#can i have jan and her ex get back together?

[zhivchik]

[kingofbodyrolls]

Jungkook fic recs 2024 🥳

In honor of Jungkook’s birthday, I want to share my ultimate favorite Jungkook stories, that I’ve read this past year (2023-2024) 💜 I want to thank each and every writer on this list for creating such wonderful stories and art - you are truly amazing ✨ All the fics on this list hold a dear place in my heart 🥹🥳

❗Most of these fics are smutty as hell or contains dark themes, so minors dni.❗ 

If you read anything on this list and you like it, please leave a comment to the writer or reblog the fic, it might seem like a tiny gesture, but it really means a lot for writers and I can guarantee it will put a smile on their faces💜 Let’s share and give lots of love!

Looking for more to read? Check ‘The Library’, last years Jungkook recs or  last years recs 🙂

[index] → jan | feb (jhs) | mar (myg) | apr | may | jun | jul | aug | sep (jjk)(knj) | oct (pjm) | nov | dec (ksj)(kth) |

Emoji meaning → angst = 🌩️, smut = 🥵, fluff = 🥰, comedy = 😂, yandere = 😈, thriller/dark = 👻, fantasy = 🪄. 

⭐When the End Comes (series; completed) @oddinary4bts [77.9k] // jjk x f.reader // breakup!au, slice of life!au, photographer!Jungkook x lawyer!reader // 🌩️🌩️🌩️🥵

📝 seven years after you've started dating Jungkook, long distance creates a wedge in your relationship. When the only solution seems to be breaking up, you go your separate ways even though love still lives in the two of you. Will you find a way back together, or has the end come for you and Jeon Jungkook?

🗨️ this is a sequel to ‘The Forgotten Spaces’, which was just *chef’s kiss* 😘 The series is completed now – and afsfdfdsfg it was just so damn beautiful and the ending!!! It was definitely worth all my tears 🥹💜

⭐Stretch You Out @chateautae [24k] // jjk x knj x f.reader // college!au, s2f2l, gym employee!namjoon, gym employee!jungkook // 🥵🥰

📝 you have a plan for your crappy, diabolical ex who’s set on ruining your life; making him jealous by snagging a raunchy photo with two hot employees at the gym. what you didn’t have a plan for? befriending the mischievous pair to aid in your revenge and ending up underneath not just one, but both of them.

🗨️ holy fucking shit 🥵 🫣 this was so exceptionally good! So deliciously filthy, it really delivered on every freaking aspect 💯 incredible 👏🏾 perfection 👏🏾💎

⭐The Wedding Planners @gukyi [28K] // jjk x f.reader // e2l, wedding!au // 😂🥰🌩️🥵

📝 Jeon jungkook is three things: cocky, terrible, and your worst enemy. then your best friend hoseok gets engaged to the love of his life, and suddenly jeon jungkook is four things: cocky, terrible, your worst enemy, and the man you will be spending the next seven months with in order to plan your best friend’s wedding. 

🗨️ what I love about this is one, is definitely the slow-burn and the enemies to lovers aspect too. The banter between reader and Jungkook is just so priceless and reading how their relationship slowly unfolds and develops through the months of the wedding planning was just everything 💯 Hoseok and Yoongi’s personality in this also makes this fic truly amazing.

⭐Fragment of the Past (1)(2)(3) (series; completed) @ctrlsht [28.1K] // jjk x f.reader // patient!jk x psychiatrist!reader // 🌩️😈👻🥵

📝 you are a well-known and respected psychiatrist and author. You start treating Jungkook, who suffers from PTSD after surviving an extremely traumatic incident. As you help him confront his traumatic past, he begins to act strangely, and you start uncovering something about him that will change everything.

🗨️ another first for me, with the thriller vibes and damn it delivers on that! It’s really, really good 👏 Pacing is really good and how we see more and more of Jungkook’s disturbing traits is just brilliant ✨

⭐Brother’s best friend @lavishedinjimin [5.3K] // jjk x f.reader // brothers best friend!au // 🥵

📝 in which Y/n owns a smut blog dedicated to her crush and brother’s best friend, jungkook. it was all fun and games until he finds out about it and acts it out with you. 

🗨️ at first I was like ‘this is very cute’ and then it turned so dirty so fucking fast I almost got whiplash 😂✨

⭐To Give a Helping Hand: pt1 + pt2 (series; ongoing) @oddinary4bts [1.8k] // jjk x f.reader // idol!au // 🥵

📝 when Jungkook comes home from the gym, he goes feral thinking about you.

🗨️ I don’t know where to begin… everything Ella writes is pure gold, why would this short one be any different? 🥵 I fucking loved it; it was hot and Jungkook was so needy! And you know what? I think she’s working on part two!!!!! ✨🥵 (seriously, can’t recommend this enough!!!)

⭐When Worlds Collide (series; ongoing) @letjungcoook7 [currently loading…] // jjk x f.reader // college!au, slice of life!au, s2l, fuckboy!jk, virgin!reader // 🥵🌩️

📝 since your mother's passing a year ago, life has been a whirlwind. balancing your passion for ballet with a low-key presence at college, where you’re the top student, was your norm until Jungkook stepped into your world. known for his reputation preceding him, jungkook is the talk of the campus with his casual rendezvous that have the girls buzzing. despite his allure, you're puzzled by his need for your tutoring prowess, especially given his own academic merit. yet, succumbing to his persistent requests, you reluctantly agree, only to find yourself thrust into the spotlight you've always avoided.

🗨️ this story is so good! It’s still being updated and there’s so much drama in it that is slowly being unraveled! 💜

⭐Liquor Lips @letjungcoook7 [1.5k] // jjk x f.reader // established relationship // 🥵

📝 left intentionally blank by the author.

🗨️ it was incredible good, like I want to read more (it’s not a series though!). It’s the perfect dirty little one-shot/drabble ❤️‍🔥

⭐Chasing Cars (series; completed) @oddinary4bts [218.5k] // jjk x f.reader // brother’s best friend!au, forbidden love!au, college!au, slice of life!au // 🥵🌩️🥰

📝 when your brother goes to study on a semester abroad, your life collides with his best friend Jeon Jungkook, who's coincidentally your roommate. Will you survive the collision, or will you crumble into dust?

🗨️ the series has just ended and it is seriously so fucking good ✨ But you should pack some tissues, a hot cup of tea or coffee, because you’ll want to read through everything because of the cliffhangers and drama - also remember to read the drabbles for JK's pov too 💖

⭐Bottle Up Old Love @wintaerbaer [4.6k] // jjk x f.reader // exes to lovers // 🥵🌩️🥰

📝 Jungkook may have broken up with you a year ago, but that's not going to stop him from coming to your rescue when he sees you being cornered by a creep.

🗨️ I really love how protective Jungkook is in this one, and damn the smut 🥵 It’s so fucking good!!!

⭐Hold Me Close + Hold Me Closer @ahundredtimesover [22.6k] // jjk x f.reader // brother’s best friend!au // 🥵🌩️🥰

📝 when Jimin hits a crisis, he enlists the help of his older sister - you - and his best friend, Jungkook, to put the pieces back again. That proves to be difficult when 1) Jimin’s a brat and a certified pain in the ass, and 2) Jungkook has grown and suddenly, you can’t keep your eyes off him.

🗨️ omg this was so fucking amazing 😭✨ The characters are amazing in this, there’s cute backstory, details and the sibling bond is top tier, and the chemistry between oc and Jungkook is so fucking good! The tension is perfect and I love the slow burn 🥰 I feel this was also a bit on the existential side, which I really love. Like the dialogue had me thinking about my own life! I love when that happens! And it was so fun reading about siblings, and I’m missing my own baby sister right now. Anyway, it was exceptionally good! Amazing! 💯 And there’s a mention of Jungkook’s glazed potato incident you can’t miss! It was so fun (both this and the run episode 😂). Can’t recommend this one enough!!

⭐Jump Then Fall (Into You): pt1 + pt2 + pt3 (one-shot; completed) @writtenwhalien [52k] // jjk x f.reader // bf2l, cruise!au, fake dating!au // 🌩️🥰🥵

📝 bringing Jungkook along as your date to your ex’s lavish cruise wedding seemed like a perfect idea at first — all of your family and close friends together, nothing can go wrong… then Jungkook’s ex shows up and all of a sudden you’re in a years long relationship with him. You don’t mind though, really, how hard can sharing a cabin and pretending to be deeply in love with your best friend really be?

🗨️ I seriously can’t recommend this one enough! I love longer stories because it gives a chance for the characters to develop better! And this does that perfectly; even the minor/background/supporting characters have such a deep and rich story it’s just brilliant!! 💎 And the relationship between oc and Jungkook? 🌶️ Delicious tension, having to pretend to be a couple, when you’re practically already a couple, but haven realized it yet? 🤭 It is just perfect!!!

⭐Ultimatum @parkmuse [10.3k]  // jjk x f.reader // established relationship // 🥵😂

📝 your pervy, idiotic boyfriend just so happens to also be your friendly neighborhood Spider-man (in bed).

🗨️ omfg 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I don’t know where to start with this one, first off, if you haven’t read it before, please go read it, because it is fucking hilarious, even in the smut scenes 😂 Which, fyi, they were really good, smutty and funny!  Okay. There was one scene in there right, I laughed way too hard at!!!! Really good and amazing! 👏💯

⭐Will it Fit? @jeonsweetpea [6.7k] // jjk x f.reader // roommates!au, i2l // 🥵🌩️🥰😂

📝 so what if your roommate caught you masturbating? At least he forgot about it the next day. But he can’t exactly forget the big dildo you left in your shared bathroom…

🗨️ the banner alone had me giggling way too much! Like his face, and with the title— it’s just fucking hilarious 🤣 And the story did not disappoint one bit, fuck, everything was so good and amazing! Their banter, tension and humor was just perfectly on point ✨ This was just incredibly perfect 💯

⭐Dumbo @cinnaminsvga [17.2k]  // jjk x f.reader // s2l // 🥵😂😂

📝 you know what they say about boys with big noses… {or alternatively: jungkook has a big dick but he doesn’t know how to use it, but luckily you’re there to help.}

🗨️ this was just so fucking hilarious I don’t even know where to begin 😂 I don’t know how many times the word ‘dick’ or its many different variations is used in this fic, but damn it a lot, and damn is it fun! 🤣 There’s so many dick jokes it should be criminal! It was so good though, the story was just too funny, almost absurd (lol), but dammit it’s a new favorite! 💯

⭐Fool for You (series; completed) @btsgotjams27 [24.9k]  // jjk x f.reader // college!au, fake dating, s2f2l // 🥵🌩️🥰

📝 when Jungkook is finally single, you shoot your shot.

🗨️ This is a short series and it’s really good— it’s cute, has angst and a happy ending ✨

⭐Make it Right @jungkxook [11.5k] // jjk x f.reader // band!au, exes to lovers // 🥵🌩️

📝 you’re wholeheartedly, madly in love with jungkook and yet you shouldn’t be because it’s been almost a year since you broke up with him. worst part of it all is that you know he’s still in love with you too.

🗨️ gaaaaahhh, I’m crying 😭 This was so beautiful, bittersweet 😭 I loved it so much and their love, omg, so pure, so precious. His song for her, I’m just like 😭 (can you tell I’m a sobbing mess?) Definitely a new favorites and I loved the fact that, they both knew they were broken, waiting for each other, and even though broken, they will heal and take it slow 😭💯

⭐Coffee Stain @oddinary4bts [1.9k] // jjk x f.reader // grief!au // 🌩️🌩️🌩️

📝 you grief, and it's the expression of your everlasting love for Jungkook.

🗨️ do you want to cry, but not able too? Go and read this! It’s so fucking sad, but so incredible beautiful and sweet, it will make you tear up in now time. As said before, Ella just have a way with words, and in this one, they sure do hurt a lot 😭 But I fucking love it ✨

⭐Bite Me, Jeon @sailoryooons [19.3k] // jjk x f.reader // f2l, vampire!au, college!au // 🥵🌩️👻🪄

📝 somehow you convince Jeon Jungkook to look into theories of vampirism for a research paper. What Jungkook doesn’t expect, is for vampirism to become a very real and very personal problem for him.

🗨️ this one is insanely good! It’s so amazing! This one reminds me of Ghostfacers from Supernatural, lol. It was so freaking funny. I was pleasantly surprised at the plot, and I loved it. If you haven’t read this one yet, and you love vampires, this one is definitely for you!!! 🥰

⭐Confided @cravetive [5k] // jjk x f.reader // neighbor!au // 🥵

📝 y/n didn't think testing out a new sex toy would cause so much havoc but no worries, her next-door neighbor Jungkook doesn't mind lending her a bit of assistance.

🗨️ holy shit it was amazing and the smut….. Fuuuuck I’m not gonna lie here okay, I was dripping, I was feeling it so fucking bad and damn. It was hot. The plot was so silly and hot, like omg 🥵

This is my little corner with my own fics— I don’t write that much (I prefer to read), but it would mean a lot to me if you checked out my work or read it. You don’t have to, it’s up to you of course 🥰

⭐Say That Again (I Dare You) [13.1k] // jj x f.reader x pjm // est. relationship (jjk), threesome, slice of slice!au // 🥵

📝you moan in your sleep, and your boyfriend knows this, but when you keep moaning another man’s name in your sleep - and that man just happens to be one of your friends? What will Jungkook do? 

🗨️ this is just pure smut, lol. I wrote it as a birthday gift to all you people 😂

⭐Say I Do [5.2k] // jj x f.reader // wedding!au // 🥵

📝you and Jungkook tease each other at your wedding reception.

🗨️ again, this is just pure smut, nothing else 😂

⭐Till We Meet Again [11.4k] // jj x f.reader // mermaid!au, fantasy!au, childhood f2l, nostalgia // 🥵🪄🥰😂

📝when your childhood friend that you had a crush on, moved away out of the blue— you never thought you’d see him again. A night swim in the ocean will have you feeling delusional, but the voice that fills your ears— sweet like cotton candy, you’d recognize that voice anywhere, it’s Jungkook.

🗨️ this is a favorite of mine, and it’s just really really cute and fluffy with a sprinkle of smut 🥰

And as a something little extra, here’s a few fics that I haven’t had the time to read yet, but damn I’m buzzing to get to read them:

Red Light (series; ongoing) @bunnybubae

Ember Burning @kpopfanfictrash

Seven Days (series; ongoing) @kithtaehyung

Dextrocardia (series; ongoing) @jeonstudios

All That Glitters (series; completed) @aquagustd

In This Paradise @ressjeon

Make You Mine @mercurygguk

Castaway @hamsterclaw

For Science (series; completed) @boymeetsweevil

Heart of the Storm @ladyartemesia

Happy birthday to our GOLDEN man Jeon Jungkook!!!! 🥳💜✨

[likeadevils]

1989 Timeline

This is a very long post that puts all the songs on 1989 in order of Taylor creating them. I’ve also included a few other songs she worked on while writing 1989 and quotes from Taylor and her collaborators talking about her process

Of all the albums in Taylor's discography, I think this is the one that improves the most when you listen to it in order. All of those things Taylor was talking about in the promo for this album-- how this is an album of her coming into her own, figuring out her values, learning to stand on her own two feet-- it all clicks into place. Listening to it in order has made me cry on more than one occasion, and it's also the thing that made me start this whole crazy process of figuring out the dates she wrote each song.

If you don't want to read the whole post, check out this playlist of the album in order or this playlist of her entire discography.

I’ve also added this color coded scale of how sure I am of the date: 

Confirmed: There is some type of official source for the date

Inferring: Nobody has officially said “This is when we wrote it,” but all available evidence points to that date

Speculation: This date is based on guesswork and is highly likely to change, or, all that is known is the general season.

Unknown: All that is known is the year (from the US Copyright Offices)

Without further ado...

Oct 6, 2012: Taylor seems to have been in a studio in London (Note: I have no idea where this photo comes from and I can not find a place that specifies if this is a music studio or radio interview.)

This Love: Oct 17, 2012 (Confirmed)

October 19, 2012: Taylor mentions wanting to work with Imogen Heap, prompting Imogen to get in touch with Taylor

Time Interview: Who’d be your dream collaboration, especially now that you’re taking more musical risks? Let me think. Imogen Heap! She’s amazing. Taylor: Someone asked me in an interview "Who would you like to work with?" and I said Imogen Heap. I get an email to my management, sent like "Imogen just saw that Taylor just said an interview that she would like to work together" She said "Why don't you come out to my studio." Imogen: I got a phone call [in 2014] saying Taylor Swift was in London, she'd love to work with me and the only date she could do (between 4 sold out 02 arenas!) was the day after we got back, Sunday. It was both unexpected and not at the same time as I'd heard Taylor was a fan a while back via this Time magazine piece but somehow didn't think it would actually happen.

Fall 2012: Taylor possibly writes a song with Harry Styles and Jacknife Lee (her producer for The Last Time).

Jacknife Lee: “It was out of my field of expertise and interest, but I was intrigued and my girls were thrilled. Taylor was nice and very professional. She knew what she wanted and there was no fucking about. She was seeing Harry Styles at the time, so he came to Topanga on her recommendation. She wrote a few songs with him, and it was the same thing – quick. But this time it was more directed by the management and label. They were after something specific. I wanted more acoustic and gentle, almost Americana, and they wanted bombast. They got what they wanted, and that was the extent of my foray into teen-pop territory. It was fun.”

All You Had to Do Was Stay: Jan 10, 2013 (Confirmed)

Taylor is photographed outside Conway, and then tweets "Back in the studio. Uh oh..." Later, Taylor confirmed that she was recording All You Had To Do Was Stay. Taylor: I had a dream that my ex showed up at my door, knocked at my door, and I opened it up, and I was about ready to launch into the perfect thing to say [...], Instead, all that would come out of my mouth was that high-pitched chorus of people singing, 'Stay!'...and then you go to say something else, and it's just like 'Stay! Stay! Stay!' And I woke up, I was like 'Oh, that was mortifying. But that's kind of a cool vocal part.'

January 11, 2013: Taylor is photographed outside Conway again

How You Get The Girl: Jan 15, 2013 (Confirmed)

Taylor posts a picture of her playing a guitar in the studio, captioned "Somewhere in LA..". Later, Taylor confirmed that she was recording How You Get The Girl. Given what was going on in her personal life, she likely wrote this sometime in the fall/winter of 2012, but all we know for sure is the date she recorded it.

February 9, 2013: Tweets "Grammy rehearsals last night, studio today, who knows what tonight holds! (I do. Laying around watching TV and eating candy.)"

March 6, 2013: Taylor is photographed outside a studio in LA

March 23, 2013: Posts a picture of her playing guitar captioned "Pre show. Columbia, South Carolina"

I Wish You Would: May 28, 2013 (Inferring)

Taylor is photographed out for lunch in Rhode Island with Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff on May 27, before leaving for her show in Phoenix, Arizona the next day Taylor: "Max Martin and [Karl Johan] Shellback [Schuster] were the last people I collaborated with on [2012 album] Red, and I wished we could have done more and explored more. So going into this album, I knew that I wanted to start with them again. Then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be amazing to work with Ryan Tedder?” And then I was with Jack Antonoff and Lena Dunham at the beach, and we started talking about our favorite ’80s music. All of this started happening organically, and I found myself gravitating toward pop sensibilities, pop hooks, pop production styles." Jack:  "We were hanging out at her house in Rhode Island and we were talking about John Hughes movies, and a lot of the music that inspired [them], and just this general culture of sound in that time period that was really larger-than-life in an anthemic, positive way. These songs could be at the end of films that were really, really beautiful and said a lot. That actually ended up being a song called 'I Wish You Would' which is going to be on her album. We first worked on that song together and realized we kind of have a good thing. Taylor: “This is a song I did with Jack Antonoff, and Jack is one of my friends and so we were hanging out and he pulled out his phone and goes "I made this amazing track the other day. It's so cool, I love these guitar sounds." And he played it for me and immediately I could hear this finished song in my head, and I just said "Please, please let me have that. Let me play with it, like send it to me" And so he sent it to me and I was on tour and this was me playing the track on my laptop recording me singing the vocal into my phone and it ended up being a song called "I Wish You Would", because Jack wrote back and said "I love that".”

June 7, 2013: At the CMA fest, Taylor is asked if she's started writing for her next album yet

“It's starting, all the anxiety is starting and when the anxiety starts, then the writing happens right afterward, usually. Um, so, yeah, I basically... I like to, I like to write for about two years before I'm finished with an album because I... at this point I kind of know that whenever I write in the first year is going to get thrown away, because, I'm going to like it, but it's going to sound a little bit like the last project I had, and the second year usually ends up sounding like the next project. So I think at this point, at this point I feel like staying the same is the easy way to go but it's not the way that I want to go, creatively. I think you need to challenge yourself, I think you need to change up your influences, I think you need to be inspired by different things that you've been inspired by before, and, uh, y'know, It's harder to call people you don't know, and it's harder to think of topics you haven't covered and think of new ways to say old emotions that everyone feels, but, that's the goal at this point."

June 20-21, 2013: Taylor and Selena Gomez hang out, and Taylor potentially writes Wildest Dreams.

July 15, 2013: Taylor gives a brief interview to Rolling Stone

“The floodgates just opened the last couple weeks,” she says of the songwriting process. “I’m getting to that point where I’m irritating to be around because I’ll be with you for half the conversation and then the second half of the conversation I’m clearly editing the second verse of whatever I’m writing in my head.” “I really loved collaborating [on Red],” she says. “You work with a lot of different people and you find the people you have this dream connection with in the studio. I know those people and I know the ones I want to go back to. But I also have a really long list of the people I admire and I would really love to go and contact. So that’s kind of where that is.” “I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point? It’s so overwhelming that when you’re starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you’re willing to evolve and experiment. If you’re willing to become a different version of yourself, you can really go anywhere with it. And that’s kind of where I am. The kind of the laboratory experimental stage of really catching onto a new thing that I’m liking.”

July 18, 2013: Taylor unfollows the three backup dancers that left her tour for Katy's, meaning Bad Blood was likely written sometime between July and November 2013.

Sweeter Than Fiction: Summer 2013 (Speculation)

Taylor wrote this one over email, and then it was recorded in New York (partially in Jack's living room, partially in an actual studio)

August 25, 2013: Taylor and Selena Gomez hang out at the VMAs, and Taylor potentially writes Wildest Dreams.

August 25, 2013: Taylor gives a brief interview on the VMAs red carpet

"But I think [songwriting is] about to start to kick into full gear. I'm about to go into the studio. It's about to get really intense."

Out Of The Woods: September 14 2013 (Inferring)

On September 14, Fun cancelled their show. Taylor was likely either flying to or from Charlottesville, where she had a show for the Red Tour. Jack: "When I did the track for Out of the Woods, which is a Taylor song that I'm really proud of, there was some issue at a venue and our show was canceled that night and I didn't have my stuff, I had left it on the bus, so I only had these old samples on what was on my laptop, and caught up that 'oh oh'' thing, and I only had one drum kit on there, and these dumb little things [sometimes turn into a great song]" Jack: "So 'Out Of The Woods' was the third thing we worked on together, and probably the easiest. I sent her the track for it, and she sent back a voice note with the verse and chorus in what felt like five seconds. And it was just perfect. It's eerie how similar it is to what the final product is." Taylor: "This is a track that Jack Antonoff sent me, and I was actually on a plane, I got it and I got on a plane and I'm listening to it, and I'm just like listening to it and mumbling melodies cause the song came to me immediately like, in full [...] I think what I should start by playing you, is when I got the track, what I sent him like an hour later, and it is, me.. um, me singing what came to me, which ended up being the finished version of the song, or at least really close to it."

September 20, 2013: In a brief interview with USA Today, Taylor says she plans to work on her next album between the next few legs of the Red Tour

"I’ll be in the studio, figuring out what comes next. I really like to take two years to make a record, and I’ve been writing and doing stuff for the last year. This is kind of the year that it goes into overdrive, and it’s all I think about and I become obsessive over it and I’m hard to talk to"

September 22, 2013: Taylor gives an interview to New York Magazine where she talks about her plans for TS5

These days, Swift is thinking a lot about her next record. While on the Red tour, she’d been writing songs and stockpiling ideas: reams of lyrics, thousands of voice memos in her iPhone [...] she plans to spend much of 2014 writing and recording the new album, a prospect she finds exhilarating and terrifying. “I worry about everything. Some days I wake up in a mind-set of, like, ‘Okay, it’s been a good run.’ By afternoon, I could have a change of mood and feel like anything is possible and I can’t wait to make this kind of music I’ve never made before. And then by evening, I could be terrified of the whole thing again. And then at night, I’ll write a song before bed.” Swift hopes to collaborate with new songwriters and producers. But she planned to begin, she said, by heading back into the studio with Max Martin and Shellback. “I want to go in with Max and Johan first, just to figure out what the bone structure of this record is going to be. “I have a lot of things to draw from emotionally at the moment. But I have to draw from them with a different perspective than on Red. I can’t say the same things over and over, you know? I mean, I think it’s just all the more important that I don’t ever allow myself to coast. At the same time, there’s a mistake that I see artists make when they’re on their fourth or fifth record, and they think innovation is more important than solid songwriting. The most terrible letdown as a listener for me is when I’m listening to a song and I see what they were trying to do. Like, where there’s a dance break that doesn’t make any sense, there’s a rap that shouldn’t be there, there’s like a beat change that’s, like, the coolest, hippest thing this six months—but it has nothing to do with the feeling, it has nothing to do with the emotion, it has nothing to do with the lyric. I never want to put things in songs just because that might make them popular, like, on the more rhythmic stations or in dance clubs. I really don’t want a compilation of sounds. I just need them to be songs.”

September 28-October 5, 2013: Taylor and Selena Gomez are in the same city, and Taylor potentially writes Wildest Dreams.

October 12, 2013: Taylor gives an interview to the Associated Press

Swift: I think the goal for the next album is to continue to change, and never change in the same way twice [...] How do I write these figurative diary entries in ways that I’ve never written them before and to a sonic backdrop that I’ve never explored before? It’s my fifth album, which is crazy to think about, but I think what I’m noticing about it so far is it’s definitely taking a different turn than anything I’ve done before. AP: You said recently you’ve been working on songs for the new album for about six months. What can you tell us about what you have planned? Swift: It’s too early to tell who are going to be my predominant collaborators, but I do know that my absolute dream collaborators were Shellback and Max Martin on the last project. I’ve never been so challenged as a songwriter. I’ve never learned so much. I’ve never just been so excited to show up to the studio every day, just because you never know what we’re going to put together. I’ll bring in ideas and they’ll take such a different turn than where I thought they were going to go, and that level of unexpected spontaneity is something that really thrills me in the process of making music. ... What if we did this? What if we made it weirder? What if we took it darker? I love people who have endless strange and exciting ideas about where music can go."

October 14, 2013: At the NSAI, Taylor talks about reinventing herself for different albums

"I’m making my 5th record now, so I think you have to change things up, you have to explore different corners of music as much as you can. Cause I really, it’s been a big goal of mine to never make two albums that sounded the same. I really want my fans to be able to be like "Oh that song? Clearly that's from the Fearless album", "No that one, that one was from Red" and so I’m in the process of doing that thing all over again for my 5th album and it’s amazing to be in the studio and to be songwriting again, and be honored for songwriting tonight"

Blank Space: October 26, 2013 (Inferring)

It looks like she’s wearing the same outfit in this behind the scenes footage and these candids Taylor: "I was going into write with Max Martin and Shellback, who are two of the primary collaborators on 1989, and I... was preparing all these things, and I, I think Blank Space was like the third thing I played them, and they just stopped and they were like "NO, this is the first thing we're working on today." [...] I had the idea for the chorus and I had the hook, but a lot of the verse was gibberish." Taylor (On what song took her the least amount of time to write): "Blank space, cause I'd written a lot of the lines down already in the year preceding the session"

October 29, 2013: Tweets "Sitting in the studio writing the next album (!!!!) and wanted to thank you for the American Music Award nominations!"

November 1 : While promoting Keds, Taylor is asked about her next album

"What I go through is going to be the story that I tell. I think lyrically, I always try to tell my fans exactly what’s happened to me in the last two years, and that’s the thing they can expect. Everything else, they won’t be able to expect. Having been in the studio with this one, I’m just like… oh, this is going to be fun"

Bad Blood: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

The backup dancer drama seems to have kicked off in mid-July. Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013

New Romantics: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

Unfortunately, Taylor doesn't really talk about this song. Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013

Wildest Dreams: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

Selena reportedly told a fan she was there when Taylor wrote this, and I've noted above all the times Selena could have been with Taylor in 2013 (Here's my personal ranking of how likely each date is). Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013.

Wonderland: Fall 2013 (Speculation)

Another one Taylor just doesn't talk about all that often. Given that it's produced by Max Martin and Shellback, and Taylor was in the studio with them pretty much non-stop from October-November, we can assume that it was recorded sometime in the Fall of 2013

Nov 20, 2013: Taylor posted "While in the studio, I came to the realization that my bangs are long enough to use as a sleep mask on long flights. Then I remembered I don't ever use sleep masks on flights. So really, I just need a haircut"

November 25, 2013: Taylor and Scott Borchetta have a meeting to talk about her plans for TS5 and are both asked about the next album at the AMAs

Taylor: “We got a lot already. There are probably seven or eight [songs] that I know I want on the record. It’s really ahead of schedule for me. I’m just stoked because it’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted. And I would have taken two years to make that happen, but it just kind of happened naturally, so that’s all I could really ask for.” Scott Borchetta: "Well earlier today we got together and she played me seven new songs, and she’s just on fire. The level of desire and passion that she has just to keep getting better, she’s an artist that just really never wants to just say ‘Well okay this is good enough’. It’s always gotta be better. She’s in amazing creative place right now." By the end of November, Taylor had likely recorded This Love, All You Had To Do Was Stay, How You Get The Girl, I Wish You Would, Out Of The Woods, Blank Space, Bad Blood, New Romantics, Wildest Dreams, and Wonderland. That’s 10 songs total, 5 of which were likely recorded in the past two months, and 7 that had been made since Taylor and Jack had their conversation about 80s music in May.

Dec 21, 2013: Taylor briefly talks to Billboard about TS5

"I’m really loving collaboration right now [...] I see it as a bit of an apprenticeship. I want to be around people who love writing songs and have done it for years. Every time I’m in a studio I’m learning, like how to build a drum track, and getting a new perspective on things. It’s so thrilling to keep learning on your fifth album. As soon as [an album] comes out I’m figuring out what the next one will be. It’s gotten to the point where each one is a reinvention, which is what I like best. I like it when it sounds new and people don’t know where you’re going to go next."

Say Don't Go: Jan 1, 2014 (Confirmed)

Diane Warren: Warren, who typically writes on her own, says the two of them “sat down and wrote the song […] from scratch” during the last few days of 2013. She remembers being impressed with how specific Swift was with her lyricism and how considerate she was about how her fans might receive it. “She was very particular about how she said certain things. It was a really interesting experience. She gets her audience [...] She’s deeply aware of how her fans want to hear something. I can’t explain it, but that’s probably why she’s the biggest fucking star in the world.” Several days after writing the song together, they got into Warren’s office to record a demo, where Swift played it on her acoustic guitar. “We demoed it on New Year’s Day. And I’m a workaholic, and that’s fine for me,” she says. “But I remember being impressed that she did, too. Everybody’s on vacation, but she showed up.”

You Are In Love: Jan 2014 (Inferring)

This song is copyrighted for 2014. Taylor has said a few times that Clean, Shake It Off, and Style were the last songs written for the album, meaning You Are In Love was likely completed in January or early February. Given Taylor's busy schedule in late January and early February, I'd guess this was written at some point in early January. Furthermore, I'd guess it was sometime after the 9th, when she returned from looking at house in New York.

I Know Places: Jan 22, 2014 (Confirmed)

Taylor: "I sent this voice memo to Ryan Tedder because I'd always wanted to work with him, and finally we scheduled some studio time. So I always wanna be prepared, I wanted to send him the idea that I was working on before we went into the studio just in case he wrote back and said "I can't stand that, I wanna work on something else, think of something else" So I just sat down with the piano, put my phone on top of the piano and just kind of explained to him where I wanted to go with the song, how I saw the melody sitting in and we ended up recording the song the next day and it ended up being on the record called "I Know Places" So this was the voice memo that I sent to him the night before we ended up finishing the song"

Welcome To New York: Jan 23, 2014 (Confirmed)

Ryan Tedder: "I thought we were going to walk in and start something from scratch because that's what I was used to. Then she calls me and says, 'Is it cool if I already have an idea?' I said, 'Sure.' She said, 'I have this song, I'm obsessed with New York and I just moved there, I want to write an ode to New York because no one's done it in a long time.' And then she sent me a voice memo. She's like, 'I want it to sound like 1980s.' So the next day I brought in a Juno-106, which is a very 1980s keyboard and I literally programmed that entire song right in front of her. It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours. And I did the rest of the production I think later that week. I was in Switzerland on a tour bus, and I did four versions of 'Welcome to New York,' one of which I liked personally more, but the thing about artists is they become very obsessed with the demo. She was in love with the demo so no matter how hard I fought, she brought it back to the demo, so really what you hear is what I did on the first day."

January 26 2014: Dianne Warren says that she recently wrote a song with Taylor

"I worked with Taylor Swift on a great song [...] I'm excited about the [song] that we did, it's pretty cool Dianne in 2016: “I know [Swift] likes it, so hopefully it will see the light of day. I know she really likes the song. She didn’t want me to give it away, so hopefully that means she wants it.”

January 26 2014: Taylor loses Album of the Year at the Grammy's to Daft Punk. She tells a few different stories about what the rest of the night looked like for her-- in some she goes home alone, in some she has some friends over-- but in all of them, this is the night where she decides that she's gonna name the album 1989, and she's not going to let her label tell her to put any country songs on it.

Clean: Feb 9, 2014 (Confirmed)

According to Imogen Heap's blog post, Taylor had the first verse and chorus by the time they got into the studio, and then wrote the second verse and bridge during the session. Taylor's part was wrapped up in 9 hours, ending at 8pm, while Imogen stayed up until 4am because she didn't want to stop working on it. Taylor: ""Shake It Off" and "Clean" were the last two things we wrote for the record, so it shows you where I ended up mentally. “Clean” I wrote as I was walking out of Liberty in London. Someone I used to date— it hit me that I’d been in the same city as him for two weeks and I hadn’t thought about it. When it did hit me, it was like, ‘Oh, I hope he’s doing well’. And nothing else. [...] The first thought that came to my mind was – I’m finally clean." Imogen Heap: I was really writing the tiniest amount just to help her do what she does. I put some noises to [“Clean”], played various instruments on it, including drums, and anytime she expressed she liked something I was doing, I did it more. It was a really fun day. She recorded all her vocals [for “Clean”] during that one session. She did two takes, and the second take was it. We always thought she would probably re-record it, because we thought it can’t possibly be that easy. But after we lived with it for a few months, we felt it was great.

February 15, 2014: Taylor posts "It was a studio Valentines Day with Max and Johan!"

Shake It Off: Feb 15, 2014 (Confirmed)

Lover Diaries (From Feb 22): "This week I’ve been in the studio with Max and Johan every day and it has been the most creatively successful and fulfilling time. The first day, Johan just made a really up tempo drum beat because we decided we needed something UP and light. We worked at it for a few hours before I just started singing “shake it off, shake it off.” And then the best way I know how to describe it is that the chorus just fell out of the sky. It ended up being this song about doing your own thing even though haters are gonna hate, and you just have to dance to your own beat. We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheer leader bridge that I absolutely LOVE. We spent all day doing vocals and the next day recording background vocals. I think it’ll end up being the first single and Max said it’s his favorite song he’s ever been a part of." Taylor: "The problem was, I had all these lyrics, and I didnt have, like... writing session was coming up and I'm just like "I'm not getting a melody, I'm dead, I don't know what I'm gonna do." The thought terrified me, so I just sorta sulked into the studio and I was like "Guys, I have like an idea but its like, lyric, but I... and I know the vibe I want-- I want it to start off and the second the song starts, I want it to be the song where like, if it's played at a wedding, and there's this one girl who hasn't danced all night at the reception, all her friends come over to her and there like "You have to dance, come on, you have to dance on this one!". That's what I wanted. So I was like "Shellback, can you just go to the drum kit and try to play that?" Taylor: "There's one thing that I've always said to Max, is like "I don't like horns" I just always had a thing about it, I was always like weirdly scared of it, or intimidated by horns, I don't know what it was? It's a weird, like, nerdy studio fear of mine. I was like "No, no horns!" and I don't.. I don't even know, I don't have a reason for it, I love songs that have horns on them, I was just like "I don't think I can pull off horns." Strange. But, he goes over to the mellotron and he starts playing this horn sound. I'm like "What are you doing. Don't do that." and he's like, "No, I think this is cool" and I'm like "No it's not cool, and where are your chorus chords, because, that, you're just playing three chords over and over again and I can't make a chorus out of them, why don't you go to like a chorus chord that starts off the chorus, where is the one, like why don't you go--" and then there was this moment, where I thought of the whole chorus, and it's over the chords that I had just told him are not "chorus chords", which is a ridiculous thing to say."

February 18, 2014: Taylor is photographed entering Conway Studios

Style: Feb 19, 2014 (Confirmed)

Niklas Ljungfelt (guitarist): I played on “Style,” a song I started with Ali Payami for ourselves. He was playing it for Max Martin at his studio; Taylor overheard it and loved it. She and Max wrote new lyrics. But I recorded the guitar on it before it was a Taylor song. It was an instrumental. I didn’t have a clue that Taylor would sing on it. The inspiration came from Daft Punk and funky electronic music. Taylor: I'm pretty sure after we finished this one I knew the record was done. Shake It Off and Style were the last two songs to be written for 1989.

March 2014: Taylor's interview with Glamour is published (likely conducted two months beforehand)

TS: Working on this album has been unbelievable [...] I'm already in love with it. It's so different. CL: What's the new sound? TS: On Red I did three songs with Max Martin Shellback [...] I think we'll be doing a lot more than three songs together on the next album [Laughs].

March 26, 2014: Taylor is photographed entering a music studio in New York

"Slut!": 2014 (Unknown)

Taylor: The song “Slut!” is a song we wrote for 1989 and in it, I kind of cheekily play on the discussions at that time of my life around my dating life. And that’s not the only time on 1989 that I’d done that, I’ve done that on “Blank Space” and when I came down to having to pick songs for the album, I think I though, “Okay, well, I’m going to choose ‘Blank Space’” and, unfortunately, had to make some tough decisions in terms of what to put on the tracklist. But I love this song because I think it’s really dreamy. And I always saw 1989 as a New York album, but this song, to me, was always California, and maybe that was another reason it didn’t make the cut, because sometimes, thematically, I just had these little weird rules in my head. But I’m so happy it’s finally going to be something you guys hear, because I have always been proud of it, I’ve always wanted it to come out into the world and now it is, so yay!

Suburban Legends: 2014 (Unknown)

Taylor hasn't talked about this song, and it was produced by Jack Antonoff, who she didn't schedule time in the studio with in the same way she did with Max Martin and Shellback, so there's not a lot to work with.

Is It Over Now?: 2014 (Unknown)

Similarly to Suburban Legends, Jack produced this, so there's no obvious point in time to point to. She has spoken briefly about it though. Taylor: “Is It Over Now” is a song I wanted to end the album with because I think it’s kind of a fun play on words of like, “Is the album over now?” I always saw this song as sort of a sister to “Out Of The Woods” and “I Wish You Would,” I kind of saw those songs as similar, so, unfortunately, when we were making these decisions of what to put on 1989 and what to leave behind, I had to make some tough choices, and now it doesn’t matter anymore because you guys are going to hear all the songs. I’m so happy this song is out. I really love the “let’s fast forward to three hundred takeout coffees later,” that session, I just feel like head banging to every time it comes on. Hope you agree.

May 30, 2014: Taylor writes in her diary:

So a crazy story unfolded in the last 24 hours. Last night, I had this vivid dream where the photo I’d chosen for the album cover wasn’t good enough, intriguing enough, artful enough. It woke me up. I couldn’t shake it and it stayed with me all day. Because that nagging feeling I’d been pushing back for weeks was now confirmed in my gut … It wasn’t good enough. I went to the venue, mind racing, wondering if I’d have to do an entirely new photo shoot … I got to my dressing room with newer versions of the “cover.” I looked at it and felt nothing. The team pulled up this new scanned file of the Polaroids we had taken during the shoot. I saw within 10 seconds. The shot. The cover. It’s a Polaroid of me sitting against a beige wall with a blue seagull swear shirt on. You can see my red lips, but the photo cuts off my eyes. From some reason unknown to me, it’s the most intriguing photo I’ve seen. I think it’s the mystery of not seeing my eyes. Maybe it just looks effortlessly cool. The craziest moment came when something caught my eye. The cover photo is photo 13. I kid you not.

August 23, 2014: Taylor is photographed walking out of a studio in LA (Note: I can not find a place that specifies if this is a recording studio, dance, photography, radio, or television studio.)

Now That We Don't Talk: Summer 2014 (Speculation)

Seeing as Taylor said she didn't have time to figure out the production, I imagine this came fairly late in the process. Taylor has a habit of adding songs right up to the deadline-- with Folklore and Evermore, she added multiple songs a week before the album came out. The latest she added songs to albums while signed to Big Machine was September, though (both Forever & Always and So It Goes...), so I assume that's the absolute latest she could've added a song to 1989. Taylor: "Now That We Don’t Talk” is one of my favorite songs that was left behind, it was so hard to leave it behind, but I think we wrote it a little bit towards the end of the process and we couldn’t get the production right at the time. But we had tons of time to perfect the production this time and figure out what we wanted this song to sound like. I think it’s the shortest song I’ve ever had, but I think it packs a punch, I think it really goes in. For the short amount of time we have, I think it makes its point.

And that's all for this timeline! Check out my others:

TIMELINES: debut • fearless • speak now • red • 1989 • rep • lover • folklore • evermore • midnights PLAYLISTS: debut • fearless • speak now • red • 1989 • rep • lover • folklore • evermore • midnights • entire discography GENERAL: tag

[sunshinethrowaway]

I've seen a lot of Joseph Quinn stans on here trying to cope and in doing that are getting so much info wrong.

1. No one knows when her and her ex broke up. People are guessing Feb because she did an interview saying she's single and on Raya. They might have broken up as early as January, the last time they were seen together was Book of Clarence premiere Jan 8th. This doesn't amount to much because Doja is Jewish and does not practice tradional Christmas, but he spent the holiday's with family so they could have been over before the new year.

2. Her ex did not SA, rape or groom anyone. He was rightfully called out for sexual manipulation. If you want to know more I can send you links to the actual victims statements not the account of faceless Twitter stans.

3. Doja Cat is queer and has dated multiple women. Queer people say the fslur regularly I'm not going to speak on the ethics of that but that is the reality.

4. Doja is NOT releasing an album soon. She still has scheduled tour dates for this cycle and her label will not let her move on from this album at least until next year's Grammys. She's definitely recording music but she releastically can't release until next summer. She has no new projects she needs to promote.

5. Doja Cat is selling out arenas by herself and booking gigs like Coachella Headliner. This is after having every controversy imaginable she does not need (or want) good PR she's successful without it so why bother.

I'm not going to argue back and forth about morality or who's a good person and who's not. Some accounts are lying to convince themselves there's some elaborate scheme going on and it's annoying.

[khaopybara]

I keep thinking about that awful Pluto lunch with mays “favorite ex”. Oon is basically too blinded by her crush on may to even realize that all of Mays people are sus of her! SHE CANT SEE PAST HER HEARTEYES!

I was feeling pretty confident in assuming that may knew Oon wasn’t Oom and that lunch all but confirmed it. I mean did Oom and May never share a single meal together when they were dating and therefore didn’t know about mays dislike of spicy food!? Oon should’ve told may that she too was in an accident and had some memory loss due to it just to try to cover for all of her fumbling lol

Now for the other three…

I am honestly not sure how pang is gonna come back from this to be apart of the throuple, I mean unknowingly picking the cafe where she and pim (phim?) first met as the place to break up with her!? DAMN WOMAN 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️!!! And pim, baby, what are you doing begging her to not breakup cmon you deserve to be with someone better than her!!! That someone, of course, being Jan who always seems to be at the right place at the right time (it’s fate!). Pang can keep her unrequited crush and I’ll be over here sailing on the PimJan ship! Full steam ahead baby!

Ok sorry that ended up just being a bunch of rambling 🙈.

-🤫

pls anon, ramble away, i know i've done that to you countless times at this point, feel free to return the favor.

but honestly, that lunch was awful. for some reason, i thought ploy would be good to stir up some fun jealousy, not awaken all of oon's deepest insecurities all at once. a part of me also think oon knows how much people in may's life are suspicious of her, she just doesn't care. she cares about may and how much she can care and support and look after her. as long as she can provide may with a good company, she doesn't care for what others have to say, unless the pretty and rich and favorite ex comes along to show how unfit she actually is to be by may's side.

you have a point there, too, anon. i've said this before. may ain't stupid. that woman is a respected and famous lawyer. she can smell bullshit from meters away (her calling out ploy and covering up saying she didn't want anyone to steal oon/oom and that's why she didn't tell anyone they were dating, and when she refused to eat ploy's food too? very hot of her, if you allow me), so i'm pretty sure she's aware this isn't the same woman she was dating before. why would a flight attendant not have enough money to buy a simple lunch from a vendor in the street, after all?

dude, you have no idea how much i wanted to like pang because she has my girl ciize's face, but pang is so sighs (at least she knows she's toxic but it's also in that "oh my god you know, you deserve better because i'm such a bad person, i don't deserve you" kind of way that just feels… idk, condescending?) she doesn't give a damn about phim. it's clear as day to me that she was only with the hot police officer bc oon didn't want her and well, having a hot gf who gives you head in the middle of the day is fine and all, so let's keep her. i think pang coming to the throuple thing will be more of a pride/i'm alone now, oon really doesn't want me (as she told you before), than actually developing feelings for phim again. here i am hoping my girl will get the love she deserves in the form of a bubbly and cute fortune teller who offers to feed her when she's hangry.

[imaginespazzi]

Ok bestie, anon who followed up on Amoore reporting back as requested ha. I should say we are on a similar page, her & Kitley are very tough to get a read on. And a lot of the online chatter agrees its hard to judge and goes back and forth on whether theres something more going on. For those interested, I suggest watching their youtube ch series for a general sense of them interacting. Entertaining and light vids, not overly long. Really just little things between them here & there that add up. And of course a person can review their socials..

Now onto the tea I came across online. Imperfectly summarized the best I can below. (Allow me to stipulate that I have no way of verifying any of this, so please understand Im not at all sharing any of this to be presented as true or false. Take it as simply passing along the posting of others for conversations sake here in a safe space. Comments/feedback/corrections welcome)

:

Its described as on/off thing, first beginning summer 2020. A VT insider says people are aware that Amoore hasnt been committed, to put it delicately/nicely. Leading most recently to a break of sorts last Dec-mid Jan. (Added pretty sure they are together rn though. And another person did point out if Liz was getting cheated on why would Georgia seem to maintain a good relationship with the Kitley family, which is a fair Q to pose). But notably, a strangely long break in their podcast took place over that period and for the first time in 3 years they didn’t spend XMas together or hang around each other over the holiday and when podcast recording returned they just said “we had Xmas” and didn’t talk about it. It was also pointed out that sometime in winter, Liz had tickets to see an NHL game and went w Cayla King despite her and Georgia talking about how they wanted to go together before. Only sus bc it happened to coincide w the time where Georgia was speculated to have gotten close to Kate Martin. Then suddenly they K & G werent interacting anymore and L & G seem back to being “besties”.

Sidenotes:

Liz’s "2020 love playlist"… apparently someone has screenshots that it used to be titled Georgia. Includes some fav bands/songs of Amoores. And a tune called Australia Street lol. Lots of love songs predictably, but some breakup songs were added to it at one point (the comment seems to insinuate during the time they were going through issues)

They're friends with a married lesbian couple (Youtubers/influencers? The Bellaires) who they once visited alone.

Also, fyi, Kate Martin is apparently recently back w her last ex, whoever that is - per talk re social media activity

You're my new favorite person omg because this is my kinda tea fr! Can y'all tell I love some good gossip?

I'm ngl, I was never the most invested in V-Tech or the girls on the team, so I don't really follow them. And I was pretty convinced Liz was straight so I just assumed her and Georgia really were just really close besties.

But this checks out with what I've heard/read too, that they were in that "undefined" kinda place, mainly because of Georgia and eventually Liz got tired of it. I definitely didn't know about the Christmas or the NHL stuff but that makes sense. Also from what I heard, they were probably done for good now with Liz going to the draft? But still being together also makes sense. I'm so invested in this now omg.

[twwpress]

Weekly Press Briefing #80: December 31 - January 6.

Welcome back to the Weekly Press Briefing, where we bring you highlights from The West Wing fandom each week, including new fics, ongoing challenges, and more! This briefing covers all things posted from December 31 - Jan 6. Did we miss something? Let us know; you can find our contact info at the bottom of this briefing! 

Challenges/Prompts:

There are no open challenges/prompts that we know of this week. Do you have a challenge or event you’d like us to promote or know of one we’re missing? Be sure to get in touch with us! Contact info is at the bottom of this briefing.

This Week in Canon:

Welcome back to This Week in Canon, where we revisit moments in The West Wing that occurred on these dates during the show’s run.

Season 1, Episode 11: Lord John Marbury aired on January 5, 2000. Season 6, Episode 10: Faith Based Initiative aired on January 5, 2005.

Photos/Videos:

Here’s what was posted from December 31 - January 6:

Amy Landecker posted a photo of herself with her dad and Brad at a University of Michigan football game, along with a message about her connections to University of Michigan. 

Janel Moloney posted photos of herself with her twin Carey in Brazil. 

Janel Moloney posted a video of walking through the fire for the new year from her trip to Brazil. 

Marlee Matlin posted a video of herself signing a new year’s message. 

Melissa Fitzgerald posted a promo image for Dule Hill playing for All Rise on Celebrity Jeopardy this coming Tuesday (January 9). 

Peter James Smith posted photos from the set of Magnum PI. 

Donna Moss Daily: December 31 | January 1 | January 2 | January 3 | January 4 | January 5 | January 6

Daily Josh Lyman: December 31 | January 1 | January 2 | January 3 | January 4 | January 5 | January 6

No Context BWhit: December 31 | January 1 | January 2 | January 4 | January 5 | January 6

@twwarchive: December 31 | January 1 | January 2 | January 3 | January 4 | January 5 | January 6

Edits/Artwork

#joshdonna: the exit by @nacejisbon [VIDEO EDIT]

Editors’ Choice: 

This week we’re featuring some fics about getting snowed in! To make sure we’re including some rarer pairs, we have repeated a few recommendations from way back in Briefing 24, where we recommended fics about snow, but we’ve also made sure to bring you some fics we have not recommended before.

baby, it’s cold outside by crossingdelancey | Rated T | C.J. Cregg/Andrea Wyatt | Complete | ‘Well, how about this way? I love that you get cold when it’s seventy one degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts, I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes and I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.’ The Wedding Cottage by JediAnnieScrambler | Rated T | C. J. Cregg/Toby Ziegler, Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete | Ex lovers, CJ Cregg and Toby Ziegler, are shocked to find each other at the wedding of their mutual friends Josh and Donna. But when they're tasked to decorate the honeymoon cottage- together- they can't stop fighting. Will getting snowed in change that?  It Must Have Been The Way You Kissed Me by octothorpetopus | Rated G | Danny Concannon/C.J. Cregg | Complete | Snowed in at the White House, C.J.'s life is less of a fairytale than ever. That is, until her red-haired, suspenders-wearing prince sweeps in with one too many questions and all the right things to say. since we've no place to go by pumpkinpatch95 for joshatella (shuuuliet) | Rated T | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete | A snowstorm leaves Josh and Donna stranded on a road trip up to New Hampshire. When Donna realizes it's also the first night of Hanukkah, she's determined not to let it pass them by. Cold Dark Night by ETraytin | Not Rated | C. J. Cregg/Toby Ziegler, Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete | A sudden snowstorm leaves the staffers of the Bartlet Administration stranded at work for the night. It's not the first night they've spent in the West Wing, and at least tonight they have supplies laid in.

Fics:

Presenting your weekly roundup of fics posted in the tag for The West Wing on Archive of Our Own. 

Josh/Donna

Give me your hand, and I will love you forever by ProportionalResponse | Rated M | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete

Errors and Omissions by Chinesepapercut | Rated M | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete

University of Life by Shonio | Rated M | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete

Fairytale Ending? by Tyrols | Not Rated | Josh Lymn/Donna Moss | In Progress

Locus Amoenus by spooky_spacegirl | Rated G | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | In Progress

Optics and Blackboard Politics by satelliteforsomebody | Rated G | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete

Come Back, Be Here by MatthewsMary | Rated E | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete [Editor’s Note: While this fic is listed on AO3 as complete, it has continued to update and appears to be a WIP]

Tell Them I’ve Got Your Back by vialethe | Rated G | Josh Lyman/Donna Moss | Complete

CJ/Danny

after the crowd’s gone, I’ll be the last one by Luppiters for onekisstotakewithme, krazykitkat, miabicicletta | Rated G | Danny Concannon/C. J. Cregg | Complete

A Vague Recollection by whatsuptheregail | Rated E | Danny Concannon/C. J. Cregg | Complete

Other Pairings/Gen Fic

What to Do in the Natural Aftermath by satelliteforsomebody | Rated G | Jed Bartlet, Leo McGarry, Toby Ziegler, C.J. Cregg, Josh Lyman, Sam Seaborn | Complete

it started off with a kiss... now it ended up like this by imawkwardlysoc | Rated G | Sam Seaborn/Original Female Character | In Progress

Stand So Tall by vialethe  | Rated G | Abbey Bartlet & Donna Moss | Complete

THE WEEKLY PRESS BRIEFING TEAM CAN BE REACHED VIA THE FOLLOWING METHODS:

Twitter: @TWWPress

Email: weeklypressbriefing@gmail.com

Feel free to let us know if we missed something, if you have an event you’d like us to promote, or if you have an item that you’d like included in the next briefing!

xx, What’s next?

[ncisfranchise-source]

Life is great these days for Wilmette native Seana Kofoed — she’s living in Hawaii with her husband and two children, performing in the cast of the hit CBS TV series “NCIS Hawaii,” with her husband Jason Antoon, and ClearMind, a movie that she wrote, produced, and appeared in, is set for release on Jan. 11.

“Happy day after Thanksgiving,” the actor, writer and producer cheerfully greeted me during a Zoom interview. She then clarified her roots saying she was born in Highland Park Hospital but raised in Wilmette.

While she was growing up in Wilmette, she did perform in high school productions but downplayed her roles there.

“I was not the rising star at New Trier,” she said. “I was always in the ensemble.”

When it came time to choose a course of study, Kofoed said that she had to decide between theater or anthropology. Theater won and she went on to Northwestern University after convincing her parents.

“Somehow I convinced my parents that it would be good — and they believed me,” Kofoed said. “I think they figured I would switch over at some point to English or something. They were hoping for law school for a long time.”

Kofoed took off one semester from Northwestern to study at the Royal National Theatre in London, an experience she remembers fondly.

“I loved it. I learned so much,” she said. “We can do Mamet here but they win at Shakespeare.”

Following graduation, Kofoed began her career in Chicago, starting as an understudy for a production at the Goodman Theatre. She then earned roles at a number of Chicago theaters, including Goodman, Court and Victory Gardens.

“I feel like I was also trained by Chicago theater,” she said. “It has such a great theater community. It is the best combination of talent and work ethic of anywhere I’ve ever worked.”

Despite her love of Chicago theater, Kofoed moved to New York after a few years. “It felt like there was a ceiling,” she explained. “There was only a handful of roles each year that were in my age range at that time.”

In New York, Kofoed appeared on Broadway in “Proof” with Jennifer Jason Leigh and “Night Must Fall” with Matthew Broderick. She also had a number of off-Broadway credits but after a decade or so moved on to Los Angeles.

“It was a little bit back-and-forth,” Kofoed said.

In Los Angeles, Kofoed appeared on a number of television shows and was a series regular on Jenny Bicks’ “Men in Trees” and the Jamie Denbo/Jenji Kohan “American Princess.”

Kofoed wasn’t able to reveal any details about the coming season on “NCIS Hawaii” because she didn’t know what was going to happen.

“They tell us nothing,” she revealed, adding, “They’re amazing. We feel we’re in great hands. They let their supporting characters shine.”

In addition to performing, Kofoed is a busy writer. Her writing credits include the feature film, “30 Miles from Nowhere”; the short film, “Together Apart”; and the comedy “Donna’s Revenge: Confessions of an ex-Contestant.”

Wilmette native Seana Kofoed wrote, produced, and performed in the movie ClearMind, which will be released on Jan. 11. - Original Credit: Handout (Seana Kofoed/HANDOUT)

“There’s this woman grieving over the loss of her daughter and she decides to do this virtual reality therapy program and she uses it to exact revenge on her former friends,” she said.

The author described the movie as darkly comedic and plays one of the woman’s friends in the movie.

“ClearMind” will be released on Jan. 11 on all of the digital platforms. “We’ll probably do a DVD release but we haven’t set a time for that yet,” Kofoed said. She is also hoping to get the movie on airlines.

Kofoed revealed that she has two writing projects in the planning stages.

“I’m trying to set one here in Hawaii because we’re here and we have this great crew,” she said. “I’ll do one in Chicago because I still have family and super close friends in Chicago.”

It’s a great time for Kofoed and her husband who, like most performers, have gone through periods of unemployment.

“We feel incredibly lucky,” Kofoed declared. “We’re enjoying it for sure.”

[riverstardis]

series 33 episode 1:

ohh shit i forgot it opened like this. with the blood in the ambulance station

mia :(

ethan's come in on his day off because eddie has some research papers he needs or something and connie just won't tell him what's happened at all. she says he's helping the police with an enquiry and has been suspended and he asks why they arrested him and she's like "i'm not at liberty to say" "i was his mentor, so don't i have a right to know?" "well considering the circumstances-" "i would but i don't know what they are!" 😭 i get that the reason she's hesitant to tell him is because it's alicia (even though they aren't even together*) but like literally everyone else knows at this point, eddie was arrested right in front of everybody who was there so it's not like it's a secret and he's right he was his mentor so it doesn't make sense not to tell him

*that reminds me actually, they'd fallen out and weren't speaking when eddie first joined the ed, and they had literally only just made up on the day of the competition, so why did eddie think they were together? they just have that energy around them where it's so obvious how they feel about each other i guess😭

connie says that she's a doctor down because of eddie so asks ethan to stay and work and he says he can't so she'll have to ask someone else and goes "what about alicia?" and she's like "dr munroe's off sick, so if you take minors?" "hang on, has something happened to alicia?" and connie and charlie look uncomfortable so he's like "let me guess, you're not at liberty to say."😭😭😭

iain is saying that mia's answered all the questions well enough that they can't deem her an immediate risk or something and then he gets the call for alicia on the radio "female fallen through glass window, reports of massive blood loss" and iain recognises the address as being alicia's house

iain says they can take it but ruby isn't sure about leaving😬 iain says that alicia's his friend and that mia passed the test with flying colours and she always does

alicia :(

OOF that is one nasty crash

god🙁

iain realising it was mia who jumped from the bridge and she's saying she doesn't want to die😢

alicia and ruby are trapped in the back of the ambulance and alicia's losing consciousness so ruby's like "tell me about your day" and alicia's like "that's a bad place to start"😭😭

alicia says she needs another tourniquet but they don't have another so ruby's suggests the cord in her trousers and alicia's like "we've only just met"😭

aww ethan's texting alicia saying he's heard she's not very well🥺 well that's not technically wrong at this point

alicia talking ruby through reducing her shoulder dislocation

ethan overhears connie telling jan and sam that iain and ruby's ambulance was involved in the crash and that they were bringing in alicia and he tries to go with them but connie's like "absolutely not." and he's like "but it's alicia!" and says they need a consultant and she says they need someone who will be objective and sends dylan😭

sam goes "hop in! it'll just be like old times" and dylan goes "will it? working with my ex wife and the man that she had an affair with at a motorway pileup? yes, sweet sweet memories. great days." SJJSFGJ

"alicia, ethan's asking after you"🥺🥺🥺

when they're treating alicia rash says to ethan "i was questioned by the police earlier. you don't think eddie had something to do with this do you?" and connie tells him off for gossiping and ethan's like ?????? 😭😭😭

uh oh a fire

sam...

oof the explosion. sam was thrown against the ambulance window but doesn't appear to have any visible shrapnel injuries... if only she'd still got checked over😫

so ethan apparently knows now. i guess he just asked rash as soon as they were out of connie's earshot. he's taken alicia to ct and is asking her why she didn't tell him. bestie she tried SO MANY times😭😭 other things kept getting in the way

elle asks rash if he's ever seen a reboa done before and he's like "i've watched one on the internet" and she's like "that'll have to do" sjdskjfd

aww ruby :(

duffy was raped in the very first series right? i'm pretty sure it was early on anyway. she tells ethan "[alicia] doesn't need your advice or your pity, or for you to be some kind of a hero. what she does need is your friendship. can you do that?"

aw rash getting the cpr stool. short king <3

sam's alone in the ambulance station and her radio isn't working.......

oh no she's discovered her injury :(

THIS SCENEEEE ethan finds alicia on the ward and recites his favourite quote "here i stand, atoms with consciousness, matter with curiosity, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe. do you remember that?" she shakes her head "you added that to my dating profile" i wonder if she would've remembered if she hadn't had the day she'd just had, or the few months she's just had, because she did know it off by heart at the time and it seemed like she's learnt it purely because she knew feynman was ethan's favourite physicist (i posted this a while back)

"i never told you but that's one of my favourite quotes" "you have a favourite quote?" "yeah? doesn't everyone?" "no" ssdfjjdg he's such a nerd (affectionate) "okay well, it was one of the moments that i realised i loved being around you. and i know that with everything that's happened, i haven't been there for you recently, and i'm so sorry. but i am now, okay?" and he goes and holds her hand I LOVE THEMMMM🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

sammmmm :(((((

😢😢😢😢

i don't understand, did they bring sam back just to kill her off??? like what was the point??

[night-gay]

Into the Anthill pt 46 - Parent/Teacher

Hank's been a teacher before and by now I do think he's doing a pretty good job. He's never been a parent though (excluding Nadia and Ultron, but those are both special cases). William Grant Nelson is the son of Tigra and Criti Noll, the skrull who impersonated Hank during the Secret Invasion. Because Criti was disguised as Hank when he and Greer conceived William that makes Hank his biological father. While she made it clear that Hank wouldn't be raising William, she still wanted him to be involved in his life. Hank and Tigra also got back together.

tl;dr - Hank's skrull ex-girlfriend is his current girlfriend's baby daddy.

🐜🐜🐜

Avengers Academy vol 1 #7-13

Tigra had Hank run some tests on her son William to see if he had any skrull dna from his father Criti Noll. Since he’d been transformed into Hank at the time of conception that made Hank the father genetically with no trace of skrull dna left. Greer balked at the idea of co-parenting with Hank, but did ask that he raise William if anything were to happen to her. When she brought up Janet Hank mentioned that he had new plans to save her from Underspace, but it wasn’t without risk. After a fight with Absorbing Man later that day where he was reminded that exposure to dimensions like that for even a short while can break a mind, he realized it wasn’t worth bringing Jan back if there was a chance she’d lose her mind in the process.

When footage of The Hood abusing Tigra was released on the internet and the Academy students found it, Hank and Tigra used it as an opportunity to teach them that seeking revenge isn’t the answer but seeking help is. Striker, Hazmat, and Veil ignored the lesson to track Hood down and kick the crap out of him to “avenge” her. For breaking the law, endangering lives, and engaging in selfish violence Tigra expelled them on the spot. She acknowledged that they needed the opportunity to change for the better after the rest of the staff talked her down. Rather than expulsion they were placed on probation and assigned extra ethics classes.

To help Hazmat with her anger Hank invited Leech to the academy for the day so that she could spend some time out of her suit safely. While the rest of the students took their normal guest instructed lessons, Veil snuck into Speedball’s room and caught him cutting himself. She later told everyone she saw him using his Penance abilities. Robbie forgave her for spying, but she felt the need to prove herself further so she then snuck into Hank’s lab to pick up his abandoned work and save Janet van Dyne herself. Hank arrived too late to stop her, watching in horror as the machine resurrected not Janet, but Carina Walters (daughter of The Collector and long-lost wife of Michael Korvac). Her energy form had only taken Janet’s appearance due to exposure to Hank’s machines treating her as if she' were actually her'd been Jan all along. Now that she had become corporeal again Korvac arrived to take her away.

Hank called in the Avengers to stop Korvac, but they weren't enough, so Carina used her powers to age-up the students to have them battle Korvac as well. Adult Striker was killed, but she confirmed that his original body would survive the encounter. Working together, Veil and Hazmat were able to immobilize Korvac long enough to destroy his body for the time being. After the fight, Carina restored all of them (aside from Reptil) to their original bodies and apologized to Hank for not being Janet like he’d hoped. Hank scolded her for not apologizing to his students instead before she left.

To make this up to them, Hank organized a dance with other young heroes around their age and some a bit older. Mettle and Hazmat bonded over the fact that they couldn’t get close to anyone but each other and decided to give things a chance. Hardball and Firestar started fights with Reptil and Justice over love triangles. Striker got beat up by Nomad after trying to grope her while dancing. Reptil was convinced to return to his original age by Spider-Girl. And Hank missed all of that due to a heartfelt conversation with Tigra that led to them sneaking out to hook up.

Minor/Cameo appearances from this period:

Captain America: Hail Hydra vol 1 #2

Hawkeye: Blindspot vol 1 #2

[lgbtqmanga]

New Releases Jan. 17, 2023

Adachi and Shimamura (Light Novel) Vol. 10 By Hitoma Iruma

HONESTY. COMMUNICATION. COMMITMENT.

It’s the start of a new year, and Shimamura has finally come to terms with what it means to be Adachi’s girlfriend. As Valentine’s Day approaches, it’s time to stop running away… Can Shimamura find the courage to do the right thing?

Barbarities vol. 1 by Tsuta Suzuki

In this beautiful Boys’ Love/BL romance inspired by Renaissance Europe, a dashing viscount tries to woo a serious nobleman!

When Lord Montague’s life is threatened, Viscount Adam Canning is assigned to be his bodyguard. Adam is a blond, dashing nobleman who is able to woo anyone who catches his eye. When he sees Lord Montague’s nephew, Joel, Adam is immediately smitten. But Joel is too busy rooting out crime and corruption to fall for Adam’s charms. Of course, that just makes Adam want him even more! Can Joel stay focused, or will he fall for the devilishly handsome viscount?

GUNBURED × SISTERS vol. 3 by Wataru Mitogawa

WHEN NUNS CRY

The pureblood that Dorothy and Maria encountered spoke of another half-vampire, offering an invaluable clue to Maria’s sister’s whereabouts! But this turns out to be a short-lived victory for the pair, whose relationship runs into its first major roadblock over Dorothy’s treatment of Shannon. Will they be able to reconcile their differences?

I Want to Be a Wall vol. 2 by Honami Shirono

Any good love story starts at the beginning: Where and how did the lovebirds meet? Was it love at first sight? And most importantly, was there a spark? For Yuriko and Gakurouta, their initial meeting was nothing to write home about—after all, matchmaking services aren’t unheard of. But a chance second encounter on the street revealed that as an asexual woman and gay man, they might have much more in common than they initially assumed. And in that moment, they felt not a spark but something better: the seed of a friendship, ready to take root and bloom.

Is Love the Answer? by Uta Isaki

When it comes to love, high schooler Chika wonders if she might be an alien. She’s never fallen for or even had a crush on anyone, and she has no desire for physical intimacy. Her friends tell her that she just "hasn't met the one yet," but Chika has doubts... It's only when Chika enters college and meets peers like herself that she realizes there’s a word for what she feels inside--asexual--and she’s not the only one. After years of wondering if love was the answer, Chika realizes that the answer she long sought may not exist at all--and that that's perfectly normal.

Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide vol. 3 by Mone Sorai 

Super serious Asahi Suzumura and laidback, easygoing Mitsuki Sayama might seem like an odd couple, but they made a deal; they'll vacation around the world and when they get back to Japan, they'll get married. As they travel from country to country, the different people, cultures and cuisine they encounter begin to bring them closer together. After all they're not just learning about the world, but about themselves too.

A Polar Bear in Love vol. 5 by Koromo

Orca warns Polar Bear about his cross-species romance, but Polar Bear isn’t going to give up on his love for Seal so easily… Meanwhile, Cathy finds an encounter of their own! The long-awaited Volume 5 is finally here!

Welcome Back, Alice vol. 4 by Shuzo Oshimi

What is Kei to you?

Yo doesn't exactly get what love or dating is. After all, things ended up in a disaster with Mitani, his ex-girlfriend. And for some reason, he feels much more comfortable when he's with Kei. Sure, Kei may look like a girl, but there's something more to him than just his appearance that allures Yo.

And when Kei makes a move on Yo, Yo doesn't stop him. In fact, he might even enjoy it…

How Do We Relationship? vol. 8 by Tamifull

Miwa finally feels like she’s getting the hang of the new shape her relationship with Saeko has taken. It’s hard to switch from being girlfriends to friends, but her growing connection with Tamaki has been a great distraction. Except now things with the cute underclassman have started to feel weird, and Miwa isn’t sure she’s brave enough to ask why. Will her second relationship fizzle out before it even starts?

[shrimptacodaniels]

all i know is you make sense

AN: pibe squad…this is my debut 😅😅 been trying to find the courage to write for this fandom for so long!! please please lmk what you think. this is (ideally) part one of a series! enjoy

—————

“Don’t call me again. No, I’m not making any damn promises, Jan. Blackmail doesn’t mean shit to me-you can’t-ugh.” 

Her ragged breaths echo into the space behind the door. A space he can’t see. Jan? Promises? There’s so much he’s itching to know. No. He should be getting back before- 

The door swings open. Josh is frozen. 

He knows this look on her face immediately. He’s seen it countless times before, studied it after a plan gone wrong. Searched for an answer behind her calculating eyes. 

Katrina thinks she’s been caught. 

“How long have you been-“

“Kat...” He. Is. Stunned. From the look on her face, she is too. They stand there for a minute. He doesn’t know what to say and yet he has a million questions. 

But they’re adults. She doesn’t have to share everything with him. That’s how adult friendships work, right? And that’s okay with him. You’re close and you’re honest but not overly so-

And then she yanks him into the room by his wrist. And shuts the door. 

“How much did you hear?” 

Josh thinks on how to answer that. Truly not much, but Kat will spiral if he’s not specific enough. And she’s already pacing. He slides to sit, back against the wall. 

“Well, you weren’t on speaker, so only your side of the conversation,” he starts.

“We were worried about you after five minutes and I really was gonna go after I knocked because I respect your privacy but then you sounded so upset and there was something about blackmail and- and, well…the call ended. And here we are.” 

She presses her palms against her eyes for a moment. Hard. “You’re the only person who knows.” 

“I think you’re really overselling my perception skills, K.” She’s started pacing again. He’s smiling now, but in that way he smiles because there’s nothing else to do. Because he’s worried. “Actually? I’m a little bit surprised with how much I don’t know.” 

Yeesh. No reaction. 

When she slows her pacing enough to meet his gaze, his smile falters. Kat is controlled chaos, the master of spontaneity, a quick wit and a steady hand. Even now, with the pacing and the level voice and the measured steps. But her eyes-

She looks like she’s drowning. A wave ready to crash. A boat about to capsize. 

She needs an anchor. 

“Hey,” he calls softly, “C’mere.” 

Josh pats the space on the floor beside him. He’s careful to indicate the side closest to the door. She should be able to leave if she needs to. It’s something they have in common - they hate feeling cornered. There has to be an escape. 

Slumped next to him, before he can react, is Kat. She’s curled in on herself entirely. Defenses up. 

“Ah-“ he warns, nudging her knee with his “Come on. Look at me.” 

“No.” 

“Katrina,” he tries again, “I have no clue what the hell this is, but you’ve got me. ‘M not going anywhere. Thief’s honor.” 

That gets her. He can just barely see her eyes peeking over her folded arms. 

“You gonna un-ball yourself?”

“If you stop prying,” comes the reply. It’s sharp - sharper than he expected. He winces a bit. 

“No, hey-“ she must have felt him tense. She’s unwound herself now, eyes searching his frantically. “I’m kidding! Swear.” 

Phew. He falls back against the wall with a slight thump. 

“Yeesh man, you got me.” 

“Sorry! Sorry. That was mean. Not mad at you.” 

“‘S okay.” It’s fine. They’re fine. She’s here and he’s here and maybe they can fix whatever’s wrong. They’re always able to. 

He bites his next question back, though, just in case. 

“Can you-“ she starts. He knows what she’s asking. He threads their fingers together and squeezes twice.

You, me. 

One, two. 

A pair. 

“Yeah,” she manages, “thanks.” 

“Mhm.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?”

“Okay.” She shudders. “So. That was my ex-girlfriend. Who…is a felon.” 

Oh. Woah. “Uh-huh…” 

“She’s calling for bail. Got arrested again. I blocked her number the first time. And the second. But she somehow keeps getting a hold of me. And-“ 

She falters. Kat stares brokenly at her shoes; her hand is limp in his. He pulls away from her gently, moving his arm around her shoulders. Pulling her in so their sides touch. 

“Kat?” he prompts. 

She lowers her voice. “She’s threatening me. Telling me if I don’t help her out, she’ll make it so I have to join her there. She’s got contacts. Experience. It’d be easy to do.” She laughs. There’s no humor to it. 

“She’s who I went home to after the faire. I broke things off with her that night. You know how insane that was for me? I’d been living with Janessa for 3 years at that point. And you,” she knocks her head lightly against his, “you rocked my world. You gave me the courage to embrace my secret me and kick her out.” She chuckles. 

“I’m the one who called the cops on her the first time. She threatened me with a kitchen knife when I was packing up her things. Nearly cut my finger in two waving it around.” She holds up her pointer finger to him to inspect. There’s a raised line, stark and pale, that traces from the pad of her finger to her knuckle. 

Josh wants to throw up. 

“What evidence does she have against you?” He whispers. His eyes are still fixed on the scar. 

“Josh.” She turns to look at him. Drops her hand. “She knows I’m a thief. She knows about the faire. And she was running crimes while we lived together. Out of my house. Her and her new boyfriend.” She spits the word boyfriend with an almost frightening venom. 

“But you didn’t know that was happening.” 

“The cards aren’t really in my favor either way.” There’s something shaky about her smile. “I can’t go to jail. But if she gets out-“ she shudders again, “-that’s…bad too. It’s a lose-lose.” 

“Hell no it’s not.” Josh decides, then and there, that this is bullshit. He pulls Katrina back into him so their temples are touching. Huddled together. Because he has a game plan.

“Alright. This ex of yours doesn’t know what she’s up against. You’re not giving her bail. Rachel’s gonna figure out how to make you untraceable so she can’t get your number anymore. Any if she tries to pull anything, even still?” He pauses to grin at her. 

“Your best friend is the best damn paralegal in Mountport. I’m no attorney, but I know the law and how to break it. And you, my friend, have not done anything that incriminates you. All charges of theft are under the monetary limit for jail time, and they can’t be proven because we covered our tracks. AND we returned most of ‘em anyway. And you didn’t know about the crimes Janessa committed until after the fact. You reported her, too, which should work against any charge of aiding a-“ 

“Alright, I get it.” She drops her head to his shoulder. There’s a little less tension in her face. Good. 

“You think we’ll be okay?” She asks.

Two squeezes. 

You, me. 

One, two. 

A pair. 

“You kidding?” He squeezes twice again. “Of course we will. Unless Janice burns the lasagna again.” 

She’s up in a flash. “You’re so right.” 

“Onwards, my liege,” he declares, “to defend your oven!” 

They leave the room laughing, and the heaviness stays behind to melt and be forgotten. 

[starlightkun]

hi mel! long time no see, I've been having a really tough time health-wise and haven't had the time to check in and see how you're doing :)

soooo....... what's up? what have i missed? how are you? what new fics dropped that i can read and gush to you about?

i had to take this term of uni off for my health and now i have a lot of time to relax, take it easy and enjoy your writing again 🩷

- ✨ anon

omgggggg ✨ anon ur back!!!!!!!! welcome back i missed u 🫶🫶🫶 im so sorry to hear abt ur health stuff i hope ur getting all the rest u need rn 🫂🫂🫂💗💗💗 i've been having some health stuff too w having to try new migraine meds that arent as effective as the ones i used to take so the migraines have been lowkey kicking my ass :// but we move ig

i actually went back to look at the date of ur last ask (december 16 2023) and it looks like u popped in right before i went a lil crazy at the end of last year lol? so im pretty sure you've missed:

27JSC (was posted right on dec 16 so u might've seen it, pt. 2 to buzzer beater/hockey!player sungchan, chronically ill!reader) - 21.3k

much mistletoeing about nothing & ...and a happy new year! (dec 20/dec 27, exes to lovers with kun, getting snowed in/forced proximity trope, cuddling to stay warm, etc.) - 7.6k & 1.9k

hold my red heart (dec 22, friends to lovers with kun, fake dating at the office holiday party) - 3.4k

hopeless for the holidays (dec 28, strangers to lovers w/ aged up kun & reader (mid 30s), attorney!kun, reader's friend drags her to a single's mixer on new year's eve) - 8.7k

second first kiss (dec 30, also i forgot i wrote this one omg, model!jungwoo, childhood friends to lovers, oops that was supposed to be a friendly kiss on the cheek for new years but he missed? more than once?) - 2.0k

tongue-tied (jan 7, model!jeno, journalist!reader, a reworked and heavily revised version of the now-deleted route from my sleepless cinderella series) - 17.4k

tourist trapped (jan 13, secret dating trope with sungchan, getting stuck on a ferris wheel) - 2.4k

buzzer beater shortfics (jan - feb, im gonna group all these together; i wrote 5 little slice of life shortfics about the buzzer beater couple that each peeks further into their life together after college!!) - 2.4k to 4.6k

the soulmate factory (feb 14, soulmate au, red string of fate with sungchan, star crossed lovers, its 29k and i wrote it in 9 days after starting ritalin i kind of popped off ngl) - 29.0k

frankenstein complex (may, a 68k sci-fi au abt kun with aliens and robots and a slow burn and it's literally one of my favorite fics ever im so insanely proud of it) - 67.9k

and my upcoming works in the next few weeks are:

little league (the LAST part of buzzer beater, you don't need to have read all the shortfics to understand it, if you've reader bb/27jsc, it'll make sense--teaser is out right now) - 13.5k

baby fangs (basilisk!mark, sphinx!reader, age gap (older reader), the possible last part of the strawberry sunday universe) - 26.7k

filler episodes (drummer!sungchan, band au, strangers to lovers) - 16.6k

so you've got a lot to pick from 😅😅 no pressure at all, im just happy to hear from u again 🫶🫶🫶

[seemasubash]

Though my feet may make me roam, my heart will always bring me home.

Most of you don’t know this but I’ve been away in the States since Jan 23 of this year. Losing Chelsea sent me over the edge and short of literally losing my mind, something had to give. I needed to be rescued.

And rescued I was, by one of the best people I have ever been blessed to have in my life. She put me on a flight and whisked me away to Philadelphia. Vishal, knowing that being on the farm alone with our almost 100 rescues was going to be a struggle, encouraged me to go and sent me off with love and hope that I would find my fire and return rested and resolute in my commitment to accomplish the goals I had set for myself years ago.

I spent the first week in Philly sleeping and eating. I was drained in every way imaginable. Then I started to miss home and most of all Chelsea. I would cry myself to sleep almost every night. Ironically, it got worse as I began to rest up. I would talk to Vishal every day and while part of me was in desperate need of a time-out the other part of me felt like I should have just stayed behind so he wouldn’t have to go through so much struggle and difficulty alone.

But deep down both of us knew that this was happening for a reason and even if we didn’t know why at the time, we had faith that God knew what He was doing.

After a month I decided to visit an old friend in Rhode Island, Dan Kesler. Dan and my ex-husband had worked together almost 20 years ago and we met on one of Dan’s trips to KL. We stayed in touch over the years through Facebook and a glance through Amtrak’s website found me on a 6-hour train ride to Rhode Island. When I got there, I met Diane, Dan’s better half. Little did we know then that both of us needed a change and a friend in our lives.

I went back and forth for the first two months between Philly and RI but found that my heart was very much at home with Diane and her family. But I started to get restless. I found myself asking God every day, ‘Why am I here? What should I do? Where am I going? Am I wasting time here when I should be home with Vishal?

Then I realized, ‘I need to make some money while I’m here so I can go back and exchange it for more money!’ And that’s what I did.

The last few months I did pet-sitting jobs, gardening jobs, yard cleaning jobs, any job that I could find. I cleaned houses, took care of people and their homes and their kids and their dogs. I saved every dollar I could find, and when I was in RI with Diane, she made sure I didn’t spend any money, offering to take care of my needs so I could save instead. I put all my earnings in my Bible and stayed focused on keeping in touch with our donors so Vishal would have enough funds to take care of himself and the dogs on the farm while still rescuing wounded and hurt strays when he was called on.

I worked so hard and saved enough to pay off our car. After seven years of not having our own wheels, we are finally proud owners of our Myvi, Zippy.

While I was busy earning, Vishal kept himself busy by taking care of business back home. He began to clear his personal backlog of things-to-do one by one. We would talk almost everyday about how we were not going to throw the last seven years of struggle away but that we weren’t going to reunite either under the same circumstances we parted from. That kept us both focused and committed to our own individual goals.

Over these past few months, we have both grown and accomplished so much, albeit separately. We did our best to support and encourage each other and to keep our promise to create the future we wanted.

Despite the new and busy life I was having in RI, my heart still yearned for my pack back home. I would ask Vishal everyday to put my call on video so I could see them. They were growing so fast, puppies into dogs, anti-social personalities into pack members, sick dogs to healthy dogs. Being around dogs in RI and observing the way they are taken care of by their humans was bittersweet, in while it was extremely heartwarming it also made me realise that back home we still have such a long way to go when it comes to the treatment of our canine companions.

Having witnessed such an appreciation for their pets made me realise that back home we are still a long way from giving dogs the respect they deserve. Despite the possibility of starting fresh somewhere new, deep down inside I knew I had to come home. I had unfinished business.

After flying for two days I landed back in KLIA where Vishal picked me up. We drove right back to Ipoh. I couldn’t wait to see the pack! I wondered…how were they going to react to not seeing me for six months???

Words cannot possibly describe coming home. The dogs ran to me and jumped all over me like I had never left. Their energy was definitely higher and some of the closer ones to me gave out high-pitched whining as if to express that they couldn’t believe I was there. It was so amazing the energy that enveloped me.

Dogs. Whether it’s 6 minutes or six months, they remember you like they just saw you yesterday.

What I came home to was nothing short of amazing. The dogs were fat and healthy. A bunch of them who had awful skin rashes when I left now had rich and thick coats. The farm was clean and there was a new pool. All the dogs looked happy. I felt so much love. It blew me away.

I don’t know how Vishal did it all by himself for 6 months. If it were me I would have gone mad! But he soldiered on one day at a time. Not once in the time I was away did he say anything like, “You need to come home”, or “Why are you still there?”

All he said was, “Do what you need to do and come home when you’re ready.”

I am blessed in ways I will never be able to measure.

Truth time - coming home was hard! I forgot the amount of time and energy it took to care for these rascals. We aren’t spring-chickens anymore and we’re starting to feel it! But this is a journey we can’t jump ship, and so we keep on moving, one foot infront of the other, one day at a time, together.

We have had to make a decision we aren’t too happy about, and that is to halt taking in any more dogs, unless it’s a dire situation. We are always hoping for more donors and sponsors to come onboard, and in the next few months I’m going to focus on trying to get every one of our pack sponsored. We hope you will consider sponsoring one of our kids so we can continue rescuing animals in need.

For now, I’m going to enjoy the company of my pack with Vishal on our farm away from the world. The universe has given us everything we need and more and continues to inspire us to live our lives with passion and love.

In the end, the only question you really need to answer is, where does your joy live? For me, it’s with my dogs.

[writeshite]

Bleeding Heart

Main Masterlist

Summary:

They say love comes in many forms, for you it came, chew you up, spat you out, and left you a broken mess. It looks like it might have returned, gods know how you'll handle it this time.

Pairings:

Mark Sloan x Male!Reader

Tags:

Angst | Getting Back Together | Eventual Fluff | Exes to Friends to Lovers | Nosy Interns | Canon Divergence (Because I'm Too Lazy To Keep Track Of Canon)

Status: Ongoing

Author's Note:

I couldn't help myself, the opportunity to write some more angst for Mark was too good to miss, don't worry it will get fluffy and happy at some point, but before that, we must trudge through the tears, fighting, and anger. Also, I have no idea when this happens in the timeline, don't expect 100% canon because I'm too lazy to take notes.

Do not expect 100% medical accuracy, I am not a doctor and there's only so much you can Google before it starts raising alarm bells. The chapter titles are supposed to be a poem I concocted while planning this series, so enjoy that mess.

Updated Jan 1, 2023

Chapter 1: Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater

Unlike Addison, you were far less keen to move up shop and coexist with your ex, his lover, and Derek - well, Derek, you could deal with, he and you both went through the same thing but all the same, you’d rather go the rest of your life without ever seeing Mark’s face.

Chapter 2: Almost Had a Husband, but Couldn’t Keep Him

“I care, your sister cares, Derek cares, Richard—” “If Richard cared, he wouldn’t have made me work with Mark,” you interjected, “and if Addison cared, she wouldn’t have…she….” you divulge into blabbering as the feeling of hurt resurfaces again. The tears start up, and no amount of harsh rubbing will get rid of them. You hold your head in your hands, then throw the bottle against the wall; it shatters into pieces as you start laughing.

Chapter 3: Took Another, Thought He Loved Her

Izzie takes a step back, nudging George, she gestures between you and Mark, but he doesn’t have a response - besides, there was tension in the air; Mark shuffled every so often, hands folding over themselves repeatedly as you kept your gaze glued anywhere but him. The elevator is taking its time, and George prays that the power doesn’t go out; his prayers are answered when the door opens; you and Mark go your separate ways. “That was….awkward..” Izzie mutters.

Chapter 4: Now He’s Sad, And Wants His First Love Back

The ice pack by his head was upheld by one arm as the other tipped the ice-cold water into his mouth. He’d thanked you, then promptly dropped his head onto the counter, passing out again. You think that’s when you looked at him and decided he was it for you - that and also the bird’s nest of a hair he donned.

Chapter 5: You’re Not So Quick To Love Again

You try to ignore the apparent looks of curiosity you garner from the rest of the staff; word of your possible reconciliation has no doubt already become the top story - it’s more monotonous; if anything, there are moments when Mark almost does something out of habit but stops himself almost immediately. You almost fall into familiar patterns as well, and by the end of the first day of the trial run, you’re adequately exhausted.

Chapter 6: Broken Hearts Take Time to Mend

Chapter 7: It Makes The Wait All Worth The While

Chapter 8: One More Dance, Another Chance

Chapter 9: Me and You, Together Again

[mandoalorian]

I Believe In Love [Maxwell Lord x Reader] - Prologue

Author's Note: *Spoilers for WW84* Welcome to my brand new series coming Jan 2021! December Magic (my first Max Lord series) will be coming to an end in the coming week and I'm finally excited to share with you my brand new series. This series will be my interpretation of what happens after the events of WW84. If you would like to be added to a taglist, please let me know! Merry Christmas everyone.

Word count: 2,000

Permanent Taglist: @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @ah-callie @luvzoria @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal @wonderfulfluffer @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal @castiel-barnes @honeymandos @rocketqueen @ladycumberbatchofcamelot @dybalalover10 @girl-obsessed-with-things @elena-myth

Masterlist

Previous - Prologue - Next

*gif by: @mell-bell

"I've been lying to you, I'm not a great guy. In fact I’m a pretty messed up loser guy. And I make terrible mistakes. But you... you don’t ever have to make a wish for me to love you. I'm here because I love you. I just… I just wish and I pray that one day I will make you proud enough to forgive me.” Alistair could see the plea in his father's eyes. He could see the promise. And he saw a glint of something he had never seen before. Something so genuine, and powerful. Something so beautiful.

Alistair smiled weakly. “I don’t need you to make me proud. I already love you, daddy. Because you’re my dad.” Alistair revealed, pulling his father into a hug.

"I love you so much, my son." Maxwell croaked out, his hands fondling into Alistair's locks of hair and pressing a kiss into his forehead.

Maxwell's whole life; he had wished for more. Something bigger and better. He had wished for greatness because that was something he had never had. He couldn't afford college education and he didn't have loving parents. He came from a broken home; so when the opportunity arose and he was presented with shares in oil and the potential to start his own business, he took it. He yearned to make someone proud, and after the birth of his son, he'd found that someone.

It had all gone wrong. It wasn't meant to, but it had. Maxwell didn't think he could ever be able to forgive himself for his actions and misdirections, but his own forgiveness didn't matter. He could live the rest of his life in painful guilt if it meant that his son still loved him unconditionally.

Maxwell saw himself as a monster, a beast. For who would love a broken man like him? His parents didn't, his ex wife didn't. He had no one. He needed Alistair more than he could ever know.

"Daddy?" Alistair mumbled into his father's dress shirt, salty tears pricking his dark eyes. His voice was muffled by the way he had nuzzled his face into his father's warm chest, cherishing the embrace.

"Yes?" Maxwell hummed, eventually pulling away from his son, but his hands still set firmly on Alistair's shoulders. Alistair hesitated for a moment, nervously biting his lip as his father searched for an answer. What did Alistair want? Whatever he wanted, Maxwell was ready to give it— ready to give his all. Ready to change and become a better man. Alistair took a deep breath. He had a lot to learn and a long way to go but he was finally ready.

"Can we go home?" he asked, his eyes glistening with hope for a better future.

"Yes." Maxwell sighed, exhaling and letting his entire body deflate as he interlocked his fingers with his son. Alistair's hand was small, but his grip on Maxwell was tight— like he was afraid to let go. Afraid to lose his father. He couldn't lose him, not again.

The helicopter was still in near enough distance but Max wasn't about to hitch a ride a fly home like he might've once done before. Maxwell and Alistair walked through the field hand in hand until eventually they reached the highway. Where there was once plenty of abandoned cars and trucks, the world was finally restoring back to its former ways. But Maxwell swore that he was done being the greedy, selfish, businessman turned TV personality. He wanted none of that anymore. He wanted his family, and his son. He wanted to be a good father.

All he ever wanted deep down was to be a good dad to Alistair. He never believed in himself. How could he, when he had no father figure to look up to? Nobody in his life to give him encouragement, guidance or reassurance— nothing. He had come this far on his own and it was awful, isolating and damaging. He would not let his son make the same mistakes as he did.

They passed through the highway and it wasn't long until they were back at Black Gold Cooperative. Knowing that his company was about to go bust and that he'd have to sell all his assets just so he'd be able to earn enough to live off for a few months concerned him, but it was the least of his worries right now. He reached into the pocket of his tailored suit pants and took out his car keys, unlocking the passenger door and ushering for Alistair to slide in.

"But daddy, don't you have a driver?" Alistair questioned, his fingers fiddling with the knobs and buttons on the car radio. Maxwell slid into the driver's seat and let his hands glide around the wheel as he tried to recall the last time he had driven himself. It had been a long time.

"You know buddy, things are going to be changing very soon," Maxwell said, his eyes glazed as he looked upon the orange glowing skyline. "You might not like it at first. Might be hard to understand but, I promise you that one day you'll get it. I'm never going to hurt you again and I will make up all my wrongdoings. Even if it takes me the rest of my life," Maxwell huffed out a sigh. "Truth is, I was never deserving of the fancy cars, designer clothing and big house. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that we don't need those things to be happy."

"What do we need?" Alistair questioned curiously as Maxwell turned the key and initiated the engine.

Maxwell recalled the words spoken by Diana. "Love," Maxwell responded, like it was the simplest yet most beautiful thing in the world.

Most of the car journey home was filled with comfortable silence as Max kept his eyes on the road ahead, concentrating to the best of his ability whilst Alistair gazed out the window as he seemingly watched society rebuild itself. "So uhm, we still have the weekend together," Maxwell smiled as he pulled into the driveway. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't care, as long as I can spend time with you." Alistair grinned, a dimple appearing in his right cheek. It mirrored his father's. Maxwell took a deep breath and turned off the engine, unclicking his seatbelt and turning to his son.

"I have always loved you," Max admitted. "And I will always love you. Forever."

Alistair paused. "Can you play on the Atari with me? Mom's new boyfriend bought me a new video game and I really wanna try it out! He wanted to play with me but, you know. I'd rather play with my daddy."

Maxwell's eyes lit up ecstatically. He didn't have the first clue about video games, and in the past he would've shrugged off Alistair's request. But in this moment, he couldn't think of anything better. They sat on the floor in front of the nineteen inch television, stuffing their faces with popcorn. "Hey!" Maxwell laughed, huffing his cheeks out in annoyance. "You keep killing me!"

"Daddy," Alistair groaned out with a small giggle, prodding his finger into his father's tummy. "I'm going easy on you!"

"Okay okay," Maxwell chuckled as Alistair restarted the game. "Let's start again, I know I can beat you this time!" Maxwell grinned and pressed 'play' on the controller, his ring clad fingers pushing the buttons desperately.

Maxwell had spent his whole life trying to find his destiny and understand his legacy. He'd spent his life in pursuit of meaning and purpose— but the truth is, his purpose had been right before him this whole time. His purpose was Alistair. And right now, he couldn't be happier. Diana had let him off the hook, but that didn't mean his actions wouldn't have consequences.

The phone rang; a haunting buzz that vibrated throughout the whole house. "Can you pause it for me?" Maxwell asked, ruffling Alistair's hair. "I'll go answer this call and bring us back some more popcorn." Alistair nodded excitedly as Maxwell rose to his feet, his knees aching as he stalked over to the still ringing phone.

Leaning against the wall, he pulled it off the hook. "Hello?" he asked, curling the wire around his finger. "Who's there?"

"Max, it's me," the voice was like a ghost from his past. He felt his heart sink into the depths of his chest as he could practically taste the anger that dripped from her familiar tongue. "Bring Alistair home. You do not deserve him. I don't want you anywhere near my son ever again." she threatened before the line fell completely silent. Dead. Maxwell's shaky hands placed the phone back on the hook and he closed his eyes. He knew that he wasn't deserving of the unconditional love that Alistair gave him, but that boy meant the world to him. He had finally found his opportunity to change and become a better man— a better father. Maxwell padded back down the corridor and leaned against the door frame, watching as Alistair carefully read the words on the back of the box of his video game. Max's lips curved into a small but proud smile. That was his boy, and he wasn't going to let anything take Alistair away from him.

***

"I renounce my wish!" You had heard his voice, but only in dreams. Usually, it was soft like velvet, sweet like honey, but this time, you had awoken in a cold sweat. You pulled the blankets over your body as a chill raced down your spine. You felt his pain, his anguish and hurt. It was unlike anything you had ever felt before. Your scream alerted your mother who raced to your bedside with intentions to comfort you.

"Another nightmare?" Your mother Hesita asked you with concern. She smoothed out your hair as you wiped a tear away from your eye.

"It was him," you whispered, your voice shaky. "He needs me. I know it."

"You have found your calling?" Hestia quizzed, her voice merely above a whisper as she gazed into your eyes. You nodded slowly, never feeling more sure about anything in your life. "How do you know?"

"It is my duty," you replied softly as you looked past the skylight and amongst the stars. "Zeus made me the goddess of home and hearth for this very reason."

"But what makes him so special?" Your mother wondered out loud, her hand sliding into yours knowing that this would be your final night in her company.

"I don't know." you huffed with a tired shrug of your shoulders. It was true: you genuinely didn't know why you had been hearing his voice, letting his words and whispers haunt you over and over again. He consumed your every thought— this mysterious voice from the world of man.

"I renounce my wish!" those four words replayed in your mind like a broken record as you tried to figure out what exactly they meant. But it didn't matter. You felt his heartache. You felt his pain. And now? You were coming for him.