth drag against your pulse, and you squirm with a louder squeal, causing him to tumble forward, collapsing onto the couch with you, and your limbs mix like one big painting as he dramatically grunts on impact. He shifts until he’s laid on his back, head resting in your lap as he peers up at you.

“You staying the night?” He asks.

You snort, brushing a strand of hair from his face, “Didn’t I tell you we’re not having sex?” You remind him. Eddie huffs and digs his head into your lap as he shuffles in his spot, “Did I ask for sex just now?” He challenges. You raise an unconvinced eyebrow, “So, you want me to spend the night just to spend the night?”

Eddie’s eyes gleam as he looks up at you, “It’s been my dream.”

You roll your eyes, playfully shoving him off you with a huff, “Get me a drink, and I’ll think about it?”

Eddie hops up as if second nature, padding over to the stereo and turning it down just enough to hear you as he talks over his shoulder, “Sure thing, honey; what would you like?”

Honey, honey, honey.

You want to drown in it.

You’re not listening as Eddie lists off the drinks he has, busy swirling in sticky, sweet, golden lakes and admiring the shift of Eddie’s hips and ass beneath his jeans. “Surprise me.” You respond.

“Copy that, madam.”

He doesn’t go far because there’s a built-in bar on the other side of the room, so you have the perfect view of him working his magic, mixing liquor and dropping ice cubes into a crystal glass. When he finishes making your drink, he turns and walks over to you with this glint in his eyes, and you feel your body heat under his gaze. “This one's on the house,” He says with a wink, handing you the drink. You thank him, taking the glass as he sits back onto the couch, sinking into the plush cushions and watching you gently sip before pulling a sour face.

He laughs, “Too strong?” He asks. You grimace with a shake of your head, smacking your lips, “No, no, it’s good. Thank you.”

Your legs are kicked up on the couch, and Eddie finds his fingers slinking around your bare ankle, gently squeezing, “Want something comfy?” He asks.

God, he’s relentless.

You laugh, “You really want me to stay,” You tease. Eddie sinks like he’s letting all inhibitions go as he answers, “Desperately.”

He can tell you’re cracking, and you have to hide your grin behind the glass as you shake your head in disbelief at yourself, “Fine. Go, before I change my mind.”

And Eddie’s sprinting up, holding his jeans up from falling as he jogs up the stairs with a happy cheer.

A half-hour passes, and you find yourself sitting on Eddie’s comfy living room floor, dressed in nothing but an oversized shirt of his because, in Eddie’s words, ‘there’s no need for pants in a home setting, sweetheart.’ You think he just wants easy access and an eyeful of your bare legs.

Eddie’s licking up the crease of a blunt and your body is warm with whiskey and the shrill of a jazzy melody from the radio. He’s so pretty, leaned over the glass coffee table, bare shoulders flexing, curly hair draping as a curtain as he works. He clicks his tongue when he’s done, and you raise an eyebrow, pressing your bare toes into his thigh when he scoots closer. “Up for a smoke?” He asks.

You don’t smoke much, not that you don’t enjoy a nice high, but you find yourself more appreciative of your highs when they’re spaced out and random. You nod, and Eddie grins, “Atta girl. Here, honorary first hit,” He passes the blunt to you, and you snicker, grasping it between two fingers and holding it up to your lips. Eddie helps you with a lighter, leaning forward to burn the end of the paper, and you take one good drag before pulling the bunt away, rolling the smoke into your lungs to settle as best as you can handle before you sputter out in a small coughing fit.

Your eyes water, and Eddie grins as you pass it to him, leaning forward to kiss your temple, “That was good, baby.”

You watch as he takes a hit of his own, huffing out a few coughs of his own, and jesus christ, why do rockstars always smoke devious shit? It’s strong, whatever Eddie has you smoking, and it only takes you three hits before you already feel a buzz coming, and Eddie looks so pretty with low eyes and rosy cheeks.

“Ready to play our game?” He rasps out.

“Mm.” You agree, reaching out to take another hit.

“Did you listen to the albums?”

I can't destroy what isn't there

Deliver me into my fate

If I'm alone I cannot hate

I don't deserve to have you

Oh my smile was taken long ago

If I can change I hope I never know

God, did you listen to the albums? Sure, you have it ingrained into your fucking mind, and it burns.

You smile, slowly blinking because, of course, that’s Eddie’s first question. You breathe out clouds of fairy dust as you speak, “Yes, I did. Did you read the magazine?” You ask.

Eddie nods, leaning back against the couch, extending his legs out as he eyes you, “I did. Which song did you like best?”

“Mm, the one with the drums.” You smile.

Eddie laughs, and you pass the blunt back to him before leaning back on the opposite couch, toes almost touching when you extend your legs across the carpet. “You’re a kiss-up, you know that?” He gestures to you, to which you only shrug.

Eddie crawls across the living room, and you fight the urge to reach out and thread your fingers through his hair as he plops himself right next to you, leaning against the couch as well. Your thighs are touching, and you can feel the warmth of him, and the smell of weed is wafting through the air, and you just want to nuzzle into Eddie’s chest and never leave.

“Miss me?” You teasingly ask. You can hear the slight smile in Eddie’s voice as he responds, “Negative. You?”

You snort, “Negative.”

You shuffle to lean against Eddie, and he can’t seem to help it when he reaches out to push your hair back gently. “What do you wanna be when you grow up?” You ask.

Eddie’s eyebrows pinch in confusion, no doubt lost by what you mean, considering he already has his lifetime job figured out, “What do you mean?”

You sigh, wriggling as you fight the urge to wrap your body around him, “I mean,” You shrug, “Well, you’re not gonna do this forever, right? Like, at some point, you’re going to have to throw in the towel, age, and whatnot,” You dismissively wave, “What will you do then?”

Eddie pauses and thinks for a moment, and if you couldn’t feel the warmth of his skin on yours, you would think he vanished into thin air. “I, uh…. Well, you’ll think it’s stupid.” He mumbles.

You frown, turning your head to look at him, “I won’t. Tell me. Please?”

He looks at you with these soft, fond eyes before nodding, “I wanna start a music school in Hawkins— maybe, like, a creative arts school, you know, something for the weirdos. Not just music geeks.” He admits. His tone is so soft, maybe the softest you’ve ever heard, and he’s fiddling with his rings like he’s nervous, and it’s the cutest sight you’ve ever seen.

“It’s not really celebrated there. Creativity, I mean.” He adds.

You stay quiet, allowing him to speak, “Everybody just lives to work dead-end jobs. Being creative is like… a sin or something, I don’t know. I just want to give the kids somewhere where they’ll feel… safe. Seen. Something I never got for myself.”

It’s… it’s fucking brilliant. It’s so brilliant it makes your chest ache, and you decide that you would do just about anything to make sure Eddie’s dreams of a music school come true.

“I told you it’s stupid. No one ever thinks it’s good.” He mumbles after a moment with your silence. You frown and shake your head, sitting up straight to look at him. “No. No, Eddie, it’s amazing…It’s fucking amazing, and you should do it. You have to do it.”

“You’re just playing nice.”

“No, seriously. Fuck whoever said it wasn’t a good idea, it’s brilliant.” You press on, and you want to lean in and pepper kisses all over his face because— seriously, who the fuck told him it was a shitty idea?

“I grew up in a small town too, and— shit, it was not fun wanting to be something other than a nurse or a teacher. Got a lot of shit trying to ‘reach for the stars’,” You huff out a laugh. Eddie’s eyes are so gentle as they gaze at you that you almost melt. “I would’ve appreciated something like that. Munson’s School of Arts.”

Eddie snorts at that, pink lacing with yours as a smile spreads across your lips, “Not bad actually, I might name it that.”

It’s a back and forth of that for a while, silly questions amongst genuine ones until you find yourselves sat next to each other, arms pressed together, bodies yearning to wrap around each other as you fiddle with the strings of Eddie’s carpet. And there’s something, you know. Eddie feels something that he’s not telling you, and it’s killing you because it’s what you need to hear before you take the plunge. “Are you angry with me?” You softly ask.

Eddie’s quiet for a moment, and the blunt was snuffed out a while ago, so he’s not taking a drag but instead just stalling. “I mean,” he pauses, “I already told you, Birdie. What’s the point in going back on it?”

You frown, glancing at him, “Because I want you to tell me how you feel, Eddie.” You respond.

Eddie’s silent again for a longer moment, and you want to whine when he shifts away to sit in front of you. He folds his legs up, resting his elbows over his knees as he sits face to face with you, “Do you want me to be angry with you?” He steadily asks.

Your blink, “I— no?” 

Eddie raises an eyebrow, and you huff, “Honestly, a little bit, yes. It’s okay to be angry with me, Eddie; that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Eddie’s demeanor is unwavering as he blinks at you, but his tone is accusing, “Do you want me to be angry with you so you can feel justified?”

And, ouch.

That’s not the truth at all. Or maybe it’s some truth, but in your true feelings, that’s not what you mean. It’s only a fleeting thought because you’re human, after all, right?

“That’s not fair,” You frown with a small shake of your head. Eddie raises another eyebrow, and you tilt your head, “I’m only trying to be as transparent as possible, Eddie. That was the main issue.” You remind him.

Eddie turns to the coffee table, grabs your forgotten glass of Jack Daniels, and takes a swig for himself. “You wouldn’t tell me how you felt, and I was always left in the dark.” You say.

“And I’m telling you right now that I’m not angry.” He’s teetering on the edge of irritated now, and you tilt your head. “I listened to the album, Eddie. I listened to the song; you’re seriously gonna tell me you’re not angry?” 

Eddie can only glance at you then, and your frown deepens. “That’s… different.”

“How, Eddie? It’s about me—” “Yeah, because you fucking walked out on me on closing night,” Eddie exclaims. “How was I supposed to feel?”

Your chest tightens as you look into the eyes of your dreams, lyrics swirling in your mind because you’ve fucking memorized every word. You listened to it until you felt sick, dizzy with a whirlwind of regrets and what-ifs.

You sold me out to save yourself

And I won't listen to your shame

You ran away, you're all the same

Angels lie to keep control

Your chest aches when the lyrics echo in your mind.

“I just want you to be honest with me. If I made you feel that way—” “No, that’s not—” Eddie shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose, and cringes like it's painful. “That’s not it at all— fuck.” He puts the glass down and scoots back over to you; knees pressed into the fluffy carpet beside your thighs as he leans in and cups your face, eyes darting over your pretty features. “I was angry, and I was a shithead, and I had people talking in my ear and— shit. Please don’t think you ever blame yourself for that, please.”

Your fingers are cold, but Eddie’s wrists are warm beneath your fingertips as you frown up at him, “Just tell me how far out you are, Eds.”

Eddie looks at you with soft eyes, a callused thumb running under the delicate skin beneath your eye. He leans forward, pressing his lips against your forehead, and you preen, nuzzling forward and sinking into his warmth and scent that you’ve missed for so long.

“Not far,” He responds, lips brushing over your skin. “You?”

You hum, body reeling as Eddie slinks his arms around you, “Not far.”

Forty minutes and another blunt later, and Eddie’s floating in the fucking sky.

Eddie can’t believe it really, having you in front of him, next to him, limbs pressed to limbs with your laugh ringing in his ears— Eddie thinks this is some sick, realistic dream.

It’s tender, the space you’ve both created. You’re both fragile and reactive in the best way, like a healing exposed nerve, and Eddie will be forever in your debt for how patient you are with him. He’s not good at talking about real shit, but he’s trying to fix that, and you make it easier because you push him in the way he needs to be— you encourage him to say what he feels even if he’s afraid he might end up shooting himself in the foot and chasing you away again because— ‘It’s the only way things will get better.’

But you’ve always been patient. You were patient six months ago, and you’re patient now. You know exactly what you want, and you’re firm in what you say and feel, and it makes Eddie feel safe.

He’s never had this kind of thing— he’s never had a relationship where someone talks and leaves room for him to speak as well— two-way communication or whatever the fuck Robin says. It’s different, and it’s good, and Eddie thinks he must have shit taste if it’s taken him this long to realize it.

Chrissy never really cared for what Eddie wanted or preferred, or how something she did would make him feel. Eddie, at the time, didn’t think much of it and was more than happy to ride along with her ‘low maintenance’ nature, but it only cut him off from growth more than anything.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore because Chrissy is in the past, and you— you’re so pretty standing on Eddie’s couch in just his shirt with a blunt hanging between your fingers. You’ve just returned from changing the record— Surrealistic Pillow; Eddie knew the second you dropped the needle and watched you spin around with a shit-eating grin. 

“Hippie shit,” Eddie mutters as you hop down from his couch. Your eyes narrow, “Hey,” you nudge your foot against his thigh, “Don’t be an asshole. It was on your shelf anyway.”

Eddie slinks his hand around your calf, blinking up at you as you stand over him. You reach down, the burning blunt standing between your fingers, and Eddie happily parts his lips to let you slip the tip in. Burning sativa licks up the sides of Eddie’s brain, and he melts when your other hand sinks into his hair, gently pressing his bangs back as his eyes flutter. You hum, and Eddie’s lips tip into a smile as the smoke churns in his chest. Your knuckles curl into his roots, and Eddie could fucking cum right now, no questions asked.

He’s harder than a rock, and he’s not ashamed when he sinks his hand down the open fly on his jeans to palm himself, lowly groaning as he tips his head up, playfully blowing clouds of smoke up your shirt and grinning when you squeal. He chuckles, hand slinking further up your leg to grip the fat of your thigh as he tilts his head to nip his teeth at the inside of your knee.

He turns to let his chin rest on your thigh, blinking up at you with hazy eyes, “Let me in, baby.” He pleads.

You sink to your knees until you’re face to face, and Eddie’s hands glide under your shirt, warm and itching to explore as he feels the flutter of your lungs beneath his fingertips. “No funny business, Munson.” You remind him, swatting him away when his fingers prod at the cup of your bra. Eddie grins, brain fuzzy and warm, and he can’t stop himself from leaning forward and planting a quick kiss against your lips.

“I have something for you.” He says. Your eyebrows raise, and Eddie smiles, standing up with a grunt and shaking out his stiff limbs. “Don’t move,” He points to you before padding off.

The gift Eddie has for you has been with him since the fourth week he knew you. He’s been holding onto it for so long because he’s been a coward and didn’t know how to form the words ‘I’m sorry’ with his tongue— but now, Eddie’s riding on a high, and he needs you and wants you all the time and there’s no better time than now, right?

He’s holding the gift behind his back when he steps into the living room, and he smiles at the sight of you laid out on his floor, eyes closed as you sink into the music. You’re on cloud nine, Eddie can tell.

He drops to his knees over you, pressing his free hand into the floor beside your head, and his hair creates a curtain over you when you look up at him. “You look… tempting, to say the least.”

Your eyes playfully narrow at Eddie, and you squirm beneath him, “What’re you hiding behind your back?”

There are tears in your eyes as you blink down at the gift in your hands, and you know Eddie must think you’re insane for crying over a book— a journal at that. It’s a pale yellow colored leather, with two leather straps that are tied into a neat bow, and in the corner, your name is stamped in tiny cursive gold letters— your real name. 

It’s a replica of your old journal, the one that had gotten ruined when you tore the pages out to prove a point. But you don’t understand— “How did you get this?” You ask in a soft voice.

Eddie grins, reaching out to thumb at your bottom lip, eyes soft as he watches your eyes dance over the journal. “Called in a favor from Michigan.” He jokingly says. Your chest aches, and you frown when you look up at him, fingers tight around the binding of your gift, “You talked to him?”

Eddie snickers, “Yeah. Got a lot of shit from him first, I’ll tell you that,” He pauses and scratches at the back of his neck, “He told me he hates my music.”

You laugh at that, body warm with adoration because, yeah, that sounds like your grandfather. You sniffle, wiping under your eyes, “How did you know?” You ask.

Eddie shrugs as he sits next to you, “The cover of your journal had his name on it, so I kind of pieced it together since you share a last name.”

You don’t know what to think, what to say. It’s the kindest thing Eddie (or anyone) has ever done for you. Your grandfather had been in the business of handmaking journals for as long as you can remember; he was part of the reason why you took such a liking to journalism. He had a brief history in journalism himself, and he would sit and go through his best works with you when you struggled to fall asleep— he helped you see the world through the lens of an artist, and you never looked back.

You’re elated as you run your hands over the pages, imagining what the phone call between Eddie and your grandfather was like. You wish you could’ve been there to hear it; you wish you could’ve brought Eddie to meet him in person because even though your grandfather acted tough and mighty, he had the softest heart you’ve ever known, and he would’ve adored Eddie.

You huff out a laugh, shaking your head as you put the journal on the coffee table. You huff, turning to clamber onto Eddie’s lap, glaring at him as your hands dig into his shoulders, “I hate you so much.”

Eddie grins at you, and you drop your head to his chest, snuggling further into him when he wraps his arms around you. You grumble against his chest, turning your head to speak, “You’re making it so hard.” You complain.

You feel the rumble of Eddie’s voice in his chest as he hums, “Hm?”

Eddie shifts beneath you, and you sigh, turning your head up to nuzzle against the base of his throat. Your teeth drag across his skin, red lines left in their wake before you let your tongue coast up his pulsing vein, mouth kissing and suckling at what you can reach— and Eddie whimpers.

“You know…It’s past midnight.”

“Fffuck–”

Eddie’s dead.

He’s gone. Six feet under. In the next life, body turned back to dust, never coming back, dead. This must be the seventh circle of heaven— is that a thing? Or is that only hell?

Either way, Eddie’s on an entirely different plane of heaven as you press your body against his, knees tightening around his waist as he pulls you close and smears his lips against yours. He can feel the heat of your core through his pants, and his hips have a mind of their own when they buck up into you.

Your fingers are blind and eager when they wriggle through the tight space between you and Eddie, but it sends shivers up Eddie’s spine when you drag your nails down the soft skin of his lower pelvis.

Eddie’s lips part against yours, and he’s licking into your mouth, tongue flicking at your top lip as you shakily moan. “What happened to no sex tonight?” He lowly teases. His hands sink beneath your shit, squeezing at your hips and guiding the roll of your hips.

“Shut up, Eddie.” You whine, fingertips digging into his shoulders when he rubs against your covered clit. Eddie smiles, watching as your face twists in pleasure, and his chest nearly bursts because you’re so fucking pretty.

“You want me?” He asks.

Your lips twitch into a smile, and your hands slide down his arms to rest over his wrists that flex as they work you back and forth over his crotch. “Yeah,” You breathe, tipping your head down to hover your lips over Eddie’s, “I do. I want you, Eddie.”

Eddie’s tongue runs over his lips, and he catches your bottom lip, and you lick out to catch his tongue before pressing your lips together. Eddie uses one hand to cup your face, “You’re not curious where my dick’s been while we were apart?” He teases.

And if you weren’t practically humping Eddie right now and thinking straight, you probably would’ve choked Eddie out or something— but you only mewl and grind down harder. “Not funny.”

Eddie hums, fingers dancing across the band of your panties before dipping past the barrier. He feels like a pirate who’s finally found the hidden treasure, eyes squeezing shut as he tries to ground himself because, Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking wet.

His cock feels strangled and achy in his jeans, and he imagines how good it’ll feel to sink his cock into you as he swirls a gentle finger around your entrance. “For the record,” He drawls, watching your lips part when he dips his finger into you, “It’s been nowhere. My dick, I mean.”

You breathlessly laugh, hips wriggling, your pussy eager for more. “Been beating it with my fist for the last six months, so. Just want you to know— it’s only you, baby.”

You mewl, leaning forward to press your forehead against Eddie’s as you grind against him, shivering when he finally sinks a finger into you, drawing out to circle your clit with sticky arousal before sinking back in with two fingers.

You’re sharing each breath, taking each other in and out; Eddie watches with low eyes as your face twists in pleasure.

“Take it off,” He grumbles, “Take your shirt off.”

You’re moving like it’s second nature. Shaky hands reaching down to loop around the loose shirt, dragging it up and over your body— and Eddie’s head tips back with a groan. “Jesus fuck,” He curses, one hand busy working you as the other reaches down to palm your breast, “When did you take your bra off, you fuckin’ minx?”

You whimper against Eddie’s lips when he kisses you, the force of his eagerness pushing you back. Eddie keeps pressing you back, shuffling and moving around so he can press you down onto your back and hover over you. “Wanna taste you. Let me taste you.” He begs.

You shake your head, lips messily smearing against his, “No. No, you said—” god, Eddie can’t stop fucking kissing you, “You said you’ll let me have you next time, Eds.” You whine.

Fuck, you’re so fucking cute. You’re a goddamn dream pouting up at Eddie, grinding against his fingers as he ticks them up against your walls. “Yeah? You want me?” Eddie breathlessly asks. Your lips are pouty and swollen as you nod, “Already told you I did.” You say.

It takes everything in Eddie to pull away from you, and he thinks he’s gonna marry you when you reach out for him. Thinks he wants to just whisk you away and live on the side of a secluded mountain or some shit. Thinks he wants you to be the mother of his kids when you smile up at him as he rises to his feet, gazing down at you over the apple of his cheeks as he removes his jeans. You’re so pretty, hair spread out beneath you, tits on full display, tummy fluttering with each drag and push of your breaths. You’re lightly dragging the tip of your finger down your stomach, a teasing glint in your eyes as Eddie throws his hair into the shittest bun known to man, and fuck, you’re dipping your hand between your thighs.

Yeah. This is heaven, and you’re god.

Eddie thinks he’ll spend the rest of his life on his knees worshipping you.

Eddie’s body is warm when he crawls back over you, his body now bare, save for the chains that dangle from his neck. One cross, one guitar pick, one pentagram. They’re cold when they drag up the valley of your chest, and your body perks up with chills.

You slink your arms around Eddie’s shoulders, titling your head up to kiss him as your fingers curl into his messily tied hair. “Give me what I want, Eds.” You softly say against his lips. “Fuck my mouth, please.”

Eddie curses, rutting his cock against the inside of your thigh, and he nods, “Yeah. Fuck. Okay, yeah. Just lay here and look pretty, baby.”

The lasting effects of the three blunts you’d shared with Eddie are swirling through your body, and you feel like you’re on cloud nine as Eddie straddles your hips. He’s the prettiest sight to ever reach your eyes, toned arms, and chest working in tandem as he reaches down to wrap a fist around his cock— and god; you forgot how pretty his cock was. The tip is ruddy and flushed, and your core twists when he angles himself up, and you see the piercing beneath his tip. You definitely hadn’t forgotten about that little detail these past months.

Eddie’s chest is rising and falling quickly and stray pieces of hair cling to his lips when he licks them. You watch with wide, eager eyes as Eddie strokes himself, ringed fingers running against the soft skin of his shaft, pretty hisses curling through his teeth when he thumbs the slit of his tip.

“Quit teasing,” You whine, squirming beneath him. Eddie grins, breathlessly panting as he looks at you, “So impatient.” He mumbles, shifting further up your body until the inside of his thighs press against the side of your tits. You can feel the cool drag of his rings against your sternum, and it sends licks of fire through your core. “My baby’s so impatient, hm?” He taps his cock against your chest, and your frown, fingers digging into his thighs.

“Lucky you’re cute.”

Eddie’s then shuffling and moving around so you’re both comfortably positioned as he kneels over your face, pretty cock glistening above your lips. You open your mouth and let your tongue hang out, ready for Eddie to feed his cock to you, and he chuckles, tapping his swollen tip against your tongue before dragging it to tease you. 

It’s good. It’s so good. The taste of him, the feel of him, the pretty noises he makes. You can feel the cold barbell dragging across your tongue with each slow thrust he gives you, and you can’t wait to feel it inside you again. You’ve been dreaming about it for weeks on end now.

He pulls out with a slick pop, tapping his tip against your lips as he hums, “Ready? Gonna give you what you want now.”

You’ve never nodded so fast in your life.

He’s thrusting in and out of your mouth at a mind-numbing and thigh-clenching rate for just under five minutes before he starts to break. You can feel it in the stutter of his hips, the twitch of his cock on your tongue, the shuddered moans and grunts. You reach up to drag your nails down the soft skin of his stomach, and Eddie whimpers for the second time, and you think it might be your favorite sound— you want more.

He’s pulling out with a curse, squeezing at his tip, and you’re such a fucking tease; you lean forward to kitten lick at his aching tip and hum when he hisses. He shuffles back just enough to lean forward and press a messy kiss to your lips, humming at the taste of himself on your tongue.

“Fuck me, Eddie. Please. Want it so bad it hurts.”

“Jesus fuck— turn around.”

You’re shaking, and Eddie’s touch feels like fire as he helps you flip over to lean on all fours. His hands coast up your back and into your hair, and you push your body back into him, ass pressing against his wet cock as you moan when his fingers curl into your hair.

His other hand smooths over your ass, heavily slapping it once before gripping the warm skin as he speaks beside your ear, “Wanna fuck your ass one day, hm? Gonna let me? Say you’ll let me.” “Oh my god,” You roll your eyes with a smile, tipping your head to the side when Eddie kisses your neck before nipping at your ear. You can feel the curve of his smile against your skin, and it makes your chest flutter as he pulls you up to press your back against his chest.

He’s reaching down between you to grasp his cock and paint it against your wet cunt, and you lose your breath. “Come on. Say you’ll let me fuck your pretty ass.” He practically begs.

You moan when he slips his head in, teasing you with what he knows you want. Your head rolls back to rest against his shoulder, and he hums, slinking his other hand up to cup your throat as he continues teasing himself in and out of your pussy.

You smile, lazy and high and blissed out, “No.”

Eddie groans at that, fingers tightening around your throat as he sinks in deeper. “Not even a finger?”

You push your fingers through his hair, his curly strands nothing but a tangled mess within his hair tie. Your legs tremble as you wriggle back into him, but your voice is steady as you speak, “Fuck me first, and maybe I’ll think about it.”

Eddie takes that as a challenge, apparently, because next thing you know, he’s slamming into you and pressing in to the fucking hilt— all big and pierced and toe curling to the point where your moans turn flat, and all you can do is lace your fingers through his that rest on your hip and hold on for dear fucking life.

He’s pressing you face-first into the carpet, making sure your cheek rests against the couch pillow that had been thrown aside earlier. His fingers are clenched around yours, digging into your hip as you whine and moan into his floor, sobbing out his name with each groundbreaking thrust he gives you.

It’s all-consuming; the way Eddie’s fucking you, the filthy words slipping from his mouth, the lingering effects of weed— god, you feel like an exploding star.

Supernova shit or something like that.

Eddie’s cursing and spilling dirty words of encouragement when you come, leaning over to press his chest against your back and coo into your ear.

“Such a good girl for me.”

“Keep squeezing me like that, baby. You’re so good.”

“Y’sound so pretty when you’re coming on my cock.”

You’re breathless and quivering, and a pitiful whine slips from you when Eddie pulls out, but you can feel him as he wraps his hand around his cock and finishes off, pretty moans pressed into the skin on the back of your neck. The feeling of his sticky release dripping onto your ass makes you want to go at it again already.

He’s peppering kisses across your neck and shoulders, and your body slumps onto the ground in exhaustion, but you smile when he presses his lips to yours.

“So, was that good enough? Have I been granted access to the holy grail?”

You glare at Eddie from where his chin is hooked over your shoulder. He raises a suggestive eyebrow, and you huff. “I’ll tell you what,” You start, shifting and purposely rubbing your ass back against his sensitive cock, smiling when he hisses.

“Make up for the last six months first, and I might be able to cut you a deal.”

“Now you’re just stringing me along.”

You hum, “Oh, like you did with me some months ago?”

Eddie pauses at that, eyes narrowing at you, and you think— fuck, maybe that was too soon. But then a smile cracks across his face, “Touché.”

He sighs and sits up, peeling himself from your sticky skin before gently patting your hip. “Ass up, baby. Got a lot of making up to do, and we’re on a tight schedule.”

And you think to yourself, with the scent of Eddie whirling around you and his touch all over you and his pretty voice in your ear, that yeah, you can work through this together. Even if the process will tear you to shreds all over again.

After all, that’s the price of falling for a rockstar, isn’t it?

————

the end.

————

a/n: HOLY SHIT GUYS

if you've made it to the end of this long-winded (and incredibly late, I'm so sorry) ending to this story i can not thank you enough. these two have been so fun to write and i don't plan to leave them completely in the dust so they're not gone forever, but thank you so much to everyone who read and shared and commented. this story has allowed me to meet the most beautiful, kind, funny, and loving people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to and that will be my biggest takeaway from this journey🥹

the biggest thank yous to my pretty mutuals who have been here the whole way, ilysm and want to shrink you guys and put you in my pocket <3

anyway, i'll shut up now, i hope i was able to do these two justice with their ending!! i love and appreciate all kinds of feedback, and as always, thank you for reading, ily <3

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cutie lil taglist: @mastermindmiko @whataboutbibi @ryanmxrie @ihatepeanutss @tlclick73 @motherfckerrr @emxxblog @ye0nvibezzn @eddiesguitarskills @bibieddiesgf @chloe-6123 @micheledawn1975 @demxnicprxncess @emma77645 @sidthedollface2

@daddyhetfield @s-u-t @hereforshmut @mmunson86 @welcometohellsock @lma1986 @birdsinmywalls @animechick555 @sheneedsrocknroll92 @spideydreams00 @lorosette @prestinalove @sirensleepingsoundly @nabiiturner @catherinnn

@mossiswriting @kellsck @joannamuns9n @siriuslysmoking @mysteris-things @amazingori @honey-eyed-munson @saintlike78 @eddieslooneymoonie @alexa4040 @yujyujj

[cutieebabyy]

i miss you, i’m sorry - k.b

summary: you and katsuki broke up due to his upcoming career as a hero. you’ve just released your debut album and got invited to a well-known event to sing and discuss the new album. little do you know, your classmates would be there with your one and only ex-boyfriend.

pairings: aged up!katsuki x singer!reader (they’re in like their last year of hs.)

“so, y/n, about your upcoming album, we’ve just been dying to ask, but is this inspired by a certain someone?” i narrow my eyes at the question the interviewer asks. i was expecting this, but i still can’t hide the shock on my face. what is it with nosy people wanting to constantly butt into my life? i’m not stupid. i know exactly what she’s implying. she wants to know if my debut album is inspired by my breakup with katsuki. technically, it is, but she doesn’t need to know that.

“more or less. i guess that’s for me to know and for you to find out.” the audience “ooh”’s and i smirk. “well, there you have it, folks! now, while we go on a little break, i dare you to jam out to y/n’s single, ‘i miss you, i’m sorry!’”

the cameras temporarily shut off as an ad plays and i get up prepare on stage with my band. “you guys ready?” i ask them. one of them chuckles, “nervous, but definitely ready.”

“it’s okay to be nervous. i am too.”

“we all know why.” he winks. “i’m nervous because this is one of my first times singing in front of an audience like this and this is live, not because of him.”

“yeah, right.” he replies. i’m about to come up with a snarky reply when my manager walks up to all of us. “you all ready? cameras turn back in 20.”

“minutes?”

“seconds.”

“crap.” i mutter. i plaster a smile on my face and turn around towards the cheering crowd. i grasp the mic and then i hear my manager in my ear piece, counting down the seconds left to start.

“3, 2, 1…aaaaand, we’re live.”

the interview grins. “as you all know, we’ve got the y/n l/n here, ready to perform a single from her debut album, so here goes nothing! break a leg, y/n.” she laughs before the cameras turn to me and the lights dim enough for them to see me and my band.

i inhale a shaky breath, scanning the crowd. “do you remember happy together? i do, don’t you? then, all of a sudden, you’re sick to your stomach. is that still true?” me and everybody here knows exactly who this song is directed to and as the lyrics flee my throat, i don’t dare to hide my anger, but most of all, my heartbreak and love that i somehow still have for him.

katsuki and i were perfect together. we were always together, no matter what. he didn’t care what people thought of us. he didn’t care that his friends teased him for being in love. he didn’t care about how different our goals were in life…until he did.

we broke up last year. or, well, he broke up with me last year. spewed some lies about us not seeing things the same and it wouldn’t work out in the long run. i just don’t understand. he always knew that my long life goal was to pursue a career in the music industry. i made it clear from the very beginning. sure, i was in the hero course and everything, but i didn’t want to be a hero. i did it so my parents would lay off of me already. and, well, it’s too late to back out now since we graduate this year.

and even though, he broke my heart and stepped all over it, i still have immense love for him.

“you said forever, in the end, i fought it. please, be honest, are we better for it? thought you’d hate me, but instead you called and said, i miss you, i caught it…”

a little bit after we broke up, he called me in the late hours of the night. for some reason, i picked up. i couldn’t decline the call, knowing he’d been on a mission that night with best jeanist. i was worried something had happened to him. the moment i heard him utter those words, that he missed me, i was shook to my core. i was frozen. it’s like i couldn’t breath and the words wouldn’t escape my throat. i wanted to, so badly, beg him to come back to me— that i missed him too.

instead, i hung up on him. i begged for him to come back once and he still left, i made a vow to myself that i’d never do it again— no matter how much i wanted to.

“good to each other, give it the summer. i knew, you too. but i only saw you once in december. i’m still confused.”

my heart clenches as the words spill from my mouth. i remember writing this song, a few months after we broke up. i remember sitting up against my bed, every night, wondering why he broke up with me, and i couldn’t control myself as i picked up my songbook and wrote every single thing i felt. this entire album is exactly how i felt when he broke up with me.

my eyes don’t leave the crowd once. i’m about to open my mouth to sing the next verse, but the words get clogged in my throat when my eyes connect with the burning ones i dream about. the ones that belong in distant memories and not in the present. he’s not alone, though. he’s with our— his friends. denki, kirishima, mina, and sero.

“you said, forever, and i almost bought it. i miss fightin’ in your dorm, breakin’ things when you’re disappointed. i still love you, i promise. nothin’ happened in the way i wanted. every corner of this school is haunted. and i know you said that we’re not talkin’, but i miss you, i’m sorry.” i don’t take my eyes off of him, making sure that i mean every single word that leaves my mouth. i still love him and i miss him.

i wish i was good enough for him. was i not pretty enough? he used to tell me i was beautiful. he used to whisper sweet nothings into my ear after our limbs entangled in our sheets. he used to stare at me and smile when i caught him. he used to play with my hair when he was bored or when he was reading.

“i don’t wanna go, think i’ll make it worse. everything i know brings me back to us. i don’t wanna go, we’ve been here before. everywhere i go leads me back to you.”

as i keep repeating the lyrics, my mind drifts to all the times he’d wrap his arms around me and told me i was the greatest thing that ever happened to him— how he promised to love me forever. i remember our shared kisses— how we’d lay down on our sides and stare at each other until the other grew tired. and now, he’s just a stranger i know everything about.

i know how his eyes crinkle when he laughs. i know he’s not as cruel as everybody makes him out to be. i know how bad his anxiety gets and how he needs to go on walks sometimes to calm down. i know how he secretly like chamomile tea and listens to conan gray when he trains.

i know everything about him.

i finally tear my eyes away from him as the audience cheers. i bow and wave before heading backstage to my dressing room.

the next few days are a blur. millions of tweets are being posted about my album and my performance, but more specifically, the look katsuki and i shared as i performed.

a few days ago i was performing in one of the most popular venues, getting interviewed by one of the most famous interviewers, and now i’m sitting in class, studying to be a hero. my friends congratulate me and sing their favorite songs off of the album. and i grin.

my eyes drift to the boy in the corner of the classroom who’s staring right back at me. he doesn’t hide it either. instead, he throws his his head back and continues to stare at me through half-lidded eyes.

“y/n, you’re, like, crazy famous now!” mina exclaims. “no, i’m not.” i chuckle, shyly. “girl, do not play with me! look at this. you’re blowing up!”

she scrolls through a few of the posts until she lands on one of katsuki. it’s a picture of him at the venue. i think he’s looking at me. the photo is captioned, no way he’s looking at her like that when he was the one who broke her heart.

ochaco gasps. “is that…bakugo?”

mina rapidly nods. “yeah, we tricked him into going. he didn’t know y/n was performing and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.”

“ha, bakugo has haters now. it’s about time. i’ve seen too many edits of him. he’s stealing all the chicks, man.” denki says.

“he can’t help that he’s so manly!” kirishima cries, clutching a hand to his chest. “right, bakubro?” he yells.

katsuki rolls his eyes. “shut up.”

“when are you performing again, y/n?!” mina asks, excitedly. luckily, no one brings katsuki up again and nobody mentions anything about the break up. after katsuki and i broke up, everybody was extremely shocked and they didn’t get over it for months— they still aren’t— but i couldn’t take them talking about how cute we were all the time, so i made them swear not to talk about our relationship around me anymore.

luckily, they listened.

“probably after graduation. might be going on tour. i dunno.” i shrug.

“tour?!?!?! our precious y/n is getting out there. you better remember us when you’re all rich and famous!” mina says.

“i will.” i tell them. and i mean it.

hours later, when the sun sets and everybody is asleep, i make my way toward the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. i can’t sleep tonight for some reason. my heart aches and i feel like i can’t breathe. i wish i could be in his arms again. i wish i could feel what it’s like to be loved again— truly loved.

as i’m preparing my tea, i hear a soft grumble behind me. his soft grumble. “that song was about me, wasn’t it?”

i freeze. “what?”

“the one from the other day.” he says. i feel him take a step closer, his shadow looming over me. my back is turned to him, so i can’t see him, but i can feel him. “it is, isn’t it?”

“what do you care if it is?” i don’t mean to snap at him, but the anger i’ve held in for so long— i’m unable to stop it.

“you miss me. and you still love me. i know you do because i love you.” my breath hitches. “katsuki, please, don’t do this to me.” i turn around and push him away from me so i can escape his suffocating presence.

“y/n.” his voice breaks and i feel my walls crumbling. his rough, calloused hand wraps around my wrist. “please.” that one word is what has me turning around and finally looking at him. he looks everything but okay and i just want to wrap my arms around him and tell him that everything will be okay and that i’m here for him.

“what do you want me to say to that, katsuki? i still love you? because i do! with everything in me! but you left me! you left me when i needed you most. because of what— my career choice? sorry, i’m not good enough for you.” i scoff.

his grip tightens around my wrist. “i broke up with you because it wasn’t going to work out. you know that.”

“how the hell do i know that if we never even tried?!”

“it wasn’t going to work. i’m not good enough for you, i was going to end up breaking your heart sooner or later— we both know that.”

“no, because before you did what you did, i never thought that you’d be the one to break my heart. you told me you loved me.”

“i did— i do.” he corrects.

“then, why did you do it? why did you break up with me? and don’t give me that stupid excuse about it not working out.”

he sighs. “come on, y/n. you know me. i’m messed up. i always have been and i always will be. there’s nothing good about me. and you? you’re perfect. look at you. you’re blossoming and you’re growing and i can’t be the one to hold you back.”

and this is where my anger ends. i take a step closer. “‘suki, you’re not messed up. and even if you are, who cares? we all are. even our perfect little class president iida is messed up. i love you— perfect or imperfect, good or bad. i love you. you’re not going to hold me back because you’re growing too. katsuki, you’re going to be a hero soon. you’re already going on missions. hell, you’ve even got fan pages for you. my point is that you’re everything i ever wanted. all i want is you.”

he doesn’t say anything.

neither do i.

i place my hands on his biceps and reach up to peck his lips. it’s awkward at first and he doesn’t kiss me back. but when i pull away, his hand wraps around the back of my neck and his lips crash onto mine. and it’s then that i realize that katsuki and i’s story never ended, and it never will because for as long as i live, i will love this man like breathing. his tongue delves into my mouth and i gasp at the fierceness he doesn’t dare to hold back. i feel the pain he’s held in for so long and i also feel the time we lost.

“i love you.” he mumbles softly as he pulls away.

[wildfloweronwheels]

the more I sit with the tortured poets department, the more it makes perfect sense as a body of work taylor would create/release especially when you consider the fact she operates much more closely to an indie artist artistically than a lot of her contemporaries.

so honest it's catching people off guard? she's been doing that her whole career from the minute she put people's real names in her songs. lyrically sharp and slightly alarming? may I present "and you come away with a great little story about a mess of a dreamer to adore you" or "you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter." bold and sonically strange? she's been blurring the lines of genre since her earliest albums, regularly blending country, pop, folk and even rock. 1989 has been her only traditionally dare I say 'sonically cohesive' album and the only reason its palate is so clean is because of the risk a pure pop album posed to her successful country career. if she hadn't nailed the landing then, she wouldn't be where she is now. *it also feels worth noting her most adventurous 'weird' but music has come AFTER she thought she'd had her last chance at mainstream success (lover) and as a result, thrown away the checklist because she thought she had nothing to lose. she was just making music for herself with no expectation of success*

'there's too many metaphors and characters/the muses are murky and I can't tell what's real. does she have to write so much fiction now?' this is the girl who immortalised her neighbours love story, who rewrote romeo and juliet, dreamed about crashing a wedding and was inspired by bob + ethel kennedy for god's sake. she's always written stories and imagined.

'I just can't understand why she'd make this and take this risk when we all liked her so much?' my friend, have we been paying attention to the same artist all these years? taylor swift not taking creative and honestly quite punk career risks would be like christopher nolan films without cillian murphy. she walked away from a development deal at age 14, took a chance on an independent label she built from the ground up and then bet on her future when they held her past hostage. took a genre they said wasn't for teenage girls and transformed it. wrote an album on her own after her songwriting was questioned. took a 10 minute song to #1, directed music videos and a short film worthy of oscar buzz, stretched her muscles and is directing a feature film AND re-recorded all her old work in arguably the biggest potential interruption to her career not for any perceived gain but for the statement of an artist's worth. but the world doesn't view them as risks because they worked

tldr; the tortured poets department is the most taylor swift thing taylor swift has ever made.

[lorelshift]

󠀠⠀ ⠀ ⠀ 󠀠⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ര ۪ ݁ ! 𝒫𝓇𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 60𝓈 𝐹𝒶𝓂𝑒 𝒟𝓇 ౨ৎ ㅤ۪

꘩ TALES OF LORIE JANE

“OH WHO IS SHE ¿?”

── .✦ LORIE JANE ꪆৎ (𝐛. 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟖 ◞ 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟑) is a Folk singer, supermodel , poet and pin-up girl of the 1960s. She’s credited as the First Black Supermodel, known for her Witchy style and lasting impact on the beauty and music industry, paving the way for other women of color. She was the starter of the revolutional ‘WHIMSY’ movement of the mid-60s, using her music and style to influence and motivate others. Her bold&wild personality not only attracted attention from British and international audiences but also from her childhood best friend : BEATLE George (𝐛. 𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟒 ◞ 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟑) who she later married (𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 ◞ 𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟒). She continues to make her mark on her industries and is proving time and time again that she is one of the most Influential People in the Swinging Sixties.

“A MISTY MEMORY ¿?”

── .✦ EARLY LIFE ꪆৎ Lorelai Jane Campbell was born in Merseyside, England on the 8th of March, 1943 into a middle income family. She’s of Dominican, Nigerian and French descent, growing up in with her twin brother Lorenzo and 3 older siblings (Francis,Joyce, Roger). She began to take an interest in playing guitar very early on, showing her songs to her family (which were very supportive), her passion for modeling sprouted in her late teens.

── .✦ LOVE AFFAIRS ꪆৎ While Lorie Jane rose to fame - she wasn’t the only one from the merseyside to do so in the early 60s. The Beatles had been taking the world by storm. And she was well aware of them, as she had been dating lead guitarist George Harrison since 1961 , knowing him since her childhood days. The two officially tied the knot on November 11th 1964. Despite being very private they remain an it-couple.

── .✦ CAREER ꪆৎ The buzz around Lorie Jane began in 1962 after she released her first album ‘Heartlands Moon’ on her 19th birthday (𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟖 ◞ 𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟐) . The Album featured hits like ‘One too many mornings’ , ‘The rising of the moon’ , and ‘Universal Soldier’ . The album peaked at #4 on the uk top 40 charts. A month later she Released the same album in America, becoming a huge hit and achieving the #1 spot on the billboard charts for 2 consecutive weeks. A few months prior to releasing her album she had signed into a modeling agency, kickstarting her modeling career, after her success in the folk music scene she had a boost with her modeling career, Modeling for Glamour, Vogue, Mademoiselle and Seventeen. she had brought a unique look to the world of fashion which brought her alot of attention, many designers had taken inspiration from her and soon enough she was an epitome of the era’s most iconic trends. Soon enough her photos had been gaining mass production, turning her not only into a supermodel but a pin-up girl . Lorie often challenged her industries and broke many barriers , often writing protest songs or openly speaking up about her opinions in interviews or through writing and publishing poems, many articles deemed her ‘controversial’ but no matter how others perceived her she was an activist, preaching about what’s right.

[neil-perrys-suicidal-tendencies]

INTRO POST <3

last updated - 26/1/25 (added letterboxd) fic recs , my fic

BASICS- ABOUT ME: I'm Lisa Avenir (love nicknames, especially Lise or Liz, be creative, I don't mind). You can also call me Alex :D I'm an asexual genderqueer(non-binary) lesbian and I use they/she pronouns (prefer they). I'm Indian and a minor so keep the latter part in mind. I'm also bilingual/multilingual I love receiving asks even though I may take some time to answer them sometimes. I love talking to people here but only dm me we are mutuals :) my old intro post because I'm emotionally attached to it DNI- the basics, I don't want any assholes in here.

FANDOMS: This list will keep on changing- Most Active in: Dead Poets Society, BBC Sherlock, My Chemical Romance, Gravity Falls, Dead Boy Detectives Occasionally post: A Little Life, House Md, Chappell Roan, Derry Girls, Bunny I also reblog a lot of silly stuff, lgbtquia+ stuff and sometimes things concerning my mental health.

LINKS SIDE BLOGS: @i-think-im-breaking-down-again - more personal blog @cappuccino-circa-capillaries -hopecore posts @a-bitch-can-write-poetry - poetry and web weaving reblogs, will post my original work if I ever get the courage @honestly-im-honest- silly stuff @edwinpayneshomosexualtendencies - dbda side blog MEDIA: Pinterest Spotify Storygraph stats.fm letterboxd TAGS: #yapping the days away - yaps #my art - my art #rewatching bbc sherlock - block this if you can, this is me experiencing a psychological breakdown #asksss, #moot asks, #anon asks - asks related stuff If you send asks often, I probably have a special tag just for you #affirmations - hopecore posts #normal thoughts, #unfortunately that's me - unhealthy thoughts #silly stuff, #hellsite, #hellsite heritage - tumblr being silly #politically correct opinions - anything which i deem is correct and debated

INTERESTS- MUSIC: My music taste is that of a straight white teenage girl, a cottagecore lesbian, her emo girlfriend and an Indian dad. 🪶Genre - Indie, Indie pop, Rock, Alt-Indie, Basic white girl pop, Pop-rock, Pop-punk, Folk, Old Bollywood, Male manipulator, Female Manipulator, Lesbian Manipulator, ghazal, anything that slaps 🪶Artists - Chappel Roan, Ricky Montgomery, Flower Face, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Hozier, Phoebe Bridgers, Girl in Red, Clario, Conan Gray, Hank Green, Sabrina Carpenter, Hayley Williams, Joji, Indila, Adele. Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Jagjit Singh, Muhammad Rafi, Asha Bhosle etc etc 🪶Bands - Wallows, Florence and the Machine, Sir Chloe, Hole, The Smiths, Paramore, Beach House, The Jayhawks, The Neighborhood, Fun Guns, Cage The Elephant, Arctic Monkeys, Chase Atlantic, Radiohead, My Chemical Romance. 🪶Albums(favourites) - evermore, folklore, The Black Parade, Danger Days, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, Montgomery Ricky, Depression Cherry, Lungs, Superache, Emails I can't send frwd:, Hozier, Ceremonials, Riot!, AM, Party Flavors, I am the Dog, Punisher, Rainy Day Music, Petals for Armour, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Social Cues, Melophobia, Live through this, Ultraviolence, Born to Die(The Paradise Edition), Nothing Happens, Baby Teeth, Fever Dreams, The Shark in your Water, Lilt by Hikes, Get up and Move by Fun Guns, Sour

BOOKS- 🪶Genre - Dark, War pieces, Dystopias, Young Adult, Depressing, Dark Academia, Classics, Psychological Thriller. 🪶Ride or Die - The Book Thief, The Perks Of Being a Wallflower, MAUS, Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, All the Bright Places, The Midnight Library, The Handmaid's Tale, The Diary of a Young Girl, A Little Life, The Boy In The Stripped Pajamas, Circe, Before the coffee gets cold, Sharp Objects, The Martian, The DaVinci Code, Bunny, The Emperor of All Maladies, Turtles all the way down, And Then There Were None, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Catcher in The Rye, No Longer Human, Grandpa's Great Escape, Wild Bird, The Giver. 🪶Honorable Mentions from my TBR - If We Were Villains, The Secret History, 1984, To Kill A Mockingbird, Six Of Crows, Lord of the Flies, Piranesi, Lessons in Chemistry, Crime and Punishment, How it Feels to Float, Orbiting Jupiter, Normal People, Fahrenheit 451, The Myth of Sisyphus, Lessons in Chemistry, Slaughterhouse-five, Dark Matter. 🪶Poets - Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth. Sappho,

MOVIES- Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Lady Bird, Whiplash, Booksmart, Black Swan, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, Forrest Gump, Duck Duck Goose SERIES- BBC Sherlock, Orange Is The New Black, HBO's Chernobyl(This was my 1st hyperfixation and it lasted for more than 2 years. At its prime I knew how to run several types of reactors and was known for nuclear energy. I almost got outed coz of his ha) Brooklyn99, Dead Boy Detectives, Heartstopper, Derry Girls, Modern Family, Just Add Magic, House md?

FACTS- 🪶Only Child 🪶Also a really lonely child 🪶I love any form of Noodles Soup 🪶I have a huge crush on Maya Hawke 🪶I love biology and anatomy 🪶I need psychological help /srs 🪶I have brown ass basic eyes 🪶My vocabulary might be good but I can't spell for shit. 🪶I'm touch starved but touch aversed. Yes, we exist. 🪶I'm a nerd fighter 🪶I love dissecting song lyrics 🪶My aesthetic is dark academia, witchcore and sickly victorian child dying of the plague core 🪶I am a hyper-organized clean freak (it get crippling) 🪶I have multiple BFRBs since childhood 🪶I have these sneeze attacks on a daily basis where I sneeze like 15 times over the course of 3 minutes 🪶 My 2025 resolution is to count my sneezes and my body has abruptly stopped sneezes since Jan 1st. HOBBIES- 🪶Reading 🪶Writing poetry or songs 🪶Listening to Music 🪶The Universe 🪶Literature 🪶making little collages on PowerPoint

MOOTS APPRICIATION!!!! @lv3buzzz, @noctilucaa(even in deactivation, star will be my wife), @wilsons-three-legged-siamese, @yourfavvgal, @1mlostnow, @arrr-im-a-dead-poet, @perksofbeingpoet, @mighthavebeenmurder, @take-me-to-the-rooftop15, @poetsinnyc, @joonof1989, @deadcrowcalling, @pingunaa, @xxcherryberriezxx @burgundykicks (text me if you would like your name to be removed <3333 )

-🪶 divider

[docholligay]

I have no idea how wild the fandom for Hadestown is. If you don’t know me, if we’ve never exchanged words, and you have BIG FEELINGS about Hadestown that any level of critique will set off, I very much encourage you to move it along. I can’t do Hamilton 2 or whatever. (If I know you I will give you more leeway FOR SURE. I just want to keep strange weirdos out) 

First, I have to provide a little bit of context: I got in on the ground floor with Hadestown. 

Yes Doc, I too, have been obsessed with it ever since it was in previews--no, I mean, i saw folk singer Anais Mitchell perform the whole thing like 15 years or whatever ago in a converted garage venue. 

I wasn’t even in town to SEE HER, I was in town to see a different artist and this was back when live music was a bigger thing and not a dying scene, and people just bought tickets to whatever was playing on a free night. I like folk music, I liked the idea of what was then being called a folk opera. It was instant love. Orpheus and Eurydice is one of my favorite myths, I am from a rural and exploited place, I loved everything I heard, some absolutely glorious poetry going on there. Bought the concept album, forced so so many people to listen to it all the way through. Forced jetty to listen to it on our road trip! Before the musical came out even!

I have been following this musical ever since then. I kind of thought it would never get made! I followed the original version, and then the broadway one. What I’m saying is, I have what now amounts to about fifteen or so years of history with this musical, and all the changes it has gone through, and all my individual feelings about each of those changes. My evaluation necessarily lives within that context. 

This was part of the reason it took me so long to see the Broadway! I wanted the emotional space to feel however I felt about it, even if that ended up being, “I fucking hated that” and it’s hard to have that when someone buys very expensive tickets and a trip for you to see something you’ve been following for years. Part of jetty’s gift of this was “And you can hate it!!” and I knew she meant it, because when you watch something move and be workshopped and change, you get a lot of feelings about it. 

So I can’t really go, “I liked Hadestown/I didn’t” I mean, I have loved hadestown for a very long time. If all you wanted to hear was , ‘Did you like it?” oh yes! But I have at least four versions sitting my head right now, and they are all next to each other for evaluation in a way that someone who has only experienced the broadway can’t have. 

I want to provide this knowledge because my thoughts about it go so far beyond what is currently being staged on Broadway. No, this is not going to be me saying, ‘Everything was better with the concept album!” no, some things are, but this isn’t that I promise. 

Everything below this is spoilery

So, originally Hadestown was a slightly different story and admittedly, one that spoke to me more than the story I saw last night. It was a lot more specific in its earliest days--it was about an impoverished mining town. Hadestown was the company town, underground, and there was basically no mention of Hades and Persephone being actual gods, anything was winked to, but it was mostly about how the holders of capital have all the accountability of gods. The whole thing had a much stronger anti-capitalist framework, and Orpheus and Eurydice were basically naive kids who thought they could avoid involvement with the mine. Obviously, this very much spoke to me. It was matching my freak exactly. 

It is not that now. And that’s both totally expected, and disappointing to me personally. The show now is much more of a, I’m trying to put this in a way that feels less insulting because I don’t mean to be, very Captial L Liberal. Audiences who can afford Broadway tickets will eat up the vague notions of wishing for a better tomorrow and ‘show the way the world could be’ and putting this back into the framework of a story of the gods instead of the utter lack of choices available to people, that the game is rigged from the start, and Orpheus even having this chance is both an exception and a test hades expects him to fail. I get why this happens. Literally every story that has ever been brought to Broadway has had to be made more palatable to a broader audience. The story it is now, is much much more broad, much more life affirming or whatever, and much more easy to hear. I think I would like it better if I didn’t know the story from the very first versions. 

But that was not a problem last night! That was a problem when i heard the previews out of Alberta! So I’ve had years to adjust to knowing that they were going to blame Orpheus a lot more. Which I love that the Broadway seems to have backed off of! The Alberta production really sort of LAID INTO THE BOY in a way I aggressively did not care for, because it was the antithesis of the story as I understood it. Love that they took that back a step. 

Anyway, so, things I loved about the musical last night:

The staging of Wait For Me fucked SO SEVERELY that honestly it makes me forgive like 90% of the things I don’t care for in the final Broadway version, that I thought were done better in other versions. I almost cried, it was EXACTLY what I would have pictured in my head after hearing it all those years ago. It was incredible. I wish I could see it again, and study it. I am thinking about it right now! It will live rent free in my head. Perfect. 

The gal who played Eurydice has clearly listened to Anais Mitchell albums, because she sounded SO MUCH like Anais that it even took me back for a moment. 

I’m not sure if this is praise or a criticism: 

I don’t know how I feel about having Hermes as an overall narrator! I go back and forth on it and have since the Alberta came out. If I were going to do it I would do it differently than it is currently staged. Jetty was talking about how she loves when the instrumentals are onstage, and I’m the exact opposite--I mostly find it crowds the stage while not bringing much interest for me. But in general, i both like it and do not like it, to give a very useful critique. I don’t hate it, for sure. I love the opener for Wait For Me II. But overall I will probably need to think about it for another 15 years. 

Frustrations I have:

 I think I have decided that even for the MASSIVE INSANE BUCKWILD flaw of seemingly blaming Orpheus for Eurydice’s decision, the Alberta is the best version. I think I prefer the concept album on a personal level for a lot of things, but I think the Alberta is, well for starters, definitely more complete--the concept album has some massive gaps in it that desperately needed filling--but it preserved a lot of the poetry that the Broadway version seems to have stripped out while being much more mass appealing. I was particularly GALLED by the rewrite of Epic III, one of the things in the Alberta version that made me say, ‘Wow I am prepared to forgive a lot of horseshit for this song, my god” 

NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU

They took out "The heart of a king who loves everything like the hammer loves the nail" imagine writing that line and scrapping it, are you HIGH, fuck me running.

And I think this summarizes a lot of my frustrations about the changes between the Alberta and the Broadway. It no longer sounds like a folk opera. It has lost a lot of the poetry of the original, folk music being very grounded in lyric and somewhat less in vocal theatrics. 

Also, and this might just be an actors thing, I did not get any sense that Persephone and Hades love each other…at all. Part of the appeal for human beings named Doc who are me is that they love each other, and they can’t stand each other, and I didn’t FEEL that at all. Like i said this could be an acting thing--I was not overly impressed by our persephone broadly. But taking out her part in Chant II I think also really contributes to this problem. 

This is both the Alberta and Broadway versions: I MISS THE FATES BEING A REALLY TIGHT 40s STYLE GIRL GROUP SOB SOB SOB. In the original, the fates were the only characters ‘outside’ the story, and this was indicated stylistically by the fact that everyone else was singing folk music, and they were singing in this very different style. The idea fifteen years ago was that they actually would be dressed all in that style, but yeah, none of this happens now and i find it SOOOOOO disappointing personally. I hate their stupid costumes I hate the ‘rougher’ style of vocals I hate it so much ahahahahha. If I was going to force Anais to change one thing it would actually be this, even though it is insanely petty and silly. 

The best version of when the chips are down:

I don’t know if literally any of this is what you were looking for but I somehow deeply suspect not. I am IN THE SHIT with Hadestown though, so if you have any specific things you wanted to ask about or have me talk about, let me know! I am just cutting this off now because it’s already at 1700 words and I’m not sure anyone cares that much about my journey with the only musical I can truly say I knew about when it was still a twinkle in someone’s eye. 

(Yeah Doc, I have a question: Do you have anything mean to say about the concept album? OH BOY DO I. Some of it is to be expected like, "Uh, Anais you need the rest of the story here girl." but a huge one is I fucking HATE that she got Justin Vernon, who you know better as Bon Iver, to do Orpheus. He SUCKS. He sounds bored the whole time because that is how that motherfucker sings. I have HATED it since day one. Reeve Carney is perfect and literally what I started my local women's prayer and casserole circle to petition the Lord for.)

[sadgirlglimmeringdarling]

You were not kidding about all the Olivia related negative comments on Reddit! I went on Google and did a search. I couldn't screenshot all the comments because some were too obscene but I got the ones that weren't that crude. I wish I could have gotten all of it but it would have been 100 pages of screenshots! Too many people dislike her. It's surprising how I found comments from weeks ago in there.

I don't have X so can't go look in there. It doesn't let you do any searches without having a account.

You sent me this about 2 weeks ago and I was very hesitant to let this post go through. Not because you said anything wrong. You did nothing wrong. It's the person posting at reddit under the username "thedickdaddies" that said something I never heard of before. It's quite a bold allegation.

I know there's always been rumors about Jack in Detroit. That's a given. It's been going on for close to 30+ years. It's also alleged that people in Detroit don't like Jack. In my opinion, I think it's the main reason he moved to Nashville. He made too many enemies with his alleged affair with Tracee and his alleged betrayal to Dan. Then it's alleged that Jason Stollsteimer couldn't keep his mouth shut and we know what Jack did to him.

With that being said, I never heard the story that thedickdaddies shared on reddit about Olivia. That person didn't even say "in his opinion" or even an "allegedly" in his post. He can get himself into some legal troubles saying stuff like this. That's why I was hesistant letting this post in.

I never ever heard anything about Jack leaving Olivia to marry Karen Elson and Olivia following Jack and Karen to Nashville. Like what? How? Jack and Karen got married in 2005. How exactly did this work?

Olivia was allegedly already in Nashville by 2008. She was in the studio with Karen and Jack recording The Ghost Who Walks in 2009. She was in the picture much earlier then 2011 like most fans think.

In my opinion, I don't believe Jack left Olivia to marry Karen. I don't think he even met Olivia before he married Karen. He was dating Renee right before Karen and of course there was the alleged affair with Tracee.

In my opinion, I allege that Olivia might have come into the picture in 2006, solely by the song A Martyr for My Love for You. That is if the song is even about Olivia - as it's just allegations and my opinion.

What we do know for sure is that Olivia was working with Jack in 2009 for Karen's album.

By the way, the age of consent in Michigan is 16 years old. I thought I should throw that in here.

Anyway, I just want to clarify that I don't agree with thedickdaddies. That's his/her opinion - not mine.

Everything else that you posted from reddit seems like the same opinions we all heard over the last 16 plus years. I haven't looked into reddit in ages and I don't have an account, but I'm genuinely surprised folks are still negatively opinionating about Olivia this way. It says a lot.

See - it's not just me giving these types of opinions about her. Other people think her music and musicianship sucks. It is what it is I guess.

[whitehartlane]

tagged by the wonderful @audereestfuckery! tysm :D

last song i listened to: on youtube it was rest by desktop error. they’re an honestly unknown thai indie post rock band i’ve been listening to for years. rest especially is a song of all time and one that has accompanied me through a lot of my life! i feel very overworked and exhausted at the minute and this song is a nice reprieve 😌 on spotify it was thamizhachi by arivu! he’s a tamil dalit artist and raps/sings about tamil and indian social issues. the album this song is from is called therukural, a portmanteau of the word ‘theru’ (street) and ‘thirukkural’ (a collection of tamil couplets dated around 450CE that provide a guide for human life and morals). street poetry, basically! this song is mine and my dad’s favourite off the album; it’s a feminist track about loving a tamil woman but letting her be free and as she is.

favourite colour: yellow :) and white and blue (for no reason obviously)

currently watching: making my way through queer as folk at a snail’s pace! very much enjoying it. there are some storylines that are slightly frustrating but apart from that i love gay joy and i love seeing messy people be messy. it’s good fun. apart from that i’m rewatching sunderland til i die too which always makes me emotional 😭

last movie i watched: my beautiful laundrette. it was a rewatch and i love it so much 🥹 sure you kind of have no clue what’s going on half the time but again it’s just so fun and real and chaotic. it did me a lot of good as a kid seeing a south asian gay person in film.

currently reading: douglas stuart’s shuggie bain in twenty minute increments on the bus because i’ve got no time to read otherwise. really enjoying it though (it is devastating me) and my library is not getting this one back from me until i’m done!

sweet/savoury/spicy: savoury and spicy. i guess i can do without spice for a meal but it defo has to be savoury. i am craving a blueberry muffin right now though.

last thing i googled: twas an image search: ‘carpal tunnel syndrome pain distribution’ (not for me). as for proper search it was just me googling ‘amboss.com’ and then did some searching re antibiotics within there, probably not very interesting for you lot 😭

current obsession: kinderpunsch and cinnamon rolls :) always an obsession but been ramped up because it’s the cold months! also absolutely obsessed with my spurs scarf, there has never existed a piece of clothing that is so rahul 🥰

currently working on: just getting through the day 😭 this past month has been really difficult and honestly so has this entire year. i don’t actually remember feeling not stressed and burnt out. i have things to dread but also be excited for next year so i’m just hoping 2025 will be kinder to me because i’ve been feeling genuinely beaten down since mid january. apart from that i’m trying to work on my novel when i’ve got the time :)

i will tag: @sinnettini @richarlisonny @ashleighneville @timoswerner @heungmins @steeple-sinderby-belles and YOU!

[mr-celestial-writings]

Trick Or Treat!

It's All Hallow's Eve! And Here's how various folks would spend it with you! This will be a long one, so Buckle up.

Gender Neutral Reader for All Characters.

DC Masterlist

================================================

BatFamily:

Bruce Wayne:

He would be handing out candy for the first half of the night. Nothing cheap. He hands out the largest candy bars he can find.

He would dress up as something silly, like Dracula. He is not spared from the jokes from his children. He also very well aware of the irony.

You two would probably do a couple's outfit. Like Peanut Butter or Jelly, or Two Halves of a smore. Something cute.

Of course, it is still Gotham. The Rouges will be more than active tonight. So at some point, Bruce would have to go off on patrol. with a kiss, you send him off.

When he comes back, you're sitting in the kitchen, Jack O' Lantern Still lit. You were waiting for him to come back before you put it out.

Together, smiling, you two blew out the candle. All in All, a Tame Halloween.

Richard "Dick" Grayson:

Oh boy, if anybody is excited for the Holiday, it's Dick.

He hands out candy, dressed as one of his brothers. Probably Jason. He thought it would be funny.

Haley also has a costume! She's dressed as a little pumpkin. Dick has a 100 pictures of her in her costume already. You know he's going to have them all printed out by tomorrow and in the photo album he has for her.

He takes the night off so he could spend time with you. Whether your dressed up or not. He would never pass up a chance to spend time with you.

Once the Trick-Or-Treaters start to become more of a trickle, you two sit on the couch, watching some horror movie or another until you pass out.

Jason Todd:

He is not a big fan of the Holiday. Rouges get more active, people in general get more bold. It's just more work for him.

Somehow, you manage to convince him to take the night off. Let his family handle the crime! You picked out a couples costume.

Jason may put up a big, tough guy act. For you though, he melts. Which is how he ended up at a Halloween party with you on his arm.

He didn't take his eyes off of you the whole night. A Dopey smile on his face.

Once you went home, you two curled up in your coziest pajamas with a bag of candy Jason totally legally acquired, watching slasher fics.

When you fell asleep in his arms, Jason simply put a blanket on the top of you and held you close. He soon followed you to the land of sleep.

Timothy "Tim" Drake:

He's neutral towards the Holiday. But no matter what you do, you can never pull him away from work completely.

You might be able to drag him to help with handing out candy. But dragging him to a Party is a lost cause.

Depending on your costume, you may or may not distract him with the image of you in his brain all not.

Bring him Pumpkin baked goods, appease our sleep deprived god. He will love you forever.

When he comes back from patrol, and he sees you in bed curled up under a spooky blanket, he wouldn't hesitate to crawl in next to you. Gear and all.

Damian Wayne:

Claims he hates the holiday, but the way he lights up when you arrive to go trick or treating says other wise.

Dresses up as batman. It's a really well done costume. Benefits of having money.

He has planned out the perfect route for optimal candy gathering. There is now way neither of you go home without two trash bags full of candy, if not more.

His Father Gave him the night off. Which is perfect. It means more time with you, his friend, and more time to gather sweets.

After you return to Wayne Manor, Damian has you stay over for the night as you watch Child friendly Halloween Movies. You two pass out on the Den floor, and Alfred is the one who places a blanket over you.

Barbara Gordon:

Work for her never stops, but she can afford a break for you. Even if that break is helping hand out candy at the library.

She can't really do full blown costumes. But she puts on a pair of cat ears to help get into the season.

Once the last of the Trick-Or-Treaters leave the library, she travels home with you before heading to the clock tower. Criminals tend to love this Holiday, and she'll help as best she can.

She absolutely stays on call with you though, listening to you prepare dinner for the two of you.

When she returns home, Dinner is set out, and you two enjoy Dinner together before going to bed.

Stephanie "Steph" Brown:

May be able to compete with Dick with how much she loves the Holiday. Goes all out. Decorations, costumes, candy, you name it.

It's her night off! She's going to spend all the time she can with you!

Drags you out trick-or-treating, and then to a Halloween party. You two somehow manage to win best couples costume.

You two stop by Bat-Burger for Dinner, it's cheap, and you know nobody will steal your candy.

Steph sets up a horror movie as you change into matching pajamas with her. Once you two are cozy, you binge movies and candy until you pass out.

Cassandra "Cass" Cain:

She loves the Holiday, nowhere near as much as Dick or Steph, but she won't say no to going trick or treating with you. Or to the Couple Costume.

She has a lot of fun! And she makes sure you two hit the houses with the good candy and full sized candy bars. The hoard you both Gather could rival Damian's.

Does not hesitate to make you a proper dinner, no matter how late you get home. You went out of your way to make sure she had fun. Feeding you is the least you could do.

You two watch True crime until you fall asleep, safe in each other's arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Supers:

Clark Kent:

Adores the Holiday. He has since he was a kid. And he hopes that he managed to pass that love onto Jon.

Dresses up as a sheet Ghost. He knew his intent to wear a silly costume was effective when you laughed.

Happily hands out candy to all the Trick-Or-Treaters. No matter the age.

Clark can't really handle horror, so you two watch Kid friendly Halloween movies until Jon gets home.

You and him cooked a Halloween themed dinner and dessert to help wrap up the night. Goes without saying that Jon ate every bite and even had seconds.

After going through the candy, and tucking Jon into bed, you two spend a bit more time together before going up to bed.

Conner Kent:

Neutral towards Halloween. He will not say 'No' if you want to go out together or wear couple's costumes.

Does absolutely tease you with Halloween/general fall based nick names and pick up lines. Your his partner. It's his job to make sure you're flustered at least once tonight.

If you are wearing a bit more of a revealing outfit, Conner doesn't hesitate to start a fight with anybody who cat calls you.

Gets you the biggest bag of candy he can, and eats half of it. He'll leave you the candies you like though!

You two end the night in each others arms. Watching whatever was on TV. You two fell asleep like that.

Jonathan "Jon" Kent:

Loves, loves, LOVES the holiday. It is fact his favorite day of the year, right next to Christmas Day.

His Costume would be a Ninja. Mainly because Damian Groaned when Jon picked out the costume, So Jon of course wanted to annoy his best friend.

Drags you to every house, no matter the candy. It's a day with his best friend, he wasn't passing up on this.

You two were wiped when you returned to the Kent house, and Clark and Lois had an amazing meal prepared for you.

Goes without saying you two ate before passing out in Jon's room.

Kara Danvers:

Adores Halloween. Sucks that she can't spend all day with you. The moment she was free from work, though? Oh she could not get you into her arms fast enough.

She dragged you to every haunted house she could. She was like an excited little kid.

You bought you both bags of candy and other baked goods. And when you got a break from all the running around, you bought warm apple cider.

Once Kara noticed your exhaustion from all he running around, she carried you home, and happily cuddled you until you both fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speedsters:

Barry Allen:

Ah yes, Halloween with a Speedster. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, one, you spent basically all day baking. Barry could not keep his hands off your sweets. Thankfully the candy for the Trick-Or-Treaters was untouched.

Dressed up as a pumpkin. It made you laugh. And that was his goal.

Clung to you basically the entire night, even as you handed out candy or had to pull more cookies out of the oven.

When the porch light finally switched off, he dragged you to bed to watch the Entire Saw Series.

Wally West:

Drags you out to a Halloween party, no questions asked. You also went out to egg and TP people's houses. He was going to enjoy the time he had with you.

Buys you both absurd amounts of candy, even if most of it goes to him.

His mom made him dress up as a Carrot. He stopped complaining when you called him cute though. He owned being a carrot. He would die on that hill.

Happily ran around with you on his back as you caused chaos in the town.

Bart Allen:

Shows up at your door first thing in the morning, literally vibrating in excitement. Bart drags you around all day to scope out the best houses.

When the time comes, Bart quickly grabs the couples costumes he wanted to wear. Once you were ready he didn't hesitate to drag you out.

You two hit every house. Twice with Bart's superspeed. And even then he ran with you on his back to nearby cities.

By the time you got home, you two had a massive hoard. Even Bart admitted that it would probably last until next Halloween.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Archers:

Oliver Queen:

Celebrates Halloween with a big, fuck off Halloween party every year. You, of course, are invited.

Costumes are required, and Oliver chooses the grandest couples costume for you two. He wasn't about to be shown up at his own party.

Plenty of fancy foods, and just normal baked goods. Which he goes goblin on.

He was half tempted to throw out anybody dressed as the Justice League. You managed to talk him out of it though.

When you two tumble into bed after the party, Oli looked at you and realized he wouldn't change anything. No amount of money could make him give up this moment.

Roy Harper:

Becoming a Dad changes a lot of things. How you celebrate holidays is one of them.

He caves the moment that Lian asked if You and her could have matching costumes. He couldn't say no to you two tag teaming him. He was weak.

To say that carrying the bags of candy for you and Lian as you two ran around wasn't what he was expecting would be a lie.

But if the soft smile on his face clearly said that he didn't mind. And Roy would never trade this moment for the world.

Artemis Crock:

Never really cared to celebrate Halloween. Especially since she grew up in Gotham. She would Budge on it if you two went to another city though.

Once you two finish your Trick-Or-Treating, Artemis drags you to watch what ever horror movie was in theatres.

Paula had a nice dinner prepared for you two wen you returned, and Paula had you stay the night.

You and Artemis spent the rest of the night watching whatever scary videos you could find.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Extra:

Diana Prince:

Appreciates the Holiday, doesn't really celebrate. She absolutely will if you ask her too, though.

You two mainly handed out candy, and Diana cooed ever ever costume she saw of herself or the rest of the Justice League.

Once the Trick-Or-Treaters dried up, you and Diana went to bake. It was a mess, but the end results were nice.

Diana totally bragged about it the next day, even if it was nothing impressive.

Hal Jordan:

Enjoys Halloween a lot more now that he has you. He isn't big for couples costumes, but he will do it if it's funny.

Drags you out to every Halloween party he can find. Coast City can survive without him for a day. Hangovers were nothing if it meant spending all night with you.

He spoiled you as much as he could. Sweets, baked goods, everything you wanted. He was surprised when you shared with him.

He considered proposing then and there.

Jamie Reyes:

Enjoys Halloween, but it isn't as important to him or his family as Dia De Los Muertos, Day of The Dead.

He'll mostly be busy prepping the Afrenda and the feast with the rest of his family. But he gladly welcomes you into the celebration and his family allows you to place photos of your loved ones on the Alter.

He's happy, just spending the day with you. But if you bring baked goods, either themed around Halloween or Day of The Dead, and you will be is new favorite person.

His mom Will absolutely tease you two and ask when the wedding is.

================================================

a/n: Happy Halloween! I think I may do something similar for Christmas. I won't touch thanksgiving though. ever.

Longest thing I've ever written, and has all the DC characters I currently write for.

Requests, as always, are open! Hit up my ask box! I don't have anything better to do!

[drowninginredink]

Favorite Albums: choose 9 and then tag 9 people!

For my own sanity, I didn't include musicals because I could fill up a whole other 3x3 grid with them, and comparing musicals to non-musical theater albums is weird.

Those last 4 that you definitely don't recognize are by Old Earth who you should definitely listen to if you want artsy ambient indie folk with really intricate guitar. My absolute favorite artist by far, and also the most obscure artist I listen to by far.

Electric by The Pet Shop Boys — I think this is my favorite album period. I am still pissed off that Tom Scott called it "not that great" in the old Technical Difficulties podcast. Maybe I'm biased because it was my favorite album when I was 14 and because it's where I really fell in love with the Pet Shop Boys. God I love them. So much. I'm way too excited for the new album and I worship geowayne's website where he analyzes all their songs. I probably should have put another PSB album on here, but there isn't another where I'm in love with every track. Plus honestly so many of my favorite tracks of theirs are B sides. They still release B sides with their singles, and this album cycle, the B sides are honestly better than the actual singles. Anyway electric is pure synthy electropop and I adore it in that way you can only love something you first heard at 14.

Pure Heroine by Lorde — I read a quote somewhere where Lorde said she tried to really put all of being a teenager into the album, so much so that once she became an adult, she probably wouldn't understand or like it anymore. I can definitely say that I'm not nearly as attached to it anymore now that I'm an adult, but God, it was my life when I was 13. She really did capture the unique ennui of being a teenager. I wrote a novel in eighth grade, and I wrote at least half of it to tracks from this album. Also, hot take: Royals is my least favorite track by a lot. Buzzcut Season is my favorite.

My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men — God, this one was my life when I was like, 12. I fell in love with folk there, and I'm still in love nearly a decade later. Another album where I still love every track.

Strange Trails by Lord Huron — hey look, an album I actually discovered and came to love as an adult! The fact that I love Lord Huron's brand of folky horror/fantasy/western music that tell stories with characters should not surprise anyone. Also, if I had to describe my experience with schizophrenia in one song, I'd choose Meet Me in the Woods.

The Tragic Treasury by The Gothic Archies — Look. Hear me out. Is it a album based purely on A Series of Unfortunate Events? Yes. But. Is it also an album where I genuinely love every track and have genuinely been known to just throw it on shuffle? Yes. I mean I think of one lyric from this album, like, weekly. I swear it's not just ASOUE brainrot that makes me like it so much. If it'd ever gotten a vinyl release, I'd absolutely own it. I wish it had gotten one.

a low place at The Old Place by Old Earth — honestly this is probably only my favorite Old Earth album because it's the one that I was able to actually get on vinyl and being able to play that vinyl is so lovely. I mean, it's good, but so is everything by Old Earth. Then again, Less Words is my favorite single track by them and it is on this album. Look. All the Old Earth albums I've listed here are, at most, 20 minutes long. If you like ambient artsy indie folk with lyrics that are there more for the way they sound than their meaning, try one.

light shaped by Old Earth — god the lyrics to this one. Normally I don't like Old Earth for the lyrics but. "It gets old/then it's done" and "what if it's just some song that gets you home" and especially "I'm holding your arms/and you're holding my eyes/and I lie like the right thing to do" are all just so great. And so is the middle track with no lyrics.

... until they're called by Old Earth — have you ever heard an album so good that you a) just played the whole thing and danced to it in your basement nonstop for the full 12 minutes, and then b) wrote a poem about the experience? People talk about finding God, but dancing to that album was the moment I found athiesm. The beauty of us all being here for no reason, just feeling things and living and doing our best to make something beautiful out of it.

Two Torches, at a Place Where Three Roads Meet by Old Earth — I'll be honest, I don't have much to say about this one. They're just a really solid three tracks.

... Yeah okay I really like Old Earth. Don't judge me.

Thank you @cygninae and @thehistoryone for tagging me! I'll tag @ven10 (I'm surprised neither of the people who tagged me tagged you), @weirdthoughtsandideas (ditto), @70snasagay (hmmmm i wonder what you'll put), @cat-boy-tom, @thetreetzar, @buncoreclown, @notthatalex, @unfortunate-sapphic-disaster, and @roach-in-the-kitchen. No pressure, obviously!

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

A LIFE IN THE DAY

David Duchovny: ‘Love can happen at any age, right?

The actor, 63, on The X Files, songwriting and snacking

EKATERINA GERBY

Interview by Helen Cullen

Wednesday January 17 2024, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Time

Duchovny was born in New York City. He studied English at Princeton University and Yale, before breaking into acting in the late 1980s, starting in TV adverts and working his way up. In 1993 he began playing the role of the FBI agent Fox Mulder in The X Files, which ran for nine years. He later played Hank Moody in Californication. He has also released three folk-rock albums and published five novels — last year he directed a film adaptation of one of these, Bucky F***ing Dent. Duchovny has two grown-up children from his former marriage to the actress Téa Leoni. He lives in California, with his girlfriend, Monique Pendleberry, and his two dogs, Brick and Rookie.

I like to get up at dawn because those are my best thinking and writing hours. I love the sunrise but it also means I can get some work done before the sun gets too much. That’s the best time of day for me. I have a coffee that makes me think I’m brilliant for ten minutes and that’s all I need to get going.

Food to me is just fuel and I don’t have very advanced taste buds. I think everything kind of tastes OK, which people react to with suspicion. For breakfast I like oatmeal — what my Scottish mother called porridge.

If I’m filming I still like an early start, but I shot my recent film What Happens Later, with Meg Ryan, all through the night because we filmed in a regional airport after it closed at 9pm. That’s a bit of a nightmare for me as a morning person, but we developed a great camaraderie from working while the world was asleep. My daughter, West, thought it was great to see a romantic comedy film with people my age, but I don’t think of myself as any age, so I hadn’t thought about that. Love can happen at any age, right?

Everybody wants me to have a hobby, but I’m blessed because I love my work. I’ve been able to branch out into music, writing and directing. With songwriting I can pick up the guitar at any time. If you wait for inspiration to hit, you’ll be sitting on your ass for ever.

I knock off for lunch about 12pm. That’s when I have the one big meal of the day that would be recognisable to other humans as a proper meal — vegetables and a protein such as fish. The rest of the time I snack.

In the afternoon I work out. I love the games I played when I was younger — boxing, tennis and basketball — but as I get older I tend to get hurt doing those, so I’ve found Pilates is best for me. It’s still super hard but the least dangerous.

I live in Malibu and the height of my fame has passed, so it’s not difficult for me to move around any more. It’s a different era now because everybody has a phone, so paparazzi are more a thing of the past. I tend to go to the same places where people are bored of seeing me.

There are always different reasons why fans might stop me — it could be still because of The X Files or Californication. I am very proud of The X Files. I can’t think of another show like it in terms of cultural impact and longevity. I just thought we were making good, goofy TV but Chris Carter, the creator and director, saw what was coming in terms of the culture of conspiracy theories. Gillian Anderson [his co-star] and I went from being unknown to globally recognised in a couple of years. We don’t get to see each other that much as she lives in London, but there’s no one else I can share that with.

West is an actor now too. It wasn’t something that I would have charted out for her because I know how difficult it is, even more so for a woman, but I want her to do something she’s passionate about. There are still dark corners in Hollywood but the pitfalls and dangers are much more upfront.

I do enjoy a party, but I’d rather spend time with friends in the evening. Because I like to get up so early, I go to bed early also. I feel electric light has really f***ed with our sense of mind and body, and that we were made to hide in the cave at night from predators and wake up with the sun, so I try to do that. Constitutionally, I feel like that works for me.

Words of wisdom

Best advice I was given

It doesn’t matter if people laugh; it matters if it feels funny to you

Advice I’d give

There’s no such thing as good advice — you have to come to it on your own

What I wish I’d known

Take a moment to appreciate what you’ve done before worrying about the next thing

What Happens Later is in cinemas now and available to stream in spring. The Reservoir by David Duchovny is out now (Akashic Books £19.95)

×

[blueiscoool]

Connie Converse: The 'Genius' of a Singer Who Was Ahead of Her Time - Then Disappeared

Connie Converse failed to find fame as a singer-songwriter in the 1950s, then mysteriously disappeared without a trace. On the 100th anniversary of her birth - and approaching the 50th anniversary of her disappearance - she's now remembered as a great lost talent.

In January 1961, an unknown Bob Dylan arrived in Greenwich Village with a guitar in his hand and $12 in his pocket, on his way to revolutionising popular music with his poetic, personal songs.

Maybe he brushed past Connie Converse as she went the other way. She moved out of the New York neighbourhood that same month, after a decade of struggling to get significant attention for her own intimate, sophisticated and beautiful songs.

There is a parallel universe where Converse was the one who got the big break, and she is a household name.

At least, that’s the theory put forward in a recent book called How To Become Famous – not a manual, but about why some talented people become successful and others stay in the shadows.

It imagines a world where Converse is "widely known" as "the most original, and perhaps the greatest, of the folk singers of the 1950s and 1960s", who influenced everyone from Dylan to Taylor Swift, and for whom "a Nobel Prize is not out of the question".

Musician and author Howard Fishman, who published Converse’s biography, To Anyone Who Ever Asks, last year, also thinks Converse could have made it big.

"I love to think about an alternate reality in which Connie Converse’s music did receive the recognition it deserved in its own time, and she became a recognised for the musical genius that she was," he says.

"I almost think a better version of American cultural history could have happened, had that been the case."

But How To Become Famous author Cass Sunstein concedes that Converse wasn't better than Dylan. She also faced barriers because she was a woman. And perhaps her clever, melodic and mostly melancholic songs just never quite had mass appeal.

They dealt with subjects like loneliness, promiscuity, quarrelling lovers, and frequenting saloons in the afternoons. It's certainly hard to imagine them really catching on in the early 50s, an age dominated by schmaltzy crooners, folk purists and show tunes.

"She didn't sound like anybody else that was making music in her own day," says Fishman. "And she doesn't sound like anybody else making music now, to my ears."

British singer Vashti Bunyan became a Connie Converse convert after a recommendation from US DJ David Garland, the first person to play her songs in 2004.

"I couldn't believe that they were [recorded] so long ago, it was the 1950s," Bunyan says. "And just to hear her speaking in a way that I would have always wanted to speak was very moving.

"She was completely ahead of her time, and it must have been very hard for her. She must have felt isolated.

"If she had any ambition for her songs, she must have known how good they were, how clever and funny and wonderful they were, and poetic. But other people didn't seem to recognise that kind of genius writing at the time."

Bunyan knows what it's like to have her music "rediscovered" decades later. She released an album in 1970, which has gained cult status in more recent years. She says their stories are very different, but agrees there is an allure to the idea of "the discovery of something from so long ago".

"And how lucky that she was recorded," she says. "Connie was recorded by her friends, and none of those recordings were supposed to be commercially released.

"But it's so wonderful that they have been, that they have been found. And it makes you wonder about all the other people that weren't."

Converse was recorded at the home of one of her friends and champions, Gene Deitch, but she never released any music in her time. She performed for small groups of supporters, but never played a proper concert. She made one TV appearance, but that led nowhere.

Ellen Stekert, a folk historian who was also performing in the 1950s, believes Converse was just "too different" to have "made it".

"I think she was wonderful. I think she was totally out of sequence of any kind of cultural impulse," she says.

"She was self-contained, and also self-isolated. It was too bad somebody could not break through that."

Converse did have her supporters, but any female singer at that time needed to be backed by a man with the right connections, Stekert says. And Converse was socially awkward, and not good at self-promotion.

"Unfortunately, she didn't have much social understanding of things. She did not have a very good rapport, I think, with people.

"Evidently, she had very bad teeth and her body odour also was fairly prominent. And those are two factors in middle-class America that will make sure you don't make it any place."

Converse worked for a printing company and then for the Institute of Pacific Relations. After leaving New York in 1961, she became editor of the Journal for Conflict Resolution in Michigan, and her intellectual activities, and peace and anti-racism activism, were highly regarded.

But then, her life seemed to lose purpose and direction. On 10 August 1974, a week after her 50th birthday, she posted letters to family and friends, telling some she was returning to New York.

She drove out of Ann Arbor and has not been heard from since. Neither her body nor her car was found.

A new life?

"As far as we know, she never made it to New York," Fishman says.

"As far as we know, she never made it anywhere.

"I'd love to think that she started a new life somewhere else, and that she lived more years. But who knows?"

On Saturday 3 August, exactly 100 years after Converse’s birth, Fishman is in her home town - Concord, New Hampshire - for a ceremony to give the singer her first official recognition.

Her music has gradually spread over the past 20 years. So, too, has her story, and the mystery of her disappearance is often the first thing that gets people's attention.

"The unfortunate and darkly poetic thing is that she needed to disappear in order for us to see her," Fishman says. "That was the hook that was needed for us to pay attention to her.

"But what I always say is, don't focus on how she disappeared, focus on how she lived, because her life is so much more fascinating and meaningful, and has so much more to teach us than the fact that at age 50, she felt that she had to vanish."

By Ian Youngs.

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift’s catalog re-recording campaign continues with a thoughtful version of 2010’s Speak Now that tempers teen angst with the ageless quality of lullabies and folk songs.

Taylor Swift emerged in 2006 as a 16-year-old wunderkind with a gift for articulating all the intimacies and humiliations of falling in love. But throughout her early career, her image was predicated on her youthful innocence as much as her outsized wisdom. Swift “does not drink or swear or flash cleavage,” remarked a profile from around the time of her third studio album, Speak Now—a point that stood in opposition to peers like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato, who were quick to jettison their tween-friendly branding. Swift seemed to take up the mantle of youth role model with pride. Though she was careful to never disparage anyone directly, she told The New Yorker in 2010, “I don’t feel completely overcome by the relentless desire to put out a dark and sexy ‘I’m grown up now’ album.”

Speak Now, released in 2010, emerged at an inflection point in Swift’s life. She had recently turned 20 and moved out of her parents’ home, had toured the world, and, as evidenced by gut-wrenching tracks like “Dear John” and “Last Kiss,” had experienced heartbreak that shook her sense of emotional security. On this album, she struggles to balance her love of fantasy and escapism with her new responsibilities. Throughout Speak Now, she asks, How do you believe in fairytales and also acknowledge the depth of your pain?

As with her previous re-recordings of early work, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) remains largely faithful to the arrangements and lyrics of the original. But Swift is not the same singer she was at 20. In more recent material, her starry-eyed optimism has been replaced with nuance and caution. She’s learned to voice regret as much as rage; in songs like Lover’s “Death by a Thousand Cuts” and Reputation’s “Dress,” she drinks and allows her sexual fantasies to run wild. On the new recordings of old Speak Now songs, her maturity is revealed not through the words themselves, but how she chooses to deliver them. The angry songs are presented with a sigh rather than a vindictive grin. The songs about heartache are sung carefully and patiently. It feels less like she’s sending a message to any particular ex than she is conveying a generalized weariness about how draining young adulthood can be.

Written between the ages of 18 and 20, the original tracks on Speak Now depict Swift clinging to her girlhood like someone trying to hold water in their palms. “Never Grow Up,” an acoustic ballad, was ostensibly written for young female fans. But by the end the song reveals itself as a means of mourning her past self. She promises the impossible: that no one will ever leave her deserted, that there will be no pain in her life. “Innocent,” a song about forgiving someone who wronged her, evokes the subject’s childhood—chasing fireflies, relying on someone bigger to get things off the shelf—in order to find something worth redeeming in them. Thumping rocker “Long Live” uses images of castles and dragons to celebrate the larger-than-life experience of touring with her band. It’s full of love but sung in the past tense, as if to memorialize the moment while it was still happening. Hearing these songs on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), there’s less fear and more gentleness. Losing some of that teenage angst makes the songs less immediately enthralling: In the originals’ jagged inhales, sneered words, and ad-libbed laughter, you could hear how deeply these stories affected their author. Hearing her sing them now, they sound slightly anonymous, more like lullabies and folk songs than expressions of pressing concern.

Swift’s youthful naivete peeks through in the way she sings about other women. In her professional life, she had benefited—however passively—from comparisons to women deemed less wholesome and pure. And in her songwriting, she depicted them as unworthy rivals and master manipulators. In “Speak Now,” Swift’s narrator disrupts a marriage ceremony in hopes of separating the groom from his snotty, overdressed bride. On “Better Than Revenge,” she chastises a woman who supposedly stole her boyfriend. She later revised the sentiment, saying in 2014, “No one can take someone from you if they don’t want to leave.” Since the announcement of the re-recording, it has been speculated that she might edit the song’s most cutting and criticized lyrics: “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” On Taylor’s Version, this line becomes, “He was a moth to a flame/She was holding the matches.” The change feels half-hearted: Diss tracks aren’t supposed to be respectful. No one listens to “Better Than Revenge” expecting a measured response or nuanced feminist take. The song was satisfying precisely because Swift captured the nearsighted perspective of a teenager; in the attempt to distance herself from that person, she sacrifices resonance for optics.

“Dear John” remains the emotional centerpiece of the album, and one of the most devastating songs Swift has ever written. Across a lonely, warbling guitar lick and patiently unfurling blues-rock arrangement, she details mistreatment from an older partner: his wild oscillations between hot and cold, his ever-moving goal posts. John Mayer, whom the song is ostensibly about, was 32 when he dated a 19-year-old Swift in 2010. The new version, released by Swift at the same age that Mayer was then, is more powerful than ever. It provides a showcase for her deeper vocal range, and the way she enunciates each syllable adds weight to every word. When she belts out his name in the chorus, she sounds completely in control.

Since 2010, Swift has written another song about a torturous relationship she was in at age 19, presumably the same one. “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” from last year’s Midnights, reveals the lasting impact of the memory. She wails, “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” It’s colored the way I hear “Dear John” and all of Speak Now: This wasn’t run-of-the-mill teen angst or ego that Swift was singing about back then. It was a coming-of-age moment turned crisis of faith, the kind of experience that reveals people’s capacity to inflict hurt. When you’re a 19-year-old girl curious about the world, it’s often implied that older men with deep eyes and brooding stares should be your teachers. But the lessons they offer are not always the ones you expect. Growing up is learning how to hold that knowledge without giving up hope of finding the pleasure and love you deserve.

Like prior album re-recordings, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) includes a handful of newly released tracks that emerge “from the vault.” Hayley Williams joins for “Castles Crumbling,” which repurposes the same fairytale imagery from “Long Live” to relay her paranoia about a dramatic fall from grace. On “I Can See You,” which sounds more like the inky, lilting trap-pop on Reputation than anything on Speak Now, Swift describes an illicit workplace romance with sultriness and authority that stand apart from the album’s otherwise chaste perspective. On the breezy country-pop song “Foolish One,” Swift reminds herself that she is not the exception to the general rule that if someone is acting disinterested, they probably don’t want to be with you. Just one album prior, she was so confident in her exceptionalism that she re-wrote Romeo and Juliet as a love story starring her. Now, she tempers her romantic fantasies with pragmatism and a sense of jubilant freedom, encouraging a younger self to broaden the scope of her desire.

This re-release doesn’t benefit from the same novelty as Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in 2021, when the endeavor of re-recording her catalog to regain control over her masters felt rare and exciting. And musically, the Speak Now material doesn’t stand up to Red (Taylor’s Version), which presented perhaps her strongest album along with an extended version of fan-favorite “All Too Well” and a number of excellent vault tracks. In recent weeks, news of the latest re-release has been overshadowed by intrigue and minutiae from her current Eras tour. Throughout Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), Swift sometimes mutes the messy adolescent impulses that gave these songs their spark. But elsewhere, she divests from fantasy archetypes—the knight on a white horse, the helpless child—that once limited her. Think of the new Speak Now as a call and response between who she was and who she is: a teenager full of questions about what it means to grow up and an adult woman who’s still turning them over to find new answers.