#he's also one of the only musicians This Old and with this much success i know that didn't morally go to shit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ginsengkittensecondary · 10 months ago

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I HAVE MOVED TO MY MAIN. PLEASE FOLLOW GINSENGKITTEN <3

“His large, rough hands adorned with rings, tenderly kissing the strings.”

*this is my very first gnr/slash fic. I’m not proofreading it either it’s just something for the depraved slash girlies*

✰ TEACHERS PET ✰

slashxreader

✰slash!xfem!/age!gap/praise kink/daddy issues/extreme!smut/NSFW ✰

Did not narrow down slashes age here. Anywhere from 40-current age- left up to reader

Because of your "fading talent", your dad thought it would be best to force you into guitar lessons. He told you if you took lessons seriously, that he wouldn't make you get a job. Guitar was your job.

You never resented guitar playing. It was your first love. You knew you were good at it. You could lose yourself in playing and the world would disappear. And you didn't want to disappoint your dad. You constantly felt like you weren't meeting his expectations of being some sort of renowned guitar player. But you knew nothing else and felt good at nothing else but guitar. It felt like you're only option as a career path.

Your dad worked in the music industry for over 20 years. He saw the success that could come from being a musician. He had connections and everyone knew him and he knew everyone. You remember tagging along in and out sporadically throughout growing up. It was just the two of you. You had met cool bands and musicians and other famous figure heads. While it was "cool", you also didn't care much as it had monopolized your childhood. Long nights, early flights, the rush of recording studios, backstages, waiting around on your dad in meetings. Probably sometimes being in places not meant for a kid. You became indifferent and tired.

But now you were older and the expectations of you were even more elevated. Your dad wanted more from you. You weren't sure if it was for profit or fame anymore for him. He never seemed quite satisfied and never gave any sort of clear affirmation.

You hopped out of the blacked out suburban with your equipment. Your dad closing the door behind you. You stepped into the cold night air. A shiver ran up your exposed legs under your skirt. Although a brisk walk from the parking garage to the recording studio, you wished you had dressed a little warmer. But dressing like a rockstar wasn't for wimps! You liked to model your style after female rockstars you had met growing up but always ended up just looking like some little groupie.

The recording studio was more or less an old penthouse with a recording area built in one of the rooms. It was nice but had this eerie grungy appearance that made it seem like it could have been a trap house in the 80s. While you tried your best to fit the role, you looked like you didn't belong there. Even your dad looked cooler than you. Suddenly you started to feel insecure. As you walked down the dark hallway inside, music became louder as the smell of cigarettes did too. A hazy light shone through a cracked door at the end of the hallway. Was this a guitar lesson or a concert? Your dad pushed through the door and you followed tucked behind him timidly. Immediately old friends of your dads excitedly gave him greetings and hugs complete with hearty slaps on the backs. You stood there nervously clutching your guitar. "You guys remember my daughter, Y/N!" Your dad announced you, stepping back to reveal you hidden behind him. Your cover suddenly exposed. "Well I'll be damned! If it isn't Y/N!" They all exclaimed happily. A scruffy man with blond hair embraced you fatherly and gave you a small gentle noogie on your head. "Man look at this kid! Haven't seen you since you were what, 12! Look at you all grown up now!" He said simultaneously exchanging his eyes from you to your dad. You grinned sheepishly embarrassed at the attention in the room on you. Guns n Roses. Man they were so fucking cool. You'd met them a few times growing up when your dad worked with them off and on. This part of his job was pretty cool. It was more like family friends than the world famous rock legends. Except when you were younger, the barrier between you and them was bigger. Your dad shielding you from the crazy drunken scraps, sessions and other rockstar mischief. You'd meet and then your dad would leave you with his assistant in another office or the tour bus while he fucked around with the guys elsewhere. But now you were an adult like them! You finally got to be on the inside. In the ring with the rockstars. This made you even more intimidated. 'Am I getting lessons from rockstars?' You panicked to yourself. Suddenly completely doubting your skill at all. They can't see you play! They'll laugh for sure. There's no way.

The music playing on the speaker suddenly changed to a softer tempo, "She Rides" by Danzig started playing. The slow intro intertwined with the dark atmosphere of the studio. Dark purple velvet curtains limply hung from the ceilings, old trunks full of excess junk and costume attire, records plastered the walls, the only light in the room glowing from dim warm lamps throughout the room. It felt safe and comfortable in here, like an old theatre. Cigarette smoke danced through the warm glow of the lamps.

The feeling of eyes on you started burning the back of your head. Someone was watching you. You turned your head to the left corner of the studio. A broad shoulder man sat open legged on a old couch and became illuminated by the warm glow of the lamp. The smoke trailed from his full lips out from under his dark full curls decorating his tan face. He had remained quiet and out of frame when the greetings went on. You dad shooting the shit with the other men in the room.

It's Slash. Your heart beat a little quicker in your chest. Oh my god of course, how could I forget SLASH! You became suddenly star struck for a brief moment. He was the GOD of guitar. He's so badass and he's so talented and he's....staring..at me? Your thoughts left your head. You felt his gaze on you like you were being hunted. Like his prey? You tried to examine him back, thinking you were being inconspicuous. His luscious curls sat atop his large broad frame, shirt slightly tight across his massive chest. His legs spread open as he relaxed into the couch like a lazy king on a throne. A cigarette pursed between his soft lips as he strummed a guitar. He kept his eyes on you, strumming without even looking. His large, rough hands adorned with rings, tenderly kissing the strings.

"Your new guitar teacher!"

You snapped into reality. "What?" You responded sounding a little more eager than you wanted to but so in disbelief. " Slash was kind enough to lend his time to you. You remember him right?" Your dad said flippantly. He walked over to the couch, harshly scooting you along with him. No fucking chance. You tried to lock back in and play it cool. Slash lifted his guitar off his lap and set it aside. He leaned forward on the couch to greet you. His gaze on you now more apparent and obvious. He scanned you up and down. "Well look who's all grown up." He said in a teasing but serious manner. He half smirked at you. You weren't sure how he intended that to come across but the way it landed made your stomach flutter and your cheeks flush. "I've been told you're quite the player these days" He said, still scanning you. Was everyone else in the room so oblivious to the electricity unfurling? Or was it just you? Was his blatant hungry gaze all in your head because you wanted it to be real? Because you wanted slash to think you were pretty? Because you thought he was attractive? No. It was real. His primal gaze on your body was definitely real. How was everyone else missing this? The energy in the room? Did your dad not realize the borderline dangerous fixation that slash's eyes cast on you? You snapped back again, remembering why you were there.

What you yourself were oblivious to was the fact that his eyes had locked onto you the second you entered the room. Not recognizing the delicate girl who looked like a brand new doll getting thrown into a junkyard. She stuck out like an Angel to him. Her soft and bright features contrasted the worn out room. She looked pretty but young. How young? Who was this girl? This wasn't Y/N was it? His friends daughter he had agreed to tutor although half drunk at the time of his agreement. It couldn't be her, this girl here now was grown up and filled out. He couldn't help but pour his eyes over her entire body. Her soft and smooth legs, her thighs tucked under a little black leather skirt that hugged her hips so perfectly. A nice little ass under there too. God she was perfect. His pants grew a little tighter. He couldn't stop looking at her. She's like a timid little bunny, he thought to himself. Too timid. Too young. Need to check yourself, he snapped back into reality as she walked over to the couch. It was Y/N. Wow- She had to have been 19 or 20 by now if he remembered right. Still, what would a bright young girl like herself want with a old man like him? He steadied himself. Remember why she's here. She's not your next meal. Yet.

It was nearly midnight at the studio. But to everyone in the music industry it might as well have been 5'o clock in the afternoon. The night just getting started to most. After and hour or two of your dad catching up with the guys and some other musicians, the penthouse became filled with people. This was one of your average studio parties it seemed. Not so much a lesson. You did wonder why the lesson was so late at night in the first place. Now it was apparent that your dad had wanted to party with the crews and the lesson was a back burner idea. You were not really a partier. In fact not at all. As the party began to rage louder and heavier, the more you stuck out like a sore thumb. You felt silly and out of place. Surrounded by drunk messy adults, heavy metal blaring through the sound system. Everyone had filtered out of the studio and you sat on the couch once occupied by Slash earlier in the night. His peppery, musky cologne lingered on the couch, it smelled so good. He smelled so good. You couldn't stop seeing the image of his face in your mind. The depraved, hungry stare he had locked onto you earlier. It simultaneously struck butterflies and fear into your body. Your dad had disappeared into the party and it honestly gave you relief that he wasn't there to hover over you, casting shadows of his disappointment in you through every undertone of every word he spoke. Technically though, that did mean you could practice without anyone's judgement.

You began unpacking your guitar on the floor, checking the strings, your picks, your sheet music. You put your headphones on and turned on none other than Guns N' Roses. Trying to drown out the heavy metal playing in the other rooms. You hummed to yourself while you fiddled with your things.

Moments later, the door opened slowly and slash entered. He was alone, holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He immediately saw you over the corner by his favorite spot. He quietly shut the door behind him and made his way to the couch. Seeing you oblivious to his gaze, he quietly studied you from the couch. His thoughts once again snaking their way through impure desires. The way your reddened knees held you on the floor. A small glimpse of cotton panties poking out from under your skirt. Your thighs curving across your calves like a puzzle piece. He watched the way your delicate small hands tried to handle the far too oversized guitar laid across your lap. Fuck she's so cute he thought. He could hear the GNR song "Think about you" playing from your headphones. Unaware you weren't alone, you softly chirped out a few lyrics to yourself as you hummed.

"I think about youuuu, deep inside, I love you best."

He let out a breathy chuckle

"I think about youuuu, you know you're the one I want..."

He could watch you in your own world forever like this. Your sweetness enveloped the room. A breath of fresh air he had been craving for so long. It made his heart pound in his chest. He licked his lips. Studying his student. The adoration danced with a dark and perverse stream of wishes. To get closer to you. To feel your warmth and inhale your sweet scent. To touch you. Your soft and delicate skin. To have you. He had to have you. He left the couch and stood behind you. The light from one of the lamps now being shaded threw you out of your little world and you slowly turned around in confusion.

"Oh my god!" You yipped out in a fast spool of fear, embarrassment and shock. You twirled back to him on your knees. His tall dark body towered over you like a monolith. He smirked big. Looked down at you on your knees in front of him sent aches down his chest and into his abdomen. It drove him crazy. It was exactly where he wanted you if it were up to him. Your innocent eyes peering up to him. Your fear almost adding a little bit of extra sweetness to him. You looked so cute to him when you were scared. You quickly took off your headphones. "Didn't mean to scare you doll face." He chuckled maliciously. You hesitated to believe that was true.

Suddenly Slash broke the thin barrier of space that had been aching to be ripped apart between the two of you. His large strong hands wrapped around your small wrists and he yanked you on your feet. At full stature you still only met his sternum in height, still peering up at him. The warmth of his strong hands touching your skin shocked you in the best way. Deep swirls pooling inside you. His scent now strong in your presence. You were so close to him. Almost body to body. Your doe eyes glittered up at him. He let out a slight huff as his serpent stare connected with you once again. Like a hungry animal. "This perfect body. I need to ruin her pretty cunt. Fuck me..." he thought. He glanced down at your chest concealed in your tight shirt and then back to your face, know you saw him do it too. He wanted you to see. A slight curl of his lips as he did it. His big hands still wrapped around your dainty wrists. You slightly try to pull them away as to relieve him of his duty to help you up but his grasp tightens and his lips curl. "You've grown up little bunny" he broke the thick silence in his scratchy and deep voice. Giving one more soul stealing stare and he let you go before you could reply. He sat on the couch, resuming his king like pose. He took a drag from his cigarette and sucked the smoke into his nose. Staring at you as he slowly let the smoke trickle out of his lips and nose. God did he know what he was doing? Fuck he was so hot you thought. You wanted to just climb on top of him and steal the smoke right out from his mouth. "So I've been told" you sneer back. "And you're sassy now too? Tsk tsk" he clicked jokingly. "So.." you ignore his quip. "When do I get this lesson of yours?" You ask earnestly. His eyebrow raises. Was that a serious question? He thought. The innocent and curious nature of your voice. He tried to ignore his pants becoming more uncomfortably tight again. He placed a guitar over his lap and strummed to hide anything. "I have a couple things I could teach you little bunny."

You wondered if his statement was two folded or if you were just imagining things. The conversation could have easily been interpreted as normal to an unsuspecting person. So your reply you camouflage in case his intention isn't what you thought. "I want to learn so many things. I'll be the best student. I promise" you say sweetly. That drives him crazy. This girl knows what she's doing doesn't she? He thought. He thinks on a reply before saying anything. Combing his mind to think what the next move is here. Calculating.

Everything else falls away and you deem it in this moment to finally have something YOU want for a change. No more expectations. If it fails it fails but it's not like you lose anything. It's not like anyone cares, let alone this massive superstar in front of you who can have anyone he wants.

Your need for his touch makes you brave and you trace your fingers over his as he plays. He doesn't stop at this though but glances at you. "I can be a real good student, Slash." You coo to him in exactly the right tone to drive him crazy. This now stops him. Hearing his name escape your perfect lips. He needs to have you. All to himself. As soon as possible. He traces his ring decorated fingers over yours on the neck of the guitar. You hover your face at the head of it. His fingers slowly snake up the neck. He takes a final pause before connecting with your skin once again. His thumb grazes your bottom lip. Goosebumps explode across your arms. The tip of his thumb dips into your mouth, he rests it atop your tongue. "Sweet girl" he whispers gravelly. He doesn't know your slit is wet with eagerness just as you don't know his cock is throbbing with excitement. He removes his thumb slowly from your mouth and grips your jaw with his robust hand. He pulls your face forward to him. "Do you want to be a good girl for me Y/N?" His hand tightly gripping your face. You ignited something inside him. You awoke something so primitive. He set his guitar aside and you quickly took its place on his lap. Your light warm weight resting on his crotch. You felt his bulge already at full extent. It felt good against your panties. You give it a slight grind as you secure yourself on top of his lap. He lets out a low sharp groan and gently throws his head back, leaving his thick neck open for the taking. You start peppering small kisses up his neck. His warm silver scruff brushes against your lips as his jaw clenches. You meet his ear.

"I want to be your good girl Slash." You whisper in his neck. You felt him throb underneath your wet panties.

He needs to fuck you. You were like a precious gem to be scrounged after. He wanted all of you. He needed to make you his. To own you entirely.

Climbing him like a jungle gym. He pulls you back with your hair in his fist. He grips your face again tighter this time and makes you look at him.

"Are you sure you want this?" He asks.

"Please" You cry.

You lock the door The air seems to leave the room. Is this really happening? What's happening? Does he just want to fool around? To kiss me? To fuck me? God I need him to fuck me. Your thoughts raced at the reality before you.

Suddenly his hands snake around your waist. His warmth flush against your back. You let out a small gasp of surprise and pleasure. His large hand grips your entire neck tilting it to the side. He sprinkles gentle kisses down your neck and you let out a sigh of pleasure. "I'm going to ruin you Y/N. You know that?" He cooed. "I'm going to make that pretty cunt of yours mine." He taunted. You let out a whimper.

I want to ravish her but at the same time I feel like I could break her in half at a single touch. He thought.

Fuck it. I need to have her."

You become blind with pleasure and melt into his arms. Still gripping your neck. He walks you both backward and falls back on the couch, towing you onto his lap. Still behind you, he fists your hair in his hand and the other travels down to your thighs. You get increasingly needy for more. You grind your ass on his lap. His ringed fingers tease up your inner thigh. "You ready to be a good little bunny for me?" He affirms one more time before letting himself go feral on your body.

"Please Slash"

"Please what baby? Use your words honey"

"Please fuck me. I need you. Please." You whine.

That was all the confirmation he needed. He just wanted to hear you say it again. Hearing you beg for him pushed him over the edge. He grips your hair tightly again. Ensuring your neck is wide open. He is suddenly completely animal. He dives into your neck and collar, this time his kisses are many and messy. He bites your neck. You whimper louder this time and he moans into your neck in reply. "That's its sweet girl. Let me hear that pretty little voice of yours" he pants

His fistful of your hair, guiding your neck open. His other hand slides up your skirt and finds your panties.

"My little bunny is already wet? That's a good girl." He praises into your ear from behind. You arch your hips into his hand. Needing more.

"Needy girl, aren't you?"

His hand moves from your hair to your breast. His large hand completely covering it. He gives it a strong squeeze and then slips it underneath your shirt and bra. You gasp as you feel his rough hand hold you. He loves the way your tits feel. Grinding your ass on his lap he begins rubbing circles on your panties. Right where it feels so good.

"I've wanted to do this since the minute you walked in tonight. In your tight little skirt. It drove me crazy." He whispers with hot breath on your ear. Still working his hands simultaneously on you. He shoves his hand into your panties and starts toying with your soaked cunt.

"So wet for me huh dollface?" He grins feeling his way through your warm folds. He hikes you up higher on himself and enters a finger inside you.

"Oh fuck Slash." You moan.

"Spread those pretty legs for me doll"

"This pretty pussy is mine now, you understand?" He growls in your ear. His hands so muscular and talented, he effortlessly slides in and out of your pussy while making perfect pinches on your nipple simultaneously. The years of guitar playing shining through his fingers. He plays you. His thrusts feel so fucking good inside you. You grind down on his fingers, he holds you tight in his arms like a wild animal trying to squirm. You grind your ass back on his cock, feeling his size through his jeans. He groans. "I need to see that pretty cunt". He exits you and places you on the couch facing outward and he kneels before you. He lays you back and grabs your legs and pulls you forward to his face. He carelessly flips your skirt up and hikes it over your hips, exposing your panties underneath.

"You don't need these anymore" he says. You raise your hips as he slides your panties down and off your legs. The cool air washes over your exposed bottom.

Now bare, he spreads your legs open wide and looks at your pussy as he prepares to dine on it like a wolf with fresh meat. "Such a pretty cunt" he gives it a slap and before you can fully react to the surprise or pain, his face disappears into your legs. His warm tongue glides right into your pussy.

"Oh fuck." You moan softly. You can't think straight. You lace your fingers into his thick curls.

Heavy rock muffles in the background but all you focus in on is the sounds of his lips on yours. He eats you like a savage. He looks up at you through dark eyes and flattens his whole tongue up your pussy in one long stroke.

"You taste so good baby."

You whimper. You need more. He looks at you with hooded dark eyes. He needed more.

He stands up and unbuckles his belt. You sit up on your knees and take over. Your hands stop his own and you look up at him. "Can I do it please?" You almost beg. He takes no time to think on that and allows you to continue. Your eyes line with his tanned happy trail peeking out from under his shirt. You dip your fingers into his waistline and feel a massive warm shaft. The other hand pulling down his waistline. You free his throbbing cock. It glistens along its thick veins. The girth is incredible. You waste no time and lick the pre cum off the tip. That send him into a craze. He tips his head back and groans loudly. "Fuck baby. Be a good girl for me." He commands. You take him in your mouth -or try to. He's so big but you manage to take it all in down to the back of your throat. You gag slightly on its size. He tastes so good. You Bob your head up and down. Swiping your tongue all over in a messy fashion. He fists your hair again and starts guiding your head on his hard cock. He lets out a deep hiss and pants faster. You look up and see the muscles in his throat clenching. He looks down at you as he continues thrusting into you. "That's a good girl. That's such a good girl" he pants in disbelief and pleasure. Sweat beads down his face. Tears well in your eyes as you choke on his size. Giving a few last hard thrusts he slips himself out of your mouth and caresses your messy spit covered face. Looking at you on your knees if front of his cock, the hungry look on your face. It makes him throb. It's almost painful. "Lay down baby" he says. You obey and lay back vertically on the couch. He removes his pants and shirt, exposing a muscular yet softly toned and tan abdomen, decorated with a large tattoo across his stomach. He then leans over and removes your shirt and bra. All that remained was the small leather skirt riding up your waist more like a sash than a skirt now. He hovers over you, his necklaces hanging from him. He opens your legs and gives his cock and few pumps before teasing your soft wet entrance. "Look how sweet you look." He smirked devilishly. "Please fuck me slash" you beg. He grits his teeth out of pleasure to hear those words come from your mouth. Hours earlier this was nothing but a perverted fantasy in his mind. But now he had you, naked underneath him. Ready for his cock. He leaned down to your face and gripped it once more. His hand on your face, he licked your breasts briefly. You try to tip your head back but he forces it forward. " Look right at me honey. Right here. Let me see that pretty face as I fuck you. Are you ready? You're so ready." He grumbles out. He smiles at you, a painful grip on your face, forcing you to look straight at him. His tip brushes the leaking wetness from your pussy all around like a paintbrush. And then slowly he slides his cock in.

You want to squint your eyes shut in pleasure, he gives your head a firm shake to remind you to look at him "I know baby I know." He growls. He himself tries to control his voice through his own searing pleasure. You whimper loudly

"Oh fuck Slash oh my god" You sharply inhale and whine out.

"That's it little bunny, let me hear your pretty voice".

He coos as he begins thrusting in and out of your wet hole. His grunts vibrate your body. His thrusts rock your body like ocean waves. He begins a faster rhythm almost If only to watch your breasts sway up and down with each thrust. His stance towering over you.

You continue letting out moans. Your moans are like honey to him. Weakening his limits with each sweet cry out.

"Oh that's a good girl taking my cock." He coos again.

"Slash I can't-" words fail you. You begin feeling a familiar tenseness overtake your body.

"Is my pretty girl going to cum out of her pretty cunt?" He teases.

His rhythm increases. His rough skin slapping agains your soft supple skin. Sweat drips down his tanned abdomen. The power of each thrust inside of you increasing.

He feels your wet walls tightening around his cock. Looking down at you getting fucked by him- he was close too.

"Slash I'm-" you moan

"Be a good girl and cum for me doll-face. Look at me, look at me."

"That's it, you can do it" he encourages before tipping over his own edge. His grunts louder and more animal. His chains sway above you. He slaps against you. His brow furrows and his sweaty curls drape along his face as he pants like a dog in heat.

The bittersweet finale of stars bursts throughout your body. Your pussy tightens over his cock once more in ecstasy.

"Oh that's such a good girl" he grunts as he also reaches his breaking point. He releases hot white spurts inside of your quivering cunt.

A loud grunt leaves his throat. His large cock twitches inside you, finishing you off with pure pleasure. He smiles still thrusting inside you. Shoving his cum deeper inside

"That's a good girl, take it. Take it all." he whispers

The wetness leaks out of you as he pulls out. You both panting for air.

"God you're beautiful. You're perfect" He says breathlessly. He looks at his disheveled masterpiece below him. Completely braindead fucked. You blush hard. A shyness making its way back to your senses. He continues eyeing you. He softens his hand on your face, thumbing your cheek gently.

He protectively dotes on you as he helps re dress you again. Taking pride in taking care of you like this. You feel satisfied yet silly. You blush as he finishes and smooths him hand down your hair. "I own you." He whispers.

To him. The most beautiful girl was now his and his alone. He felt prideful and protective of his girl. He didn't want anyone else here to even glance at you. You were too sweet and kind for a place like this. Parts of him questioned his own morality for corrupting something so delicate. But he was too far gone.

He had unlocked the door with luckily no one having tried to find them in the past hour. In precise timing, axl drunkenly stumbled through the studio door. "Studying guiar at a time like this?" He slurred.

"Careful now girlie or you'll end up the teachers pet."

"Alright fuck off" Slash Ushered him out the door and closed it. He locked it again.

You sat embarrassed on the couch and he sat next to you.

"You are a little teachers pet aren't you?" He smirked.

#slash gnr #slash #slash fanfiction #slash x reader #slash fic #saul hudson #saul hudson x reader #gnr fanfiction #gnr smut #slash smut #oc fanfiction #gnr imagine #oneshot

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gddancefloor · 4 months ago

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kasane teto headcanons since i have a very specific portrayal of her

for context, chimera (in the way im going for here) are a type of japanese demons that take a form similar to humans (with the exception of wings and a tail) and are known for their mischeviousness. teto is part chimera from her father's side.

teto x miku is used in here, and ted and teto are siblings, ted being the older one by 6 years.

Text HCs below the cut [warning, long!]:

UTAU Teto (15):

Sapphic. Likes girls. A lot.

She was a kid with an attitude and never smiled in photos if she was asked to, only if she wanted to. She also usually can’t look straight into a camera and looks away.

Teto developed a crush on Miku when she quietly sang for her for the first time, and was completely mesmerized by her voice. Miku was her inspiration to pursue singing.

Speaks English very, very badly and has an extremely strong Japanese accent. She usually has Miku translate things for her, but not even Miku is that great either.

Has a bit of a “chubby”/round face. Didn’t grow out of her baby-face.

Her hair naturally curled into a drill-like shape once she put her hair into ponytails, and now she chooses to exaggerate their shape by using a curling iron.

Despite not liking stereotypical pop music, she secretly likes girls who listen to it as she is into girly girls. (ahem, miku)

She doesn’t like to have her hair down, she’s embarrassed by how she looks with it and was forced by her parents to wear it down as a kid.

Cusses a lot when comfortable to. She is often horrible with manners and being “proper”, unless in a traditional Japanese setting. Otherwise, she gives zero fucks.

She has one of the most impressive singing voices and very beautiful control over her pitch, but doesn't like to sing in front of people due to stage fright.

Avoids eye contact. A LOT.

Her birth certificate lists “Chimera” as a sex by mistake from the issuer, and she is actually female. She sometimes identifies with it to mess with people and make them confused/frustrated.

As full chimeras age slower, Teto is often called a “31 year-old” despite being alive only 15 years. This is not true, as she ages normally due to being half human, and mistaking her to be older makes her angry. Unfortunately, she’s often called 31, or a “held back student” by her classmates.

She camouflages her tail as a belt, but it is very much so a real tail. She hates it being touched. In general, Teto hides any of her chimera features as much as possible in fear of being seen as a monster. If comfortable, or angry enough, they tend to come out on accident.

Miku is the only outsider that has ever seen Teto's chimera form because she trusts her. (Miku thought her wings were the coolest thing ever!)

She believes she's extremely unlucky, considering she was born on April Fool's Day, and has had nothing really go right in her life, especially in regards to bullying as a kid.

Definitely has sharp teeth. Gotta tear into that bread somehow!

Used to pull on Ted's hair and scream at him when she was a kid. To this day, she doesn't know why. He has nicknamed her "demon" for a while because of this.

Ted is quite overprotective of Teto and encouraged her to try her best to sing, even if Teto's singing was... quite bad as a kid.

She and Miku split up when they were kids due to a major argument and didn't speak again until Teto saw Miku on social media performing on stage. This is what drove Teto to become an "Online Idol" on niconico to regain the attention of her and hopefully get back in contact with her. It was just Teto made it very obvious she was being a Miku ripoff (hence the outfit).

Family doesn't like singers. They encourage every member of the Kasane family to pursue an instrumentalist career, but they never made it big, and so they had to resort to the "shameful" career of making ramen. Teto is the only successful musician AND singer in the family.

Synthesizer V Teto (late 20s):

MUCH more mature. Rarely curses, and tries to stay mannerable and quiet. She also has better control of her chimera form.

Doesn't mean she won't be bratty or snooty at times. That's just Teto naturally.

Hair reddened with age as any older Teto iterations prior to SV had her with pink hair. It's a chimera trait to have red hair and red eyes.

Is the one that handles all of Miku's (30-ish, NT) events and concerts, and likes to make sure that she's not overworking herself.

Now underneath a professional talent agency, Teto left behind her "copping Miku's style" thing behind and now dresses in something more like her style. She likes the military-chic look a lot.

Her and Miku don't get much time to hang out anymore, but they still keep in contact despite their hectic music careers.

Her and Miku are a married couple. You know how celebrity marriages are, except this one has no drama and they aren't public about it.

Teto's English is much better now and she can hold a conversation. Her accent is still quite thick though.

Just an older, more mature version of UTAU Teto. (I'll make a seperate post for her because this is getting LONG.)

I'll probably edit this a lot — it was copy-pasted from a google doc. Bear with any mistakes!!

#headcanons #kasane teto #miku x teto #teto x miku #negidrill #vocaloid #utau #teto utau #teto synthv #vocaloid headcanons #utau headcanons

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bisnes-socks · 13 days ago

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confession: menestynyt yksilö was never a personal favourite of mine from käärijä. but when @lhma asked me if i wanted to write about it, and i started looking into it, i found some new aspects of the song myself.

the song is of course about feeling like failure when things don't work out the way you planned, the way you dreamed. there are many very direct references to this in the song, and as i'm not in the habit of posting full song translations, i won't be going through all of them.

but i had noticed the references to famous finnish songs and artists before, but this time they got me thinking. three references to three very well known finnish songs, two in the first verse and one in the second verse.. well he could have referenced anything at all, to make a point about success, but he referenced these songs, and he talked about these specific things in the song, so let's look at them.

the track begins with a reference to Haaveet kaatuu, which is a song by a finnish artist Jore Marjaranta. it was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Pahat pojat. The song is about life taking you down a dark path you didn't want or expect, and your dreams coming crashing down as a result. this was a massive hit in 2003 and that is why i do think he is referencing the song here, even though i guess it would be possible to just use the same expression. but i do think it is a reference to the song, every finnish person who was alive back in 2003 knows the song and could sing the chorus, and be reminded of it just hearing those two words.

then we get "kulkuri laulava, kullankimalluksesta kaukana, ei pahemmin naurata". this is most likely a reference to a song called naurava kulkuri, by jere's known idol, vesa-matti loiri. it's a comedy song; loiri plays a character, who is trying to demonstrate how to laugh authentically in a song. he spends the vast majority of the actual song just laughing in increasingly ridiculous ways.

so "naurava kulkuri" means the laughing tramp/vagrant/vagabond. in menestynyt yksilö käärijä raps "a singing tramp, far from the glitter of gold, not much to laugh about". the way i interpret this line is multifaceted. calling himself the "singing tramp" when the loiri song is the laughing tramp, it's like.. he aims for the grateness of loiri, but doesn't think he can ever make it there. it's almost like he is a bit hard on himself for lacking originality but still not reaching the same heights? but then he also says that there's not much to laugh about, being a "singing tramp" far from the glitter of gold, which not only is clever word play on the laughing tramp but also saying he's maybe trying it hard to justify his music career when it feels like it's going absolutely nowhere, and so a singing tramp is far from where he feels like he should be.

and then in the second verse, we get "kela sanoi, meistä tuli muurareita, taksikuskeja, suutareita" which is a reference to the song 1972 by Anssi Kela, which also came out in 2003. the song basically details a school renuion by the singer both describing his old school friends now as adults and both as who and how they were back then. with this line, and the next "mut osast meistä tuli pelkkii tunareita, turhakkeita joilla vesi tulee läpi kumppareista" he is both comparing himself to his old class mates who are doing better than him, but also, i feel, comparing himself to anssi kela, who became what käärijä wanted to be: a successful artist.

for context: Anssi Kela was massive 20 years ago and still a very successful and well respected musician to this day. his debut album Nummela, was the best selling album of the 2000's, dethroned only in 2012. that album is still to this day the 13th best selling finnish album of ALL time. and vesa-matti loiri was a legend, an actor and singer, known for a massive range of skills and for being just an all round icon. one of those legends you can't really even begin to explain to someone who hasn't lived in the culture, you know? so the references in this song are truly to cultural giants.

so the clear cut references he makes about success and failure are fairly obvious: he talks about dreaming of having a family and a home, dreaming of opening his own bar or something, just succeeding in things, and he talks about the flip side of it, the failure side of it all being having no money and trying to drink the negative feelings away but only making it worse. but then these references to musicians, i feel like they're not accidents. he could have referenced any celebrities as examples of success, but he chose these references. and knowing how loiri was an idol to him, i think all three references mean something to him on a personal level too. these are the success stories he dreamed of, even if he isn't saying it out loud as clearly as the things i listed before.

the song sounds and has the vibe of a very honest song to me. so even if not everything in it is meant to be taken literally, the honesty comes from the relatability of it all. the sentiments in it are very recognisable. and honestly, maybe that's one of the reasons this was never a favourite of mine - because sometimes it feels like it hits almost a little too close to home, a bit too close for me to want to deal with, haha. but that's for me to figure out on the pages of my diary i guess.

but thank you for this request! it sent me down the rabbit hole of finnish music and references to finnish music in käärijä songs, which in turn turned into a massive project that i am going to post soon, so stay tuned if this was at all interesting to you!

#käärijä

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aziraphales-library · 1 year ago

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Heya!

I've read a LOT of GO fics in my time, but I can't remember if I've seen crossovers/AUs of the following movies with Aziraphale/Crowley, can you help please?

So my favourite rom coms of all time are the following, and I'd love GO versions (if they don't exist I may have to write them)!

French Kiss (Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline)

You've Got Mail (Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks)

When Harry Met Sally (Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal)

Runaway Bride (Julia Roberts and Richard Gere)

Never Been Kissed (Drew Barrymore)

I won't bother asking about Pretty Woman because I've read so many versions with either of them in either role lmaooo (and I have loved Every. Single. One.)

Or basically any late 80s/early 90s rom coms with Meg Ryan (except Sleepless in Seattle because I find it incredibly boring) or Julia Roberts!

Thank you so much for everything you do! You've helped me discover so many amazing fics and writers and it is much appreciated!!! 💖💖😇😎

Hello there!

Did you know there is a whole collection from the Good Omens Rom-Com Event that was run a couple years ago? You might find what you're looking for there! (Some of the fics are unfinished so keep that in mind)

We have previously recommended a bunch of You've Got Mail/She Loves Me fics HERE, so check those out.

As for the other ones you've asked about:

French Kiss AU:

A Bit of Crumpet by Fyre [E]

With a handsome, successful fiance and a respectable home in Manhattan, Aziraphale Fell thought his life was more than adequate. He never expected to be jilted in a long-distance telephone call and so he sets out for England to find out exactly what's going on and gets a lot more than he bargained for.

When Harry Met Sally AU:

it had to be you by curtaincall [M]

“What I’m saying,” said Aziraphale, looking fixedly ahead, “and please don’t take this as a personal insult in any way, is that an angel and a demon can’t be friends.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” said Aziraphale, firmly. “It’s against the order of things. You’re supposed to tempt. I’m supposed to thwart. We can’t go being friends.”

A canon-divergent AU inspired by When Harry Met Sally.

I don't know of any fics with your two last wishes but there is also:

Notting Hill AU:

Soho by Lurlur [E]

Aziraphale lives a quiet kind of life, running a quiet specialist bookshop in one of the liveliest districts of London. He's content with his lot, happy with his friends, tolerant of his probably-human housemate, living vicariously through the gossip pages.

One day, a chance encounter with Anthony Crowley, lead singer of wildly successful rock band The Demons, threatens to turn his whole world upside down.

Music and Lyrics AU:

pop! goes my heart by attheborder [E], WIP

When has-been musician Anthony Crowley is recruited by pop singer Anathema Device to write a song for her new record, he jumps on the chance to resuscitate his career with a hit. There's only one problem: he can't write lyrics to save his life.

But a chance meeting with a stranger by the name of Aziraphale, with a poetic streak that's a perfect fit for the song, changes everything for Crowley. Together, they'll create something beautiful, fight the forces of the music industry, and perhaps even find a way back into love...

A Music and Lyrics AU for the GO Rom Com Event, complete with all-new original songs written and recorded by the author!

Kate & Leopold AU:

Until by Nadzieja [T]

“I don’t want to go home.” Half-asleep Aziraphale murmurs into his ear and Crowley's heart clenches. His grip tightens reflexively around the warm soft body in his arms, around the smell of old books and sandalwood.

“Then don’t.” He’s trying not to sound like he's pleading, but his throat is tight and his voice hoarse.

Crowley lives his average life, working in a high-end advertising company at London that pays just enough to get him a room in a shared accommodation. That's just his luck that he ends up living with a literal witch. One day she brings home an even more eccentric man that has a taste for 19th century fashion, as if Crowley didn't have enough things to worry about. Little he knows that the man will turn his world upside down. Literally. And that's just the beginning of his problems.

~Mod N

#good omens #ineffable husbands #rom com #human au #canon divergent au #adult omens #mod n

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pango-doots · 10 months ago

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Y'know looking back on my time in the NSR fandom it's weird how victimized people tend to make the NSR elites, which I really don't think is warranted beyond Sayu's team and Yinu who are MINORS that were employed into a fascist government system under the guise of success. Yes, NSR was a fascist government, or at the very least an authoritarian hand over a dystopian society.

Even if its general tone is light-hearted and silly, the game tackles themes of propaganda, scapegoating, wealth inequality and planned obsolescence, environmental destruction, media control, saving face for tourists, authoritative voting and more, yet most of them aren't the player's main gameplay focus; a lot of lore and context clues are in the background like the town's layout, interacting with certain objects and talking to NPCs. But those themes are a core message of the game and by only treating the members of NSR as regular old musicians you take out all the nuance.

(Plenty more under the cut. TL;DR: No Straight Roads is a relevantly socio-political game and I wish fans would utilize that side of the characters more)

Both halves of the "music war" as I'm gonna call it for lack of an official term had their faults, and I do like that there is no 100% right or wrong side; no straight road, if you will. BUT ALSO. BBJ realized the entire city was suffering in some way under NSR's leadership and had nothing to lose by challenging the status quo (they literally live in a fucking sewer, I'd be full of rage too). They didn't benefit from initial fame, wealth, or military protection like NSR did; not to mention they were also egged on and decieved by one of their closest allies. When voices don't work ala DK West's attempt, then you turn to action. Action can include smacking the shit out of government officials, as a treat (I enjoyed every second trying to get an S rank in Supernova's level <3)

On that note, the woobification is ESPECIALLY bad with DJSS, Neon J and 1010. I love the silly object heads and smexy robots as much as anyone else but they are specifically meant to be critiques of self-absorbed billionaires (sorry to tell DJSS fans this but he's supposed to be Elon-Musk-adjacent) and the k-pop industry with its military involvement, plus the use of militial force to keep rowdy citizens in line. I'm begging people to PLEASE handle them with more care.

Thankfully, it's clear that NSR reduces its chokehold by the end of the game and all the artists put in a lot of work to improve thanks to BBJ's push. Whether the game's writers made that decision to appeal to their own government's approval or was a genuine end to the story, I like that Tatiana has a moment of reflection and does a complete 180 to make the city better in the end (beyond the threat of the city being destroyed ofc). Even if it's unrealistic, it's a hopeful message and shows that anyone can be corrupted by the right circumstances.

Just PLEASE don't forget the characters' actions and choices along the way for the sake of ship fics and cute art. There's a lot of complexity and angst you can add to the characters with that authoritarian history!

#I doubt this will really change anything. fandoms will fandom. maybe I can give ppl ideas tho #if I get discourse over this post I'll yell btw. it's not made in bad faith #BUT I'm getting back into this game after some drama and it's smth that always bugged me as a budding punk. had to rant abt it a little #y'know I'm kinda realizing 1010's entire shtick is like if you made a swat team into tumblr sexymen. not sure how to feel abt that #no straight roads #nsr #nsr spoilers #dj subatomic supernova #1010 #long post #pango yells #a pango original #doot.txt #rated t for teen

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endlich-allein · 2 years ago

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Till Lindemann from "Rammstein" turns 60

Good man

Von Flake Lorenz

3. Januar 2023

Till Lindemann, "Rammstein" singer and lyricist, turns 60. Congratulations from his longtime friend and keyboardist.

Actually, one would not have to wait for a milestone birthday to honor this wonderful person. You could just pause and pay homage to the force of nature on any other evening. It may also be that Till Lindemann's birthday this Wednesday is not true. Even when Bravo reported about Rammstein for the first time in the early 1990s, our dates of birth were completely out of thin air. We were way too old for the Bravo target group back then, so the editors simply made us a few years younger. That wasn't a problem because the internet was still empty.

We soon realized that it doesn't matter how old you really are. Much later, when Rammstein became successful, being old was even better. You can deal more calmly with all that nonsense and enjoy your happiness in peace. Also, a person's age is just in the eye of the beholder, at least I don't know anyone who would call themselves old. On the other hand, I can still remember how, as a young musician, I couldn't calm down when I found out that the guitarist in a band I was friends with was over 30 years old. "He can still make music?" I asked. Men over 50 were half-dead, bleating grandpas in ugly brown clothes, they were every teenager's natural enemy.

It's 1986. Till turns up the system. I'm worried: What will the neighbors think?

Till seemed old to me when I met him. That was in the mid-1980s in East Germany. Till was not only older than me, in contrast to me he was already really grown up. He lived in his own house while I was still in my parents' room and didn't even have a girlfriend. I saw Till for the first time in 1986 in a Schwerin club after a Feeling B concert. I immediately noticed him: Till was a tall, strong man who on the one hand exuded natural authority, but at the same time seemed very shy. We didn't hesitate when he offered to take us home with him. His house in the country near Schwerin seemed like paradise to me, it was incredibly comfortable, probably because he had set it up that way himself; he had knocked out the walls between the rooms and left only the half-timbering. The volume on his system was turned up to the limit, the Sisters Of Mercy screamed from the cheap speakers.

I had never dared to do anything like this in my life. What would the neighbors think? When I wanted to play a song on the piano in between, Till simply carried it for me to another room where it wasn't so loud. At some point we all fell asleep where we sat and stood, like in Sleeping Beauty, and when I woke up the next morning, I imagined what it would be like if you always lived like Till. I really liked this idea.

Of course, his life wasn't a one-stop party. He also lived in the house because the argument with his father, who was not exactly frail, had escalated beforehand. Till had hit his father, the children's book author Werner Lindemann, with such a punch that he flew into the strawberry bed. Then Werner Lindemann threw Till's things out of the skylight. Life in a sports boarding school and training as a carpenter in Rostock were no fun either. Later, as a single father, Till lived with his daughter Nele in his nest, which in turn probably saved him from being drafted into the army. Till always seemed and always seems in a good mood to me – a bit like Obelix, of course not in terms of stature, for God's sake, he looks more like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but in terms of personality he's more like Obelix. Always according to the motto: "Friends, I have a plan, let's go here and there and break everything to pieces!"

Practical: He could change a wheel on the Trabi without using the jack

When the wall was suddenly open, Till drove to Lübeck with a couple of friends and spent all the West money he had saved and exchanged on gummy bears. He sat in a doorway and ate them all. Of course, he also manages a wild boar – it was an advantage back then that he lived so close to the railway embankment. When a waiter asks Till if he liked his food, he usually replies: "Yes, thank you, it was plenty." Incidentally, he also shares Obelix's great love of small dogs. Since Till is with (allegedly) Francis of Assisi, who wrote: "The dog remains loyal to me in the storm, man not even in the wind."

And like Obelix, Till seems to have fallen into a magic potion, because he really has tremendous powers.

At that time he could change a wheel on the Trabi without using the jack. In the old days, when we had to work as stewards at an open-air festival, Till just banged his fist through a car window to hold the driver down.

If Till sees any body of water, he immediately plunges into it and plows through it like a motorboat. He tucks the boxes that we carry in the studio or in the rehearsal room under his arm alone.

If a door is locked somewhere, he just sticks me through a second-story window so I can open it all from the inside.

I've never met anyone who is so pragmatic about music and lyrics. Till would never have originally thought of becoming a singer. Although he observed that musicians in Schwerin had a hit with women and then played drums in a punk band - but in all those years I really never had the feeling that punk music particularly interested him. An effective and well thought-out stage show was always more important to him. For example, Till once put chickens in the bass drum and only pulled the cloth away after the first song, causing the animals to tumble across the stage.

Cheering crowds, prizes and honours: All of this actually leaves him completely cold

When Till was supposed to sing with us, it was very difficult for him at first, because as a singer you can't hide behind an instrument or another musician. Then he put on welding goggles so that he looked like a friendly insect. Till sang beautifully, deeply and soothingly. We stopped worrying immediately. Everything would be fine. We just needed good lyrics. So Till sat down to write them. He never pretends to be a great artist who needs to express his deep feelings. He prefers to think about what else can be lit on stage (like me). The concerts used to be a lot of fun. At that time we always looked for an attractive village inn first, in order to eat as much as possible. Only then did we set up our stuff and play.

Till loves women - and women love him. But how he manages to go through his life completely free of any affectation, even after 37 years, still arouses deep admiration from me. Cheering crowds of spectators, prizes and honors actually leave him completely cold. Organizing a party for our entire crew seems to be more important to him than any concert. Incidentally, he has renounced his rights as a lyricist for decades, so that all six of us at Rammstein earn exactly the same. In any case, Till has extended the life of the band, because money is usually the trigger for a breakup. He, on the other hand, has a very decisive influence on our band with his lyrics and his voice.

So we can still successfully defend our small East German village. By Teutates! May the sky never fall on Till's head!

(I'm not sure of this whole translation so feel free to correct me)

#thank you so much flake #i am not crying you are #till is a good man and a rare and beautiful being human #till and flake #my loves #till is love 🖤#till lindemann #flake lorenz #paul landers #oliver riedel #christoph schneider #richard kruspe #rammstein #rammstein 2023 #till's day

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palomahasenteredthechat · 3 months ago

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For me, the reason I haven't completely written him off yet even after all of this week is that I sort of feel like this going to end up being a growing pains situation for him.

Look at Tom H. He was the hot foreign actor looking to branch out from a big role who hooked up with a female musician on the rebound from an ex her fans hated. Sound familiar? Yes it was a giant mess. Yes, some of his fans left and thought he was cringe. But look at him now, years later. Very successful, beloved by millions, yes some still make fun, but he's married with a baby and a dog. Settled and confident. He has even looked back at the relationship with her and admits it taught him lessons about how to behave and date in Hollywood.

Chris Evans is another one. OH boy, that man had a track record. Pap walks, sightings with different girls every five seconds during his early Marvel era. Then he grew up. For the last few years he has been much more private, he is also married now and seems perfectly happy.

I'm genuinely not trying to make excuses, I'm not trying to baby Joe. He is in this situation willingly regardless of how serious or not it is. She is very problematic, but I think the allure of her level of fame may be enticing in this moment for more reasons than one, as well as the ease of having someone already admit from the off they are into you. He is a man, a young man who clearly wants his star to continue to rise. But I just can't help the feeling that at the end of the day this situation is going to end up being one of those "live and learn" scenarios. It's not going to last forever, if you are uncomfortable or hurt by it, then by all means disconnect from it and him. But I am still interested to see what the next move is after this ends. Does he continue to go the way Chris did for a while, or does he learn and adapt faster like Tom? Maybe somewhere in the middle until he truly feels he has his feet planted and can finally claim the autonomy he has always said he wanted? I apologize for the novel, but I just wanted to fully articulate it as clearly as possible.

Oh Nonny, thank you so much. Everything you wrote is sensible and reading it I realized you captured a lot of my thought process as well.

We keep learning and growing (or should) no matter what age we are. And he is still so young. I hope he gets out of this not only what he wants but what he needs.

I wonder what the old friend group chat is like right now. I wonder about the ST one too.

I hope he has some good friends who are there for him and can give him encouragement but also honesty.

#anon asks #paloma answers

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 6 months ago

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By: Thomas Chatterton Williams

Published: May 19, 2024

We’d gathered that day at the cafeteria’s “Black” table, cracking jokes and philosophizing during the free period that was our perk as upperclassmen. We came in different shades: bone white, tan and brownish, dark as a silhouette. One of my classmates, who fancied himself a lyricist, was insisting that Redman, a witty emcee from nearby Newark, New Jersey, was the greatest rapper ever. This was the late ’90s, and for my money, no one could compete with Jay-Z. I said so, and the debate, good-natured at first, soon escalated in intensity, touching on feelings and resentments that ran far deeper than diverging claims about artistic merit.

“How can you even weigh in?” I still remember the kid fuming. “You ain’t even the pure breed!”

With that, there was nothing left to say. Friends separated us, the bell rang, and I headed home. A short time later, I went off to college, where I would meet a wider assortment of Americans than I had realized existed. But over the years, I have been reminded of that boy’s slicing racism, the lazy habit of mind that required no white people to be present but would nonetheless please the most virulent white supremacist.

Recently, two public controversies spirited me back to the suspicion and confusion of my high-school cafeteria. All spring long, an unusually nasty feud between the rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar has been captivating audiences, both for the quality of the music it has engendered and for the personal and malicious dimensions of the attacks it has countenanced. Much has been written about the fight, in particular about the two men’s treatment of women, which I won’t rehash here except to point out that it’s a little funny that they both portray themselves as enlightened allies while also acting as if the ultimate disparagement is to call another man feminine. Less has been said about the potency of the racial dimension, which feels like a throwback to a time before Drake’s pop-culture dominance—indeed, to a time before the historic hybridity of the Obama era—and like a distillation of the skin-deep racialism of the current social-justice movement.

Drake, who grew up in Toronto, is the son of a white Jewish mother from Canada and a Black father from Memphis. Since the release of his 2009 mixtape, So Far Gone, he has been not only the most successful visibly mixed-race rapper—and arguably pop star—but also the most visible Black male musician for some time now. Anyone at the top will attract criticism. But not even a white rapper like Eminem has been subject to the kind of racial derogation that has been hurled at Drake.

Back in 2018, the rapper Pusha T released a diss track about him for which the cover art was an old photograph of Drake performing in a cartoonish blackface. The image makes you cringe, but—as Drake explained—that was the point. Drake began his career as an actor, and he wrote that the photograph was part of a “project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and typecast … The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment.” But presented without context, it appeared to be a self-evident statement of inauthenticity.

Another rapper, Rick Ross, calls Drake “white boy” again and again in his song “Champagne Moments,” released in April. In an op-ed for The Grio, the music journalist Touré explains why the insult is so effective: “We know Drake is biracial. He’s never hidden that, but many of us think of him as Black or at least as a part of the culture … On this record, Ross is out to change that.” Touré calls this “hyperproblematic,” but his tone is approving—he admires the track. “We shouldn’t be excluding biracial people from the Black community, but in a rap beef where all is fair as a way of attacking someone and undermining their credibility and their identity, it’s a powerful message.”

In a series of more high-profile records, Lamar has built on Ross’s theme, both implying and stating directly that racial categories are real, that behaviors and circumstances (like Drake’s suburban upbringing) correlate with race, and that the very mixedness of Drake’s background renders him suspect. It is an anachronistic line of ad hominem attack that is depressing to encounter a quarter of the way into the 21st century.

Lamar’s most recent Drake diss is called “Not Like Us,” and reached No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100. It goes after Drake’s cultural affiliations with the American South. “No, you not a colleague,” Lamar taunts. “You a fucking colonizer!”

It’s hard to hear that and not remember that Drake’s mother is Jewish, and that this is the same invective used to undermine Jews’ sense of belonging in Israel. Such racist habits of thought have become potent rhetorical weapons in the progressive arsenal.

The second (if smaller) controversy followed an essay on language and protest published in The New Yorker earlier this month. The novelist Zadie Smith, who is of European and African descent, argued—carefully—that it is too simplistic to regard the world as sortable into categories of oppressor and oppressed. “Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them,” she writes, “a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands.” This was an attempt to take seriously the tangible fate of Hamas’s victims on October 7, the broader implications of anti-Semitism that can at times be found in criticism of Israel’s response, and the ongoing tragic loss of Palestinian life.

Despite praising the protests that have engulfed college campuses and describing a cease-fire in Gaza as “an ethical necessity,” Smith was derided on more than intellectual grounds. One widely shared tweet, accompanied by a photo of Smith, stated the criticism plainly: “I feel like Zadie Smith uses black aesthetics to conceal her deeply pedestrian white middle-class politics. People see the head wrap and the earrings made of kente cloth and confuse that for something more substantive.”

This was not the first time Smith had been regarded as a racial interloper. The author Morgan Jerkins once wrote of the emotional “hurt” she felt reading another thoughtful essay Smith published in Harper’s asking “Who owns black pain?” Smith’s transgression here, according to Jerkins, was “intellectualizing blackness” from a distance instead of feeling it. “Do not be surprised,” Jerkins warned, “if a chunk of that essay is used in discussions as to why biracial people need to take a backseat in the movement.”

The retrograde notion that thought and action necessarily flow from racial identities whose borders are definable and whose authority is heritable is both fictitious and counterproductive. “Something is afoot that is the business of every citizen who thought that the racist concepts of a century ago were gone—and good riddance!” Barbara and Karen Fields write in their 2012 masterpiece, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. “The continued vitality of those concepts stands as a reminder that, however important a historical watershed the election of an African-American president may be, America’s post-racial era has not been born.”

Of course, the first African American president was, like our nation and culture, himself both Black and white. One of the most disappointing—and, I have come to realize—enduring reasons the “post-racial era” continues to elude us is that it is not only the avowed racists who would hold that biographical fact against him.

This is why we call it neoracism, not "antiracism."

#Thomas Chatterton Williams #biracial #mixed race #racial identity #neoracism #antiracism #antiracism as religion #racialism #Drake #Kendrick Lamar #religion is a mental illness

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rudnitskaia · 9 months ago

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Found this in my phone notes. I wrote this when I was in one of my darkest and lowest points. I remember how I barely could breathe because of sobs and my hands were shaking while I was typing, and how I completely broke when I couldn't write one simple word without mistakes several times in a row.

And then one of my friends suddenly sent me a meme with a funny cat and I laughed on it, continuing to cry.

Now I feel like I need to share what I wrote that day.

I hid that note, which seems much more like a short story now, under the cut. PLEASE don't read it if you're sensitive to such themes as su!/c!de and depression. Thank you.

If I had a guardian angel

Sometimes I think that if I had a guardian angel, it would have been an approximately 40-year-old extremely tired and very quiet man, who has constant lack of sleep, disheveled hair, an oversize coat with some missing buttons and one splintered shoe. He chose me once because he was an extremely gambling person and thought that he can "lead this horse to victory" (even her name means that, right?), but unfortunately I turned out to be "a limping mare", so he simply lost all his resources while making bets on me. He was furious at me at first and desperately tried to push me forward without any success, but after a while, after watching on how I live, he has grown to care for me and has willingly dropped his reserves of wishes and miracles enormously below zero, all useless spent in order to cheer me up. Now he is in huge debts, and every time I start to cry and think that I'm not worth living he only sighs and again borrows some tiny happy coincidence from more successful angels just to prevent my disastrous thoughts and make me live through another day. He sits next to me, glances at his splintered shoe, then pats the top of my head and smiles, when that happy coincidence brings me some funny picture or a small notification that distracts me from sadness for a short while. And he murmurs under his breath: "There, there, my little one, we're gonna get through this, you'll see. You'll see".

And that is all just because he, like all the guardian angels, committed a su!/c!de in his past and doesn't want me to also work as a guardian angel when I die. Because after living beside me for so long he is pretty sure that I would sleep over all my shifts and miss all my chances to gain redemption and after that I'll be sent straight to hell, and definitely not that luxury hell, where many intelligent poets, musicians and other cool people of the past are chilling, but into the huge bureaucracy department where all the papers must be filled manually, folded, stamped, sorted and so on, infinitely. And there would be slanted toilets and no coffee in the whole damned office. At all. Knowing me and my devotion to coffee, he simply can't let that happen, and so he doesn't sleep, soothing my bad dreams, and walks beside me to catch me on every stumble and fall.

And sighs.

And borrows.

And then smiles.

#tw depression #tw sui implied #i'm ok now please don't worry <3 #heldig writings #heldig arts #about myself #short story #original fiction #writers on tumblr #writers and poets #writing #art #artists on tumblr

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project-sekai-facts · 1 year ago

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have you seen that theory about vbs not being the original owners of their sekai, and if so what are your thoughts about it?

i stared at this post for a few minutes wondering if you were talking about a post that was written by me and then i checked twitter and a post about RADder being the original owners popped up on my fyp so i'm assuming that's what you're talking about (also i realised that my post is. still in my drafts).

i go full pepe silvia under the cut. uh. sorry.

yeah anyway i do agree with that theory. kinda. The Street SEKAI is mentioned multiple times in the initial cards to have been around for a while, though this could be referring to the fact that SEKAI take time to grow before they manifest fully to the owners (think about School and Wonderland SEKAI, which probably took years to reveal themselves). But it could also imply that someone else contributed to the SEKAI before VBS. I actually talk about the theory briefly in that first linked post, so we'll continue from there.

so I don't think it was RADder. And yeah basically my only reason is that they're too old. MEIKO was released in 2006, considering the only date mentioned in the game is (Autumn) 2021, this is after An was born, when RADder was already pretty successful. Also we don't know enough about SEKAI physics to confirm this, but Miku seems to be more important than MEIKO so maybe space-time wasn't broken until 2007, and RADder is probably even more successful at that point because of the CDs they recorded when An was a baby.

the SEKAI just doesn't work in the time frame. What we know is that the Street SEKAI was formed by dreams and aspiration. Which is kinda the case for most SEKAI but Street SEKAI was more specifically formed by the passion its creators have for these dreams. and while RADder had big dreams to be top musicians in the world and was passionate about that, they were like realistically never gonna achieve that, but also they were at a point where they were doing very well and were very successful and on their way there. they didn't really need the help from Miku as much as VBS needs it.

Now the way Nagi talks about some things in Light Up the Fire definitely could be read a certain way, especially when she talks about passing on RADder's dream to the kids in the audience at RW, but I still don't think RADder being the original owners entirely works. Honestly the easiest point to argue for that claim is that the Street SEKAI has a very strong attachment to RAD WEEKEND, which on the one hand could be part of the fact that Taiga very clearly never moved past it and never fully processed the death of his sister, but it makes a lot more sense to be a trait tied to the people who aspire to surpass it. also MEIKO outright says that's why the attachment to RW is there in her initial 2*.

However,

I don't think it's entirely out of the question for some of the other side characters to have an influence over the Street SEKAI. As I've mentioned, the SEKAI has a strong attachment to RW, and all of them have the same goal of surpassing the event. Also the 4 older VSingers in the SEKAI (MEIKO, KAITO, Luka, Miku) all takes traits from the members of RADder. Which makes a lot of sense for the main mentor figures in the SEKAI to be based on the people that the kids look up to.

youtube

There is an argument to be made though that they gave up on their dreams to easily. In LUTF, Taiga decides to crush all their dreams and Tatsuya (+ his group), Arata and Kotaro all leave, like, they just give up while (an admittedly very shaken) VBS sticks with their dream.

Tatsuya and EVER leave because all this time they'd been just carrying on until they eventually saw victory, but after taking a beating from Taiga, they realised that there's some things that you won't be able to overcome and give up.

Arata leaves because even though he has skill, Taiga was able to get through to his weakness - Souma. Taiga realises that Arata has experienced a similar loss and grief to he did, and although Arata is trying to carry Souma's dream on his behalf, Taiga knows from experience that Arata is just clinging on to Souma's dream as a way of coping with his loss, rather than actually trying to uphold it (basically he calls him selfish). Arata isn't able to argue back, feels a lot of guilt over that, and leaves.

Kotaro is like. particularly interesting and also most eligible for Miku therapy. He's genuinely really scared and overwhelmed by Taiga's challenge, and gives a poor performance when he has to stand up to him, and straight up gets called shit and weak by Taiga and the audience. Dead serious. Afterwards he literally has a breakdown, calls himself an idiot for not being able to sing and then goes on about how he's shit at everything and apologises because should've given up ages ago because all he's ever done is drag everyone else down before literally running away and DAMN do I hope he gets development on that in the Toya event.

all things considered i'd honestly say that all of them to some degree could've contributed to the formation of the SEKAI, Souma included (honestly he seems the most passionate about it even though he was forced to give up). all of them were passionate about it but then there's always the fact that they all gave up really easily, although they were reluctant. that said, toya did the same thing in the main story so...

Although,

There's still an argument that the Street SEKAI was just formed by the four of VBS, and Kohane was just the final piece of the puzzle that made it reveal itself. Three passionate people who are wholeheartedly devoted to their dream and one ordinary girl who wants to do something that she can dedicate herself to and feel passionate about. inverse MMJ if you will. fate is probably canon in project sekai also like i've mentioned this a few times before so that could play a part in all this.

but come to think of it, the sekai doesn't even reveal itself to Akito and Toya until really late in the main story. supposedly they still heavily influenced it but that's a bit... odd? don't you think? like the only other times that happens is N25 and WxS, wherein the SEKAI was made by only one person and let the others in later, but this was a SEKAI that was supposedly made by all 4 of them. so if you think about it hard enough, could the street sekai maybe do that again?

Also,

Nagi is very important to the VBS story and lore despite the fact that she was very obviously written in much later in development. Going back to the fate thing, at RW she states that since RADder is over and she's over, she now has a new dream, that being that she wants the next generation to be inspired by what they achieved and carry on their legacy. While when she says that, she's talking about An and Akito in the audience at RW, it's stated multiple times that the "next generation" includes all of VBS, and all the side characters. so yeah, the fate thing. I doubt the game will ever do anything about it since they're side characters, but I think it can be argued that they contributed to the SEKAI a bit.

i wrote this in so many increments and in the wrong order and now it lacks any cohesion whatsoever and i have no idea what i'm even saying at this point and i think i sort of proved it and disproved it simultaneously but like. yeah. it's an alright theory. i have some thoughts on it.

#project sekai spoilers #theory #mod talks #asks #part of this may or may not be copypasted from an essay i wrote on another blog so if any part of it seems familiar shhhh no it doesn't

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opera-ghosts · 5 months ago

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Today I will remember the extraordinary soprano Adelina Patti (1843-1919). Here we see this antique Postcard from 1898.

Spanish-born soprano who was one of the greatest of her century.

The Spanish-born soprano Adelina Patti was the most renowned singer in Europe and the United States for over 30 years. She was born in 1843, the youngest of three children, into a family of opera singers and musicians. Her parents were opera performers well known in Europe by the time of Patti's birth in Madrid, where they were on tour. Her Italian father was Salvatore Patti; her Spanish mother was Caterina Chiesa Barili-Patti , known before her marriage as Signora Barili. Caterina also had four children from an earlier marriage, and all seven of her children would enjoy successful careers as singers.

When Adelina Patti was four the family moved to New York, where her father became an opera house manager. Her half-brother Ettore Barili gave Patti voice lessons starting at age five; by the age of seven Adelina was recognized as a child prodigy and the next year she gave her debut concert at New York City's Tripler Hall. Audiences and critics at subsequent concerts were stunned by the maturity, range, and purity of her voice. Her success in New York led to a three-year tour of American cities, unprecedented for such a young child, from 1851 to 1854. A second concert tour followed in 1857. Patti's sister Amelia Patti was married to the renowned pianist Maurice Strakosch; he took care of Adelina while on tour and served as her manager, instructor, and accompanist. She received only a minimal education, although her family background and musical training made her fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and English. Her parents and Strakosch continued training Patti in the demands of operatic singing until they felt she was prepared to sing opera professionally. They arranged for her critically praised debut in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor at the New York Academy of Music in 1859; she was 16, and would perform in opera continually for the next half-century, enjoying a career that was decades longer than that of most opera singers. Soon after her debut Patti faced serious family crises, as her father's struggling opera house failed and her mother left the family in 1860 to return to Rome. Patti then began to provide much of the family's income through her performances.

She toured the eastern United States and the West Indies from 1859 to 1861. In 1861, she went abroad, under the care of her father and Strakosch, to perform in La sonnambula at the Covent Garden opera house in London. She was enthusiastically received in London, where she was to perform every autumn for 25 years.

Patti remained on tour in Europe virtually continuously for 20 years, not returning to New York until 1881. She played to crowded houses in Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Paris, and across Italy. The operatic roles she chose ranged from light comedy, which she preferred, to tragedy, but whatever role she appeared in, critics were universal in their praise of her acting ability and the emotive power of her voice.

While in Paris in 1866, through her friendship with Empress Eugénie , Patti met the aristocrat Louis de Cahuzac, marquis de Caux, who served as a personal servant to the French emperor Napoleon III. They wished to marry but the marquis was not allowed to retain his privileged position at the French court if he married a working woman. Since Patti would not consider giving up her career, de Caux eventually resigned his post. This freed the couple to marry in 1868, when the new marchioness was 25 years old and her husband 42; however, the marriage lasted less than a decade, and they obtained a legal separation in 1877. As Patti was by then a celebrity throughout Europe and the United States, her marital problems brought scandal to the opera world and were the subject of often sensationalistic newspaper articles in many of the countries she had performed in. In the divorce suit, de Caux charged Patti with an adulterous affair with her co-star, Italian tenor Ernesto Nicolini. She admitted to the affair, but maintained in her defense that de Caux was jealous, controlling, and violent, and that he allowed her no access to her substantial income. The divorce would be finalized in 1885, when de Caux was awarded a settlement of $300,000 from Patti. Freed at last from her unhappy marriage, Patti married Nicolini a few months later.

Despite her personal problems during the separation and divorce, Patti continued to travel widely. She did a concert tour on her return to New York in 1881, followed by two operatic tours of the United States. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, she was the most highly paid and most visible singer in Europe and the United States, receiving press coverage for her appearances as well as for her shocking personal life, legendary jewel collection, enormous wealth, and for her demanding, often capricious personality. She maintained homes across Europe, where she was friends with and frequently host to Europe's royalty and aristocracy. Her fame even led to mentions in contemporary literature and drama, such as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Patti gave a farewell performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1887. She and Nicolini then left for another extended tour abroad, performing in Spain and Argentina. In 1895, at age 52, Patti gave six farewell appearances at Covent Garden. She and Nicolini then went into semi-retirement on an estate in Wales called Craig-y-Nos Castle which Patti had purchased some years before, and where she lived with Nicolini prior to their marriage. Patti adopted Wales as the native land she had never truly had, and was respected by the Welsh for her generosity to charitable causes and to her poor neighbors.

Ernesto Nicolini died in 1898. Patti, age 56, remarried a year later. Her third husband, a Swedish aristocrat named Baron Rolf Cederström, was a former military officer who, at the time Patti met him in 1897, was director of the Health Gymnastic Institute in London. At the time of their marriage, Cederström was only 28; their age difference and his occupation made the renowned opera star once again the subject of a flood of news articles and gossip columns.

The urgings of Patti's American fans called her back to the stage in 1903, when she began her last operatic tour at New York's Carnegie Hall. Although Patti was by then considerably older than most opera singers were at retirement, audiences were still moved by her powerful performances. In 1906, at age 63, she made her formal farewell appearance at Albert Hall in London. She also made numerous recordings which have preserved her work and demonstrate the remarkable purity and range which captivated her admirers and which had once led the composer Giuseppe Verdi to call Patti the greatest voice he had ever heard.

Adelina Patti was called out of retirement to perform occasionally at charity events in Wales and England through 1914, when she left the stage for good at age 71. She spent the remaining five years of her life at Craig-y-Nos Castle, where she died in 1919, at age 76. At her wish, her husband buried her in the celebrity cemetery Père Lachaise in Paris. He eventually remarried, selling Craig-y-Nos Castle to the Welsh National Memorial Association which converted it into the Adelina Patti Hospital. The hospital remained in operation until 1986, when the castle and its grounds were turned into a national park and cultural center.

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stranger-marauders · 1 year ago

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i could never let you go

two: dancing queen mamma mia! au

chapter summary: Lena finds quite a surprise while covering the check-in desk. After a drink with Robin and Nancy, you make a discovery you never wanted to make.

chapter warnings: language probably, use of y/n, single-mom struggles, mentions of cheating, mentions of previous pregnancy, absent father

word count: 5.2k

series masterlist | masterlist

Whenever she heard three men in the courtyard, Lena had immediately gone to go and investigate.

At the sight of the three men and their bags, she knew that they must have been looking for the check-in desk. With that, she immediately snapped herself into her customer service persona.

“Good afternoon,” she started. “Can I help you three out?”

When they turned around, her heart stopped. She could’ve recognized their faces any sooner.

“Sure, we’re here for the wedding.”

“I’m Jonathan Byers,” one of them said. “You have a room for me?”

Lena swallowed the lump in her throat, flustered. “Jonathan Byers?”

“I’m Munson. Eddie Munson.”

Lena, of course, quickly became even more flustered. “Eddie!” She looked over to the last man. “So you must be…”

“Steve Harrington, yeah,” he said.

Lena didn’t know what to think. Her three potential fathers were all standing right in front of her with no clue in the world of who she was.

The first man, Jonathan Byers, had shorter brown hair. While he was somewhat handsome, he certainly also looked professional. With the research she’d done on him, Lena had been able to determine that Jonathan was now a successful photographer who had taken jobs with all types of newspapers, magazines, and practically any company that needed a picture of some kind.

The second man, Eddie Munson, had been much easier to find on the internet. Eddie Munson, the lead guitarist of the band Corroded Coffin, which, as of last year, was Grammy award-winning, was very popular. Not only was he an amazing guitarist, as she’d seen via Twitter, but he had also been rumored to be in a relationship with their lead singer. He was an absolute heartbreaker, even after all these years, as he’d never been in a confirmed relationship. Nonetheless, in all of the pictures she’d found of him over the years, he somehow looked almost exactly the same, having the same long hair and leather jacket that he’d had before.

Steve, however, had been the most difficult to find anything about. While he wasn’t a famous photographer or an even more famous musician, he was, without question, a millionaire. His father and his father before him had owned a contracting company that had been passed down to him, also leaving him with the millions that it had generated over the years. She hadn’t been able to find a picture of him, so she hadn’t known what to imagine about him. Lena wasn’t quite expecting him to be so handsome with his medium-length hair and his dark brown eyes, his slightly tanned skin. He, just like the other two men, was attractive.

It seemed her mother had had a type in her youth: rich brunet boys.

“Were you, uh… expecting us?” Steve asked, seeming confused.

“Yes,” Lena said, trying to pull herself together. “Yes, of course!”

“You’re not Y/N’s daughter, are you?” he asked. “You look just like her.”

“I thought you looked familiar.”

“Darlene, is it, sweetheart?” Eddie suggested, almost like he’d heard of her before.

“Oh, everyone calls me Lena,” she said quickly. “I am named after a Darlene, though.”

“Lena’s pretty,” Jonathan said. “I had a great aunt Darlene who lived right off the mainland here.”

“Would you mind taking us to our rooms so we could freshen up, maybe?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Lena said. “Uh… right this way!”

Lena didn’t know what she was doing, exactly. She didn’t know how she was supposed to hide them in the hotel from you. Now that she was thinking about it, she definitely should have thought that out before she had invited the three of your former lovers to her wedding. For now, putting them in the old and abandoned barn on the property would be good enough. At least that way you’d be able to buy some time and get another room put together for them, hopefully one that your mother wouldn’t be able to find out about.

Whenever they reached the old structure, Lena opened the door for them. “All right, just in here.”

“Where’s your mom?” Steve asked, almost anxious. “I wanna see her. I wanna thank her for the invitation.”

“It’s very kind of her to remember us after all this time,” Jonathan said.

“Can I see my room now?”

“Don’t hold your breath, Eddie, but I think this is your room.”

“Can we see Y/N, please?”

Lena had very quickly found herself extremely overwhelmed. She now understood why her mother had always gotten onto her for asking a thousand questions at once whenever she was younger. It was too much to handle.

Because of her overstimulation, Lena spat out the first thing that came into her head. “I sent the invites. My mom doesn’t know anything.”

Immediately, all three men seemed alarmed.

“She’s done so much for me, and she’s always talking about you guys and the good old days, and I thought… I just thought it would be such an amazing surprise for her that you’re all gonna be at my wedding.”

“Hang on, Lena,” Steve said, putting his hand against his head like he was having a million thoughts at once. “I–I can’t be here, okay? The last time I saw your mother, she said she never wanted to see me again.”

“That was years ago!” Lena exclaimed. “Please stay. It would mean so much if you did.”

She didn’t want to think about the three of them leaving yet. Lena had just met them. She couldn’t tolerate her potential fathers leaving and then possibly never hearing from them again. Lena couldn’t do it.

“Listen, I can see that you’ve been through a great deal of trouble,” Jonathan said, trying to ease the tension. “Might I suggest that we all reconvene on the boat?”

“Good idea.”

“Nope,” Eddie said.

Both Steve and Jonathan looked at him like he was crazy.

“Why not?”

“It’s an adventure, Jonny boy! It’s good for you!”

“Ah.”

Lena sighed. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she had to think of something quick to get them to stay. That was when it hit her.

“Okay, when I sent the invites, it was a long shot that you’d even reply, and now you’ve come all this way for a wedding. Surely there must have been some special reason for you to be here.”

“You’re just like your mother,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I’m glad my boys haven’t met you. They’d never recover.”

“You have sons?” Lena asked. Could she have siblings?

“Yeah, two,” he replied, not thinking much of the question. “Someday, I’d like to bring them here.”

“Like you used to bring my mother?”

Steve sighed. “No, not like—”

“Wait, do you hear that?” Jonathan said, listening closely. “That sounds like her right outside.”

Whenever everyone stopped arguing and your faint hum could be heard from outside, they all three tried to leave the structure. Lena, of course, blocked the entrance.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, listen, she can’t know. Okay? I’m going to go. Please stay.” She paused. “Promise me that you won't tell anybody that I invited you.” Whenever the three men didn’t answer her, she restated herself. “Okay? Promise?”

“You got it, sweetheart,” Eddie said, flashing a grin at her.

“It’s a promise.”

“Fine.”

Lena, for the first time since she’d met her three possible fathers, sighed with relief. “Okay.”

Whenever she left the barn, climbing out of a window in order to avoid being spotted by you, Lena knew it was only a matter of time before you found out that your former three lovers were on Pinestead Island.

For the past few hours, you had been running around the island to try and at least make the place look put together. Of course, that was after the hour that you’d wasted drinking wine coolers with Nancy and Robin in their room.

You didn’t know why they had talked you into drinking with them. Quite frankly, you didn’t know how they had either. You hadn’t intended on drinking during the day, maybe that night whenever the three of you were alone, but you now hated the decision you’d made. It was only supposed to be one drink. One drink, apparently, was all it took to feel the effects of alcohol anymore.

Getting older sucked.

Running around tipsily on Pinestead Island wasn’t something you ever would have thought you would do. Now, though, you felt even more emotional than you had earlier that day.

While you loved Leo and you knew that your daughter was in good hands, you felt like she was much too young to get married. You wished that she would’ve gotten to experience more of the world before she got settled down and married, especially to the first serious boyfriend that she’d ever had.

Lena had very quickly fallen for Leo when he’d come to Pinestead Island about three years ago. Even though he was a year older than her, it didn’t matter. They had very quickly fallen in love, ready to leave everything behind for one another.

You were glad that Lena had found someone to take care of her if something ever happened to you. That didn’t mean, however, that you were ready to see your baby get married. In your opinion, twenty was much too young to be a bride. Twenty-two had been much too young to become a mother on your own. You didn’t want Lena to have to grow up too quickly, similarly to what you had had to do.

That thought, however, came to an abrupt halt whenever she heard something come from the barn.

You immediately thought that was odd. There wasn’t supposed to be anything inside of that barn, nor had there been anything in the structure that was of value for a long time. You assumed something must have finally fallen over, or maybe an old shelf had finally rotted away and had given out with the weight of the objects resting on top of it. You also wouldn’t have put it past any of the kids that currently worked for you, however, to be inside of the barn smoking or drinking and trying to avoid doing any more work for the day.

With your mind running at a thousand miles an hour, you decided that you wouldn’t be able to focus until you checked the inside of the barn.

It couldn’t have been anything too bad, you thought. Whenever you walked inside the barn, however, nothing could have prepared you for the sight of Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers, and Eddie Munson standing together in front of you.

Your head started to hurt: it had been nearly twenty-one years since the last time you’d seen any of them.

Truthfully, you hadn’t left things so terribly with Eddie. Even though you’d been a well-sought-after groupie, and that was the glorified version, that was all there truly was to that relationship. It was a short-lived fling, and both of you knew that. There weren’t any hard feelings or anything. You and Eddie were simply a one-night thing, and what a night it was. That didn’t exactly mean that you wanted him in your barn, though.

Jonathan wasn’t so bad, either. The only reason you had the hotel on the island was because of him and his great aunt, to be honest, and you never would’ve been happy again without him. If it wasn’t for him, your life would’ve been completely different, and while that reality might have been nice to dream about, you knew that that wasn’t what you wanted. Once again, that didn’t mean that you wanted him in that hotel or anywhere near the property.

Steve, however, was a different story. He had completely enamored you all those years ago. You had never felt anything quite like what you had during that month with him in the old house on the island, and you still didn’t think you would ever quite feel anything like that again. Steve Harrington had shown you the world and then had completely shattered it at your feet. You didn’t know if you would ever quite feel love like that again. That was why, out of the three men, you definitely didn’t want him anywhere near you, your property, and the entire island if you could help it.

The three men could only stare at you, and you back at them. All of them had aged somewhat well. While Eddie looked exactly the same, other than a few wrinkles here and there, Jonathan and Steve looked different. Jonathan looked much more put together than he did the last time you saw him, his hair much shorter and his skill less pale. Steve, however, almost looked like a different man entirely. While he, of course, still looked like himself, he still looked older. Steve, much to your dismay, was one of those guys that only got more attractive with age. While his hair wasn’t the same as it was the last time you saw him, it was still a medium length, still similar enough that he still resembled his younger self. All three of them looked good. Probably great compared to how you looked right now.

You didn’t need to look at yourself in a mirror to know that you looked terrible. Not only were you a bit tipsy, but you’d been working around the island and the hotel all day, meaning your hair was probably messy and you smelled gross. You weren’t even wearing a cute outfit. Besides, the last time they’d seen you, that was before you’d had Lena.

Lena.

The three of them couldn’t be on Pinestead. You didn’t know what you would do if they happened to run into your daughter and talked to her for just a few moments. Steve, Jonathan, and Eddie weren’t stupid. It wouldn’t take long for at least one of them to realize that Lena had to be one of theirs.

You didn’t want to think about all of the things that had happened with the three of those boys that were now men. Now, though, as you stood in front of them, almost as if you were frozen to stone, you didn’t quite know what to do.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” you finally asked. “You’re not really here.”

“Would you like me to pinch you or something?” Steve asked.

“You keep your hands to yourself.”

“That’s not what you said last time.”

You didn’t quite know how to respond to him. The audacity he had to joke about their relationship after everything he’d done.

“What the hell are you doing here, Steve? Why are any of you here, actually?”

“I’m taking pictures for an article in a magazine,” Jonathan replied.

“And I’m here on a spontaneous trip,” Eddie said.

“And I thought I’d just drop in. Say hi,” Steve added.

“And that’s why you’re in my old barn?” you asked, somewhat annoyed with the three of them.

All three men clamored to explain why they were there, but, unsurprisingly, were not actually able to come up with a reason for their presence. Shocker.

“Hm. It’s a shame we don’t have any rooms right now,” you lied, knowing damn good and well that you definitely still had more than enough space. “It’s that time of year, you know?”

“That’s why I made the decision to book ahead,” Steve said as-a-matter-of-factly. “You know, for your convenience.”

Of course he did. You hated him. You hated that he’d planned a spontaneous visit twenty-one years after you’d seen him at such a time as this. It was like he knew that today and tomorrow were the most inconvenient times for you to deal with the repercussions of him being on the island.

“It’s… not a good time.”

“Why?” Jonathan asked.

“Because…”

You didn’t know how to tell them about Lena’s wedding tomorrow without telling them about Lena’s existence. They couldn’t know about her. Then they would want to stay even more.

“One of the local girls is getting married here tomorrow, and I… I just don’t have the staff to take care of everyone. You’d be so much more comfortable on the mainland. All three of you.”

“Oh, no. Not at all. Jonathan’s used to roughing it, and Eddie likes staying in places that are much, much worse.”

“And what about you?” you asked him, somewhat bitterly. “Seems like you left that part out.”

“Uh, me?” Steve asked, somewhat taken by surprise. “I, uh… I–I just came back to see the island, you know, and I, uh—”

“Listen, I’d love to stop and chat to, uh… reminisce about the good old days, but I have to go, uh… go clean one of the rooms, or something like that.”

Whenever you left the room, the three men all exchanged glances: even though you had aged twenty years, you still had not learned the subtle art of lying.

“Age has certainly done her well,” Jonathan finally said, breaking the silence.

“To be honest, I was expecting her to be stout and scary,” Eddie replied. “Like a crazy mom or something.”

“Nope,” Steve said, shaking his head. “She’s, uh… She’s still Y/N.”

With that, Jonathan, Steve, and Eddie made the decision to finally enter the villa and hopefully get sent to a real room.

As you walked back to the villa, you thought you were going to have a mental breakdown.

Nothing could have ever prepared you to ever see any of them again. Especially Steve. You hadn’t thought about seeing them in twenty years, so why would they—

That was a lie. You knew that. Even if you never wanted to talk to your daughter about it, you thought about that summer all the time.

It had started with Steve. You remembered meeting him clear as day, even now. That was back in your performing days, back when you secretly wanted to be just like your mother. You were singing in one of the bars back on the mainland and Steve was sitting at the bar. You finally noticed him after he didn’t leave for hours, only watching you as you sang a mix of covers and originals with your acoustic guitar. That night, Steve had taken you back to Pinestead Island, showing you the big and abandoned farmhouse where he’d been staying.

He’d given you the most thrilling month of your life. Steve had made sure that you felt loved every single night, and that you did. You didn’t think you would ever experience something so magical ever again. He had loved every single part of you and supported you every night at the bar, making sure you went back to your place with some type of money. He’d shown you that he could have had you anywhere: your bed, the kitchen table, the beach… it didn’t matter as long as he had you.

That was until Steve had gone home to get married. You remembered whenever he told you he had to go back home to Indiana and you had told him that you needed him to stay. You remembered that you didn’t understand. That was when he had told you that he had a fiancée, Amy, and he was supposed to marry her in four days. With that, you promptly told him with tears in your eyes to leave the island and that you never wanted to see him again, so long as you still lived.

You didn’t know if you would ever experience such heartbreak again. Steve Harrington had been enough to scare you out of ever truly loving anyone again for the rest of your life, and you were certain of that.

Shortly after that, you’d met Jonathan. He had come to the mainland to take pictures of the area for some travel magazine and had stopped by the bar for a drink. Of course, just like most of the men that walked into the bar, he was completely enamored with you and the Dynamos. The next day, you and Jonathan rented a motorboat and took it out to the island, mostly so you could show him what the place was like. Maybe he could have used it for your magazine, you told yourself. Whenever it had started raining and you had both gone inside the big house, the same one that you and Steve had shared together, something within you sank. Because of that, Jonathan had tried to make it all better for you, showing you that someone could love you again. After a night together, however, Jonathan’s contract was up—he had to go home, too.

That was when Eddie came into the picture. He and the band had a couple of gigs booked at the same bar you’d been working at all summer, but now you were opening for them. Eddie had talked to you before you’d gone on stage, making sure you were okay before you performed. After your set and Corroded Coffin’s set were over, Eddie offered to get you a couple of drinks, and you both got drunk enough that you brought him back to your place on the island. After having one of the craziest nights of your life sex-wise, Eddie hadn’t had any choice but to leave you on Pinestead Island so he could continue touring with his band.

With that, you had been left all alone.

You found out around three weeks after Eddie had left that you were pregnant. You had been about two weeks late on your period, so you took a test to confirm what you’d already known to be true. Your jeans and bras had already started to fit tighter, and you’d already started getting sick in the mornings, which you had just attributed to eating bar food every night.

After panicking because you were currently carrying a child in your stomach, you panicked even more. You couldn’t begin to think about who the father was. You hadn’t been thinking about it, mostly because you’d been partying all summer, but you couldn’t remember when your last period was. It had to have been some time before Steve had left, meaning that it could have been any of them.

Whenever you told your mother what had happened, she told you not to come home. She said that you had been stupid enough to run away to Michigan and to get knocked up, and even dumber for not even knowing who the father was. Because of that, she wanted nothing to do with you or the baby that you were still planning to keep.

That was when you had met Darlene. She had actually owned the abandoned farmhouse that you had been staying in, and she asked you if you wanted to stay with her. Of course, you had obliged. You didn’t really have a home to go back to now that your mother had disowned you, and you certainly didn’t want to be alone. In your opinion, that woman had saved your’s and Lena’s life. That was the reason you’d named your daughter after her, even if you didn’t truly know if Jonathan was the father or not.

Even if you’d had some wonderful times that summer, that didn’t mean that you ever wanted to see them again. Truly, you hadn’t ever prepared to see them again. You’d imagined for a long time what you would say to each of them if you did see them again, but most of it was for Steve. For the longest time, you’d thought that if you ever saw him again that you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself from yelling at him, telling him how unfair it had been that he had spent that summer with you only to leave you alone on Pinestead to get married to some girl he was engaged to back home.

It was cruel. All of it. Whatever had brought them back to Pinstead now the day before Lena’s wedding was cruel, and you didn’t know what you had done to deserve such treatment from the world.

Your stress didn’t let up whenever you walked into your room and Robin and Nancy were trying on your old Y/N & the Dynamos costumes. At first, you chose to ignore them, simply asking the first question you needed to know. You would assess the Dynamos situation whenever you had the mental ability to do such a thing.

“Where’s Lena?” you asked, your voice tense.

“I haven’t seen her. Why?” Nancy asked.

“I have to find her right now—”

“Here it is!” Robin shouted, holding a large object in hand.

Whenever you saw what Robin was holding, you thought you were going to lose your mind. Under normal circumstances, seeing one of the old posters you three had made back in your partying days would’ve made you happy. Right now, though, it only made your head hurt.

“Now why was this piece of art hiding in that trunk?” Robin asked.

“That is the last thing I wanna see right now.”

“You should hang it in the bar,” Nancy said jokingly. “Show Lena what a cool mom she has.”

“Absolutely not! Give that here.” Whenever Robin handed it to you, you crumpled up the paper, throwing it on the ground. “I never wanna see that damn thing again.”

“What’s going on?” Nancy asked, her voice immediately lacing with concern.

“Yeah, what happened?”

“This has to be a joke,” you said, not even beginning to explain yourself. “Any minute I’m gonna wake up from this nightmare and they’ll all be gone.”

Before Nancy or Robin could say another word, you dove into your bed and buried your face into your pillow. It was the only thing that was stopping you from crying.

“What’s wrong?” “Nothing. Just leave me alone.” You took a shaky breath. “I knew this would happen one day. Of course it had to happen right now. Why was I such an idiot?”

“Come on,” Nancy said, moving to sit next to you on the bed. “Just tell us what’s wrong.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this torn up over anything,” Robin said. “It’s just depressing.”

“Just… Just tell us what’s going on,” Nancy said, putting her hand on your back.

You tried to think about what your options currently were. You could’ve simply told them that they didn’t need to know what was wrong, but that wouldn’t have ended well. Nancy and Robin wouldn’t have left you alone until you told them something. You could also lie, but you knew that they knew you were a bad liar. No matter what, you still ended up looking like an idiot: you might as well have just been honest with your two best friends.

You finally sighed, your voice broken as you sat up. “It’s her dad.”

“Whose dad?” Nancy asked, her eyes wide with concern.

“Lena’s!” you said, but your daughter’s name in your voice was much harsher than you intended it to sound. You sighed again. “You know how I always said it was Steve? Steve, the millionaire who ran home to get married?”

“Typical man,” Robin said, somewhat spitefully.

“Here’s the problem with that. I’m not quite sure it’s really him.”

Nancy and Robin both gave you confused looks. “What do you mean?”

You hesitated. “There might’ve been… a couple others.”

Robin shouted your name in response, almost as if she was about to scold you. “You’re telling us that you weren’t completely sure of who Lena’s dad was and you didn’t tell us!”

“I… I didn’t think I’d ever have to, to be honest with you. I didn’t think all three of them would be hiding out in my old barn the day before their potential daughter’s wedding.”

“They’re here?” Robin asked, rushing to the window. “Where’s the barn?”

Nancy shook her head. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!” you said. “What, do you think I’d forget my daughter’s possible fathers or something?”

Nancy nor Robin truly knew what to say. It was too bad that there wasn’t an instruction manual about how to comfort one of your best friends about their three possible baby daddies accidentally showing up to their daughter’s wedding, except they don’t actually know that she’s potentially a daughter of one of them. Such a shame.

“Who are the other two?”

“Jonathan and Eddie,” you explained. “I just don’t understand why they’ve all three turned up now. It’s like some horrible curse or something.”

“Very Greek if you ask me,” Robin said. “Dare I say Shakespearean?”

“No. I can’t take any more drama this weekend.”

“Do they know?” Nancy asked.

“No, I never told anyone. That’s why I’m confused about why they’re here. It can’t just be a coincidence that Lena’s getting married tomorrow.”

“I thought you didn’t want this wedding to happen,” Robin asked, somewhat confused.

“Even if I don’t agree with it, she’s my daughter. They have no right to turn up like this. I mean, what have they done for Lena?”

“Be more fair than that. They don’t even know she exists!” Nancy said.

“They don’t need to know. I’ve done a good job at raising Lena all by myself and now… I–I’m not gonna let them ruin her day. I won’t.”

“Okay, then let’s make a plan. Tonight’s already a male-free zone at the bachelorette party, and then tomorrow Robin and I’ll, uh… t–take them fishing, or something. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

“Fishing? Gross,” Robin replied, turning her nose up in disgust.

“I said or something.” Nancy sighed, shaking her head. “You should’ve told us. We could’ve helped more if we would’ve known.”

“No, you couldn’t have.”

“We could’ve tried.”

“I guess this serves me right after everything I’ve done,” you said, shaking your head. “I deserve this.”

“Oh my God, you sound just like your mother,” Nancy said.

You gasped, offended at the thought. “I do not!”

“You do!” Nancy replied, trying not to laugh. “Whatever happened to Y/N: the life and soul of the party?”

“Rock chick and sex symbol for all?” Robin added.

“Oh, she grew up, that’s all.”

You knew the real answer to that question. The old you was stupid is what she was. She had been stupid enough to get with all of those men, then not even do it with protection. You didn’t even think you now and your past self was near the same person anymore.

“Grow back down again, then. You’ve done nothing to be ashamed of,” Robin said. “We wanna see you have the time of your life again.”

“And maybe finally find someone,” Nancy said, smirking.

You sighed.

After everything you’d gone through in your life, you knew that a happy ending wasn’t in the cards for you. The only hope you had was that Lena and Leo would find their happy ending and that this marriage would be a huge waste of money and time.

For the sake of Nancy, though, you knew that you had to play along.

next chapter

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #stranger things #steve harrington headcanon #steve harrington series #steve harrington stranger things #mamma mia! au #eddie munson #jonathan byers

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insomniac4000 · 7 months ago

Text

First Impressions ChrisMD

Bethany Margaret Johnson didn't sound like a popstar name so she used the moniker Annie J professionally. Her first top ten single "Like Me" debuted in the charts at number four when she was just nineteen years old and she had gone from strength to strength over the past seven years. The thing that Bethany or Betsy to her friends believed what set her apart from others and the reason for her continued success was her love for music had never wavered. Even when she was being hounded by the press and paparazzi, spent months away from home, was working fifteen or sixteen hour days for tour preparations she still loved her music. That didn't stop at her music either, she loved music in general and always kept up to date with the goings on, her contemporaries and competition as well as newer artists.

Betty could be a perfectionist and would be the first person to admit she could be a bit of a control freak about things, she was never rude with it as she had a great team but she was not one of these artists where the team did all of the work, she needed to know all of the goings on, she chose the setlists for her shows, if the record company wanted to release a certain song she would push back as much as she could to fight her corner, she okayed her outfits and she always chose her own support acts. Her her latest UK tour the artists she had chosen to open for her was the Welsh MACY and the singer and TikTok/Youtube star Arthur Hill. She had previously has Talia Mar open for her a couple of years ago which exposed her a little to the online world, Betsy had to admit that was the one part of her job she was happy to hand over to her team, it wasn't really a world she knew too much about but Talia's then boyfriend and now husband Simon seemed like a decent guy. Her and Talia had struck up a friendship and she was even invited to Talia's wedding, she went despite the fact that she didn't know anyone.

*Flashback*

"You look so beautiful! Congratulations," Betsy smiled as she hugged Talia, as the bride was the only person she really knew properly at the wedding it was a little awkward but she was glad to see her friend get married.

"Thank you, you look gorgeous I'm so glad you're here! Now we've sat you next to one of Simon's friends Chris," Talia started to explain but Simon cut her off as he hugged Betsy while she congratulated him.

"He's not long been dumped so sorry if he's a bit miserable." The sideman commented.

"Oh great," Betsy rolled her eyes a little, she came for fun.

"He's a nice guy I think he was just blindsided by the whole thing but he is dating again so you might have fun," Talia teased and Betsy smiled but rolled her eyes. She walked round the room a little before finding her table and she smiled at the dirty blonde boy with piercing blue eyes. He had some facial hair which peppered a nice and not too defined jaw line. He was wearing a blue suit with a soft yellow gold tie, he looked good and obviously knew how to dress for an occasion.

"Hi, I'm Bethany," Betsy smiled as she sat down, smoothing out her gold dress as she did so.

"Chris nice to meet you," the male said smiling showing off his white but slightly crooked teeth, not only was he cute but he was refreshingly normal. She had dated before, and as a musician the press were all over it, she dated her childhood sweetheart for six years but when they split when she was twenty five and she was linked with a model and a couple of footballers the press went wild. She wasn't a fan of footballers, she doesn't know why she did it and wasn't sure if it was all footballers or the ones she chose but they were self absorbed and pretty sure had photographers of speed dial.

"So what do you do? The brunette asked taking a sip of water which had been pre poured in glasses.

"Oh I do football videos on Youtube," Chris explained, Betsy surprised a sigh, not again. "You do music, right?" Chris asked also taking a sip of water, it was too early in the day to be drunk yet.

"Yeah," Betsy nodded she didn't mind being recognised but in some circles it could be so superficial.

"I really loved that one you did about the note. I had that on repeat for a while," Chris admitted and Betsy smiled, the song, Pen to Paper was an album track so he was obviously a fan.

"Thank you. I'm sorry I can't say I've watched any of your videos," she apologised, turning in her chair a little to face Chris slightly more.

"It's okay, it's like a ninety seven percent male audience so I'm not surprise, and thank you for the honesty."

The pair were interrupted as more people joined their table and introductions were made as well as Chris there were four couples on the table, Will and Mia, Theo and Jodie, Chip and Sabina and Callum and Laura. Betsy knew what Talia was trying to do, as the wine and conversation flowed it was working.

By the end of the night Betsy and Chris were on the dance floor together getting incredibly close, his hands on her bum during fast dances and their arms around each other during slow ones.

"Your room or mine?" Chris whispered in a gruff tone when the place was starting to empty and the after party was beginning. They had a good time and the pair swapped numbers but she grew disappointed with him when she messaged him but failed to receive a reply so she thought her very first impression of him was spot on, stupid footballers.

*Present day*

"Ah here she is!" Betsy's tour manager Lance announced when Betsy walked into the room.

"Hi, I am so sorry I had a meeting and it overran," she apologised before shaking the hands of her support acts, she was meeting them for the first time and wanted to get to know them a little bit better, break the ice and give a run down of how she usually ran things. While she wasn't uptight she wasn't the biggest fan of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll cliche, she didn't care what people did on their own time so long as they arrived on time for rehearsals and their stage slots and didn't flaunt things in the public eye something which was a very reasonable request.

Everything was set and everyone then had some casual chat to get to know each other a little bit. Soon Betsy was called away for another interview and made her goodbyes.

"Really nice to meet you both, let me or Lance know if you have enough tickets for friends and family I'm sure we can sort some things out, and VIP passes and things.

"Oh great, my roommates said they're free to come now," Arthur mentioned and Betsy nodded.

"We'll sort them out don't worry," the brunette smiled before being ushered off.

Tour went underway and was a huge hit, they reached London of which there were three dates.

"This is really cool," George commented as him and his other housemates enjoyed the backstage tour.

"It is, the crowds have been great too." The musician responded looking at his friends and noticing the smallest of the four was staring at the door as he clutched his beer, something he had been doing since he got there.

"You've been very quiet," Arthur H said to Chris who just nodded his head, he was in two minds about whether he wanted to see Betsy or not, he did intend on messaging her back but by the time he got round to it it was a long time, plus he was quite intimidated by being with someone well known his relationship with Shannon was under the microscope enough and they were only two content creators.

"Hi Arthur," Betsy chimed as she walked into his dressing room, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw the short male, his hair had changed but it was undeniably him, she looked in those eyes long enough to know them.

"Sorry I didn't know you had company," Betsy went to retreat as she stared at the curly haired man who was suddenly finding his shoes very interesting.

"These are my flatmates, Arthur, George and Chris. Guys this is Betsy otherwise known as AnnieJ," Arthur Hill explained pointing out everyone in turn. George greeted her with a hug, Arthur and Chris settled for a handshake, the two previous lovers ignoring the spark of electricity that flowed through their hands.

"Have you got time to hang out for a little bit?" Arthur asked, Betsy nodded as she didn't want to be rude plus the other two could be a laugh.

Chris looked on clutching his beer bottle so hard his knuckles turned white staring at Betsy who was laughing at one of George's jokes.

"Sorry I need to get ready, enjoy the show guys, it was nice to meet you Arthur and George and hopefully I'll see you after?" Betsy smiled before rushing off out the room.

"What is your problem? We've only heard two grunts out of you," George commented pointing at Chris who just shrugged.

"This is just not my scene," he replied, saying more words than he he had spoken in the past two hours.

"Okay, well next time I'll give your space to someone else," Arthur Hill replied as he checked the time, it was approaching show time.

"This is nothing to do with the fact you two slept together at Simon's wedding and she's obviously forgotten about it," Arthur TV explained, he had only gotten Chris's side of the story so didn't know he had failed to message Betsy back. George and Arthur Hill looked at each other before laughing.

"Chris we need to get you fixed," Arthur Hill joked before announcing he had to go and warm up.

The show had calmed Chris down somewhat, MACY was good, Arthur was great and he enjoyed watching Betsy, it was obvious she loved doing what she did things changed slightly again when she sang one of her hit songs Infamy. On the surface it just sounded like the song was about relationships but there was a deeper meaning which was about the press's judgement and hounding of people's personal lives. There was one moment where Chris swore Betsy looked at him momentarily and he felt incredibly guilty, he ghosted her because of something she was already afraid of he felt small, well even smaller.

Arthur Hill was slightly surprised when Chris asked if he could come again, considering he was quiet the day before but Arthur agreed and this time Chris came with a plan. He kept himself a little scarce at the beginning but watched her intently from the side lines that was the first time Betsy noticed his presence there.

After the show Chris knocked on Betsy's dressing room door he took a deep breath when he heard a soft come in. Chris couldn't help but smile when he saw Betsy in black leggings and a green jumper. Her regular casual self was so much different to her stage persona, she was just a regular girl underneath it all and Chris wanted to get to know her and not the flashy musician exterior he was afraid of before.

"Hi, good show," Chris smiled. Betsy just nodded before placing her glasses on, her eyes got tired if she wore her contacts for too long.

"Look I have been an absolute arsehole and if you don't want to listen to me excuses that's fine but I think I owe you an explanation," Chris continued and Betsy looked at him. His blue eyes looked so sincere, so kind and there was something about his little face she couldn't resist.

"Look if you didn't want anything else a simple text would have sufficed," Betsy replied as she sat on the arm of the grey sofa.

"But I did! I looked you up and saw all these stories and got flustered. When my ex and I broke up there's still jokes going on about it now and she still gets comments on social media and I just thought about how much worse it would be," Chris admitted and Betsy sighed, she had heard this before.

"I get it. It's fine."

"It's not, look you probably don't want anything else to do with me but I just owed you a sorry."

"I didn't say I didn't want anything more to do with you," Betsy smiled getting up from the sofa and walking slowly over to Chris who nodded as he gave a small but cheeky smile.

"Good," he smiled before his and Betsy's lips touched.

#chrismd #chris dixon #chrismd x reader #chrismd fic

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