#for right though I’ll patiently wait and see if they release a fourth album (the person I’ll become when that happens you don’t wanna know)

[emily-mooon]

Is too much to ask Alvvays to release Underneath Us and the Antisocialites B-Side on a compilation album with their singles and hits

[suituuup]

pieces - chapter three

Five years ago, Chloe dropped off the face of the Earth. Beca sees her again in the most unexpected place.

rated: E for drug use and sex scenes

AO3 LINK

*

“Bec?” 

Beca hummed absentmindedly, blinking out of her daze and twisting her head in the direction of the voice. 

Sarah smiled gently as she leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen. She cocked an eyebrow, giving a pointed look towards the sink. “I think the pan is clean.” 

Beca glanced down, stilling her movements. She had been scrubbing that pan for probably ten minutes now, her thoughts completely consumed by Chloe and what she was supposed to do next. 

Chloe clearly didn’t want to see her, and Beca wasn’t going to wait by the phone when it was clear that Chloe was far from okay. She was thinner than Beca remembered, and the look in her eye, the lack of light in those once bright blues, chilled Beca to the bone. 

She looked… broken. As though her spirit had repeatedly been battered until all that was left were mere pieces of her old self. 

If there were any left at all.

Beca couldn’t stand the thought of not doing anything, and she needed to come up with a plan to help Chloe without driving her into a corner and risk losing her forever. 

“What’s going on?” Sarah questioned, pushing off the doorframe and padding over. She rested her hand between Beca’s shoulder blades, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. “You’ve seemed off today.” 

Beca released a sigh, setting the pan down into the sink and reaching for the dishtowel laying next to her on the counter to dry her hands. “I’m sorry, I’m just… worried about a friend.” 

Sarah nodded slowly. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Sarah was unexpected, to say the least. Beca was a workaholic, and her career was too time-consuming for her to get into the whole dating thing. But Sarah, who happened to work as a barista in Beca’s favorite independent coffee shop, had somehow managed to convince Beca to go out with her. One dinner surprisingly turned into a second date, then a third, and it just like that, it had been almost a year since they officially got together. 

Sarah was gentle, patient, understanding, overflowing with positivity, but most of all, incredibly kind. She reminded Beca of Chloe, sometimes. And maybe it was those similar personality traits that drew Beca to her in the first place. 

They didn’t live together. Beca could feel that it was the next expected step on her girlfriend’s end, but she didn’t feel ready to commit, yet. She liked her own space, her solitude. So Sarah spent a few nights a week at Beca’s place, like tonight, and Beca was fine with that. 

“Not really,” she replied, casting Sarah an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, it’s just-- complicated right now.” 

“You need to stop apologizing,” Sarah murmured, her expression soft and loving. Beca let her shoulders sag, ready to apologize again. “I understand. But if you do change your mind and need to let something off your chest, I’m here.” 

Beca nodded. “Thanks.” 

“Are you coming to bed?” 

“Not yet, I wanna get some work done, first.” She leaned in to peck Sarah’s lips. “You go ahead, I’ll join you soon.” 

Walking across the living room and past the huge floor to ceiling windows looking over Central Park, Beca made her way to her home office, her happy place. She had bought the Manhattan condo two years ago, making it a requirement during her house-hunt to have a large room with plenty of light and enough space to store all her records and her music equipment. It was also where she kept her Grammys and other prizes, away from the attention as nobody really stepped into her office.

She usually popped a blues album on the record player, enjoying the soothing instrumentals while she replied to various emails, but not tonight. Tonight, she grabbed a yellow legal notepad and her headphones from her desk and curled up on the leather couch tucked in the far corner, then scrolled to her Spotify playlists until she found the one she was looking for. 

she is magic

Beca couldn’t remember the last time she had listened to her Chloe playlist, one she had made back in Barden when she was hopelessly in love with her best friend. They were songs that reminded her of Chloe, or songs that Chloe liked. Or used to like, at least. 

As lyrics she knew so well poured into her headphones, blocking out the rest of the world, different ones flowed out of Beca’s heart, materializing on the paper in front of her in black ink as she scribbled across the page. Lyrics about friendship, unrequited love, and regrets for listening to her brain and not her heart all these years ago. 

It was pushing on two am by the time Beca called it a night. Her eyes burned, her mind felt mushy, but her soul felt a tiny bit lighter. Music had always been her therapy, and writing songs had always proved more efficient than paying a licensed professional, even though it had been years since Beca had last finished one, for lack of inspiration. 

Or rather, because of the absence of her muse. 

*

She woke up five hours later to a stiff neck and sore back, the bright sunlight pouring in from the windows lining one of her office walls drawing her from her sleep. She had meant to go to bed, before deciding to close her eyes for five minutes right on the couch. 

Straightening with a groan, she grabbed her phone and turned it over, hoping to see a text from an unknown number on her screen. 

Aubrey Posen [6:23am]

Any news? 

Aubrey Posen [6:37am]

Should I come to New York? 

Aubrey practiced family law up in Boston. She and Beca saw each other a few times a year, whenever Aubrey was in the city. Bella reunions were a bit more scarce now, with the girls being scattered all around the country. Their last one dated back to a year and a half ago, on the Fourth of July. 

Beca ran a hand over her face and heaved out a sigh, swiping her thumb across the screen to unlock it. 

Beca [7:16am]

No news yet. I think I’m gonna wait a few days before I head back to the club, if she doesn’t call in the meantime that is. The manager gave me serious sleazy vibes and I’m sure he could blacklist me if I’m too insistent. I don’t think there’s any need for you to come down for now. I’ll keep you posted. 

Hitting send, Beca pushed to her feet and shuffled out of her office, hanging a left down the hall towards the kitchen. A note next to her coffee thermos sat on the island. 

Missed you last night, but I hope you got whatever you needed done. I had to leave for my shift, you’re welcome to swing by for your second coffee of the day and your morning kiss ;) have a good day!

Sarah xx

Guilt swooped in over picking old feelings about an ex-almost over her girlfriend, and Beca let her head hang forward, releasing a grown. She was far from an expert at this relationship thing, but she cared about Sarah a lot and didn’t want to mess that up. 

Beca shook off the sleepiness lingering in her bones and the stiffness in her muscles with a long, hot shower, then got ready for her day. She usually got to the office at 8 sharp, but it was already 7:54 by the time she was out the door, and her commute lasted about twenty minutes, so she wouldn’t get the chance to stop by Sarah’s workplace. 

To: Sarah 

I’m sorry, I got caught up in work last night and ended up falling asleep on the couch around 2. Come over tonight? I’ll cook dinner. Have a good shift.

Her morning was spent in the studio canning vocals for girl in red’s new album, a project Beca was stocked about as she was BMLJ’s most promising artist for this year’s Grammy Awards. 

“That was awesome, Marie,” Beca spoke into the microphone, giving her a thumbs-up through the glass. “Let’s take a lunch break and resume in an hour?” 

“Sounds good,” the younger woman agreed with a smile as she took off her headphones. 

Beca headed back to her office down the hall and checked her phone for any new messages (finding none important), before shrugging on her thick winter coat and screwing her beanie over her head. 

“I’ll be back in an hour, Gina!” She told her assistant on route to the elevator. 

As Sarah’s workplace was just five blocks south from the label, Beca figured she would eat lunch there as she wasn’t able to stop by that morning. She stopped in the convenience store across the street from the coffee shop to buy Sarah her favorite magazine as she knew her break was coming up soon and she’d have something to read. 

Beca was scanning the press stand for that specific magazine, not paying attention to the person walking into the store until they spoke. 

“A pack of Marlboro, please.” 

Beca would recognize that voice anywhere. Her head snapped up so fast she felt something in her neck pull, and she was rounding the stand before she even registered giving her feet the order to move. “Chloe?” 

Chloe glanced over to her right and froze for a second, before fishing for a twenty in her jacket pocket and handing it to the cashier. “Are you following me or something?” 

Given their last encounter, Beca wasn’t surprised by Chloe’s snark, so she gave as good as she got. “You came in after I did, so maybe I should ask you that question.” 

Chloe stuffed the cigarette pack and the change into her pocket. “What do you want, Beca?” 

“To talk,” she replied, softly. “One coffee, that’s it. And if you decide you really don’t want me in your life, then I won’t bother you again. I promise.” 

Chloe seemed to ponder on that for a few beats. “One coffee.” 

“There’s a shop right across the street.” 

Taking her to the place her girlfriend worked at? Probably not the brightest idea, but she was afraid Chloe might go back on her decision if they spent too long finding someplace else. 

When Chloe nodded, Beca took the lead and stepped outside, forgetting all about that magazine as she racked her brain about what she should say. Tactfulness wasn’t her greatest suit; Aubrey would be so much better at this. 

They stepped inside Devocion and Beca picked a table in the corner, shrugging off her coat and draping it over the back of her chair. Chloe kept her jacket and beanie on, a bit hunched on herself as she sat down in the chair opposite Beca’s. 

“Beca?” 

Beca glanced towards Sarah as she approached, wearing a waist apron with the café logo on it. Her dark blonde hair was woven back in a French braid, a few strands escaping, and curiosity swirled in her green eyes as they flickered to Chloe. 

Okay, in hindsight, bringing Chloe here was a terrible idea. 

“Hey, um, Sarah, this is Chloe, a friend from college.” She cleared her throat. “Chloe, this is my girlfriend, Sarah.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Sarah replied brightly, her smile fading a little when all Chloe offered was a distant nod. Sarah met Beca’s gaze briefly, clearing her throat. “What can I get you guys?” 

“My usual. You want anything to eat, Chlo?” 

The nickname rolled off her tongue so naturally, Beca didn’t even catch it. 

Chloe shook her head. “Just a black coffee.” 

“Coming right up.” 

“Thanks,” Beca said as Sarah spun around on her heels, her focus shifting to Chloe. “So um, I wanted to apologize for the other day and putting you on the spot at the club. I just… wasn’t sure how else to talk to you.” 

“I can give you some of the money back if you need it.” 

Beca furrowed her brow, not having expected that. “No, no. I… it’s fine. I don’t care about money.” 

Something flashed in Chloe’s eyes at that, something Beca couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

Sarah came back with two coffees before she could analyze it further, setting the mugs down on the table. “Your club sandwich will be here in a few, babe.” 

Beca nodded, casting her a small, appreciative smile. 

Chloe straightened a bit in her seat, cradling the mug with both hands. “I’m not sure what you expect me to say or do, Beca.” 

Beca licked her lips. “I was hoping we could… hang out from time to time. I’ve missed you, Chlo. So has Aubrey.” 

The mention of Aubrey made Chloe lookup. “Does she live in New York, too?” 

“Um no, in Boston. She’s a lawyer. But she’d come down to have coffee, or lunch, or whatever you feel like doing. In a heartbeat.” 

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

What little hope flared in the pit of Beca’s belly upon Chloe showing interest in Aubrey’s life vanished. “Why not?” 

“I told you. I’m not the same person anymore. I’m-- I’m not…” 

Beca tilted her head to the side. “You’re not what?” She pressed gently. 

Chloe’s gaze fleeted out the window as her rather calm demeanor now radiated agitation. Her knee started bouncing and her fingers tightened around the mug, and it was as though Chloe was battling against her own thoughts. 

She was itching to reach across the table to rest her hand over her wrist in a sort of grounding gesture, but something told her that would have the opposite effect. 

“Chloe?” Beca attempted once more, her voice as soft as she could muster, as it seemed like Chloe was on the brink of bolting. 

The tear slipping out of Chloe’s eye tore her heart into two. “I-I have to go.” 

Her chair screeched as she pushed it back roughly, and she was nearly out the door by the time Beca scrambled to her feet. 

It was lunch-hour rush in one of the busiest avenues in Manhattan, and Chloe had already disappeared in the crowd when she reached the exit, leaving Beca to helplessly wonder how someone like Chloe, once the epitome of sunshine, got herself trapped in so much darkness.

[prettyyyboyluke]

The Light Room

you got a taste of the dark room, now here’s the light room 

~ 

ever since i was shown the dark room, i have made sure to be on my best behavior. i was so sore and tired for at least three days after everything, i even think ashton and luke felt bad since every time we would go somewhere, they could tell that i would wince every few steps. but since then, i have not acted out once. don’t get me wrong, i loved being in there, but it was just so much given to me at one time. we were currently waiting in a lobby for the boys to get an interview that some podcast begged them to come to. normally, i would dread coming to these things because they take so long, but i actually wasn’t upset at all that i was coming with them. it gave me something to do, and i could just sit and watch them talk. the only downfall is that it was extremely early in the morning.

i was resting my head on ashton’s shoulder while we all waited to be escorted back into the room. “you tired, baby?” ashton asks. “just a little, i’m not used to waking up this early.” i responded, snuggling myself further into his side.

“you boys ready? it might be a while, so get comfortable.”

~

after a grueling three and a half hours, they were finally done with the podcast. i sat patiently outside the room while they were answering questions about the new album, the tour coming up, and whatever other secrets they wanted to know. “that was probably the longest interview we’ve ever done.” luke said, walking out of the room. “you’re done now though, right?” i asked, taking michael’s hand in mine. “yes pretty girl, we’re all yours now.” calum chuckled. once we all piled in the car, we were on our way back home.

“i’m going to take a nap, so if i’m not awake by at least 2:00, someone come wake me up.” i said, walking up to my room. “are you sure you want someone to wake you up? you can get, cranky.” luke said. “i’ll be crankier if i don’t get to sleep, now goodnight.” i answered. after i walked into my room, my clothes were thrown into the hamper and i climbed right into bed to get the extra sleep i desperately needed.

the rest of the boys were in the den, talking about the pod cast from today. “i think that went well. they seemed pretty invested in the album.” michael said. “yeah and the tour too, i think that might have been our best podcast yet.” luke pitches in. “one of the interviewers kept looking towards y/n, and it made me want to slap his face and tell him not to look at her.” ashton says. “they did ask us some pretty interesting questions about her.” calum responds. “she was very well behaved, though. i think what happened in the dark room gave her a run for her money.” luke says. “i can’t blame her for being curious, hell i’d wanna know what was in a room i’m not allowed into.” michael says. “she surprised me with the flogger, i thought she would break right then and there, but nope, she asked for more. guess ashton trained her well.” luke pats ashton on the back. “i think she deserves a reward, after luke wakes her up, why don’t we take her to the light room, she hasn’t been in there for a while, and i bet she’d love going back.” ashton suggests.

the rest of the boys agree and go into the light room. this room was significantly different from the dark room. the light room was white and gold. there were no whips or handcuffs on the walls. in the middle of the room was a white bed with multiple pillows decorating it at the top. instead of holes in the ceiling, it was a giant mirror, so anytime you would be able to look up and see the erotic scene happening below you. on each of the walls there were different pictures, all in black and white. i was wearing the same white lingerie set in all of them.

the first picture was calum sitting in a chair, elbows resting on his knees and his head resting on his hands. i was behind him, with one hand on his shoulder, my hip popped out the slightest bit. the second was a picture of michael and i. he was sitting on the same chair with me straddling his lap and his hands were cupped around my ass. the third picture was a with luke, i was on my knees, palms resting against my thighs while luke was standing above me, admiring how i looked from beneath him. the fourth picture was of ashton. it was a close up of my head tilted to the side so my neck was exposed, and his lips were attached to the skin. the fifth, and final picture was hung above the bed. a picture of all of us. i was in the same position like i was in luke’s, blindfolded, and with each of them standing behind me, holding some type of toy.

there was only one gold dresser in the room that held the most powerful and expensive toys we owned. towards the other end of the room was a closet that had every type of lingerie set we owned, all hung up and organized by color. there was white, cream, grey, light purple, lilac, baby blue, and a pale yellow. right next to the closet was a little seating area, with one chair in the middle, and four surrounding it. the light room was a lot simpler than the dark room, but boy did we have fun in here. above the doors, across from the bed, was a simple phrase i loved to hear.

GOOD GIRLS GET REWARDED

it wasn’t anything special, but every time i heard it, it gave my stomach butterflies.

~

once 2:00 o’clock hit, luke was tip toeing into my room. “angel, it’s time to wake up.” he whispered, lightly shaking me. i opened my eyes, squinting when i saw the light. “i’m awake.” i sighed. “did you sleep well?” luke asked, smoothing out my bed head. “very well, i could’ve slept longer, but i didn’t wanna waste more of the day.” i yawned. “why don’t you go wake up a bit, and then meet me in the light room, we have a little surprise waiting for you.” luke said before stepping out of my room.

i went to my bathroom and washed my face, letting the post sleep look fade away. i brushed my hair and just let it flow down my back naturally before i finally left the bathroom. when i opened the doors, there was the white lingerie set waiting for me on the bed. ashton was sitting in one of the four chairs, “you’ve been so well behaved that we’ve decided we should reward you.” “so that’s why we’re in here.” “yes baby, now, why don’t you go put on what michael set out for you and then we can start your rewards.” he said, stepping out of the room.

the lingerie set stared back at me. it was the same one i had on in the pictures that were hung up in the room. i put it on, smoothing everything down before the rest of the boys reentered the room. “there’s our pretty girl, give us a spin.” calum said, while the rest were making their way into the room. i spun around, taking my time so they could all get a good look at me. “why don’t you go sit down on the bed for us, angel.” luke said. i sat on the bed, hands in my lap, and waited for what was about to come.

“since you’ve been so well behaved for us, we want to show you what happens to good girls who obey.” michael says, walking up to stand in-between my legs. he leaned down to me, his lips ghosting over mine. i tilted my head up so i could catch his between mine. the kiss was passionate, one of my hands coming to cup his cheek and the other holding onto the openness of his shirt. michael’s tongue slipped passed my lips and started to make it’s way to explore my mouth. one of his hands roamed down my body, stopping at the waist band of my panties. my hips bucked up on instinct, wanting to catch some type of relief from the aching between my thighs.

michael was the first to separate this kiss. “go ahead and lay back for me, princess.” he whispered against my lips. my head hit the pillows and i saw each of them begin to walk around the light room through the mirror on the ceiling. luke and calum went to go sit in two of the chairs by the closet, moving them towards the bed. i completely forgot about michael until his hands spread my legs. “think it’s time for your first reward.” he said, kissing the insides of my thighs. one of his fingers rubbed over my clit, letting the wet spot grow on the underwear. “just relax angel, you’ll get the release you need.” luke said.

the anticipation was killing me. michael loved to make me wait and beg for what he was gonna give me. he finally pulled my panties down, pausing to let his fingers collect some of my arousal. michael’s tongue was flat against my heat, getting it sopping wet. my thighs were pressed up against my stomach, giving michael as much as possible. one of my hands were tangled in his hair, twisting and pulling each time he sucked harshly onto my clit. “oh god, please, right there.” i moaned, my hips rising from the bed. “look at how pretty you look, angel. think we might to take a picture.” luke said. calum went to the closet and grabbed the camera that was sitting on one of the shelves.

he stood behind michael, snapping a picture. my head was thrown back, mouth open, and eyes closed. “you look so pretty like that, baby. you just love this type of attention, don’t you?” ashton said. “mmhm!” i moaned back. my legs began to close around michael’s head, making him hold one of them open with his arm. my breathing became heavier, my stomach tightening when michael put two of his fingers inside me. “just like that, please don’t stop!” i begged. sweat began to form on my forehead while michael continued to lap away at my heat. my hips were rolling into michael, my muscles clenching down onto his fingers. “you wanna cum, pretty girl?” calum asked. “please! oh god, please!”

i could only focus on michael. i sat up on my elbows, watching him. his eyes met mine, determined to get me to where i wanted to be. my bottom lip was between my teeth, biting down while keeping eye contact with michael. his lips enclosed around my clit, my head being thrown back once again. with a few more thrusts of his fingers, my body began to shake. my legs were slightly shaking around him, my mouth open with whimpers spilling out. “that’s a good girl, just like that, sweetheart.” michael praised.

the background was filled with lewd sounds, not only coming from me, but calum as well. his hand wrapped around his cock, slowly moving his hand up and down. he focused on his tip, letting groans out every now and then. his thumb swiped over his tip, collecting the pre-cum that was leaking from it. i could tell he was close from just the way he sounded. calum always sounded the same when he was about to cum, his voice got all raspy and his moans were at such a low octave.

my chest was heaving, coming down from the high. “up, angel, let me see that mouth.” luke said, standing up from the chair. i sat up on my knees, tongue out. luke began to unbuckle his pants, sliding them and his boxers down his legs. i crawled towards luke, taking his cock in my hand. i wrapped the tip of his cock in my mouth, sinking down on it slowly. his hands tangled themselves in my hair, guiding me up and down his cock. “just like that, angel. fuck, don’t stop.” he husked. my tongue swirled around his tip, then dragging it on the underside of his cock. i let myself take all of luke down my throat, the head of his cock touching the back of my throat. drool pooled around my mouth, dripping down onto my chin.

“stay just like that, ‘m gonna cum.” luke moaned, holding my head in place. i could feel his cock throb in my mouth, shooting his load right down my throat. i quickly swallowed the salty liquid and let luke slip out of my mouth. “atta girl, taking daddy’s cock like such a good girl.” luke whispered. i smiled up at luke, loving the praise i was getting. “i love being daddy’s good girl.”

calum came and sat on the bed behind me, his boxers loosely on his hips. he moved my hair out of the way, and began to pepper my skin with kisses. he sucked on the skin below, leaving a mark. “so pretty, it’s just asking to get marked up.” calum whispered, making another mark on my neck. “someone, please, fuck me.” i whined, letting my head loll back onto calum’s shoulder. ashton’s jeans dropped to the floor, his cock in his hand. “you wanna get fucked, doll?” he asks, spitting into his hand. “please, i want it so bad.”

ashton let his cock collect my arousal, parting my lips before sliding right into me. he held my legs back, letting calum take them so he focus on his hip movements. ashton moved at a very pleasurable pace, making me feel every inch of him. “feel good, pretty girl?” calum asks. “so good, fuck, just like that.” i moaned. ashton picked up the pace the slightest bit, hitting the spongy spot that made me cry. my legs were starting to get out of calum’s grip. “ah ah, you keep em here, just feel what ashton’s giving to you.” he whispers.

ashton kept a strong gaze on me, watching how i reacted to him. he continues to go harder, catching me off guard, my body spasming, clenching down on his cock inside me. “ah,” i gasp, back arched and toes curled. “you like that? look at how you just swallow my fucking cock.” the pace fastens incredibly, ashton’s skin slapping against my own. my breath grew jagged, trying my best to keep it under control with the amount of pleasure i was gaining. i could feel the pit of stomach turn to a knot, begging to be unraveled. “oh god, please, please,” was the only thing i could muster. my eyes were glued shut that the only thing i could see were little white spots. my walls closed around ashton, making it harder for him to move inside me.

“fuck, baby, ‘m not gonna last much longer.” ashton grunted. one of calum’s hands went down to rub fast circles around my clit, while his arm still held my leg back. “don’t fucking stop, don’t you fucking stop!” i groaned. “such a dirty mouth for such a sweet girl.” calum said, continuing to move his hand. i could feel that knot begin to unravel, waves of pleasure moving through every part of my body. my bottom lip was between my teeth, biting down so hard it was just about to draw blood.

i gave my all to ashton, while he road out my orgasm with his quickly approaching. “daddy, please, i want it.” i begged for him to keep going. his hips were thrusting against mine hard. i was extremely sensitive, but ashton didn’t stop until he was spewing his release inside me. his shoulders hunched making him muster the most inhumane groans. once ashton had pulled out of me, his release and mine were dripping onto the sheets. his finger caught the smallest bit of it and brought it up to my mouth. “go ahead, taste it.” he says, putting his pointer finger into my mouth.

calum was rubbing my arm up and down slowly, calming me down from the second orgasm of the day. i closed my eyes and continued to suck on ashton’s finger until my breath was under control. “there’s our good girl, you want more?” calum whispered. i didn’t say anything, i couldn’t focus on anything other than my body feeling like jello. i shook my head against his shoulder, letting any feeling come back to me. “c’mon, look at me, angel.” luke said, tapping the side of my cheek. my eyes fluttered open, meeting luke’s blue ones. “think you’re gonna behave now?” he asks, rubbing my cheek. i nodded my head and let my eyes shut again.

“we don’t need to go to the darker room, doll.”

[lifeonashelf]

COLDPLAY

Let’s get this straight right off the bat: Coldplay is fucking terrible.

We all know this. Designating Coldplay as terrible isn’t a statement of personal opinion, it is an easily demonstrable fact. Just listen to them; Coldplay’s music proves the existence of Coldplay’s terribleness the same way that breathing proves the existence of oxygen. Surely, even the band’s staunchest supporters understand that their songs are pretentious, monotonous, and unimaginative—they’d kind of have to; I assume these people have listened to Coldplay, too. If you like music as superfluous as Coldplay’s, that’s totally fine. I’m not here to tell you that you shouldn’t, nor to convince you to stop listening to Coldplay (you can’t stop listening to them, anyway; no matter how hard you try to escape, wherever you go, Coldplay will find you). But they are unequivocally fucking awful, and I need to make that clear before we continue in case I end up saying anything courteous about them later. And, who knows? I may indeed find something positive to say about Coldplay—I mean, nothing comes to mind right now, but it’s going to take me a few hours to write this piece so it’s possible something will at some point.  

Okay, so we’re all clear on Coldplay being fucking terrible, right? Great. But that isn’t the main reason I hate them. I appreciate plenty of terrible bands just as I appreciate plenty of terrible movies. Listening to a really shitty group is sort of like watching a cast of really shitty actors—though they clearly suck at what they do, there’s something oddly appealing about the charming naiveté they demonstrate by giving it the best go they can anyway.

For instance, since I was still filing most of my Warped Tour emo discs in my punk section when I began this venture, I never got around to writing about a band called Adair. If you’re not familiar with them, don’t worry about it; they only existed for a few years in the mid-aughts and their diminutive discography merely consists of a self-released EP and one full-length album, The Destruction Of Everything Is The Beginning Of Something New. Sonically, Adair were so amusingly prototypical of every baby t-shirt screamo band that was thriving at the time, they essentially sounded like they were parodying the style of music they played (although, to be fair, a lot of those squads did). But, Adair were absolutely serious, regardless of what stridently nasal heights the vocals reached, regardless of how faithfully their compositions adhered to their genre’s textbook page by page, and regardless of the sublimely ridiculous realms some of their allegorical angst lamentations ventured into (the line “lock me up in Guantanamo Bay and throw away the key” from the song “I Buried My Heart In Cosmo Park” may very well be the lyrical apex of their entire genus).

Adair’s music is so inane that it makes me laugh out loud when I sing along to it—but here’s the thing: I do sing along to it. I have probably played The Destruction Of Everything Is The Beginning Of Something New a hundred times from start to finish since my copy was sent to me to review for some website back in 2006, and I have cued up individual high(low?)points like “The Diamond Ring” and “Folding and Unfolding” even more times than that. As silly as they sound—and trust me, they sound very fucking silly—I still sincerely enjoy their tunes and have spent enough hours listening to TDOEITBOSN for it to possibly qualify as one of my favorite records ever. Shit, even writing about it right now makes me feel like hearing the disc, so I’ll probably end up blasting it in my truck tomorrow (ed. note: I actually did). If they ever decided to do a reunion tour, I would absolutely go see them, and if vocalist Rob Tweedie did that whole “hold the microphone out toward the crowd so they can finish the lyric” thing which every frontman in every band that sounds like Adair does at least a dozen times per show, I would totally be able to fill in each of those blanks and enthusiastically do so.

Sorry, we were talking about Coldplay. To recap, they’re fucking terrible.

Unlike a frivolous whimper-core ensemble like Adair, the most off-putting thing about Coldplay isn’t their music. They’ve actually managed to excrete a few tracks that I grudgingly enjoy over the years. However, sporadically releasing songs which don’t sound like they were specifically written for Gap commercials actually works against Coldplay in this instance. Sure, most of their output is noxious twaddle, but since they occasionally come across as a marginally decent band, their work isn’t awful enough to at least ironically appreciate it for being awful.

In fact, there’s absolutely nothing ironic about Coldplay—other than U2 and Radiohead (more on them in a minute), I can’t think of another band that seems to take itself as dreadfully seriously as Coldplay does. There isn’t a single lighthearted number in their entire catalog, and the demeanor of their music is so staid and cheerless that it’s hard to imagine the dudes ever cracking a smile while they’re making it. Their approach to songwriting is rigidly Pavlovian—when the music gets louder, ring ring ring, that signals the listener the *really* poignant part of the tune has arrived and cues them to emotionally salivate in kind—yet despite their calculated use of sonic dynamics to manufacture sentiment, the vapid and unspontaneous nature of the delivery saps their tunes of anything resembling genuine soul or passion. Even when thrusting through the more energetic tracks in their litany, the musicians in Coldplay always sound like they’re actively striving to not play their instruments too hard. The result is that they consistently deliver some of the safest and least edgy rock ever created, shaping their ethos around a formula so willfully tepid and cuddly that they barely qualify as a rock band at all. Coldplay aren’t quite the musical equivalent of plain yogurt (that would be Jack Johnson, an artist so comprehensively flavorless that even his name is fucking boring) but the granola in their mixture is always judiciously distributed so as not to agitate anyone’s tastebuds.

And at the center of this slow-motion kaleidoscope, you have Chris fucking Martin (I find it difficult to cite his name without including the “fucking” in there; he’s just one of those guys—like Jason fucking Mraz, Blake fucking Shelton, or fucking Bono). Coldplay’s music may be stagnant, but you’d never know it from beholding the practiced arsenal of slinky paroxysms their vocalist bursts into while that music is playing. In performance and in their videos, Martin’s appendages are incessantly in motion, his hands ever-swaying gently through the air like he’s waving a pair of invisible cigarette lighters or finger painting on the goddamn sky, ostensibly so deeply lost in his band’s reverie of sound that he simply can’t help himself from moving his body in a cadenced pantomime of the way their music is meant to superficially move your spirit.

For the three non-ballads the group has written in their career, Chris usually switches things up by crouching in an incongruous bobbing panther-stance like a battle rapper delivering a diss track about fucking his opponent’s mama in the mouth, until it’s time to freeze in the tried and true messiah-statue pose as the number’s final notes chime into the ether. But it is in the quiet moments when Martin truly shines—which makes perfect sense given that he’s the leader of a group so systematically anodyne they probably should have actually named themselves Quiet Moments. These are the obligatory interims where the frontman takes the stage on his own to sit down at the piano, resplendent in the spotlight, and perform an intimate solo rendition of one of his most tender hits to show everyone in the audience that Chris fucking Martin is a bonafide fucking musician who, if he really felt like it, could totally do the whole Coldplay thing without the other three dudes whose names no one knows. His soaring falsetto croon is custom-feigned for the arenas the band was destined to coldplay from the moment they dropped their breakthrough single “Yellow” and caused a nation of book-sensitive sociology majors eagerly anticipating the arrival of their generation’s U2 to cream their Dockers in unison. When Martin opens his pipes to summon those indelibly contrived choruses about birds and stars and other monosyllabic nouns, it hardly even matters what words he’s singing—the leitmotifs in most of the tunes are basically interchangeable anyway. What matters is that Chris sounds like he really, really, really means it when he says he will try to fix you.

That analysis probably makes it seem like I hate Chris fucking Martin as much as I hate his band. I actually don’t—he’s too benign a character to elicit such a fervid response; hating Chris Martin is like hating turtleneck sweaters, or actual turtles. In fact, I suspect he’s probably a really nice dude.  At least, I’ve never heard any creepy stories about him showing his penis to under-aged fans on Skype or anything like that.

Regardless, while I don’t specifically despise either Martin, Dude Who Plays Guitar, or the other two anonymous members of Coldplay, I do gauge their collective as the fourth or fifth worst band of all time. And the reason I loathe them more than any of their neighbors on that list is because they aren��t the kind of prodigiously abysmal group you can just ignore until their moment in the spotlight inevitably passes—which is how I dealt with Five For Fighting from September 2001 through February 2002 and how I’ve been dealing with Twenty-One Pilots for the last four years (seriously, are you fuckers done yet?). Coldplay is a far cagier nuisance because they are massively popular and have been for a ludicrously long time. I’ve been patiently waiting for them to go away for two decades now, yet they continue to pop up every third summer or so to drop a new album and remind us that, yes, they’re still here assiduously mining the middle of the road for new ways to write more tunes about clouds being pretty.

Even worse, I can’t disregard their music because it’s everywhere. I hear “The Scientist” while I’m shopping for cereal at the grocery store, I hear “Talk” when I sit down to eat at any chain restaurant, and I imagine I’ll be viewing that idiotic video for “Adventure of a Lifetime” with the posse of animated dancing monkeys on an infinite Clockwork-Orange-eyes-gaping loop for the rest of eternity when my mortal essence exits this world and I am cast into the fiery pits of Hell. I can’t even watch football without encountering Coldplay, as I discovered with horror in 2016 when they took part in the most fatuous jumbled fucking mess of a Super Bowl halftime show the NFL had ever presented (a zenith of suckery which seemed impossible to eclipse until this past February, when Adam Levine showed up covered with prison tattoos and said, “hold my beer”).

The pervasive level of esteem Coldplay has reached dumbfounds me. This is a group that has sold millions and millions of albums worldwide, even though I have never once heard a single person utter the phrase, “man, that new Coldplay song kicks ass.” I’m sure their most dedicated fans have favorite hits, tracks that are significant to them in some way, etc. But their remarkable success is patently disproportionate to how patently unremarkable the work which garnered that success really is. Nobody ever describes the band’s music as “awesome”, just as nobody ever describes a glass of pinot gris as awesome—the term simply does not apply to their province; actually, in this case, describing the mouthfeel of Coldplay tunes and recommending cheeses they best pair with is probably more relevant than discussing how they sound. Coldplay is as universally popular as they are precisely because they aren’t awesome. They’re not beloved because they’re extraordinary; most people love them because they’re innocuous, functional, and suitable for almost any occasion—Coldplay is akin to a pair of cargo shorts, and no one thinks cargo shorts kick ass. Coldplay isn’t an alternative band (on the contrary, almost every good band is an alternative to Coldplay); they are a lowest common denominator band, undemanding and ubiquitous and safe to like because everyone else likes them. Their work is specifically geared toward people who think appreciating music demonstrates sophistication, but don’t ultimately give enough of a shit about the artform to put any effort into finding music that is actually sophisticated or appreciable. You may assume Coldplay is erudite because they’re British and they cite books you’ve never read when discussing the lyrical themes in their work, but they’re merely recycling the same emotional territory as every other pop act that writes tunes about finding love, losing love, missing love, and the 18th Century French peasantry.

The best thing about being a Coldplay fan is that it’s easy. You don’t have to buy their records, go see them live, or make any concerted effort at all to receive their music. If you listen to the radio for any extended period of time (or eat at an Applebee’s), you will eventually hear one of their songs; all you have to do is not hate it and, voila, you’re officially a Coldplay fan. There, don’t you just love the security of venerating a critically and commercially acclaimed band that will never challenge you or be unpopular?

Okay, I do strive to be fair—even in this arena where I can say whatever I want and no one can argue with me. I gave this a lot of thought, so here are four things about Coldplay that are not terrible:

 1)      “Clocks”: I resisted it for many years, but I finally had to concede that it’s kind of a pretty song. Notes of red currant and blackberries, and it goes superbly with a nice aged brie.

2)      “God Put A Smile On Your Face”: It doesn’t put a smile on mine, but that’s why I enjoy it. Most Coldplay songs sound like they’re aiming to evoke what being hugged by a koala bear feels like, so I appreciate Chris fucking Martin delivering a darker number that seems intent on making me feel depressed instead. Well played, sir.

3)      Viva La Vida, Or Death And All His Friends: I sincerely respect their effort to broaden their palate a bit by working with Brian Eno and making Dude Who Plays Guitar buy a distortion pedal to use on one song. This is still an archetypal shitty Coldplay record, but at least it sounds a little different than all of the other archetypal shitty Coldplay records.

4)      Nah. They’re still fucking terrible; they were lucky to get three things.

 There is one additional facet of the group’s career which has fascinated me over these past several years, even though it relates more to bands that are not Coldplay rather than the band that is Coldplay. Earlier I dubbed them the U2 of their generation, and recent events in particular have coalesced to underscore that comparison. See, when Coldplay came out, the tributes to their Irish brethren in choreographed affectation were far from subtle. Chris fucking Martin’s warbling was plainly modeled after fucking Bono’s, Dude Who Plays Guitar served up an endless cycle of repetitive but hooky high-register licks that were striking similar to the distinctive methodology of The Edge, and both bands’ workmanlike rhythm sections held things down with competent yet discreet backing tracks which militantly fulfilled each song’s basic requirements rather than showcasing the musicians’ dexterity. I don’t think anyone ever disputed the collective homage in Coldplay’s dogma, and no one was terribly bothered by it either; at the time there were a lot of people craving a band that sounded just like U2, because U2 didn’t sound like U2 anymore.

When Coldplay’s debut album Parachutes was released in July 2000, fucking Bono and company’s career was on a downward arc after they largely vacated their signature approach to instead craft a couple poorly-received discs dominated by insipid rave-lite tunes that not even the members of U2 listen to anymore. Though they would temporarily rebound later that year with “Beautiful Day”, the last honestly excellent song they would ever record, U2 had left a gap that needed filling. And the most obvious inheritors of their kingdom, Radiohead, had grown tired of anthemic guitar rock; they were hunkered down creating their demanding but exceptional opus Kid A, which sounded nothing like U2, nothing like Radiohead, and indeed nothing like any other music being made on planet Earth. Kid A still had some anthems, still had some guitar, and still had a little rock, but its oblique delivery clearly demonstrated that Radiohead was chasing a far different muse and had little interest in claiming the crown (of course, this would be abundantly clarified in hindsight when they subsequently slid further down their rabbit-hole, gradually abandoning the anthems and guitars and rock altogether, until finally settling upon their current songwriting formula, which seems to mostly involve Thom Yorke masturbating on his laptop, naming ten of his climaxes, and calling it an album).

So while U2 were busy trying to figure out why they weren’t relevant anymore and Radiohead were busy doing whatever the fuck they were doing, the lads in Coldplay stepped up and said, hey, why not us? They seized the ersatz-earnest arena rock mantle with A Rush Of Blood To The Head and never looked back. Now, 17 years and seven multi-platinum albums later, they can ruin the Super Bowl, collaborate with the Chainsmokers, and even make the same kind of lameass dance music that essentially buried U2’s career with impunity. Even more significant, they have come full circle. A group that started out playing second-rate U2 facsimiles under the moniker Pectoralz (this is absolutely true, by the way) is now one of the hugest pop institutions in the universe, beloved by millions of music and wine connoisseurs across the globe. And the student has eclipsed the teacher; U2’s desperate efforts to play catchup have made their modern work sound unmistakably like second-rate Coldplay facsimiles. Chris fucking Martin and those other three guys are no longer pretenders to the throne—they are Coldplay, and this is their empire now, bitches.

These days, U2 has to reprise their old records in their entirety on nostalgia tours to get anyone to come to their concerts, and Radiohead continues to release unlistenable albums which their fans claim to love while sheepishly casting them aside to listen to OK Computer for the thousandth time instead. But Coldplay has strategically situated themselves for an eternity as the undisputed emperors of rock mediocrity. I think they’ve got another two decades in them, too; I have no doubt that long after Twenty-One Pilots is (finally) relegated to the county fair circuit where they belong, Chris fucking Martin will still be promising sold-out crowds that lights will lead them home and having a series of polite, gently-articulated seizures while he sings “Speed Of Sound”.

It seems I respect Coldplay a little more than I suspected. You know what? I’m going to amend my original valuation right here and now. As of this moment, I am formally designating Coldplay the sixth worst band of all time.

Your move, Godsmack.

 May 15, 2019

[hes-writer]

The Other Woman

Harry cheats while he’s on tour

Summary: Harry and Y/N are both famous, he cheats and the media has a field day 

Warnings: angst, the usual

Word count: 3.8k

Based on: harry cheats on reader and there both famous and media plays a big part on the whole cheating scandal by @coolkimchijoy16

Harry and Y/N were both singers. They were both blessed with wonderful voices, both were successful in their field, and of course-- they were famous. It was her and Harry against the world, especially since their level of fame made it hard for anyone else not in the business to keep up with their busy schedules. Harry’s first solo world tour since One Direction coincided with Y/N’s fourth solo tour. I guess you could say that she upped him on that area. But anyways, Harry had the brilliant idea to make sure that they were staying at each city two days at a time to make sure that they’ll spend the max amount of time together. Sometimes Y/N would perform the first night while Harry watched and vice versa. It kept them close to each other.

Harry’s second world tour was what caused probably the bumpiest moment in their relationship. While Y/N stayed at their home, driving a half hour route to and fro the studio writing her tracks for her new album that will be released soon, Harry was off in Europe touring proudly. And it was great, she was thrilled for him and he was doing what he loved the most with the utmost passion. Until he forgot to text and call her, breaking their pact of checking in on each other at least once a day.

It started off simple, really. It only took one day for him to break the streak. Y/N had sent in a ‘goodnight’ text to which he would’ve probably said ‘good morning’ due to the time differences, but after hours of not getting a reply back, Y/N felt uneasy. It wasn’t because she didn’t trust him, but rather she was worried if anything serious had happened to him and knowing that she couldn’t be by his side in an instant made her agitated. She put it off to the back of her mind because even though it was highly unlikely for Harry to miss a day, it can happen to anyone. Maybe something unexpected change in his schedule, she thought.

The next time it happened their video call got cut short. Usually, it would be the internet connection cracking their voices, making it unable for either of them to decipher each others’ words, but this time was different. While Y/N was ranting on about an intern accidentally spilling coffee on the soundboard, Harry would only nod along and respond during the appropriate moments. Y/N could tell that his attention wasn’t focused on her since he kept looking at something behind his laptop, but she was too busy trying to get every detail in the story correct. Her eyes would watch his face through the screen, seeing his hazy eyes eyeing something behind the screen. She wished that Harry would have decided to pay attention to her because she didn’t have an ounce in her body to question him over something so silly. But when he said “mhm” at an unusual spot in her sentence, Y/N couldn’t help it anymore.

“Okay Harry, what’s going on? Is there something more interesting going on behind the laptop?” she jokes slightly, more curious if anything.

“W-wha-? Nothing, nothing love” He shifts his eyes to her figure on the screen of his computer. “Continue what you were saying,”

Y/N picked up her story from where she left off, glad that she finally had Harry’s attention back on her. When her eyes caught his figure on the screen again, she couldn’t help but let her voice waver. It was obvious that he wasn’t interested in her story so she decided to ask about his day.

He blinks twice before clearing his throat, looking discombobulated from a simple question.

"It was f-fine. How's yours?" He gulped thickly.

"It was good the usual. I went grocery shopp-," she paused when he interrupted her.

"Oh wow"

She furrowed her eyebrows, starting to get really confused at his behavior.

"Okay, that’s it. What’s going on, babe?” Y/N questions him, her voice sturdy and broad wanting to get answers from his strange behavior.

“Nothing, nothing! I gotta go though,” He scratched the back of his neck; a nervous habit. “I’ll call you tonight.”

His large hand reached over to close his laptop, not fully closing the device but enough for Harry to think that the call had ended.

Y/N stares at the keys illuminated by the brightness of the screen, astounded by what had just happened. He didn’t even say ‘I love you’. His laptop had shuffled some against the surface of the bed, making static sounds blast through her headphones. She was about to pull one bud out of her ear, envisioning a mental check-list for the errands she had to do today.

That was when she heard it. It was faint at first, so quiet that she had to pop the bud back in, straining her ears to pick up the familiar sound of Harry’s groan. Her brows lift some, wondering if he was pleasuring himself because the noise was something that she had embedded in her mind; it wasn’t hard to distinguish. She turned up the volume, high enough so that the next time his lips parted, she didn’t have to try hard to hear it. But this time was different.

This time, it was accompanied by another moan—higher pitched than his and it was definitely a woman. Y/N wasn’t stupid, she knew that. What confused her more was who it was and why they were making those noises. Somewhere, after a time of dumbfounded-ness, she found herself gasping, hands shooting up to cover her mouth. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, unable to accept a truth that she had conjured up. Could he be cheating?

“No, no. He wouldn’t do that. He loves me” she mutters as quietly as possible as to not have Harry and his lady-friend hear her. Frankly, it would be a miracle if they had considering that they were obviously preoccupied with their actions.

Y/N didn’t know why but she listened until the expanse of the scene ended when she should’ve ended the call right then and there or maybe made her presence known. She stayed in the call even after the laptop was–assuming–kicked off the bed due to their rough actions. She could hear every moan of pleasure transmit through the speakers of the laptop to her earphones, like nails on a chalkboard.

Tears welled up in her eyes, there was no denying the truth. Even though she couldn’t see it, hearing it was enough evidence that he was unfaithful. He couldn’t deny it no matter how hard he tried, Y/N knows, knew, Harry and his persistent nature. He would do anything to get her to believe him and usually, she would, but this time is off beyond his expertise. She had proof right in front of her and so what if she wants to deny the truth at first? Doesn’t everybody go through that? She wasn’t at all prepared by something like this sneaking up and hitting her straight in the face; nothing could’ve foreshadowed this for her.

Y/N could feel her heartbreaking each time they both gasped for air, further emphasizing the fact that they were enjoying this–how he was consciously destroying their relationship–and metaphorically meaning that they left each other breathless. Her ears bled, hands twitching to snatch the buds off of her ears trying to mute the sound but also being too frozen, to pained, to hurt to do anything except listen. Listen as Harry pants another woman’s name under his breath instead of hers. Listen as he released tortured moans at a time as if he couldn’t be any closer to her. And even when the signal roughed up some, the transmission still being well enough that Y/N could her Harry declare a statement he should’ve only given to Y/N.

“I love you, Jess,” his voice was quiet and muffled but hearing it felt like he was shouting to Y/N.

Harry and the woman reached their peak and Y/N was in tears. Cheeks were red and wet with an emotional outpouring that she didn’t expect to have today. Her chin dribbling some from the amount she had released. What was she to do now? Her brain alarmed her fight-or-flight response when she saw Harry’s laptop camera move some, indicating that he had picked it up from the ground. She ended the call just before he could open it fully.

---

It was true. Harry was cheating on Y/N and he had not felt an ounce of negativity to himself until now, or recently. It happened once, he got off stage on a high from the praises he’d received, endorphins tingling up his legs from the constant movements he was doing for hours, his blood pumping adrenaline through his veins and he ran to his dressing room on a whim to change to casual clothes before heading out for drinks with the crew. As soon as he opened the door, he was immediately pushed back against it by scratchy fingernails grabbing his biceps. He blinked to refocus his vision and was met with Jessa.

She was an old fling that Harry had months before meeting and making it official with Y/N. They ended on good terms, surprising for a no strings attached relationship before he had dropped her for Y/N. He was certain that she was the last hurrah for his bachelor lifestyle before indulging in a serious relationship with the infamous, Y/N Y/LN.

“Miss me, H?” She whispers seductively, red lips brushing against his own and he knew he should’ve pushed her body away right then. But instead, utters a breathy ‘yes’, hormones releasing and he could feel his cock plump up in his pants.

Her thin left hand made its way down his body slowly, giving him a lot of time to think about what he was about to do, but his brain had turned into much and pretty soon, his member was being squeezed deliciously. He released an explicit moan, hips pushing off the door and grinding against her skin.

“You sure about this?” Jessa asked. And in retrospect, he should’ve said no. Should’ve remembered Y/N—his girlfriend, Y/N who was waiting for him at their home across the pond patiently, loyal and faithful to him. But he didn’t.

—-

Video calls with Y/N were the best way of communicating, he preferred this more than texting or calling because he could see her face and hear her voice at the same time. He could see when her emotions changed her facial expression whether it be because she was talking about something she was passionate about or how her smile reaches her eyes when a new tune made its way through her mind.

Except, he couldn’t focus. Not when Jessa was situated at the foot of the bed, a meter away from where he was, dressed in skimpy lingerie that was literally too hot for him to not want to rip it off of her. He was aware that Y/N was talking about something she’d figured highlighted her day but it felt like she was drowning on and on to Harry. He couldn’t concentrate on her when Jessa started massaging her breasts, hair flipped over her shoulder and hips swaying from side to side, forcing Harry’s green eyes to follow.

He gulped when she reached behind her to unhook her bra, letting the straps fall but keeping the cups up with her manicured hands. He looked down to his center, seeing a bulge in his sweatpants. Then, he looked at his laptop, seeing Y/N looking at him expectantly.

“It was f-fine. How was yours?” His brain was a puddle at this point, all the blood in him seemed to be rushing towards his dick. Not for Y/N, but for Jessa.

After a few words were exchanged between him and Y/N, he made a promise to call her later. A bullshit promise, he thinks. He was certain that Jessa was gonna keep him busy tonight. Before closing his laptop, he catches sight of Y/N face and for the first time, he felt his heart twist. What am I doing?

He was bombarded by thoughts such as “what would she do if she found out” and “you’re ruining this relationship”, his hand pausing halfway but he didn’t have time to dwell on it because Jessa was taking the device from his hold, putting it aside. She crawled over him, straddling his body.

When all was said and done, Harry opened his laptop fully after externally observing if there was any critical damage after accidentally kicking it off the bed. He was met with his call log, eyes widening when saw that his and Y/N’s lasted over an hour when he was absolutely sure that he ended it at the forty-five-minute mark because of Jessa.

She knows

Harry’s heart articulated more even after his activities. Beside him, Jessa was drifting off asleep in his hotel bedroom. On what would usually be Y/N’s side of the bed. Another woman was sleeping there instead of Y/N and oh god. He felt bile rise up his throat. He messed up.

She knows and he’s going to leave him.

And his legs shook from fear, spine-tingling forcing him to sit up straighter as if to imply that he had no choice but to face his mistakes head-on. His head swirls to inspect the room. Evidence of infidelity littered around the room; the ruffled sheets, Jessa’s lingerie, her overnight bag and, and of course, another woman. Suddenly, it’s as if everything rushed into Harry, rendering him breathless at the realization. He cheated. And maybe this time is different because this time, he saw Y/N and her sodden face, confused and saddened by him acting indifferent towards her that he had seen a glimpse of what it would actually be like when she finds out about his foolish actions. It somehow made it more realistic, as stupid as that sounds, that he was in a committed relationship with Y/N.

And what was he supposed to say to her when admitting the truth when the only sole reason he did what he had done was that he was lonely.

And you weren’t there

He’d sound like an asshole saying that, not like he isn’t one already.

His eyes burnt with salty tears begging to be released. Harry walked to the bathroom seeing a brush and toiletries that Y/N would never use–another gust of shame hits him and he tumbled over his own feet, catching himself on the marble counter. He inhaled deeply, in and out, trying to calm himself before he breaks down completely. He wouldn’t and couldn’t do so especially in the presence of someone he barely knew. Jessa was someone he didn’t share a lot of personal atrocities with, Y/N was and he whimpered at the guilt building up inside him. Y/N should be here instead of Jessa.

She knows me better than anyone

He couldn’t believe that he had the audacity to do this to someone he loved, someone he loves and he couldn’t even begin to scold himself for accidentally letting the words slip out during his rendezvous with Jessa.

stupid.

He went to the bathroom to escape the atmosphere of the affair, but he wishes he would’ve stayed because now that he was looking at his reflection in the mirror; he felt tainted. Purple marks dotted his skin, scratches welling up over his soft flesh and he thinks of how Y/N would be more careful with him because she knows how painful it gets.

He took a scalding shower hoping that the heat will melt away traces of disloyalty and partly because he deserved the physical pain he was feeling. She knows and I have to own up to it kept repeating in his mind.

After drying himself, he dressed in a shirt and a new pair of sweatpants before situating himself on the couch. It was late and even though kicking out Jessa was in his best interest, he was a good guy (albeit, a jerk) it would be dangerous for her at this time of the night. She’ll be gone first thing in the morning

He walked over to the sofa but was stopped by his phone lighting up. It was a text message from Y/N.

lovie

“i love you, h ❤️”

Harry stares at this message for a few seconds, making connections and choices in his head. His gaze shifts from the phone to the woman on his bed, and in a quick decision, he lifted the heavy duvet up before making himself comfortable beside Jessa.

Maybe she doesn't know.

Harry thinks as he wrapped his arms around the other woman.

part 2? 

[rapuvdayear]

2000: “Ghetto Qu’ran (Forgive Me)” 50 Cent (Trackmaster Ent./Columbia)

It’s been over a year since I teased the idea of doing a post about my favorite 50 Cent tracks, so I guess now is as good a time as ever to get around to it! 

With the exception of maybe Kanye, I can’t think of another rapper with more raw talent whose career has been more disappointing. Obviously both Ye and Fiddy have been monstrously successful, but IMO they either burned brightly before descending into white supremacy apologia (Kanye) or never achieved their best possible trajectory (50). It’s not an accident to put them together in this way, either; just 12 years ago next month they faced off in what turned out to be a very underwhelming battle over whose album would sell better (this was back when album sales, not streaming numbers, still meant something). In many ways, it was a crossroads for each artist: Kanye dropped what I believe was his magnum opus, then followed it up with his fourth-best album, third-best album, and second-best album, before dropping off a cliff, while 50′s release basically removed him from the conversation about who was relevant in rap (“My Gun Go Off” and “I Get Money” are honorable mentions for the list below, but otherwise Curtis is entirely forgettable). 

These days, 50 has gone the Ice Cube route and is probably more recognizable as an actor than as a rapper. So, it’s hard to remember that once upon a time he was the savior of gangsta rap and (co-)author of one of the 25 greatest albums of all time. He beat the odds to survive a shooting, link up with the two heaviest hitters (at the time) in the rap game, and even be included on some GOAT lists. He also essentially established the “flood the streets with mixtapes before your album drops” strategy of self-promotion that Gucci, Weezy, and even Drake would follow in the days before Soundcloud was the go-to resource for building a rep. He singlehandedly destroyed a rival’s career, launched a clothing line, video game, and music label, and made a halfway-decent biopic. And then... he just sort of petered out. 

But! 50 is also responsible for some of my all-time favorite raps, which is why it’s so frustrating to me that he never lived up to the buzz surrounding him back in 2003. These are my five favorites, listed chronologically, with some commentary:

1) “Ghetto Qu’ran (Forgive Me)” (2000) Before the G-Unit days and before Eminem and Dre helped launch him to superstardom, Curtis Jackson was an up and coming rapper from Queens who had attracted the attention of another rap legend, Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay. A mutual friend introduced 19 year-old 50 to Jay back in 1996, and the veteran producer/DJ gave him a crash course in how to write songs and signed him to his fledgling label. The business relationship didn’t work out, but it helped lead 50 to Columbia Records’ Trackmasters imprint where he recorded Power of the Dollar in 1999. However, this debut album would never see the light of day after 50 was shot nine times while sitting in a friend’s car and subsequently dropped by Columbia. In the wake of the shooting--and then later, after 50 blew the fuck up in 2003--it became a sort of “lost cult classic” among rap fans. “How To Rob” got the most attention at the time, a funny-yet-vicious song demonstrating 50′s hunger through fantasies about sticking up famous rappers and R&B stars (the song was also clearly an homage to Biggie’s unreleased “Dreams,” and provoked an oblique diss from Ghostface). But “Ghetto Qu’ran” has had a more lasting impact, primarily because of how it was rumored to be the source of 50′s shooting, Jam Master Jay’s murder, and the Ja Rule/Murder Inc. beef. While all of that intrigue is important to rap lore, it distracts from the fact that it’s a near perfect rap song from a technical perspective: a catchy hook, a fantastic beat and sample, an effortless flow, and a well-crafted story that is equal parts celebration of the Queens underworld and subtle shots at street legends. Seriously, this is akin to what traveling bards used to do in medieval Europe, what poets in Ancient Greece wrote, what west African griots did/do, and what narcocorrido artists do now. If you want to learn about the Supreme Team, Pappy Mason, the Corley Family, and the Rich Porter/Alpo crew in Harlem, then this is a good place to start; as 50 puts it, “consider this the first chapter of the ghetto’s Qu’ran.” The secondary title to this track--“Forgive Me”--has a double meaning now. It was initially a plea to forgive 50 for the pain he caused in his criminal life but in retrospect an appeal to the figures whose names he drops. Also, it’s interesting to listen to this first and then compare 50′s voice with the next four tracks: this was recorded before the shooting, which left a bullet fragment lodged in his tongue that affected his speech and gave him his now-distinctive flow.    

2) “Heat” (2003) There are several standouts on Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (“Many Men,” “Back Down,” “What Up Gangsta,” “Patiently Waiting,” and “Poor Lil’ Rich” spring to mind, and I will always love “21 Questions” for the “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” line alone) but this one has always been my fave. It’s a perfect distillation of the image that 50 was trying to project when he burst onto the scene: a hood-hardened gangster who wouldn’t hesitate to do his enemies harm. And given his recent history, you could believe him, too! There’s really nothing about this song that should be praised in any way, but I’ve been thinking about the gravity of the following line a lot in the past month or so: “The summertime is a killing season/ It’s hot out this bitch, that’s a good enough reason.” Also, 50′s boast “the DA can play this motherfucking tape in court” *has* to be one of the inspirations behind this great Key & Peele sketch, right? 

3) “A Baltimore Love Thing” (2005) The Massacre was incredibly disappointing on the whole. I can remember clearly sitting around with my friends in a dorm room at the Shoreland listening to it all the way through the day that it dropped, wanting to love it but slowly realizing that it wasn’t going to live up to our expectations. “Ski Mask Way” could be an honorable mention on this list, and “Piggy Bank” is kind of funny, but otherwise it’s a steaming pile of shit. “Baltimore Love Thing,” though, is a masterpiece. It’s incredibly dark, rapped from the perspective of heroin itself (sort of like what Nas’s “I Gave You Power” does for guns) in order to detail the destruction that addiction--and, by extension, drug trafficking--leaves in its wake. Even more fucked up, 50-as-heroin voices an abusive partner addressing a woman, threatening her should she ever try to leave him. For my money, “You broke my heart, you dirty bitch, I won’t forget what you did/ If you give birth, I’ll already be in love with your kids” is one of the coldest lines in the annals of rap, full stop. In the second verse, he switches to the flip side of an abuser’s mindset: “I never steer you wrong, if you hyper I make you calm/ I’ll be your incentive, your reason for you to move forward.” All in all, it’s a great concept song that shows off 50′s range as a rapper... and is a testament to what he could have been.

4) “Hustler’s Ambition” (2005) Goddamn, I fucking love everything about this song! The beat is fantastic (great sample, btw), prefiguring the sound on a future great mixtape from the G-Unit crew. 50′s flow here is flawless, arguably the best, smoothest he’s ever been. This was basically the “theme” for 2005′s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ film, and tells the story of his come up in the drug game (or, at least, 50′s version of his carefully constructed hagiography). The lyrics are the true gems here, so I’ll just let a few of the standouts speak for themselves:

“Check my logic: fiends don’t like seeds in they weed, shit/ Send me them seeds, I’ll grow ‘em what they need”

“I sell anything, I’m a hustler, I know how to grind/ Step on grapes, put it in water, and tell you it’s wine”

“I made plans to make it, a prisoner of the state/ Now I can invite your ass out to my estate”

“Pour Cristal in the blender, make a protein shake”

and finally

“The feds watch me, icy, they can’t stop me/ Racists pointing at me, ‘Look at *****race’: Hello!”   

5) “Ghetto Like A Motherfucker” (2011) I remember first encountering this track on a Tumblr compilation (I think?) called Don’t Fuck This Up, Curtis! and allowing myself to get excited that the old 50 was back! As the compilation’s name implies, around that time 50 had been releasing a string of online-only singles that were better than anything he’d put out in five or so years, and so there was some hope that he’d soon be making a triumphant return to the rap game. Sadly, this was not to be. But I still bang this track every month or so. The idea here was that 50 had written something, set it to a very sparse, stripped-down beat, and posted it online as an invitation for DIY rap producers to play with it and layer their own compositions on top of it. In that sense, it represented a melange of rap’s earliest roots--dudes spitting over vinyl cuts in basements and parks, just fucking around and having fun--and the possibilities afforded by the digital age and rap’s embrace of online platforms for mixing and remixing material (on a side note, I like to think of this as part of 21st century rap’s “punk rock” aesthetic, and would argue that this genre has done it better than any other). As with “Hustler’s Ambition,” “Baltimore Love Thing,” and “Ghetto Qu’ran,” this track gives 50 a chance to really showcase his talents as a writer and a rapper. The lyrics are as grimy as the beat, painting a picture of urban poverty and pre-fame 50, and 50 switches up his flow at multiple points throughout. Here are some of my favorite lines:

“Slim chance I’ma go back to killing roaches/ Be quiet, you can hear the rats in the wall/ Make you wanna pump crack ‘til you stack racks”

“Dice game, shake ‘em up, praying’ for a 6/ The wolves out there hungry, they lookin’ for a lick”

“****** pissed on the staircase, in the elevator/ Now I’m pissed cuz I’m starting to smell like piss, player”

and

“All a ***** need is a block and a connect/ And a box of 9 MMs to load in the TEC.”

50′s last two studio albums--Before I Self Destruct and Animal Ambition--honestly weren’t half-bad; I would venture so far as to say that they were both better than The Massacre and Curtis. But for 50 it was too little, too late, really. Too many rappers had come along since then doing what he did, only better and fresher. This is a Migos world now; we’re just living in it. And so, I’m left to ponder what could have been. 

[jadeargents]

ig live — getting ready with me.

Checking if she was live, Jade smiled towards the camera as she raised her hand for a moment. “Hi everyone. Sorry for not announcing this live beforehand, but I didn’t know I was doing this until like five minutes ago. I’m getting ready to go out and I thought it would be a good idea to talk with you and answer some questions while I’m doing that.” She looked through her make up bag, taking only a moment of searching before she found the foundation. “I’ve already applied the primer, I’m gonna do foundation now. You can go ahead and ask anything you wanna know, as long as it’s not too personal.”

“How are you?” She read, a smile appearing on her features. “That’s nice of you to ask that first. I’m great, honestly. Living my best life. I’m writing a lot of songs, spending time with some of my favorite people, being on tour and singing my music... can’t imagine a better life right now.” Looking in the mirror she began applying the foundation, though she paused immediately after. “Disclaimer, I’m not a make up artist. I don’t know if I’m doing this the right way, I’m just mirroring what I’ve seen my own make up artist do.” Continuing, she didn’t say anything else until she finished the coverage. 

“Moving onto concealer now,” she stated as she opened the liquid concealer and applied a few lines under her eyes. She then turned towards her phone to read the next question. “What songs have I been obsessed with lately? Hold on.” Grabbing her computer, she opened her most recent Spotify playlist. “Bloodline by Denise is my fucking jam, she’s incredible. The entire album is great, honestly. Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me by Luana is also a favorite.” Seeing some of Julian’s songs on there, she decided it was time to close the playlist. She had given them enough reasons to believe they’re together without saying one of her favorite songs is a song that was written about her. “There’s a lot of them I like. I can make a playlist if you guys are interested.” She finished dabbing the concealer then moved onto the next question.  

“Have I written a song with anyone lately?” Choosing a light pink blush for her next move, she selected the right brush from her set and lightly applied the make up over her cheekbones at the same time as she replied. “I’ve written a song with Ofelia, and another one with Chasity and they’ll both be released eventually, in case you’re wondering.” She didn’t mention the other person she’s been writing songs with, since she knew they wouldn’t let it go for the rest of the live if she did. 

“Twitter or Instagram?” An uncomfortable smile appeared on her lips. “You don’t want my answer to that, I’m going to be mean.” Closing her blush, she looked towards the camera. “In all honesty, I prefer actual human interaction. Social media is great for interacting with fans, but it’s not my favorite. That’s why I’ve been distancing myself from Twitter lately. I’ve just found I feel much better when I prioritize spending time with people and limit the time I spend on my phone. If there’s a piece of advice you should take from me, it’s that one.”

Grabbing her highlighter, she looked towards her phone again to read the next question before focusing on the makeup. “Would I accept acting in a film?” Jade shrugged her shoulders. “I'm not sure. Depends if the film meant a lot to me. I would definitely have to take some acting classes before that, but why not?” She stopped applying her highlighter, setting down her brush for a moment. “Though I have to point out I wouldn’t push my singing career aside. Music is the priority, no matter what else is there.” Once she finished with that step, she chose a palette of gold tones and continued with the eyeshadow. 

“What do I think about what headlines are saying about me?” She huffed, shaking her head subtly. She was staring in the mirror as she applied her eyeshadow, but that didn’t last long because she couldn’t prevent herself from staring at the camera as she voiced her thoughts. “Frankly, I don’t give a fuck. You can quote me on that. I’m living my life and I’m being myself, and if that bothers anyone, it’s not my problem. I’m happy where I am right now and I’m not going to let anything ruin that for me.”

Reading the comments she received after her statement, her hand instinctively went to her chest, showcasing a mix of emotions on her expression. “I’m truly touched by your support, guys.” A smile appeared on her lips as she went back to adding the finishing touches to her eyeshadow. “Though I have to say you’re making me laugh with your reactions to me saying I’m happy. I didn’t think that was possible either, but what do you know? Maybe life doesn’t have a personal vendetta against me after all. Maybe I should’ve just been more patient, but well, I trust that everything happens for a reason. I’m thankful for the state of mind I’m in right now, and that’s all that counts.”

“Where’s Julian? How would I know?” A chuckle left her lips, as she began applying her eyeliner. “I don’t track him. That’s not a healthy…” she stopped, looking straight at the camera with an amused smile, “… friendship.” She continued tracing her eyeliner as if she hadn’t said anything out of common, that made the comments on her phone suddenly increase. She didn’t say anything as she waited for them to calm down, so she could go back to answering questions.

“What’s the last movie I’ve seen?” She stopped for a moment, looking towards the ceiling as she was thinking. A smile appeared on her lips as she remembered. “Funny enough, it was with Julian. We watched “The Nun” at an open air cinema event in London.” Jade read the comments, a disbelieving smile on her lips, then responded to them as she put on mascara. “Bold of you guys to assume I need someone to hold me during horror movies. I’m not afraid of them. Or anything for that matter. I’m pretty much fearless.” Except emotions, but she wouldn’t mention that. She wouldn’t tell them that she did spend that night in Julian’s arms, not because she was afraid, but because she liked being close to him.

Applying red lipstick, she then looked towards her comments. A huff left her lips as her eyes read the question. They were unbelievable. “Am I meeting Julian? Yes, I am,” she said, “I am also meeting Luana and Chasity, that doesn’t change that I’m putting on make up for myself, not for him, or anyone else I’m seeing today.” She sighed, putting her make up bag aside to look straight at the camera. “I think we’ve covered enough the subject that women do not dress or put on make up for men for you to stop insinuating at this point. You can do better.”

“You know, I should have a feminist podcast,” she said, looking through her comments and expecting to see a lot of negativity, yet that wasn’t the case. They were all encouraging and excited which kind of made her feel bad for getting their hopes up. “That was a joke. Sorry, I would, but I literally don’t know how that would fit into my schedule,” she responded, shaking her head softly with an apologetic smile. “Besides, I think I’d get too frustrated with the issues discussed and that’s not an advantage when the purpose is getting educated. You should be taught about feminism from someone who has patience, meanwhile I’m gonna keep ranting about these problems on Instagram and Twitter.” She ended her explanation with a smile, feeling much more calm when explaining herself.  

“What’s my favorite shade of lipstick? The one I’m wearing right now, actually.” Inspecting what the label was saying, she then approached the lipstick to the camera. “It’s the Fenty Beauty Mattemoiselle Plush Matte Lipstick, in the shade of Royal Red, called Madamn.” 

She removed the accessory that was holding most of her hair back. “What do I have planned for the future career wise?” She smiled as she began styling strands of her hair into waves. “I’m glad you specified what future you mean, because personal life future, I couldn’t have told you.” Realizing what she just said, she closed her eyes for a second, breathing in. She should be more careful with the way she worded things. “Because I don’t know what the future has reserved for me in that aspect, not because there’s a particular event that would happen in the future.” The last thing she needed was people sending videos of her to Julian asking him if he proposed or asking him when they were getting married. “Anyway, back to the question. I can’t tell too much, but I’m preparing for the European leg for All The Stars World Tour as you know. I’m also writing a lot, and I’ve already filmed the first two music videos for the fourth album. I can’t reveal anything about the release date right now, but you know, I’ll keep you posted.”

Once she finished with the hair, she attached it in a way that it wasn’t standing in her face, but still was cascading down her back. “Last question,” she announced as she looked through the comments until she found a good one. “What was my favorite concert I’ve performed during this tour?” There was no hesitation there, a genuine smile appearing on her lips. “New York City.” There was no doubt why. Julian was at her concert that night, and having him backstage when they hadn’t seen each other in more than a month made her feel so happy. However, she needed to divert the fans’ attention from that. “New York is one of my favorite cities, and the energy there is just incredible.” She wasn’t lying, but there were other cities where she performed that were memorable too — New York stood out because of her significant other being there. She smiled as she thought about how in love she was. It wasn’t getting less surreal with time. 

“Thanks for keeping me company as I was getting ready. I’ll keep you updated on my outfit later when I’ll post a photo. Hope the rest of your day will be good. Take care.”

[neo-shitty]

toffee!

no dont apologise! i didnt check until just then so np :)

mmm yeah it is a bit trippy. hehe ITS TRUE THO. yeah sadly i think ur right, and tag blocking is probably a good idea. sometimes smut written well or not in excess is okay but goddamn when its abt 01 line and thats the whole fic... *silently blocks tags*

hehe i do that all the time lol this conversation is carrying on threads from a month ago :) mmm yeah ur probably right sadly, same. HA HE DIDNT HAVE A CHOICE and now i have someone to talk to abt them, so thats good! I KNOW felix was actually the one who got me into skz with his iconique gods menu line so i guess i have a soft spot for him. i always tell myself my bias is chan but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ guess im more whipped than id like to admit. mmm yeah that does make sense dw i hope they do that as well. YES king seungmin hIMSELF. GODDAMNIT DONT GET ME STARTED ON MINHO IN GODS MENU I DIDNT EVEN KNOW HE WAS PART OF THE GROUP UNTIL I STARTED GETTING MORE INTO THEM. BITCH (affectionate) THE LINE DISTRIBUTION HAS BEEN UTTER DOG SHIT but *deep breath* its better now so were moving on adn hoping it stays that way. sis same but i may or may not have gone thru a rlly depressed phase and actively sought out the elimination episodes so i could actually force some tears out of my emotionless shell of a heart but what cna you do? lmaoo i feel that irl, binnie deserves more vocal lines. yesss channies accent is rlly prominent then, i think also the way he structures his phrasing? is more english speaking than korean? but yeah i totally get what ur saying. AJKSAL lmao

okay then! im excited for whenever it gets done! (maybe tag me?) ahh the cold shrivelled heart of a dark au writer beats again at the thought of torturing another poor characters very soul (/j) :(( yeah that would suck not being able to see them. ohhh ur on the other hemisphere to me! were just going into spring rn. mmm smth to look forward to! YES you put it into words. they rlly are pretty independent from the company (remember how jyp rejected that other dudes songs after like 3 seconds and then how he was apparently nervous to show the song hed written to chan cos chan was so good at writing hits ahhh sweet revenge) mmmYES we rlly need a mute and remove notifications button for our brains dont we?

YES CORRECT i totally agree. some people jsut dont give it a try, adn assume its bad cos its korean smh racist assholes. yes! im coming up to my 6 month anniv actually! sis sAME, i feel like theyre being tugged into appealing to the western american market and theyre not staying as true to their artistic flair as a group, especially with only writing english songs atm. *sigh* ah well, at least theyre bringing recognition to the kpop world. AHUH dead on, theyre going to be discarded pretty soon and then where will bp be? theyll prob go solo paths which is rlly sad but what can you do when the company is run by a prideful asshole? yg is not going to last much longer in the big four if they keep this up.

hehe you get it. oooh very cool! whos ur ult? (sorry if youve said this before) mmmm yeah good decision, i feel liek thats probably a wise decision. this is my first album release as a kpop stan (not counting mixtape oh) so i think ill get it for sentiments sake. yeah! im excited for the new music! mingi was the one who got me into them, but atm my bias is seonghwa followed by san, wooyoung and ateez but jonghos high notes man *swoon* he, yeah atm ive got jake, jay, nikki, jungwon and sunoo down so just trying to get the rest :) heh, yeah kard i rlly only got into cos of bm, ive seen him like interacting with a lot of idols and he seemed nice so i decided to check out the group. ikr gunshot man *another swoon*

no noe! i didnt know what it was until i got it lol. thx toffee ill try and take that to mind :) yeah lol im on a waiting list thats not going to be free until late september so hopefully i can hold on until then. hope ur okay, that sounds like it sucks, hope you can find someone. maybe ill just take you along on my phone and the therapist can get a two for one patient deal lmaooo. mmm, sorry no i havent mentioned it before, i dont rlly talk abt it much. uhhh basically hypermobility? if you google it, it doesnt seem bad, jsut joint flexibility but ive got the severe end of the stick, leaning towards ehlers danlos syndrome so thats fun. basically it just makes it hard for me to exercise, run, jump, stand or just walk for long periods of time and gives me a lot of joint and muscle pain so... thats fun! but obviously so many other people have it worse than me, so i try not to complain. normally in young people it will improve as they get older, but my doctor said bc its severe in me, its unlikely to get much better. but again, i dont have the worst lot in the bunch, so its all g.

oh its good that its not the bad type of rain, a light sprinkling can be relaxing sometimes. aww thx darl, the concern is appreciated but it went pretty well and i managed not to cough too much on stage or kill myself trying to run around to the other side of the stage in the pouring rain so thats good! oooh tea buddies! my dogs a labradoodle, but shes a bit more of a feral poodle lol not much labrador in her at all, unless its her relentless urge to hunt down every bird that has ever walked this earth smh :((( hopefully they can come back on soon, does uni have dances?

ahhh a mood if i ever heard one. hopefully things will get better for you soon, ik anxiety sucks ass. ooh thats always good! when its sunny here, its always melt ur thongs to the pavement hot so the nicely cool sunny days are a lovely change. hehe impatience is not so good for you, but good for us that get to see ur beautiful theme early. ahh no worries, itll come eventually hopefully. and if not, then just things that make you not anxious are good. it doesnt have to be black or white, sometimes gray is good. mmmmm sames i have midterms this week to catch up on and then two weeks of end of terms so thats fun! i hope u can overcome that a little, heres some channie to be ur motivation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8LWyNjzOww. hah! i hear that all the time, he seems to be everywhere. did you see that tiktok of hans slowed back door rap, i stg it sounded EXACTLY like namjoon, it kinda scared me. also teh beginning of another day, sounds so much like joon i swear.

that reminds me! idk ur biases! i feel like this should be smth i should know so please! feel free to elaborate!

ahh im glad, i was worried it is. mmm same, so no hard feelings if either of us misses a day or smth. ill start worrying if weeks/months have gone by, but if its just a little while thats more than fine. ill just picture you studiously completing notes and i wont worry lol

<3 w.a. 🐺

at some point i really think i'm going to start blocking accounts because blocking tags won't be enough. i saw ask tags the other day and it just made me want to bleach my eyeballs.

i could talk about god's menu felix for hours man. the teaser for god's menu that featured his part on the bridge made me look forward to the mv release. you: biases chan, also you: lixiesbabyhands. yes you are more whipped than you think. i can't believe orange haired minho was given NOTHING during that era but they kind of made up for it in the b-sides. i also hope it stays that way. the distribution for this era was pretty fair.

"torturing another poor character's soul" in all honesty, i used to live for this. 2017 me leading up to early 2020 wrote nothing but angst. i have another aussie friend on twt and tbh i'm still really (O.o) about the seasons! jyp should be terrified skz could easily take over that company. heck if skz grow old and start their own company, they'd probably do a great job at running it. PLEASE. i have issues on muting/notifications both mentally and in real life. sometimes, i just wish to disappear.

some people in my country are just disgusting tbh. not only racist but homophobic too. they label kpop as 'gay' and it DISGUSTS me. it's a problematic behavior/mindset people in my country need to fucking get rid of. anyway, HELP ME 6 MONTHS??? and i've been in this shit for like a decade eye. tbh, i’m not fond of kpop groups trying to appeal to the western audience :// it feels like they’re losing their identity in a way. yes recognition but at what cost? yg has my favorite groups but that’s one shitty company when it comes to promoting.

okay my ult! it’s haechan from nct but i consider chan an ult too. like a close second above my whopping list of kpop boys. oh yes! you should get the album just for like a keepsake? remembrance? how did mingi appeal to you? omg did you start getting interested in ateez back when he was still on hiatus? NOT YOU BIASING THE SAME PEOPLE I DID WHEN I FIRST STARTED STANNING. the infamous ateez thot-line. jongho is easily one of the best fourth gen vocalists out here, no one can change my mind :( good luck with memorizing the rest of enhypen! just in time for the comeback too. i hope i’ll get into kard soon but i’m pretty content (and a tad bit overwhelmed) with the amount of groups i stan right now.

please hold on though, feel free to vent here if you like. thanks for the offer tho HAHA but like i’ll try to get checked here too when the cases die down a bit. i’m sorry to hear about your condition though :( please don’t ever overwork yourself to the point that your joints/muscles would ache. it’s completely valid to complain about it tho. i get that you have others in mind but keeping that mindset really doesn’t do you (like you internally) any better? so if you need to, vent your frustrations out and don’t keep it in.

oh my god, about your performance last sunday. was the stage out in the open? glad you didn’t cough too much and did well on your concert. i’m proud of you! i can never understand dogs and poor birds T_T uni doesn’t have dances unfortunately. i think there’s just one party at the end like a graduation ball. what year are you in anyway? if it’s something that you’re fine with sharing. if not, it’s cool.

good luck with your exams! and thanks for the link! AHA what a cutie. i think he does this motivation thing once in a while during his lives and it’s just comforting. yeah joon and han my irl just freaked when we made that discovery. ult crumbs for her. oh god not me forgetting about every biases when you asked. you can ask for my biases in a few groups just list down the one’s you’re interested in knowing. 

i missed yesterday because i was grinding and finishing what if we stay + school work. finally did it today. i’m sure i’ll reply in like a day or two, definitely not a month unless i state otherwise. if i ever decide to abandon this blog, i’ll let you know.

[thunderoad]

so Niall seems like he had a fair amount of control over his album (and also seems to be a fairly controlling person, LOL). do you think we'll ever find out what battles he lost? I've spent a lot of time (well, not that much but I've thought about it several times) interpreting the set list and live versions of the songs, versus the studio album - and I imagine that the label got the final call on a few things. namely the production of on the loose and the track list on the non-deluxe version

ohh, now that is a good question? as far as track list, i know he mentioned in an interview that he chose ‘on the loose’ to go first because it’s the most attention-grabbing of the bunch. i was always of the opinion that the label dictated album running order just because it leads, minus ‘on the loose,’ with all three of his previous singles and then ‘seeing blind,’ his potential fourth single. so i FULLY feel u there. the album track order is just one of those things that literally - if the songs are played in that order, i turn it off; the buzz you build up in one song is immediately killed by the next in that order, u know what i mean? 

‘on the loose,’ the studio version, is another one i’ll just turn off tbh; that sounds bad, but it’s just because the live version (and the live acoustic included in the target edition) has that one extended note that literally ALWAYS makes me check to see if the CD is skipping or if my phone is glitching. wiki says julian bunetta produced that one in addition to ‘slow hands,’ and there are definitely a lot of effects on ‘slow hands’ that i don’t necessarily feel improve the songs?? 

but again, i think there’s - and niall says it in that interview - there’s a marked difference in playing the songs live; you’ve got the band there, and the audience, and live shows in general (the best ones) are just electric in a way i have a really hard time finding bottled. 

i’d really like to know what sticking points niall had to let go of, too, tbh. i think we’ll get a better sense of that as time goes on and he releases new music, though, as well! and i think not releasing the original ‘slow hands’ MV and having the license to sit down with malia james and really level with her and collaborate on the look and feel of the ‘tmta’ vids are such a great example of that. like with 1d tbh, i don’t think niall ever really ~loses, so to speak; i think he’s so patient and clear-sighted about what he wants that it’s more a matter of waiting for the right moment, u know?

[gchapman16]

'Mrs Simpson?' - Brad Simpson Imagine.

I hear Brads flat door open. I patiently wait for him to come into the kitchen to see the cake I have baked for his family’s garden party at the weekend. He walks into the open plan living area with a big smile on his face and his big brown eyes glistening from the bright kitchen lights. He put a big black bag down in the sofa before coming over to me and letting out a little chuckle at the amount of mess I had made. “I will clean up I promise” I blushed and laughed looking around the kitchen counter tops myself. “Hey don’t worry about it, it looks as though you’ve had fun” he replied whilst placing his hands on my hips and pulling me closer and kissing me.

“Gotcha!” He laughed as he wiped flour on the end of my nose. God I loved that boys laugh. Wiping it off onto his top you asked him how his day was. He told you what he’d been doing in the office and the long list of upcoming interviews and events they had planned, not to mention the ever-looming release of their fourth album.

He threw himself down on the big grey sofa the pair of you had picked out for his new apartment and tapped the cushion to the side of him, signalling for you to come sit with him. As you walked over you took a puzzled look at the big bag and questioned Brad about it. “Babe, what’s the the bag?” Just as you sit down next to him he excitedly jumps up. “Ah yeah. Well…” he starts. You presumed it was a suit for a premier he had next week. “I saw this and thought about how beautiful you’d look in it, so I got it for you.” He looked so pleased with himself. You got up from the sofa and walked over the him, running you hand down the fancy suit bag, then looking into Brads eyes. You took the zip in your fingers and, with butterflies in your stomach, you pulled it down to reveal the most gorgeous red silk dress. “ Oh my God Brad!” You exclaimed, not quite able to process that this dress was yours. It was gorgeous, the most beautiful thing (apart from Brad) you’d ever seen. “I thought you could wear it tonight” he smiled, clearly every happy with himself, and so he should be. “Why? What’s happening tonight?” You said with panic setting in. “I’m taking you out for dinner, I’ve booked a table for 7:30, okay?” Still bewildered you stood there, trying to take in everything that had just happened in the past minute. “Hey, Y/N, you alright? It’s just dinner babe.” He chuckled. Even though it was just a dress and dinner reservation, you’d never been treated like this before and you couldn’t believe Brad had done all this for you. “Thank you” was all you could manage to say, looking in between Brads face and the dress. “You’re welcome, you’re more than worth it. It’s the least I could do to make up for me being gone all the time and leaving you here alone all day for the past two weeks.”

After taking a quick shower, you kept your hair in the towel and did your make up, keeping it simple with a red lip. You slipped the bracelet Brad gave you for your one year anniversary on your right arm and put some old diamond earrings in. You walked over to the dress again which was hanging up on the wardrobe still in the bag and, once again, ran your hand over it before pulling it gently out of the bag and off the hanger.

You walked over to the full length mirror and looked at yourself in the dress. It finished just below your knee, it was tight in all the right places and fitted like a glove. You slipped into your classic black heels before calling Brad into the bedroom to do up the zip at the back of your dress. You had your back turned when he came into the room, he walked over to you and placed one hand on our shoulder, you could feel his warm breath on your neck where he then placed a small kiss. “Please can you do up my zip?” You whispered, then kissed his hand which was still on your shoulder. He moved his hand from your shoulder to your side and delicately pulled up the zip, making the dress tighter. You turned around to face him and your eyes met. “You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, I’m so lucky you’re mine.” He said softly, his gaze not leaving yours. “You don’t look too bad yourself Mr Simpson.” You replied. He looked amazing actually, he was wearing a pale blue shirt, which looked just as tight as your dress felt, with black suit pants. “Mr Simpson eh?” He sniggered. “Maybe one day I’ll be calling you Mrs Simpson.”

[for-the-fantasy]

So Much Has Happened, But Nothing Has Changed. Chapter Four.

MASTERLIST

“So, you two finally saw sense” Shannon smirked

 They were sat at Shannon’s kitchen table and after four months of seeing each other on the down low, had finally decided to tell Shannon. They were great together, never left each other’s side. They went on road trips, to see movies and for intimate, romantic dinners. They still kept their ritual of going up to their spot every so often, just to talk about how things had turned out. Jared and Shannon were finishing up their new album and Addison had been promoted to interior design consultant, which sounded fancier than it actually was.

 “I know” Addison laughed “Who would’ve thought it?”

 The trio all chuckled quietly, Jared kissing Addie’s hand until Shannon broke the silence,

 “Come on, we need to get ready” He motioned to Jared

 They were playing the first gig of many for this week and Addie finally had a night off from looking after her father to go watch them,

 “I am so excited” she clapped her hands together “Guys I haven’t seen you play in so long”

 “I’m excited for you to see us play,” Jared winked grabbing her by the waist as they walked towards the front door.  

 “Okay, so I’m going to go check on Ethan and my Dad and then meet you guys at the gig at about 7:30?” Addie fished for the car keys in her bag

 “Perfect” Jared smiled kissing her on the cheek “See you later”

 Addie came home to a typical Saturday night in their household, Ethan was sat watching some trashy action movie as usual whilst her Dad sat beside him, peacefully resting his eyes.

“Hey guys” she called, “How’re we all doing?”

 “Good” Ethan called out, turning his head and smiling, “Well you’re very cheerful this evening”

 “I am” Addie smiled, walking over to her father and giving him a kiss on the cheek, he opened his eyes and attempted a smile “I am so excited for tonight! Okay, I have to leave in about an hour, I’ll get Dad ready for bed and then is it okay for you to put him to bed? I have to be there by 7:30 so I won’t be here to help you”

 “Yeah that’s cool, we’ll just be chilling until then anyway, wont we Pops?” Ethan smiled at his father “I’m glad you’re in a better place now, Addie” Ethan smiled at his baby sister

 “Me too, thanks Ethan, don’t know what I’d do without you”

 “Oh, stop you” Ethan chuckled, “Now go get dad ready for bed so you can go and party it up, girl!”

 ~~~

The gig was amazing, Addie felt the electric energy all through the venue, Jared was absolutely killing it, he was even better than she remembered and she couldn’t have been prouder of him, she danced and sang along to all the songs and felt as though her heart could burst with pride seeing him up there doing the thing he absolutely loved more than anything in the whole entire world. He was born for this, she thought, he looked at home up there and he had the crowd wrapped round his little finger.

 She waited patiently in the green room when the gig was over, the guys, high on adrenaline, bursting into the room. Jared darted over to her, picking her up and swinging her around and around,

 “Baby, I am so fucking glad you were here to see me play, I fucking killed it because I knew you were watching” He put her down and planted her lips with a long passionate kiss “I love you”

 “I love you more” she laughed “Okay now you need to have a shower because you are so sweaty but I can’t wait to get you home Mr. Big-Time-Rockstar, seeing you up there did all kinds of things to me” she whispered, making sure the guys were all out of ear shot.

 He winked, grabbing her ass and leading her out of the greenroom.

~~~  

 Jared and Addison had been together almost a year and by now Jared was practically a fourth family member, sometimes helping Ethan and Addie look after their Dad, which they found hilarious because he was completely clueless.

 They were set in their routine and everything was as it should be, Addison had gone from working part-time to full-time, fitting her schedule around Ethan’s so that at least one would always be available to stay with their Father when Maggie had days off. She would work in the day and come home and take care of everything that needed to be done for her Dad. Jared’s new album was complete and ready for release, meaning that he had a lot more extra time on his hands, he would come see Addie every night after work at 5pm without fail and every time he helped her look after her Dad, he felt as though he recognised him more and more.

 “Looking good this morning, Mike” he would say, patting him on his shoulder “now I know you recognise who I am today!” he would laugh as Addison’s Dad squinted his eyes as if in some distant part of his brain he really did remember Jared.

But, today was different, Jared was wrapped up in business meetings all day and Ethan had secured himself a hot date with a bombshell brunette, so it was just Addison and her Dad all evening, she tidied away dinner, sat watching the TV with her Dad for a while and finally put him to bed.

 It was nearing midnight and she still hadn’t heard from Jared when there was a knock on the door, it was Jared, his smile stretching from ear to ear as he rushed in and twirled her around,

 “I’m so sorry I’m late baby” He kissed her on the cheek “but we fucking did it! Addison, we fucking did it!”

 “Shh, be quiet you crazy man, you’ll wake him!” she motioned to her father’s room trying to stifle her giggling. “did what?”

 “We got it! We secured a headlining world tour, baby!” He kissed her passionately on the lips

 “You’re insane! That’s amazing” Addison hugged him tight “I’m so happy for you guys, when do you go?”

 “When do I go? You mean when do we go?” Jared laughed sitting on the couch and motioning for her to join him.

 Addison stayed standing, “We? What? Don’t be ridiculous I can’t come with you!”

 “Why not?” Jared positioned himself on the edge of the couch “of course you can!”

 “Did you fall and hit your head before you came in here? Of course, I can’t, I have people here counting on me! I can’t just pick up and leave at the drop of a hat”

 “Okay well maybe not right away but we could maybe give Maggie more hours to look after your Dad and I’m sure Ethan could manage? He’s always telling you to go out and have fun anyway, come on Addie, it’s your life we’re talking about here, you can’t be stuck in this place forever”

 “What? No, Jared this is insane, I can’t just leave my job and sure Ethan tells me to go out and have fun but not leave the fucking country. I have my life here, I can’t just follow you round the fucking world forever” Addison was growing frustrated, “You go and I’ll stay here and wait for you, I thought that was going to be the plan all along anyway?”

 “Fine, you’re right, I’m sorry, I just thought you’d be really open to the idea, I just don’t like the idea of you waiting around for me.” Jared held out his hand for Addison to take, wrapping herself in his arms, she sat on his lap

 “I’m not saying it won’t be hard,” she sighed “but I love you more than anything”

 She turned her face so that they were nose to nose, cupping his cheeks and planting a long soft kiss on his lips

“We’ll make it work”

 ~~~

 Jared had been on the road for eight months, things had not been easy by any means but Addison and Jared had managed to figure it out, phone calls at least three times a week and the odd video chat when they were both free, which was not very often these days, Jared seemed to be getting more and more into the rock star headspace, which didn’t really bother Addison, only that he was becoming less available. He was due home in a week and Addison literally couldn’t wait.

 The day had finally come and practically speeding to the airport, she parked, grabbed her handbag, shoved her sunglasses on her face and excitedly made her way to arrivals. She waited eagerly for him to come through the doors and when he finally did she couldn’t contain herself, she ran to him and jumped full force nearly knocking him to the ground,

 “Fuck I missed you so much” he grabbed her so tight, not wanting to let go “I can’t wait to get home baby” he looked tired, the bags under his eyes a clear giveaway, skinner then he was when he left and less energetic, she took hold of his hand,

 “Come on, you” she smiled

 They pulled up to Jared’s house, the whole ride filled with conversations about the tour, the different places that Jared had been, Addie filled him in on how her Dad was getting on, what Ethan was up to and how her job was going, whilst she felt the smallest flicker of inadequacy, he still seemed interested however he seemed different, she could feel it in her bones, he wasn’t himself, as much as he tried to convince her otherwise

 “I can’t wait to get you inside,” Jared winked “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to have my way with you, those late-night phone calls aren’t enough anymore” he grabbed her thigh before they both got out and made their way up the drive way

 “Dirty Birdy” she winked kissing him as he unlocked the front door.