#it’s almost ritual for me to cry on midnight when my birthday comes but this time I didn’t! owo I think I’m growing up..??

[theuwuafterhours]

Tyyy everyone for the birthday wishes~ ☺️🫶

[heroes-anthesis]

Good morning, sweet succubus (Venus)

The family tribute room was in our basement, but we were never allowed to go in. “That’s the She-Devil’s room. Mama and I are the only people allowed in.” Father would say. This had always confused me, because sister Vesta had told me that it was where sister Venus slept. When I asked Father about it, he said: “She is not human. Never ask me again.” So I didn’t.

Once a month, Father would tell me to write on a sheet of paper everything that had gone wrong the month before. Every bad grade, every weird tasting food, even if I left the house with my shoes untied one day. When I was ten, I figured out that the longer my list, the longer Venus would scream and cry that night. But if I listed nothing, or not enough, it was worse. So I started putting 10 things on the list, everytime.

Our little piece of land in Oregon was hardly touched during the Crisis. Yet, at least once a week, I would hear Mama talk about how the “She-Devil” was causing strife and distress in our country. This was about the only time we would hear her talk about anything political related. Even our history lessons would avoid talking about anything but our beliefs.

It was close to midnight during Venus’s Coming of Age, and we were walking through the woods after Ritual. Despite our isolation, we heard the telltale sign of footsteps.I feared a wendigo, Janus a werewolf. Our parents, the truth: a witch. She dashed towards Venus, who was bound by chains across her whole body, shuffled along like a slave. Father tried to stop her, but it was as if she didn’t exist, moving through him like the wind moves through silence. What the witch told Venus that night, we will never know, for she left as quickly as she came, and Venus refused to tell. But she did change. My quiet, soft spoken sister would suddenly lash out at me, calling me many of the “banned words” without any of her trademarked stutter. Her monthly beatings suddenly became weekly altercations, and then daily skirmishes. Papa stopped making statues for our shrine after Venus cracked Vesta’s skull with one.

Today was my 16th birthday. Where many children would receive money, video games, maybe a car, I received a box at eight in the morning. Inside were three things: A pair of white robes, a weird leather mask, and a note. *Come to the basement tonight at ten. Wear what you have been given. Do not be late or early.* The mask, as I would later discover, was human leather.

I waited outside the entrance until 9:59. As the clock struck, I quickly resolved the nerve to open the door. The staircase down was lined with fine gray stone, and lit with beautiful candles. I descended the stairs quietly, but quickly. Unlike the rest of our house, the flight of steps refused to creak, as if they were created and maintained with extreme duty. Or better yet, the flight was so short and unused that it never saw heavy usage.

The basement used the same fine stone as the staircase, except that various runes lined the room in carefully measured intervals. I was able to recognize many from my lessons, *Protection*, *Wealth*, *Love*. But there was one that littered the room, from head to toe: *Demon*, etched so deep that you could see outside through the cracks. What confused me the most, however, was that there was no bedroom furniture. The only exception was a small rectangle carved into the ground, with the word *BED* etched in the center. Venus’s clothes laid in a neat pile at the foot of the crude sleeping spot.

Father wore a robe mask like mine, with Antlers sprouting from his. Mama wore a hood and plague mask, cloaked in all black. Vesta wore red, wearing one of those anonymous masks that movie hackers have. Venus… wore nothing but chains. They hung from her limbs, dangling her from the ceiling like a wind chime. Her face looked sullen, almost neutral. It morphed into fear as she noticed my presence. I could not meet her gaze, so I followed the scars down her left side, starting at her cheek, and ending at her heel.

“Mama,” Venus asked. “...Why is Veritas here? I thought you said that-”

“Quiet demon. Veritas.” My mother said to me, “Come over here.” I hesitated. **”NOW!”** I was at her side the next moment, scared at the first time I had ever been yelled at. I looked to Vesta for guidance, but she refused to hold my gaze, instead staring at the runes on the ceiling.

“Veritas, let me introduce you to Angra Maihu.” Father gestured to Venus. “We humans are plagued by evil at every turn. Demons infest our lives, using sin and disaster to lead our lives into death and damnation. The devil before you is the twisted mother of every imp, monster, and devil that exists. Each month, we purge our sins on her, to keep ourselves pure. You are of age today, so now it is your responsibility to join in her punishment.”

The look on Venus’s face changed, from fear and shock to anger. We all knew what it meant- her “other side”, the one that the witch had created, had taken over. __***”No! You promised! You no good, cowardly, pieces of-”***__ her speech was cut short as Father struck her in the chest. Blood came out of her mouth, but she was silent.

“You may beat, cut, maim her. But do not kill her, for it will release the evil to all the world. And do not defile her, lest you become a host to evil as well.” Mama held the knife to me, which I grabbed after a brief hesitation.

I hesitated. Earlier that day, Venus had helped me find my shoes. The day before, we had made dinner together. And last week, I played board games with her for hours. But… I had seen her almost kill Vesta. The days when she was beaten the hardest led to clear skies and a large harvest the next day. She had called me banned words when she changed, and her apologies never felt… real. I looked at her.

“Your sister Vesta has developed special gifts, granted to her by the Earth Mother. Save death, she can cure any ailment you wish to inflict. Do as you may.” Unlike everyone else in our family, Venus’s eyes were red. They shone like diamonds, and as a child I was always infatuated with them. Tonight, they filled me with rage.

“So, I can slash her eyes?” Father smiled. Mama nodded. Vesta looked away. Venus gasped.

“V-Veritas… why?” Tears fell down my sister���s face. I approached her. “Whatever I did today, I’m sorry! Just please don’t…” Venus broke down into sobs. The sound annoyed me like a whining dog annoys its owner. I grabbed her neck with my free hand, her cries ceasing as the demon struggled for breath. Blade in my raised hand, I prepared to strike, when suddenly, I stopped.

My head spun. The stiff air changed, becoming a violent haze as the dagger clattered onto the stone. Father’s voice sounded concerned, but his words were drowned out by the sound of something *breaking*. Through my foggy sight, I saw Venus hit the ground, before suddenly rushing into me. I flew through the air, and I lost my breath as I hit the wall.

There was a scream. The shape of Venus flew at the shape of father, and I watched as his horned visage flinched, staggered, and then fell. Venus followed him as he fell, her hand flying up and down at his face. As my vision returned, I saw why: she had picked up the dagger that I had dropped.

Mother was next. She and Vesta had opted to flee, but only made it halfway up the steps. Venus looked at them, and Mama suddenly fell backwards. Vesta, who was behind Mama, matched her path. The only difference was that Vesta didn’t hit her head. Mama’s skull crunched on the stone, and she did not move. My sister screamed, but for some reason, she was unable to shift the corpse on top of her.

I looked back at Venus, who seemed satisfied with her work to Father’s mutilated face as she rose. She took her time walking over to the screaming Vesta, and kneeled gently at her side. If mother was the luckiest, dying instantly from head trauma, Vesta was second. Venus slit her throat, and she was unconscious in seconds.

__***”…Why do you hate me, Veritas?”***__ Venus asked. I was too scared to move, or answer. __***”It’s okay, even if you don’t love me, I love you. Which is why, I won’t kill you, but…”***__ The flash of the knife filled my vision, as my eye was sliced from its socket. I screamed in pain, but when I lifted my hands to clutch the wound, Venus pinned them down. __***”No! You don’t get the luxury of coping with your pain. You will suffer like I did, to understand.”***__

Venus let me go when I stopped struggling. As I lay there, sobbing, she dressed herself and left. I wish I could say that her last words were impactful, but no, she destroyed my eye and left. I managed to crawl out of that dreaded basement, where I called the police. They took the bodies away, and declared Venus a villain to be caught by parahumans. Once they left, I used Father’s tools to seal the basement shut.

It’s been about three years since then. I still own the house, and I work a steady construction job. It’s very lonely, so I visit Father, Mama, and Vesta’s graves every day. Each time, I wonder, if I had refused Father and Mama that night, would they still be alive? Would I still have my family in my life, my mother, father, and two sisters? Would Venus still live in that basement, chained up and beaten every night for a crime she didn’t commit? The thought bothers me, so I put it all out of my mind.

But, she’s on my mind today. It’s my birthday, and the three year anniversary. I was watching the news, and the reporter was talking about the “Succubus of New York”, who had been cornered by a warden but managed to escape. When they showed her picture, I cried. My older sister Venus, with that wicked smile, was on the screen. I had to by a new television that night, because *something* destroyed mine in that instant. It wasn’t me though, I promise. I refuse to be like Venus.

[junicai]

Relationship with NCT Dream

➣ MARK ☾ mari

½ of the best friend crew

honestly at the beginning, mark and aria weren’t very close, having only really seen each other in passing or with johnny

but after being dropped into training together the two quickly became fast friends, and now they’re borderline inseparable

you thought you knew pain? watch aria’s reaction to mark’s graduation from dream :)

mark’s the reason why aria felt confident enough to pitch some of her lyric ideas to the team, after staying up until 4am to help her make some edits so she was as confident as possible

kinda just, rests his head on her shoulder? and wraps his arms around her waist when he’s tired

mari being confused in foreigner: ???

aria said once in a vlive that she finds mark really comforting to be around - when she feels stressed or worried about something she’ll go to mark’s room and just sit on his bed for a while

aria is so close with his parents - “ahh, how’s my favourite child” “i’m doing great mom.” “no not you, how’s aria?” “wh-hu-MOM?”

you’d swear sometimes mark is younger than her, considering the pout he puts on and how much he whines when they’re not on the same team together for promotions

mark big protecc boi but also little small cuddly boi

they’re so soft for each other ( ╥ω╥ )

in one of the fancams for mark’s solo stage during superm, someone zoomed into aria singing along with him in the wings and dancing to herself with the Proudest Smile™

he’s! so! proud! of! her! constantly! she could be walking and he’d be like “omg get it”

when aria refuses to get up and make herself food (this happens way too often, she just gets into the groove of her work and doesn’t want to move) mark gets her to by threatening to do it himself

consistently caught by czennies just standing behind her and holding her hand in crowded areas - airports, waiting rooms, etc.

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

mark and aria were standing off to one side as the mc explained the rules of the game they were about to be playing. mark looked totally confused, and elbowed aria in her side before looking down and mouthing “what?” to her. aria opened her mouth, before closing it and looking down at the ground, muttering to herself, “결합… 結合….. le chéile…. le… le.. oh oh - combined! we have to put them together, markie.”and thus, a new confusion meme was born

➣ RENJUN ☾ renjaria

renjun and aria room together while she’s promoting with dream

they were so awkward around each other at the beginning :(

only really spoke in passing, or when they had to

it was renjun that broke the ice at first, asking if she wanted to go shopping for the dorm together

now it’s their thing

“no aria, we can’t get more ice-cream we’re all supposed to be on diets.” “but  ｡ﾟ･ (>﹏<) ･ﾟ｡ please”

he’s lowkey soft for her but he’d rather throw himself off the roof then tell her that

piano pals

he started teaching her how to properly play once he found her messing around on a keyboard in the studio one day

they actually argue quite a bit

not about big things, but about smaller things that push each other over the edge because of stress

the first time he yelled at her, aria spent the night in hyuck’s room 

hyuck yelled at renjun for making her cry 

now they’re probably the best pairing for talking through their emotions instead of blowing up on each other

they’re both quite opinionated people, and they’ve learnt to navigate that well so fights don’t happen as often

does that stop renjun from teasing aria an within an inch of her life? absolutely not

“i’ll kill you” “can you, reach?” “LISTEN HERE-”

he acts like he’s 10ft tall, excuse you sir you are barely 5′6″

renjun was her mandarin teacher for a while, but then kun kindly told her that her “introduction” was actually calling herself an idiot 

aria has a bad problem with saesangs go away bitches and renjun is iconic for going off on them for her because she doesn’t like to make a big deal out of it all 

he gets so angry on her behalf

that was actually a topic of one of their biggest arguments smh

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

aria was leaning on a pile of books to prop herself up as she leant forwards to try and hang a string of lights on her bedroom wall. renjun walked in, and immediately came to her aid, speaking with a teasing tone. “need a hand?” 

aria, without ceremony just elbowed him in the stomach and used his then folded up figure to push herself up higher. “yes, thank you!”

she got hate for that one, but it was all in good fun and renjun was laughing after it

➣ JENO ☾ nori

aria is his princess and everyone else can fight him

like they’re both doyoung’s children, but if it comes down to it he will lay down his life for her

and not even in a romantic way, just a “you’re too precious i have to protect you” kind of way

czennies thought he was in love with her for the entirety of nct 2018 promotions

this boy was hanging off of her at any given second, and there was an edited video of jeno “glaring” at lucas’ back when the taller boy walked away after hugging aria

it was faked, stan twt needs to chill out

he drags her to the gym 

he’s basically her big brother? but they’re the same age - its a weird dynamic but they make it work

they’re so LOUD together

not chaotic, but he makes her laugh so hard 

vlive 191030: “nono-ah makes my cheeks hurt so i can’t spend too long around him. my sides hurt too ~  ♡(｡- ω -)”

any and all fanfictions written about the two are definitely either coffee shop, university or library AUs

this man walks like a bodyguard around her - boy got the arm over the shoulder, tucked her head into him, covering her face, its a whole ordeal

dispatch released some pictures of aria one day and accidentally blurred out jeno’s face because they thought he was her bodyguard 

is so. so mindful of how long aria spends in the training rooms

like, yes everyone else expects her home before midnight (long story)

but jeno actively makes sure to ask people what time she left the dorm at, and texts her to remind her to take water breaks and to come home at a good time so she can sleep 

these two are the creators of so many iconic vlives - they have a bad habit of going live at 1 or 2 in the morning, just doing random things

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

“hi hi! so, nono and i- jeno stop it, stop it! - nono and i are walking down to the park to go feed the birds - yes we’re going to feed the bird- no! we are not going to feed the ducks, bread can kill the ducks! why did you bring brea-”

jeno pulled the camera from aria’s hands. “ari and i,” he looked at her purposefully, “are going back to the dorms because someone forgot to bring the bird seed, and apparently we can’t give bread to ducks anymore.”

*sounds of aria intermittently hitting and scolding jeno ensue*

➣ DONGHYUCK ☾ arichan

the other half of the best friend crew

absolute heathens to be around when they are together

donghyuck is the person aria is closest to, and someone she’d call her best friend (only when she was sure he wouldn’t hear her)

she calls him “the demon child i can’t get rid of” but will, and has definitely pouted when he ignored her for too long

generally aria is a pretty soft spoken person, but not with hyuck around - he brings out all her chaos energy (please pray for the patience of dotae)

the pair have a little tradition of kissing the back of each others’ hands before going on stage for good luck. they can’t even remember how it started, but now its an unnegotiable pre-show ritual

he’s so clingy with her absolutely everywhere its painfully adorable  (ಥ﹏ಥ)

interviews? hyuck has a hand on her knee, or if she’s wearing a skirt he’s tucked his hand in between their chairs so she can hold it discreetly. in the dorms? full body tackle onto the couch, where he proceeds to lay on top of her completely.

because of hyuck’s nickname being the sun, and aria always being around him, czennies gave her the nickname “moon” to go with him

fans thought that aria was older than hyuck for a good year and a half before she released her birthday on a vlive, because she’s normally the one tasked with reigning his chaotic energy in during promotions (that is, if she hasn’t already joined him)

but off-camera, aria is absolutely hyuck’s baby there is no disputing that. aria’s sad?he’s there with ice-cream and a blanket and a baseball bat.

the winnie the pooh character that is on aria’s bed was a gift from hyuck for her 17th birthday, after she made him watch seven episodes of the show on netflix with her one night

yes he complained, but he slapped her hand away when she went to change it to something else

a twitter thread of a czennie comparing their horoscopes together went viral when people realized that it was quite plausible that the pair were each others (platonic) soulmates

after an incident involving blueberries, donghyuck took it upon himself to check the ingredients of every. single. food item in their dorm to make sure it was ok for her to eat

hyuck clowns her for her irish accent, and aria curses him out in japanese

tldr: they cute or whatever

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

donghyuck was doing a vlive in his bedroom, sitting and talking to czennies when aria opened the door to his room quietly. she didn’t say anything, just waved slightly with almost closed eyes before she crawled underneath his covers and tucked her plushie underneath her chin. hyuck didn’t even blink at it - so it must have been a regular occurrence.

➣ JAEMIN ☾ nari

jaemin highkey flusters her

not in a oo you’re so cute, cute boy make nerves go eeee

but he’ll wink at her and teasingly compliment her and now she looks like a firetruck this isn’t fair

he absolutely takes advantage of this where ever possible 

“riri, can i have some?” “no, i just made these you should have helped me (-_-)” “riri~ but you looked so cute making them i didn’t want to interrupt you~” *aria.exe has stopped responding*

but when aria isn’t trying to get her cheeks to stop being red, they’re really cute together 

you’d swear aria is older, by how much jaemin whines for her attention

the mighty battles between jaemin and hyuck

hyuck’s just biding his time for the rooftop fight

kinda panics around her when she’s crying, but is always the first to offer up a hug 

has a period tracker on his phone but no one knows about it 

he doesn’t like to coddle her because they’re so close in age, but that doesn’t stop him from getting protective in certain situations *cough cough the fansign cough cough*

jaemin and aria cuddling when they’re drunk? more likely than you’d think

he definitely professed his undying love for her at one point while being drunk, and chenle caught it on video 

“noona we’re playing that at your wedding” 

designated blanket/pillow hunter at award shows, and if he can’t find one then he usually just gives her his jacket

the amount of coffee these two consume should be illegal 

aria prefers to call him nana and he prefers to call her riri in the dorms, so when either of them get called by their first name by the other it means A: they’re on a schedule, or B: someone’s about to die

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

nct dream on idol room were trying out jaemin’s death-in-a-cup (his coffee) and as the cup got passed around, aria grew more and more concerned with each face the members made. “jaemin if i die from this-”

he only smiled at her while passing over the cup. aria held it up to look at the black liquid skeptically, before sighing in resignation and bringing the cup to her lips to take a sip. 

and then another.

“wait this is good i like this”

➣ CHENLE ☾ leri

hide yo kids and hide yo wives because leri is entering the chat

*cue aria and chenle wearing 2000s rapper clothes with backwards baseball caps*

these two are so chaotically calm

its like the energy cancels out or something 

aria with hyuck is just so loud and obnoxious, and the same with chenle with jisung

so when you put those two together it just turns into le positive vibes

you ever meditated to those 132 hertz sounds? thats them in a sound 

aria will hold him like a baby kitten she’s expecting to try wriggle out of her grip at any moment and its comical because he’s a good head taller than her

aria definitely has a knack for making her groupmates’ parents fall in love with her

every two weeks or so she goes for dinner in chenle’s house upon his mother’s request

they have a mutual understanding of the mental toll it takes to be around the rest of the dreamies constantly

chenle and aria sitting peacefully, watching a cdrama: 

the dreamies, throttling each other: AAAAAAAAAAA

will never admit it but he misses her the most when she goes away to promote

he thinks of her as a big sister and the dorms feel empty without her there

aggressive proud hugs 

so aggressive, he legit tackles her

he had to tone it down after knocking her over once backstage and she narrowly missed clocking herself on a nearby soundboard 

“YAH ZHONG CHENLE YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL!”

he always gets a little bit anxious when they eat things outside of the dorms because he’s never seen her have an allergic reaction before and he’d like to keep it that way  (`皿´＃)

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

chenle was particularly restless that day, constantly shuffling about in his seat to the point where renjun forcefully tossed an arm over his shoulders to hold him still while the vlive was still playing.

not one to be defeated, chenle then turned to press his lips to renjun’s cheek playfully, laughing when the older boy turned away in disgust. he turned to do the same to aria, coming closer to her cheek before aria turned her head to face his.

“AAA-” “EW CHENLE WHY”

➣ JISUNG ☾ jiri

oh god oh god oh god

if aria could take this boy and wrap him in a blanket and keep him in her pocket she would - no questions asked 

jisung knows she loves him the most out of dream sorry markhyuck and takes advantage of it every second

she used to coddle him a lot when he was smaller, but now that he’s older aria tries to rein it in as much as possible

that doesn’t mean it goes away completely though

“noona can you cook for me?” “of course jisungie! what do you want?” 

*jeno gobsmacked in the background* “you just told me you were too tired to cook tonight”

aria: big baby, must protect

jisung: tiny noona, must protect

jaemin and aria are really the only people jisung is ok with seeing him be super emotional - and he flip flops between the two depending on the reason why he’s emotional

self-esteem, feeling poopy side of it all? straight into aria’s bed, letting her roll him onto his side so she can tuck his head into her shoulder and covers the two of them with her duvet the way she used to do when he was shorter

this boy cannot curse around her unless he wants to get his ass Beat

dancing bros

they go so hard in their NCT Dance duet videos 

he keeps band-aids in his bag for her in exchange for her keeping an extra bottle of water in hers because jisung always forgets his own

jisung rests his elbow on her head a lot

but only briefly because the last time he stayed there for too long she stamped on his foot

tldr: aria is jisung’s emotional support gnome

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

jisung and aria were doing the chicken leg battle (this one) to fight for first dibs on the rooms they were going to be sharing for the next week or so. just before they were about to start, mark started laughing and pointing at how high jisung’s leg came up on aria’s, with aria’s knee barely hitting jisung’s mid-thigh

“this is an unfair advantage! this is cheating!”

[arch-venus25]

The Head and the Heart, Part 1

Hello everyone,

I am submitting this for @just-the-hiddles‘s The Damnit Jim, I’m A Vampire, Not A Landlord Fic Frenzy. I chose prompt “1....You can pay your rent in money or in blood.” I was inspired by all the prompts and will probably use them throughout the series. Basically I use the prompts as guide-lines.

This is the first time I have written and shared a fic online-- or ever really! It’s also the first time I’ve written anything modern so please let me know what you think! I hope I’m posting this correctly--I created the title art--LOL I’ve never done this before. I’m aiming to update the series each Tuesday. So here we go... 

Series Masterlist: The Head and The Heart

Summary: The twins are taking a night off from their graduate studies-- or at least Tessa is; her twin sister, Antha, is just trying to keep her out of trouble. What starts as a night of good old-fashioned fun and flirting quickly changes as they find themselves at the doorstep of the Hollow House Bed and Breakfast.

Characters: OFCs Antha and Tessa King, original characters/vampires

WARNINGS: 18+ for suggestive themes and violence, cursing, implied drug use, implied rape, stressful/scary situations, vampires, and characters with incredible hair-- you’ve been warned. Read at your own discretion.

Word Count: 2770

Part One: Faced with Foolishness

         “Well, you know Tessa, she’s being Tessa,” Antha murmured into her phone as she watched her twin sister cozy up to her flavor of the month; Tessa flipped her box braids off her shoulder, the beaded ends flirtatiously tinkling against every surface they met. As if watching a photo negative version of herself, Antha mourned her nonexistent reputation. Had she not spent years hiding in her books she may have been able to rival her uninhibited doppelganger in white hot-pants.

        “Why do you let her do this to you? It never goes as planned, and next thing you know I’ll be cleaning you two up and feeding you McDonald’s at two thirty in the morning!” She didn’t need facetime to picture Doug wincing through the phone, pushing his Buddy Holly styled Ray-Bans up the bridge of his nose.

        “So what you’re saying is how could I let Tessa do this to you?” She laughed, rolling her Havana twists through her fingers to fight off the June humidity. Talking to her best friend helped her forget just how long she had been holding it in line to the bathroom.

         “Ant, look I don’t like that bar—you want me to come get you?”

         “And leave her? I can’t do that—listen, if we don’t call you for a ride home by midnight just come get us. I’m exhausted and I don’t think she will party that long. Besides, you-know-who just showed up.” She watched as Franco the Flake appeared, wasting no time to linger over her sister—Tessa’s flavor of the month, forgotten within an instant. Antha’s eyes rolled like marbles as she turned away to better hear her friend on the phone; some fraternity boys nearby began fist-pumping into the air as the bartender served up a line of shots for them.

         “Ugh, the Flake… well I can hear things are getting started on your end—I’ll keep my phone on me, just don’t drive. Leave her car and I’ll get you two—there’s maniacs out there especially on Friday night.” He warned.

        “I owe you,” she groaned and hung up. Antha finally arrived in the ladies’ room, only two women away from her sweet release. She watched as the women cornered the mirror like crazed wanton things, bending and zhuzhing, adjusting their “girls” to their perkiest potential through scantily low apparel.

        “Heeeyy…” She quietly greeted the woman that exited the nearest stall. The stranger gave her a haughty elevator eye from head to toe making her feel severely underdressed for a Friday night out. When she threw on a sun dress today, she never anticipated her sister would abduct her after class and have them gallivanting across town. Tessa’s exact words were “Godamnit Ant, tonight we’re gonna have fun if it kills us!” A Cheshire Cat grin spread across her face as she floored the accelerator of her Neon, then cranked up the bass as the radio station started their basement remixes. Fun if it kills us.

        Antha stared at her white sandals, her nail polish was chipped and at least three weeks old. Then she looked to her messenger bag hanging on the back of the door. It was covered in Community College film badges and club stickers, per her friend’s preferences. Antha liked her graffitied messenger bag. Like a billboard, it made her appear she had a life outside of her graduate studies.

        She should have been at home, text books spread on her lap, feet up. She could hear Doug’s old Buick coughing its way up Momma’s drive, then fumbling outside the door, trying to knock with a third of Popov, case of Dogfish Head, and pizza in his arms. Then he would throw everything on the coffee table and announce “I brought Casablanca!” to which she would say “Oh, more white people movies?” and unphased, he would reply “Good god woman, it’s not Birth of a Nation!” Antha smiled, thinking of their weekly ritual of pretending to do research while gossiping long into the night until Zoey and Tessa would drunkenly Uber home. The distinct shamble, like the walking dead, would scrape up the gravel drive signaling their arrival.

        “Hey, you almost done in there?” An annoyed voice yelled over the door, cutting through her reminiscing. Antha could see the reds of the stranger’s eyes between the door crack.

         Instead of lounging on the couch surrounded by good beer and even better friends, Antha found herself being hustled by some Fireball-turned-up twat—all under the guise of having fun. “Yeah, sorry about that.” She replied and flushed. She tightened the belt holding in the billowy fabric of her flowy, mid-thigh, sunflower-printed sundress. It was passed down from her grandmother to her mother and so on. Looking like she walked off the set of a 90’s music video, she admitted that at least she was cooler than the other girls sweating in their skin-tight jeans and heels.

        Some pretty young thing burst through the door past the line and vomited into the trash bin next to Antha while she washed her hands. It was only nine o’clock. That was a bad omen. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, she realized she pouted just like Momma in those sorts of situations. She dampened a paper towel for the poor thing and could hear her mother’s words repeating in her head: “When you’re faced with foolishness—you take care of it.” Her mantra: Take care of it. Antha’s mantra: Do what Momma says. Tessa’s mantra: If it ain’t fun don’t do it.

        Antha applied her vanilla lip gloss as she thought on her mother. She made a promise as Momma was lowered in the ground that they would graduate. It was her dying wish that the twins became modern women with college degrees and to have options; to escape the laboring of farming and perhaps even the rinse and repeat of corporate Delaware. That’s all there was in their state: Farming or banking.

        She tucked her shoulder-length braids behind her ears; she truly missed her dreadlocks, but ever since the time Tessa’s boyfriend mistook her for his girlfriend, she cut them off. She was always the one to compromise. Not tonight she decided. Tonight was going to go her way. They would wrap up this foolishness by midnight.

        Antha sighed and knew it was time to face the havoc of the bar when a chatty patron pawed at her sundress asking if it was “vintage”. She replied, “Well it’s old as hell if that’s what you mean,” and hurried out the ladies’ room into the sweltering cacophony of nightlife.

        Fighting across sticky tile and sweaty rednecks she made a beeline for the bartender. “Mar, can I get two?” She bounced on her tip-toes to cut through the crowd huddled around the length of the tacky wooden bar. Maria motioned to the other side because she couldn’t reach through. Antha continued to fight her way through the herd. She could barely hear over the din of the 2016 campaign commercials and sportscasting when Maria slid two cocktails toward her. The southern comfort and coke cocktails reeked with vanilla syrup, Tessa’s favorite. Antha stared into the melting rail drinks and realized she didn’t know what to order herself because she was always the water-boy for her twin.

        “Hey, did you see what’s-his-face is in town?” Maria interrupted her thoughts.

        “Sure did.” She groused and tilted her head in the general direction of where she saw Tessa and Franco last. Through the bodies, for a moment, the crowd parted and the two stared.

        Stepping back from her esteemed role as the older sister, by barely two minutes, Antha admitted to herself that Tessa always looked good. Her off-the-shoulder top exposed a flawless ebony collarbone, shoulder blades, and arms. As if she was the Queen of Sheba incarnate, her tiny wrists were decorated with gold bangles. Her earrings matched the beads in her hair, reflecting light in her hazel eyes. A waterfall of thick box braids fell down her back and over her shoulders, past the tops of her thighs. Her years of dance complimented the country-chic white cut-offs that revealed just a hint of under cheek when she bent across the billiard table.

        “If I were a man, I’d pray for her to bite my head off quick and painless.” Maria laughed, her ponytail frizzing from the heat of her work; her hands rapidly dipping then shining high ball glasses.

        “But that’s not her style.” Antha replied wryly.

        “You’re both good girls. Now you keep her out of as much trouble as you can—I’ll send Kyle ‘round to your table with beers, just let me catch up here!”

        Maria was right: they were good girls. All of Tessa’s shenanigans aside, she never forgot cake for a birthday and with everyone’s break-ups she always had a bottle of Jack stashed with a shoulder to cry on. Tessa was the one that painted Antha’s nails and always lent her the best outfits when the event called for it. On occasion she was even known to deliver soup when her sister ran a fever.

        Tessa was the heart of the operation and Antha couldn’t begrudge her just because she was the head.

        For better or worse, they were sisters.

        Antha reluctantly clutched the chilled drinks and felt a pang of relief in the sweltering bar. She couldn’t see her sister at the billiard table with the onslaught of shuffling patrons, so she decided to move toward her booth. She narrowly missed being covered in appletini as the DJ scratched in one more summer top ten into his rotation. Before she could move forward a voice pinned her in place.

        “Your sister’s the worst, you know that?” A nice-looking guy glared at her. His teeth gleamed pink in the red bar lights. Antha bet he had a handsome smile on account of those white teeth, but he was not smiling now. She squinted through the hazy dance floor and recognized him as the guy Tessa arrived with before Franco appeared.

         “Hey John, don’t fret, Tessa’s just catching up with an old friend—he comes into town every so often, don’t get upset.” She yelled back at his face as kindly as she could manage over the blare of the oncoming band tuning their instruments. For some reason he didn’t seem to believe her and his chest instinctively puffed up.

        “John? I’m José!” He replied. Antha felt embarrassed for both her sister and herself. She grimaced unintentionally, realizing she had said it all with very few words.

        She tried to defend their position with a weak excuse. “José, I’m bad with names and faces—” but he stormed off before she could piecemeal a string of bullshit. There goes another Mr. Last Month.

        This was having fun. Antha doing damage control on last month’s flame, while Tessa stoked a new one. All of the nice memories of her sister evaporated in the heat of the interaction. She grumbled to herself, as she had grown tired of babysitting, not just Tessa but the men-children she dated. When she finally confirmed her party’s booth, she parted the shadowy sea of basic bitches.

        Tessa was giggling like a school girl when her sister dropped the sweaty glasses onto the ratty old table. Franco at her neck like a leech. I hate this guy, Antha thought to herself. He turned his hot gaze on her, “Hi Antha, didn’t see you there.” His drawl was thick like humidity. She thought about giving her drink to Tessa’s date, but now that she could see he was it, she plopped down and selfishly sipped one of the nasty cocktails without offering the second.

        “Oh hey Brian,” she said playfully, “where’s your camera?”

        “Ant, now you know this is Franco, stop playin’!” Tessa tore her eyes away from him for a split second, but after she threw her daggers she was back ogling him like a dog does a bone.

        “Sorry, it’s hard to keep all these blue-eyed, blond, gentlemen straight.” Antha marginally resisted saying yokel under her breath.

        Tessa had a type. Beyond all logic, light eyes were the buckle in her knee, the hitch in her breath; and Franco was at the top of her list. Antha assumed he was the Porsche in her garage amongst a long list of Ford’s, but she honestly didn’t know the whole story. All she knew was that Franco showed his face sparingly and only after dark. He would disappear for weeks at a time, which earned him the endearment The Flake.

        Now, Antha hadn’t dated enough men in her young life to sort them by color and size, but Tessa had. To her credit, her tastes were diverse, she did her research and knew what she liked. No one blamed her either. With that hair and those legs, Tessa could have anyone she wanted. The great appeal of Franco didn’t add up to Antha though. She found him suspicious. She thought his truck was too loud, his jeans too torn, and his eyes much too heavy.

        Franco made idle conversation, inquiring after the twins’ classes as if he cared. His blond, three-quarter parted hair was glossy under the dim lights. When he pulled his tooth pick from the back of his ear and chewed on it, it made him look like an old-fashioned mobster—well until that Delmar twang spilled out of his hillbilly mouth. There was an allure about him; all of his parts matched, but his smile unglued those pieces. A smile that never quite reached his eyes.

        Antha found herself sizing him up, drinking the disgusting cocktail faster than she wanted. I bet he has plastic zip ties and rope in his truck bed, she thought. She didn’t truly know why the image popped into her mind, it was just a feeling she got when his eyes were on her; made her feel like a snack, as if he would eat her alive right where she sat. No more Unsolved Mysteries for me this week, she insisted to herself.

        “Mmmm-hmmm.” Was the best response she could offer when he spoke to her directly. Tessa continued chatted about her business management courses as he deeply stared at her. Antha figured there was no real room for her in the conversation so she took out her world cultures text and flipped to her last page. She liked hanging out, however her final thesis was demanding all of her energy. The page fell open to vampires in the section of Egyptian mythology. She thought how ironic as her eyes shot up at the man sitting across from her.

        “So, there’s this bonfire by Slaughter Bay, I thought you ladies could come with.” Franco suggested lazily like it was too exclusive to be excited about. “You can shotgun babe and we can put Antha and her friends in back.” He eyed the textbooks growing damp on the table. Antha finished the first SoCo and started the second just to cope with him. “You could call up the girls.”

        “Zoey… Zoey... Zoey!” Tessa dramatically said into her drink and then laughed. Antha couldn’t help but smirk as Tessa explained to him her girlfriend was like Candyman and could be summoned via a pint of beer. The joke was partially lost on Franco.

        Before Tessa could agree to go Antha piped up, a little less shy now that her liquid courage had kicked in. “Sounds awfully romantic, but we can’t.” Before she could continue she was interrupted.

        “Hey girl haaayyyy!” Zoey appeared as if out of thin air and snatched one of the beers sent over by the bartender. “You goin’ nowhere without me—not after I Ubered across town!” Her two rando friends hollering and sloshing their drinks.

        “How the hell do you do that?” Antha insisted, amazed that their friend appeared.

        “Uhhhh, never you mind—we can make bonfire plans later—its ten o’clock, I’m here and Bieber is playing! GET UP!” Zoey declared, the glitter from her eyes dusting every surface.

        “Keep an eye on my friends.” Antha told Franco as she abandoned her books to be dragged to the floor. This was the moment she decided she was getting them all out of there; she didn’t like the sound of a bonfire with him and she certainly wasn’t allowing Tessa to go on her own either. She sent a pre-written text message to Doug: “Get here.” Which was their code for its really going down, I need back up.

Twinning Taglist: If you want to be added or removed just let me know; please share with anyone that might be interested. I would love any and all feedback so I can learn and become a better writer. Thank you!  I tagged some people that I thought would be interested in this. @myoxisbroken @just-the-hiddles @vodka-and-some-sass @nildespirandum @yespolkadotkitty @latent-thoughts @emeraldrosequartz @villainousshakespeare @hopelessromanticspoonie @caffiend-queen @poetic-fiasco @lokimostly @dianamolloy @marvelgirlonamarvelworld @brightsunanddarkmidnight2-0 @cateyes315 @mooncat163 @nuggsmum @plastic-heart @myraiswack @wolfpawn​

[hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall]

Enough is Enough

Steve Rogers x Reader

Chapter Summary: Dating Steve Rogers isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Warning: Angst, Swear words.

A/N: I am on fire! Another late (I’m sorry) challenger, this time for the amazing @captain-kelli​ and her “Stories about strong women” challenge <3 My propmt was: I am not the girl the guy gets at the end of the movie. I am not a fantasy. If you want me, earn me! Until then, we are done.

GIF not mine! <3

You weren’t the jealous, pissed at everything, type of person. You always tried to listen to two sides of the stories, always wanted to make sure, that if the time comes, you will get angry for a reason. And it didn’t happen that often. You were normally a calm person, trying to avoid the fight. Whether it was at work or your private life.

You always tried to make sure that people that were closest to you felt that. And all you ever asked for was for them to show that they cared. Some simple gestures, something that would make you realise that you were loved. 

When Steve Rogers asked you out one time, you weren’t sure if he was being serious. You were nothing but a humble coffee shop owner, who just enjoyed her job and her books. But when he asked, if he could make you coffee one day, you couldn't help but smile and agree. He was so shy and nervous, that you found it adorable. 

Your first date was perfect. Everything you would expect from a man from the 40s. He was a gentleman, listened to what you had to say, laughed at the right moments, and even brought you flowers. Of course, he seemed nervous, but he tried to hide it as well as he could. And when he nervously asked you if he will see you again, you didn't hesitate to agree for the second date. 

It was a year ago and for the first half a year it was amazing. You both worked great together, he was making you breakfast when you stayed the night, and you always invited him for dinner, when you were able to make one at home. Of course, you had fights, but you were both adult enough to be able to work things out and go on with your lives. After all, your first time together was after one of the biggest fights.

Yes, sex, especially the make-up, angry sex was something amazing. If someone thought that Steve Rogers was a boring vanilla guy, they were totally wrong. Steve knew how to pleasure a woman. He knew what to do and how to do it, for the girl to scream his name. And he was a little cheeky bastard about it. He enjoyed to play with you and hear you beg. 

Yes, Steven Grant Rogers was amazing. In every aspect of it. Well, until he wasn’t. 

Something shifted after the half-year you both been together. More precisely about a month after his birthday, where you made him his favourite apple pie and rented all of the movies he must have seen back at his days. The day was perfect, really, so was the end of that day. But the longer you two been together the longer it seemed forced. He would come back from the mission, write you a text that he was too tired to come, or would just come to get his frustration off. There was no more talking and getting to know one another, no more dreams about the future, and planning how would your little house in Brooklyn look like.

You wondered so long about what you may have done wrong. You replayed every day spent with him, trying to come up with a reason, why he was getting further away from you. It hurt you so deeply because you loved him and you needed him, Him and his love. 

“He got used to you.” Your coworker said once when you spent your entire lunch break in a long monologue about what was wrong with you and your relationship. “It doesn’t matter if he is Captain America or not. He is still a man. He got used to you. To you being there for him and in his life.”

“So what he got tired of me?” You could not believe that your Steve Rogers would be like that. 

“No sweety!” She laughed, giving you a warm smile. “He learned to have you around him. He got accustomed to having you, so he doesn't have to do anything for you to stay by his side. He got used to you. As simple as it is.” Your heart froze at that moment, and as much as you hated to admit it, there was a part of you that believed her. “Well, how about we go out tonight and celebrate your birthday?” You smiled and shook your head. 

“Sorry, Steve was supposed to get out from work earlier. I think he’s planning something.” She nodded and giving you a kiss on the cheek came back to work. 

You followed her some minutes later, trying to get rid of the awful words telling you that Steve really did get used to you. 

**

You were tired. The whole shop was busy almost the whole day, and all you wanted was to go have a long bath and relax. You took a cab home, unable to hide the excitement to see Steve. You weren’t looking for much, just some time alone with him. Something which was missing lately. 

You paid the driver and almost run to the doors, hoping to meet him there. But your big smile and cheerful beating of the heart stopped when you walked to the dark house. 

“Steve?” You shouted, hoping he would be in the other rooms. But no one answered. No one was there. Just you and your pitiful hope for your friend’s words not to be true. You felt tears in your eyes and a sob escaped your mouth. You took your phone, hoping he would at least call or text you, but nothing was waiting for you. Nothing from you. Texts from his friends. His friends, but not him. 

So you did what you were planning to do all day. You got your bath read, with some candles, a book and a glass of wine and relaxed. It was your birthday, no way you would cry on your birthday. Not because of a man. A man you gave your whole heart to. 

**

Steve was tired. Too tired for anything and anyone. He was supposed to get off earlier today and relax for the first time in months. It was Friday and he had to stay this late because some recruits messed up reports. He was pissed and tired. 

“Captain Rogers, have a good night.” AI saw him off and closed all the doors behind him. He looked at his phone and sighed seeing the time. No way he is coming to work tomorrow. Even he wanted some free time from time to time. 

“What the hell are you doing here, punk?” He turned to see Bucky coming out of a gym. It was his ritual. The gym was normally empty in the evenings so he made the best of it. 

“Just finished those stupid reports… Going to take a shower and off to bed.” He sighed and frowned seeing his best friend’s surprise face. “What?”

“Please tell me you remembered?” Steve was starting to get scared at Buck’s tone. “Y/N? It’s her birthday today? Well for the next 3 minutes, I mean.” Steve froze. He has completely forgotten. With all the work that he had in a couple of months, it was a nightmare to get any life outside of the office. He knew he was treating you badly, but he promised himself that when this all will be over he would take out somewhere and pay up for all that lost time. But now he completely fucked up. He looked at his phone once again to check the date and cursed under his nose. “Jesus, Steve!” Bucky hissed visibly pissed at his best friend. “She was already feeling left behind because of your strange behaviour”, Steve frowned, not knowing about that. And since when did you speak to Bucky about your private life. “You better think of something, pal, cause, you’re about to lose her.” Not waiting any longer, Steve went on his bike and drove as fast as he has never driven before. He can’t lose you. No matter what, he can’t. 

**

You jumped when the doors tried to open from the outside. You don’t even remember when you left keys in them, which enabled anyone from opening them from the outside. But yeah, you were really thankful for that now, as you knew very well who it was before his voice boomed. 

“Y/N baby please open up!” he sounded broken, scared and so tired. Your first instinct was to open the doors and console him, but you shook your head. No. You had enough. “Sweetheart it’s after midnight, you don’t want me to wake all your neighbours, right?”

“Go away, Steve!” You hated how hurt your voice sounded. You wanted to be strong and shop him how unaffected you were by his ignorance but you wouldn’t. Your own body betrayed you. 

“I know you’re angry… Baby I know.” This made you even angrier than you thought it was possible. You stood up and opened the doors with anger, meeting his soft, hurt features. 

“You have no fucking clue!” You shouted, not caring about the neighbours anymore. “So don’t give me that bullshit!” You stood there staring at him with so much hatred, so much pain, that the first time every you just didn’t care about his feelings. You turned around and went to your window, trying to relax, not wanting to see his handsome face right now. “You have no idea, so don’t act as you do!” You heard the doors closing and you felt him moving towards you. “Tell me what did I do for you to be so… Jesus Steve! Are you used to me, is that it?!” He frowned not understanding what you mean. “Was I becoming so boring, that you just got used to having me around? I understand Steve… Your job is important, but you promised me so many times that this would not affect us! You would always text me or call to ask how my day went. But it changed. For the past six months, I felt I was here just to feed you and get off your sexual frustration!” His eyes widened and he took a step closer, ignoring your protests.

“Y/N I am so sorry. I never thought this is what you think. I’m sorry for being so distant, for breaking my promise. This job… It’s killing me inside and by mistake, I put on that frustration on you. I’m sorry.”

“It was my birthday today, Steve”, he flinched seeing tears in your eyes. “Even your friends sent me wishes. I would have understood if you’d call me and said that you needed to stay at work. A one stupid phone call. We would do whatever you planned tomorrow. It wouldn't mat…” But you stopped noticing the look on his face. “Oh god, you forgot!” You whispered, your heart, breaking in million pieces. 

“Baby please…”

“No… Don’t call me that!” You turned around and looked him deep into those blue eyes. “I had enough Steve. I had enough of being whatever I am to you. We talked so many times about my insecurities with this relationship. We talked about your work and you always promised me to never make me feel like I feel right now. And here we are…”

“Sweetheart, please…”

“No!” You shouted making him stop in tracks. “I don’t know if you really got used to me and decided to not put any effort into that relationship or something else. But right here, right now I am ending it! I have had enough! Enough of loving you with no gestures back. Enough of sleepless nights wondering what I’ve done for you to get tired of me. I am not the girl the guy gets at the end of the movie. I am not a fantasy. If you want me, earn me! Until then, we are done.” You noticed how he stirred at your words. 

“No…” He started, tears appearing in his eyes. “No, we are not done. I am not letting you go!” 

“I said that Steve. I am tired of this all. If you decide to change and would want me back… Fight for me… Until then I want you to leave!” 

“I’m not leaving”, he took a step towards you, but you took one away. 

“Fine, then I leave. Just please close the doors behind you!” And with that you shut the doors in his face, ending something you hoped to be forever. 

[miioouu]

Single Father Bakugo (3) Birthday Dad

More cute single pa Baku!! Honestly idk i just got this idea randomly sooo. Also idk if i said I'll update you guys on Single Father bakugou once a week, buuuut i don't think that's true, I'll post a part anytime an idea comes to my mind. Anyway HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAKUBOO❤️

Ten months…. 

It's been almost a year since Bakugo was taking care of his little baby. Ever since, his life seemed a little brighter, a little more colorful. Even behind his tired, sleep deprived eyes, happiness and joy can be seen. Life has changed drastically, but he wouldn't have it any other way. And to say he wanted to put the little girl up for adoption! So pathetic Katsuki. 

Even though it's his birthday, things were going on normally, being a dad meant that he wasn't able to go out and party, enjoy his special day like every other young person his age. He could still ask his mom to keep an eye on the child, but honestly he'd rather spend the day with her than surrounded by drunk sweaty bodies, annoying music filling his ears. He'd much rather listen to his baby girl babble and babble incoherent words and him pretending to understand and have a conversation with her. What he didn't expect was that this year, he'd have the most wonderful gift of all time. 

Holding her on his hips as he was making himself a birthday dinner, the little girl always looking up to him, hand gripping his thin sweatshirt, incoherent sounds would come out of her mouth every now and then making the young father look at her and reply with a "yes, you're right" and "I know right?! Unbelievable!". Bouncing her to the rhythm of whatever song that was stuck in his head, focusing on the task at hands, he almost missed the sound coming out of her little lips, if it weren't for her hand tugging harder at his top and other one patting his strong arm, a gesture that she learned would get his attention anytime. Dropping the wooden spoon to the side, seeing her mouth open and close, trying to get out something. "Come on baby! What do you have to say? Dad's listening!" He didn't want to get his hopes too high, knowing that it's still a bit early for her to say her first word, but maybe it's his dad instinct telling him to listen closely, or maybe it's just the little bit of hope that she'd say her first word on his birthday that told him to focus on whatever that was about to come out of her. "Ba… BaBa". That's it! That was it! Wide smile stretching on his face, tears threatening to fall, since when did he become so soft? Well it doesn't matter now... He couldn't believe how lucky he was, to have his daughter's first words be "baba" and on his birthday! He was on cloud nine! Hugging his baby tightly, telling her how much he loves her and treasures her, he couldn't wipe the smile off of his face for the rest of the evening. 

He spent his first birthday as a dad calling up his beloved ones, telling them about the most amazing gift he's ever gotten. 

5 years….

Growing up and growing older together, was everything Bakugou ever wants. His little baby now five, how did time pass by so quickly? It felt like just yesterday he was teaching her how to walk, and now he's begging her to stop running around the house, afraid she'd knock her head on things. It happened before, hearing his angel cry, making his heart drop, he never again wants to hear her in pain again….

His birthday wasn't his special day anymore, it was their special day. Making it a ritual to always spend it together, they'd either go out and celebrate it over ice cream, or they'd stay at home, playing and cuddling watching movies as she drifted to sleep in his arms. He never asked for gifts, she's a child, and even later in life he wouldn't. He never liked his birthday, until he became a dad, the first year she gifted him with her precious first words. The second with a hug, the third with a kiss, and the fourth with morning snuggles. His little bundle of joy completely changed his perspective of his birthday. What will she do this year? 

Apparently, something really special, as she was hiding from him all day, running away from him everytime he tried to get a hug or a kiss. Making him a little angry as he just wanted some affection from the little girl, but he's not getting any of it. Well at least he didn't have to wait that long, lunch was approaching and so did his baby, well not so baby anymore, hiding something behind her back as she was making her way to him. Giving her a little smile as she finally, for the first time today, showed some interest in her father. Pressing her head on his leg as she couldn't reach higher to get his attention, like he wasn't already waiting for her. Bending down to get to her eye level, he gave her a little cheek kiss as she revealed what she was keeping a secret from him all day long. It must've been something on a paper or something like that, but he couldn't quite tell as glitter was covering all of it, looking behind her to see the trail of orange and pink shimmers that would definitely be a hassle to clean. Though he didn't care right now, the only thing that matters was his gift, as narcissistic as it sounds. Taking the present from her hands only to open the envelope to reveal a folded paper. Shaking his hand in a sort of way to get rid of the sparkles, gently unfolding the paper. Eyes wide, then softening as a grin made its way to his lips. It was a family drawing. There she was holding hand with what he assumed to be him, wearing his hero costume, and their little cat to the side. Not forgetting to add her uncle Kirishima but it seemed as she crossed him, writing a small no to his side, making the blond giggle. And on the top of her paper, in bold multi-colored pencil a big "Happy birzday Baba" with a crooked heart next to it. It was nothing amazing, but he can see the thought she put into it, the love and passion she dedicated in the drawing, making him ever so proud of his girl. Giving her the biggest hug, lifting her up in the air as he thanked her. He was honestly having the time of his life, always, with his little bundle of joy…. 

14 years….

Rituals are bound to fade one day. And considering spending his birthday together as a ritual, he wasn't that surprised when it broke. But it still hurts. It's the first birthday in 14 years he spends alone, without her by his side. With her laughs to fill the air, with her hugs to warm his heart, with her "I love you dad"s. Instead she decided to spend the night with her friends. And the worse thing about all of it, she hadn't even acknowledged him all day long. Teenagers… 

Bored out of his mind, and too sad to do anything, even spending the night with Kirishima. He couldn't bring himself to move from the couch, laying under his blankets. Pathetic Katsuki, you've been limping around all day long like a heartbroken teenager! Man up it's just a night away. At this point he had no idea if he was sad that he's not spending the night with his daughter or if he was just worried about her. It's not the end of the world! He can still get out, have fun on his birthday like everyone. He still can….. But he doesn't want to. He wants her. He wants to hug her, mess her hair, listen to her drag his names as he teases her about her crush. He wants to cuddle up with her as they watch their favorite show for the fifteenth time. And fuck, is he crying right now? It's just…. It feels like just yesterday he was teaching her how to lace up her shoes, warning her about boys. It felt like just yesterday, she took her first steps, yelled her first swear, she gave him the middle finger for the first time. She just grew up so fast, how can he not be sad? And his tears didn't stop rolling as he looked at the fridge, family drawings she made, the highest score on a maths exam…. He was just so proud of her. He was just so proud to call this little daredevil with a soft heart his daughter. And he was so proud of the woman she grew up to be. 

Thinking so much about her, it seemed like she sensed it. Right before midnight, a special ringtone shook him awake. It was her! Is she ok?! What if something happened to her?! Shooting out from under the blankets to answer the call, mind drowning in fear, until he heard her gentle voice, slightly above a whisper so her friends don't listen to her. "Happy birthday dad, I love you so much!"

18 years…. 

Sadness, it was all he was feeling lately. The thought of her being already so grown up, he didn't want his baby to leave him. He didn't want his baby to fly away from him. He didn't want his daughter to forget about him…. But there's some things in life that you can't stop. And one of them was the departure of his girl to college, leaving him alone, with their old cat, just to stare at all her childhood photos, relive all the memories, and when he gets her occasional texts, it never fails to make him smile and tug at his heart as tears threaten to fall. 

Though on his birthday, she made sure to make it as special as possible, even if she wasn't near him. Going out to get his mail like every morning, he noticed a special letter. One decorated with glitter, orange and pink. Excitement flowing in his vain as he knew exactly where that special gift came from, or to be exact from who. Running inside and gently opening up the letter, wanting to keep it intact to save it. He couldn't help but sob at the words in front of him, the love they expressed…. 

    "Dear baba… 

     It's your special day! So I thought I'd make it even more special and write to you how I truly feel. 

    I know it's been hard, and I haven't been the easiest to raise. But can you blame me for the temper I inherited from you? Can you blame me for the loud voice I got from you? Can you blame me for the love and care and sweetness I offer the word that I learned from you? 

    I know what you're thinking, cause I thought about it too. Do you ever wonder, like me, about what would've happened if I was never a part of your life? Do you ever wonder, like me, what it would've been like if I had a mother, to braid my hair and caress my cheeks? To lull me to sleep with angelic voice and the smile that would appear everytime I do something right? Do you ever wonder, like me, if I never were a mistake? But I don't blame dad, it's not your fault. I'm not asking you to change anything, there's nothing you can do. And I understand. 

    Do you want to know what though? All of these are just what if's… In reality I wouldn't change a thing, and I know you won't either. In reality I don't need that motherly love, I only need yours. I need your rough hands to pinch my cheeks, I need your loud voice to praise me up, I need your evil smirk to boost me up. 

     I've seen your tears dad, I heard your cries. I've shed those tears too dad, and I bet you heard my cries. You wish you had someone, I wish that too. You wish you were better, I wish I was that too. But now I know, life might be us two. And I'm so ok with that. All I need in life is you. My angel and devil, my father and so much more, my number one hero…..

      Happy birthday to the most wonderful hero, to my best friend, to my one and only! Happy birthday baba! I love you!

                           From your daughter xoxo"

Tags

(@babybakuu )

[charmed-asylum]

🔪Midnight Desire🔪

Midnight Desire, part one

Summery:  A group of seniors simple night of drinking and partying at their local grocery store. Turns for the worst when they realize they are lock in with something far more dangerous then they ever imagine

Declaimer: Midnight Desire has a few curse words and hints at some abuse. This is my very first story I am posting onto tumblr so please be kind give it a glance. Also my sweet lovers I do have dyslexia so for me to jump the head 1st and do this is a big deal for grammar might be a bit off.  I promise you a good ride from beginning to end. So buckle up and enjoy the ride. - xoxo Charmed- Asylum 

tagged: @weapinggwillowss​ @strangerfictions​

wanna be tagged let me know. wanna tell me i suck heck let me know. 

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Fire alarm sound police sirens heard off in the distance.  The noise  of such importance however is muffed from the sound of a soft cry, crying for help . Nothing can break this cry , it plead can break glass hurt even the biggest monsters. Where is this cry comes from this dark cool winter night.  As the cry becomes loud so loud that it more a scream  a bloody hand comes out of a chained cellar door.

24 Hours Earlier

Beep beep. A hand lounges out the bed and press the snooze button, old Hello Kitty stickers cover, alarm clock. Slowly getting up. A young girl around 16 with golden brown beginning of October soft skin with matching midnight sky eyes and short curly golden honey brown hair that came up to her chin.While she could ever tell from looking into a mirror her beauty would make anyone want to stop and give a second glance. A few minutes she mumble into the pillow. As the time slowly past she finally decide to get up.  Her eyes were closed as she slumped forward still in deep sleep went across the hall to the bathroom. Another girl tall with fair skin long store bought blonde hair about  18 came from behind and rushes into the bathroom before other girl can realize what was happening.  Slammed the door in her face. Upset. The girl starts knocking on the door full of rage. 

" Cora come on. I got up first. Let me in! You take forever" she said banging at the door with all her might .

 An older man in his late 40s advantage build with ash brown hair  came from  behind and quietly watch the young girl in her old Queens T shirt attacking the door like a punching bag. A smirk appears .  Music start blasting from inside the bathroom. 

" Good morning,  sweetie. Don’t worry  just come use our bathroom. Mom done and I just need to finish getting dressed Jolie" the man says smiling at her with his hand gently place on upper backside. Looking back at the door pissed she kicks the door one last time as hard as she could and follows him to the other bathroom.  As she closed the door to get ready she sees him sitting on the bed in a still daze just looking at her with a jester grind.  She glanced back at herself she never felt pretty even though her mom told her time and again she was. She had freckles across face that was a bit closer to her long lashes that blink across  she never worn makeup so her face remain bare. She always wishes she had more of Cora beauty the ones some girls are born with ones that everyone has a picture of ones that they use to paint a picture or create another barbie after. Her hair drop in front of her face. Ripped jeans that sits slightly below her waist that went with Velvet Underground t shirt that drop over her mom old denim jacket. Satisfied with what she was wearing she decided it was best to face the music and start her day.  She peak around before walking out ready to get another day over with. 

" Jolie how was your sleep last night" her mom asked. She was a bit younger than the man with a face that belongs in a museum by itself. With tired eyes  she came over and kiss Jolie on  the forehead. Smiling at her. Jolie says nothing and grab a piece of bacon and sit down on a wooden stool by the kitchen. 

The older girl skips down the stairs, pushing into Jolie causing her to spill her orange juice. Jolie looks up at the girl then starts to pick up the broken glass. The man comes from behind  her holds her back gently for a minute before helping with broken glass. Looking up with eyes that burn with a blue fire. 

" Cora it's been almost a year. You need to stop acting like a  fucking baby. Be nice to Jolie she your baby sister " he says firmly. 

Cora rolls her eyes and smirks at him. " Not my fault the loser. Does not pay attention to me or her surrounds. It’s stepsister by the way we are not related" Cora said while taking a bite out of an apple. Jolie gets up and throw the rest of broken glass in the trash. " Thanks. But it's fine. Mom how are you this morning. Take your pills" Jolie said pretending Cora said nothing.

 A gentle kiddish like laugh left her mom small plump lips as played with her curls between her white manicure nails. Kissing her cheek as she walked passed her. " I'm fine. Jojo Stop worrying about me. I’m the sick one not you. You need to be like your sister and start….. You not always guaranteed a tomorrow, Jolie Wellstone" she stops and looks at Cora putting makeup on. " You need to socialize not staying here. Maybe you should do something with Cora" she says looking at Jolie as she drinking a cup of hot green  tea. 

Jo glance at Cora as she finished her face. Thinking of other things she wants to do then do that. So far her list has living the zombie apocalypse and eating vegan food. 

A car outside honk, BEEP. Not missing a beat ,Cora excited to end this charade bounces up and rushes for the door. Jo watched Cora from the window to get a better look outside to the red convertible. A guy that looks like he came out every cliche John Hughes movie was driving while another guy was in the back smoking weed. Cora hops in the front and the guy grabs at her perfect 40C boobs and starting to make out with her before driving off. God I hate it here Looking back at the stock photo picture perfect couple she slug back into the chair and plays with her tea bag with her spoon. The man watches her as she slipped into her own thoughts then looks at mom concern. 

" Richard being so good to us. I know you understand but. ...Eventually he and Cora will be your family, Jojo. She like us not used to this. You just need to find something" mom says holding Richard hand tight. She hated when her mom use her name worst when she used her nickname. Jo looks at him then looks away back at her cup.

" I try on the behalf of the both of us, mom. It's been some really good months here. Don't want you ups..." a bus horn beeps. Saved by the bell she thought to herself.

Grabbing her bag and lunch she kiss both of them on the forehead and goes out to start her day. She was glad to leave she hated lying to her. But knowing mom she knows she already knows she always know Jo thought to herself.

 The bus is basically a collection of the body snatchers. It was an oddball of folks. The bus crew. Jolie was nothing like Cora at less not here. She was lonely and  no one could give two cents who, Jolie Wellstone was. Best way she found herself making sense of this feeling was like her birthday, it is a month that millions others she share with but  don't know. Weird way of thinking yes. But that's how she was brought up how her mom and dad taught her to be like. Only other group she talks was groups she put with because of  class. This week Ivy, Kyle, Robinson. 

School for Jolie was different since she moved . She use to jump early before the alarm go talk to her many friends give everyone a smile and high five in the hallways. She wasn't alone but ever since Richard came into her and her moms life it all she knew now. She use to be more than just a piece of space moving from classroom to classroom. Now and days Jo basically rush to class answer the questions the teacher asks right in her head.  Only once she got it wrong 5th grade health class,the human brain can read up to 1,000 words per minute . 

Lunch use to be full with laughter as she made her friends spill their milk and juice out there noise or she talk up anyone with a smile to sign her newest protest of the week. Now lunch was a time she spent by herself in the bathroom or on brave days outside by the basketball courts. She like it there because eight of ten times she would see Garrett . Nothing more then her high school crush. He had a surfer tan that was just perfect even though it was never above 60 degrees  6’5 tall glass of yummy with matching  gorgeous summer sky blue eyes and a voice that all alone made you explode.  You all had one why not to him she always says as she goes through his iBook page . Checking like it was a daily ritual. Still single. Thank you baby Jesus yes. 

They had four classes together including lunch. He was older but same age as Cora,18. Four had became her magic number so far. 4.  Four on the amount of times they talk or was close. First day bump into him , put on his team in gym, ask for a pen, and passing English Lit chapter 7 test to him. While Jo was a sophomore she had all senior classes. Something she hated  until she saw Garrett for the first time.  

Jo was a loner and sadly he was too. However, for him it was by choice. He was better at hiding it but she knew even though they never really talk outside of those four times in her months of being stuck in this hellhole. Her Winston to her Holmes. Her moon to her stars. That magic number would be something of the past after today. Today was different. It was the second to last class study hall in the library, also with Garrett and one of her favorite class. What can ever be better than reading books, doing homework, and  looking at Garrett as he had his feet kicked up on the table smoking a cigarette playing with his lighter and no care. 

Jo was simply looking at the black and white checkered floor walking to class when she saw Fred, Mr. John Hughes  and Farrah making out, Cora’s bestie and boyfriend. She knew she should've left but she couldn't  help herself but get a quick look and see. Creeping in the shadows like a ninja.  Part of her wanted to watch see what was happening out of concern. She might of had a very strong dislike of Cora , still cared. Wasn’t that she hated her just there were a lot of things she would hope happen before she admit it. Going down the list  like starve to death or god forbid not be able to see her mom, or Garrett again. The root to all her evils. Caring about others before herself. The bell rings. Being late or being caught. Very hard decision Jo turns around and bumps right into Fred . Caught red hand. 

She grabbed her things tried to make a break for it. Fred being Mr. I’m a meathead and press 450 easy was able to stop her in no time. 

" Macy right your Cora new step  sister" he says holding onto Jo bag strap. Looking at up into his storm gray eyes Jo nods. 

" It's kinda not Macy though but that's fine " Jo says trying not to stress sweat. She never spoke to him she got a few looks from his when he would pick or drop Cora off. Or when he came by one of the first days she and her mom move here and Richard had a little barbecue for them.  He does not say a word just brings himself close to her still holding onto her bag.His eyes could turn her to stone that how intense it felt What was going on between the two was nothing close to any good tension but more  like they were about to have a staring contest. He looks her once over and smile. 

 " I actually was worried seeing you  watching me until I realize who you are, Macy. Did it turn you on watching me.Like the little holy mary virgin you are ” he stops and twist her curl that dropped down into her face with his finger “That was her doing . I stop it as soon as it  started to happen. So no word right " he says in a very very serious but creepy tone his finger still twisting her curl. 

Feeling her ten seconds was up Jo nod and bolted to class without a word. Busting right into Garrett strong define chest, he held tight to her small figure a bit tight as she almost fell. He glanced back to where she came from then back down at her. That one touch almost sent her sent her places she only went to when she was alone in her room or in her dreams. She bit corner of her bottom left side of her lip as she mouth sorry and ran off embarrassed.

 After that touch by heaven moment Jo spent the rest of her day hiding from the world.  She even decided to walk the 12 minutes walk home in hops she would not bump into Fred or Garrett. Today word be bad luck Jo Jo she said to herself as she continued her walk home. The name her dad use to call her. Everyone can call her Jolie even Jo but no one but him use to call her Jo Jo that was his and his alone.

Her Mom came home from work 5 ish beat. Just in time for their alone time, watching the news and Family Feud for an hour or so. Then by 7  she would play house wife for Richard. Something she never did before. 

" It's Friday .Do you have any plans? Me and Ricky are going to the doctors then a party. Fun uh. What abo-..." her convention was interrupted by the Cora and Richard arguing in the next room. 

Which for some reason still gets her startled but for Jo it was the new normal. She and her mom never was as vocal as they was but after the fifth scream match it shock value lesson . Cora lungs her bag on the floor and stomps up stairs. Richard loosens his tie and un bottom a few bottoms from his shirt walk into the living room, where Jo and mom was at.  Watching the real Family Feud in front of them. Kissing both of them on the forehead. He pushes his way between Jo and her mom putting one arm tight around Jo shoulder. And like a switch of the light her mom got up to mostly likely continue her housewife duties. Jo never understand why she did it. She never did that before but she was young. She could not remember how much time past when Richard stop talking to her and they got up to do something. 

She had to get away from him as far as she could. Walking pass Cora’s bedroom door. She peeks in like the weirdo she is to see if Cora was hot gluing her face on. Covering the evil witch that she was. Why a witch easy because she can make everyone foul that she actually nice. Nope. Just on the phone talking. As she started to walk pass. She stops and turns around back into the lion dean.

"Cora we need to talk" she said blunty. Why What uh. The simple thoughts started flashing in her mind. Cora chewing on gum rolls her eyes and continue to talk on the phone as if Jolie said nothing. Same thing she did earlier.

 " I lost my dad just like you lost your mom and brother only difference is you still have time with your dad. I lost mine young and found out I'm losing my mom all”  Jo stops and looks away hiding her tears" I found out the same time….. You stay here. I left my life. I'm going to be stuck here. You got lucky always lucky. You leave in a few months. Everyday I'm alone. Because at the end of the day. I got the dang short stick. Never nothing I want. You might hate me well I do sometimes too. But I still care about you and... Richard, always will. Just like my mom does. Can you at least fake it. Then when she gone you can go back to whatever this is" Jo stops. She hated talking about any of this. Her father, mom, the future, her path. But she was tired of it. Sick. Jolie decides not to wait for Cora response. Not this time. Later maybe but not now. Also she had to pee. 

Dinner was as normal as abnormal it always was. Eating her corn, " So dad. Can I get a 50 I’m going out with the squad to" Cora starts to say to Richard.

 Richard devouring his stake looks at her then at mom. " No way. It's dinner time. Family time. Your n" he starts to say cutting Cora off. Mom feeling and seeing the same overdone clip cuts in. 

" Honey..... so Cora what are you plans with your gang  " she says trying to sound hip. Jo looks at her and smiles at herself. There it goes. There where I got all my social traits from. Richard was of course was talking to himself attack the stake. Which from the look of it the plate was really the loser. Poor plate. 

Cora mad looks at Jo. " Daddy. Me and lo- Jolie talk. She new and being such a nice person I am I bringing her to the homecoming game then to the movies afterwards. Starting a new leaf. Which is why I need the money daddo. Also we will be back by 2 ish" Cora says looking at Jo. Smart move using the socially awkward girl to get what you want Jo thought to herself as she looked down at her food. 

Mom excited smiles. "Really oh my shit balls. I’m so gosh darn happy. See Jolie. Of course. Your dad be glad to. Ricky. It gives us some alone time,after the party. HUH . Give Jo some money. And  Jo remember the rules. And 1 am Cora. No more than that not even a second" mom says getting up grabbing her plate. What about board game night we was gonna play Trouble she thought to myself watching her mom getting all the dirty plates.  Richard smile and waits till  mom leaves. 

" Cora, don't do ANYTHING to hurt her. Only reason you're going is her" he says gulping rest of  his Budweiser. Cora smirks at his threat and rolls her eyes and looks at Jo.

 "They are like so gonna be here soon. REMEMBER so hurry up....and don't forget the cash" Cora says with a plastic Barbie smile and storms off. Jo slowly looks at Richard still gulping down rest of his Budweiser.  As she starts to leave Richard grab tight to Jo tiny wrist. " Have fun. Baby . This night ...will be one you will never forget. Here. Take the money. Tell the coach I said hi" he says to Jo with a smooth demeanor one he did not have seconds ago . Numb by the feeling. Jo simply smiles and leave. 

She fumbles up to grab her things. Nothing much: her keys or janitor as she calls it, her wallet, lighter for Cora because she always losing hers and asking. A few books no less than three. Two normal and a color book. Pens and markers. Gum. Tissues. And charger. All stuff with way to much more crap in her old backpack cover in bumper stickers and buttons. 

Mom was down stairs taking pictures like it was a senior prom. Memory She always said before she would go over overboard with it. Ok not this time but for the most of the time. She goes over over board. Cora was enjoying every second of it. Posing and laughing like she was going to be cover of Seventeen .

 " Come down Jolie two pictures that's all then you can go " mom says. Jo stand by Cora and waited. click click. And one selfie of all three on mom's phone. Simple kiss on the check and wait let me email this to you Jolie second. Mom hold her close. “Thanks Jolie. We both need this. Love You sweetie” she said then wave goodbye. Jo hold her tight and whisper I love you before leaving. 

Cora was more than excited minus Jo was coming. In the car were the same three people as this morning . Jo walks slowly behind her nervous praying to baby Jesus. There was no one drunk and or cops would pull them over because of drunken foul . Newspaper reads poor loser dies when mom force her to socialize with others 

" Hey dumb shit let's go" Cora says sitting in the passenger seat. Jo looks back and wave goodbye once more. “ You won't believe how I got out. This space cake actually help me. And got cash. Was able to even score more than what I ask. Gonna have to bring my little pet often" Cora says laughing putting more of blood red lipstick on. A boy with a bad case of twitch looks at Jo like a glass of water in the desert.

 " So you visiting or something"he says looking at Jo.

 " No actually I been living her with Cora for months now. Hi name Jolie but you can call me Jo ”  Jo says trying not to give off the you smell like yucky weed face. He smiles and look at the girl sitting next to him, Farrah aka bestie who made out with you know who. She had black hair blue eyes look as perfect as Cora did.  Cora gets up from her seat and turn around. " Does anyone have like cigs or liquor on them. Babysitting lil dumbo here. Forgot to grab out daddy stash" Cora said. 

Jo look at everyone as no one offer her anything. " I got pop and some matches"  says like a silly head. The boy deadpans her then starts to bust out laughing. Pointing at her crying like he was Banzai from the Lion King .

 " I....I....I..Oh I like her. What is she like 2 and retarded. Pop and....and matches" he says giggling to himself. Fred turns around and curse at himself. " How we gonna have fun at a game with no fucking stuff" he says. Cora looks and whispers to him.Fred looks out to the road and makes a sharp turns around. 

After a few minutes pass. They pull up to an old grocery market in the center of the town. It late, deserted. Snow was falling gently like the beginning of a Christmas movie. Something that caught Jo eye so she did not realize it at first what was happening. Fred exchanges some looks at everyone and grab a flashlight got out and started to walk  towards the store. Follow by Farrah and Lex, the boy that was differently high. Cora was left behind checking herself once again. Jo rocking back and forth.

 " Cora Cora we made a wrong turn. We are not by the school anymore. What are we doing here. Mom and Richard are going to be worried. What happens if they stop by and we are not there…. Lord cheese crackers. That's it I’m texting her" Jo says stumbling around her bag freaking out. Cora making a fish look glancing in the mirror to see Jo still looking for her phone.

 " So you want to look  and act like a baby. Baby. Well congrats you are top of that list. Hey stop. We already heard the game gonna suck. Like we are gonna win and blah blah. Same thing every year. We already made new plans before we left. So either you suck it up and come in or stay out here in the cold till we come back"she says getting up and leaving Jo speechless. 

Jo watched as Cora catwalk in the store in the freezing cold in her high heels and small pink Michcal Kors jacket . Her phone in her hand she starts to text her mom.  She stops mid way texting her mom to see the pictures from earlier her mom sent her.  A long struggle Cora put her though. I’m not a baby. Just ... Okay I'm a baby. One that does not mind being the helper and loner. I bet Garrett would thinks that be fine. If he knew me. They playing a joke I just wait out here. I show who a baby Jo whisper to herself looking  out to the empty roads. Laying down in the back Jo looks up at the stars. Passing time till they come back out. It was quite. Only thing you could hear was the sound of the lights. Light of the street lights, neon or store lights. Then the cold breeze. Cold very cold breeze. She slowly gets up after a while when she realize she was all alone.

 Looking around again. She stops. Fudge It she pouts to herself.  Start to walk inside. See what was taking so long. The front of the store was locked . Chains and chains oh wait some more locked chains. Jo tried to look through but she could only see the outline of what looks to be a person. Jo following to the back to see a door with a rock keeping it open.

It looked like it was one of those vintage out a magazine stores. She came with her mom a few times but her mom prefer the one town over more populated and better selections.  Following the noise she heard laughter and arguments. Walking closer she sees a figure talking to Fred. Cora lending across closer to Fred but in a mid distance as she was waiting for her call. Farrah and Lex was smoking giggling at each other stupidity. Lex of course was the first to realize they weren't alone anymore. He strung his head to Fred and then he stop giggling.

 Screaming from afar it sound like mumbling. Lex closer smiles and says" Cops outside. Girlie" he says chuckling at Jo. Shaking her head no she looks around then back at him .

 " Uh....No. Just. No" Jo says. 

Fred strugs. " So you finally decided to come in we were betting. I guess we are technically all wrong. Cora and I said never, Lex said ten minutes, Farrah had no faith in you and said a second" Fred stops and laugh. Looking at his watch " 1 hour and 49 minutes. What were you doing ? It's freaking cold as ice breaks out there " Fred says with a devilish grin. 

The figure behind them upset throw it hands up  rushes off between the allies. 

" What is going on is this a joke" Jo says looking at Cora. Cora rolls her eyes " We are seniors in a boring ass hick town. We wanted to do something legendary so why not sneak into the town old ass market and party to dawn. Think of it as a senior prank. Look we did a nice thing. You are our  like well witness. The person that gets to spread it around and be the undergrad that was apart of history"Cora says proud of herself. 

 Jo shock not only by the coldness of emotions but the fact she was even numb by the blow. " I'm not getting in trouble. Why should I....anyway we can get caught. Trouble. I can't do trouble. I am not built for that . NO WAY JOSE I'm out where the nearest bus towards home or taxi" Jo says starting to go back outside looking at my phone for service. 

They tried to stop her reason with her best a couple of drunk and high teenagers could do.  Fred piss came from behind her grabs her collar of her shirt and pull her back. Jo clumsy stumbles back bumping her head against a rack  stack of photo chips  .  

An Hour Later 

 Jo woke up still a bit dizzy from the fall ice on her forehead laying on a stack of old Sunday newspaper. She holds the ice closer to the back of her head looks up. Fred was talking to Cora. Cora looks royalty piss like worse then the time Jo accidentally slipped paint on her expense Gucci shoes and Richard had to hold Cora back from killing Jo. Fred look back to see Jo walks to her with Lex.

 " Look. Kitten. You would mess up things. We are not doing anything wrong. Party till game ends clean up then leave. No ones out there everything close. So stay here like a good baby . And be grateful we are nice to a loser like you. You got it" he says with a mean tone pointing into her chest. Jo looks at him then glance at everyone else. Nothing. Empty. Still no figure. Jo shakes her head yes. Still feeling the pain with each nod. What could she do say. She was not tough brave. She was a baby.

Cora walk back with the figure. It walked passed everyone till it got to Jo. She could not tell it close arm distance to see who it was. Garrett. Shock and piss. And if Jo was not so dizzy from the hit him coming this close to her would have made pass out from all the excitement in going on in her body.  " I can't lose this job. You got till midnight. Then we are FUCKING though. Go get drunk in the parking lot all I care" he says looking back at the group pissed. He stops and glance at Jo. His eyes shift from pissed to concern.  Jo shock starts to open her mouth to say something but before anything he leaves once again.

 Fred rolls his eyes and brush it off as what's ever. Drunk now he grabs Cora and start to dance  with her to Lex mp3 player . They spend some more time drinking and smoking around the store. Jo sat still on the floor, glancing to the back a few times to see if he comes back.  After a while she was pulled back into reality and force to dance with Farrah. Who was as slutty as a video vixen. As time passed they either left to explore or grab some munchies aka find somewhere to make out . Jo decided to make the best of things and found a quiet spot closer to the vents with a cool  breeze. Reading one of her books in her zone her space. She stops mid paragraph mid word  death . There was something cutting her breeze.

 " You mine I chill here with you. Everyone hooking up and I'm not in the mood to smoke. Been trying to quite a few months ago the huh the smoking" a voice says. Jo shakes her head no looking at the page. Pain was not as intense but annoying . She looks up to see Garrett standing there. He looks down at you with his drop dead smile and glitter blue eyes piercing back at you. Garrett sits down and looks at the book Jo was reading, " Good book. So much irony. Jo is that your real name" he says still holding the book in his big marvel  hands. Jo shakes her head no. Surprise not only he knew her name but it being his first question " Jolie. Its huh Jolie. Most people call me Jo. Before you ask kinda. My dad  used to call me Jo Jo. Why" she says trying to default all her butterflies away.

 Garrett smiles a bit bigger. He looked away for a second then back to her. She was mesmerized at his face eye darted to his pink lips. GOD THOSE KISS READY LIPS. " Jolie. That's pretty beautiful . Fits you more then Jo. Mind I call you that Jolie not Jo. I seen you around. I think we got classes together. How your head" he says looking up at her head. Jo slowly touches it wincing at the pain. 

 " Gym, English lit, and something else" he stops he was closer to her and takes her bag while she wasn't paying attention. Smiling with such charm he starts going though. " Running away huh. That never helps anything, Jolie" he says playfully. Jo smiles iffy about the name but he sure changing that" I’m not runway no more. Or at least NOT now. That's to help me remember a reason to stay. Can't believe even you " she says scratching back of her ear. She stops and look at him. Garrett smiles and goes through her bag not fully pay attention.

 " Well I’m happy. You would have kept me alone with these drunk horny retards. Dang. Jolie got a lot of stuff.  Cool stuff. Wait why the keys and fake tattoos. No nope these must have a story" he says looking through the fake tattoos. Jo smiles. " Dad said more keys you have the more opportunities you have. Now I’m pushing endless. A lot of them it's like endless stories.Ideas” Jo says trying not to blush. 

He scoop a bit closer still looking through her things. His dirty blonde hair was the perfect blend of messy with a purpose. Match with a scent that always drove her crazy it was a mixture of lumber wood and sex appeal. She has been close to him but mostly back of his head in class or behind him in gym class. Never out of class never him coming to her. Was it that he was bored and she seems easy.  Or was he really put on babysitting duties. She wasn't sure she really wasn't. But for a quick second before it clicks into reality she just decided to enjoy it. Garrett look up to speak, interrupting Jo inner thoughts. 

" Don't see any pictures of your boyfriend how come. Or girl-" Jo interrupts him " Boyfriend. BOYS. MEN. I mean I'm single" she says looking at him  as he took out a pop and a bag of chips. He glances at her for her approval. Nodding. " My turn. More of a statement. You don't have to baby me. Or whatever they have you doing. And I'm not that type. That take you against some canned food or on the cold ass floor. I'm sure you can understand" Jo said looking at him. He freezes with sour cream and onion flavor chips in his hand and stuff in his mouth. Chewing slowly he just look at her confused . Clearing her throat. " I mean. What about you any special girl in your life" she says cursing at herself for saying something. 

He smiles at her with that million dollars just won the lottery smile. " No. But I do have my eye on a girl to be honest. But it complicated. And I sorry. I can imagine what it looks like. Me here. You. But reality is I just feel your more my speed" he stop and look at a have no clue Jo" Sober. Good vibes. Cool" he says drinking some of the pop. She wanted to smile so bad blush even. Text her mom the cool news. Her mom knew from there little talks she had a crush on Garrett.  But instead she just said nothing. "So this girl. Why not tell her. What she some cheerleader or something" Jo says trying to hide the bit of jealous for this girl. Garrett struggles and blushed a bit. " No. She actually new here. And she no cheerleader. She way way  more fucking prettier them those dust bag. Smarter too. She also a bit younger not much . Not sure she likes a guy like me" he says looking down at the bag of chips. 

Jo hated this girl already no name or face but she hated her more than anything. "Hey uh Garrett. As a girl who shares class with you. This girl she be stupid no borderline retarded beyond repair  if she doesn't like you... Hey want do something fun out of my bag" she said to him trying to change the subject before she confessed her undying  love for him in the middle of a grocery store. He glances up after a long thought. And says yes. They talk a lot more. What they thought of class today. Taste and music. List was endless. She for once did not feel alone or afraid or even flushed by being by this close to Garrett. Instead she felt normal like the girl she used to be before moving here.

Garrett looking at his cool new panda bear with roses and bar wire, " It must be hard. Coming here. Not really belonging anywhere both at school and home. If it makes you feel better it's the same with me, Jolie. I kinda want to confess something" he starts to say. The alarm on his phone went off. Damn he whispered to himself. He looks at Jo sipping on some water listening to his music, Foo Fighters. " Have to do rounds. Want to come with. Also with what Fred did kinda don't want to leave you behind, Jolie" he whispered into her ear. Nodding at the delight of continuing this affairs or the omfg this isn't happening tour. They walked side by side down each row.  Jo looking up at him as he talked about the job, his family or the many stories he smile and laugh as he told her. 

" Hey tour guide. Do you know if we get a bathroom break. The water getting to me" she said trying to hold her pee. Garrett smiles down at her as she did her pee pee dance. " Sure but I might have to meet stay outside" he says.

 He stop by these old metal swinging doors. She looked back and sneak in. Garrett stood watch with his flashlight. The hallway was dark and musty. A few old lights winging from the ceiling. The bathroom was in worse condition. Dirty. Smelly. Something even the best horror novelist couldn't even make up. She lends over and tries to go. The old metal door starts to open. Creek creek. Jo gets up a little to see what it was. Nothing but a shadow. Unsure what to think she turns around for some toilet paper. Footsteps now . Heavy as a meter. Stomping towards her. She froze her hand press on each side of the stall . The footsteps stop in front of her. Jo mouth open a little to slow her breathing. She couldn’t tell whatever it was.She tried to listen to see if someone else was here. Jo slowly put her feet up close to her and lends towards her legs to her chest. A sharp sounds goes across the door. Jo shivering trying not to scream. Froze. Keep it together just a joke she thought. She tilts her head to the side to peak. It was gone. What or who ever wasn't there. She waited a little to make sure it was gone. She opens the door to peak. Nothing. She gulp and rush out as fast she can. Not even a hair or turtle could catch up to her. As the doors swing open. She landed right in Garrett strong arms for the second time and one day . She held him tight her head dodged into his chest. Only thing that stops her for crying was the warm touch he gave as he rubbed her back.  But it did not stop the fact she was freaked out by what just happened to her. 

" What wrong you ok? " Garrett said still holding her. She said nothing just hold him tight her head on his chest looking down at his sneakers. He looked down at her. Nothing but the head of curls and a silent whimper.  Under her breath she says" something was down there with me". He looks up at the door. " We have a lot of rats was what scared you. It's alright shi-" he start to say. 

" No a person. A shadow was there. Watching me. I want to go home now" she said still holding him. Using his shirt as a tissue as her tears roll off her face. He shocked his head pissed. 

" That bitch ass jerk" he says quietly to himself. 

" I bet Fred did this. Does not know when to stop come on let's find him" he says grabbing at her small wrist. 

They were all laughing smoking a joint. " You're freaking dead. Now Fred" Garrett says rushing right to Fred forgetting he was still holding Jo wrist. Fred turns at Garrett and Jo then back at everyone else. " What the fuck you talking about" he says laughing at him. Garrett was mad. He glances at Jo who was giving him Bambi eyes then at him. " That real cool. You scared her half to death. She literally came out to me screaming like she saw the fucking devil. Look at her" he says shaking Jo. Jo for the first time look up out of her daze. Fred blows out big poof of smoke at Garrett and Jo. " Really like. Bro you sniffing to many things of white out again . That never happened. Whatever that  baby got scared of must of been her own shadow. I was with Farrah checking out the joint. Cora was here with Lex sleeping off the liquor" he says licking his top lip. 

Jo looks at Cora who face look puzzled. As if he not saying something. Farrah was standing by Lex fighting something she wanted to say. Jo tug at Garrett shirt. She leaned in close to him on her tippy toes. " Garrett it's fine. Can we just chill it" she said to him then glanced at Farrah and Fred. Garrett still mad makes a mad face then turn to apologize to Fred. Fred piss off walk away with no other than Farrah behind him. Cora upset shakes her head and mouth the words  you slut. Hope you choke on a stick. Garrett looks at Jo then walks towards the others with his head down. Cora was now screaming at the top of lungs at Fred.Garrett rushes up to Fred and tries to calm him down as if the last five minutes never happened. Jo looks at Cora storming pass her. Cora was sitting on cashier filing her nails. 

" You ok. Cora" Jo said sincerely . Cora looks at her then raises her eyebrow up.

" I'm not stupid. I know that bottom eater is doing. I'm popular duh. But I have my limit. Doing it and being so obvious in front of people. That does it. Twice a day" she says to a puzzled face Jo " I know what you saw today. Damn thing went around faster than a twit. No one thing. May you my witness. Who ever does Cora wrong gets put on the freaking list" she said still filing her nails. Jo look at her then back at Fred. " If you knew why then be with him. There much more guys heck captions then him" she said looking at her. Cora looks at her and then walk away.

 Garrett walk right past her to Jo . " Hey Jolie. I need your help. I need to get the key. Thought I had them on me but mines are the wrong ones. Master keys in the office. Door locked everything shut down. Can you stay here. Keep watch. I'm gonna take Lex so nothing happens. He kinda upset" he says looking at Jo. 

She glanced at him then shook her head yes. She watched him leave. Placing her hands up above her head she tries to focus. As she started to walk she remembers something. Earlier the figure she saw. Was it something or just her imagination. She had to figure it out. Garrett won't do that . At least she hope not. She had to figure out was it  and the one in the bathroom is the same.

Looking at the car Jo then rushes to Fred and Farrah talking.

 "Look Freddie. She knows Lex knows why not just be together. We had sex. We make out alot why not" Farrah said trying to touch Fred face. Pushing her hand down he starts to laugh. " Look I’m starting to sober up so let me make this quick because it's kinda sad. You're like an on the street bootleg of a movie. Might think it's a good deal. Because it's cheap and looks like the real deal but always mess up quality and a waste of money. Cheap worthless. Lex told me he only with you because you give it out.Cora a real girl. I have to fight for her. You I smile and give you a second attention and your hook. What? " he says looking at Jo. 

Looking back at Cora then at them. " You should at least have the respect and talk to her. I get it. It's a joke. On me. The noises the playing with me when I was in the bathroom. It's not funny. We are already in trouble so let's just go" Jo says. Fred laughs at her then walks towards Cora. Farrah upset starts to walk off. Jo afraid of anyone leaving by themselves follows her.

 " Wait wait. It's not safe" Jo says running behind her. There was a creepy creak coming from behind but far enough that even if you tried you could hear it. 

" What do you want. Im piss and you're not helping" Farrah says still walking. Jo looks back again. There was the sound again. No one heard it.  " Look I don't know is still part of the prank. But I'm over it. I saw you when I was in the car, when I was using the bathroom. You running away now is letting him win. Now if I can put pass the silly nonsense you guys are doing so can you. You deserve better then a descent 3rd division college player that gonna be either back here working at some depressing job if he smart get a bookie to do all his work or a mid wage in some middle state overweight loser. Either way. He not worth it. You're not perfect but you don't deserve to be treated like horse poop" Jo said. She was upset. She was upset that this was happening she really only wanted to be home with her mom. Safe. Nope  instead she trying to pump up a you can do the high road to the school slut. Farrah came and raise her hand to slap Jo. " It wasn't a joke. On you. You're not worth it. You're seeing things. We was smoking a joint when we first got inside then we.....we..... we found this weird place. In the back.  Fill of old meat and big ass fucking knifes. Some straight A fucking shit. He wants to do it but I couldn’t. So after we play around broke something crap and left" she stopped and started to walk back towards the group. She stops " Thanks. You're actually cool. Cora was wrong" still walking. There was the noise again. The never ending feelings someone calling for you but know no ones behind you. Then that's when it happened. All at once. 

They were taken.  

[nythroughthelens]

It's early morning. I am 10 years old.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table furiously scribbling finishing details onto a blueprint that I've painstakingly drawn over the course of the last five days.

The blueprint is for my own chocolate factory fueled by my umpteenth reading of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The drawing is etched onto blank newsprint sheets that my family refers to as scrap paper.

---

My father fell into his job as a union pressman for the Daily News out of necessity.

He had just moved to New York City with next to nothing aside from his wife, a suitcase full of clothing, and a few dollars.

Having only completed a Junior High School level education in the farming community he lived in growing up, he didn't have a lot of options when it came to joining the workforce.

When someone introduced him to the Newspaper Printing Pressman's Union, his life changed. The union took him in and trained him in the brute art of loading printing presses.

He worked nights for the next 20 years at the Daily News feeding large bales of newspaper to hungry printing presses. His knees and back suffered as did his general mood. He was an irascible character that I rarely saw. 

I relished the large amounts of blank newsprint scrap paper that existed in our house. It was the kindling for my escapist imagination.

On blank newsprint canvas I would scrawl out information about my endless Dungeon & Dragons campaigns, and draw up blueprints for my future fantasy wardrobes reminiscent of the one in Chronicles of Narnia.

Eventually, my father moved from loading printing presses for the Daily News to doing the same exact thing for the New York Times. This was a huge deal for him. Even though he was still breaking his back literally and metaphorically, the clout of working for the Times vs the Daily News was enough to make him smile (a rarity) and celebrate when he got confirmation of the move to the Times.

I grew up with an understanding that the New York Times was a paper that held weight in the minds of many. But that understanding came with the deeply embedded belief that it was the place where other people got mentioned and written about. It was a place to admire other people, not the people I grew up with or even people like myself and my family who were living on the bitter edges of poverty barely eeking out an existence.

---

It’s July and it’s sunny outside. I am 20 years old. I am sitting at my desk listening to Depeche Mode while registering for classes in the art school I am attending for illustration.

I have been living on my own for the last two years after having been disowned by my parents due to leaving their conservative religion. 

Being disowned feels like the loudest silence in existence. 

The only break in the silence comes moments later when my roommate tells me that my mother is on the phone. I answer and she informs me that my father died earlier that morning and she felt she should let me know. You know, just in case, it mattered.  I don’t know what matters when I hear those words.  Those words replay over and over in my mind for the rest of the summer.

---

It’s January and it’s a grim, rainy afternoon. I am 25 years old.

I have just celebrated my birthday and I am sitting on a couch I rescued from the trash.

I start listening to a Sigur Ros album.

The music swells to an emotive crescendo. It's the type of crescendo that propagates self-reflection. I try to imagine my future and start crying soul-wrenching tears that pour down my face.

I've been working seven days a week in dead-end jobs for years. I am so tired.

My roommate and his girlfriend come home right at that moment. He sees me on the couch with a tear-stained face and sits next to me. Without any words exchanged we hug for a good half hour while I sob uncontrollably into his neck. 

It’s a real hug. I can feel his ribs and it reminds me of how fragile existence is.

I go to sleep that night the same way I have been going to sleep for years, recalling a blizzard when I was a child.

My father had to stay home from work that night since the trains were not running. Our neighbors offered use of their sleds and my parents happily took them up on the offer.

As soon as my father stepped outside, his face erupted into a huge grin and he proceeded to spend the night pulling me and my brothers on sleds through the streets of Flushing.

The snow swirled like confetti at a ticker-tape parade.

I looked up at the street lights and in that moment wonder and magic felt tangible and real, as real as the wind kissing my face.

I returned to this moment every night for years because for years bedtime was one of the few things I looked forward to.

----

It’s December and It's almost midnight. It's the winter of 2012.

I am feverishly checking the weather forecast to figure out when the first snowflakes will fall to the ground.

I listen to The Cure - Plainsong on repeat. It's my ritual before every snowstorm.

The chimes start and as the lyrics kick in, I get goosebumps:

"I think it's dark and it looks like it's rain, you said And the wind is blowing like it's the end of the world, you said

And it's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead And you smiled for a second

I think I'm old and I'm feeling pain, you said And it's all running out like it's the end of the world, you said

And it's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead And you smiled for a second

Sometimes you make me feel Like I'm living at the edge of the world Like I'm living at the edge of the world It's just the way I smile, you said"

I have felt like the wind is blowing like it’s the end of the world for what seems like an eternity.

It's these lyrics I hear in my mind when I walk seven or eight miles in snowstorms trying to capture what loneliness, isolation, and nostalgia have felt like trying to survive alone in New York City.

I lose myself every time I go out in the snow.

I lose the feeling of hunger gnawing its way through my stomach for years.

I lose the crushing feeling of futility I used to feel heading to endless dead-end jobs hoping to keep the lights on for another month.

I lose the years of wondering if my family ever even thinks of me.

I lose the bits of myself that suffered the most.

I lose the anger, the sadness, the loss.

I am cleansed by the flakes that flutter in the night air and land on my nose and eyelashes.

I am, momentarily, that child in my neighbor's sled looking up at streetlights marveling at the wonder of existence.

----

It's today.

I walk to the newsstand.

I open the New York Times and see my book, New York in the Snow, staring back at me.

I grin for what seems like an eternity.

A post shared by Vivienne Gucwa (@travelinglens) on Nov 26, 2017 at 10:38am PST

----

(special thanks to everyone who has been in my life for the whole journey or even part of the journey - some of you probably don't even know the impact you have had)

(and, of course, a warm thanks to the New York Times for making me believe that dreams really do come true)

(this moment probably won’t ever not seem surreal.)

[thesinglesjukebox]

TAYLOR SWIFT - NEW YEAR'S DAY [7.44] And we wrap up 2017 with the woman that we always have such high hopes for...

Isabel Cole: Swift's famously concrete scene-setting details have only in recent years begun sounding less like lines culled from a predictive text generator trained on CW scripts and more like human moments caught by someone with a thoughtful ear. Here, they function not as specificity for its own sake but to sketch out both a series of spaces and a state of mind: the exhaustion of girls with heels in hand, the backseat flirtation that whispers possibility, the shock of finding that after an end comes a beginning, maybe, after all. In fact this song has all of her repeating motifs, as well as she's ever done them--her preoccupation with narrativizing her own life (don't read the last page), her fucked up relationship to time as something that takes and takes and yet slips by too fast, her tangled conception of memories as both something precious to be cherished and an unrelenting force from which there is no escape: hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you, she sings, echoing a phrase that bookended her most idiosyncratic album. But New Year's Day is not a retreat into familiar territory tacked onto the end of a record of unsuccessful experimentation. Muted instrumentation complements an uncharacteristically hushed vocal performance that captures, even more than the gentle loveliness of Begin Again, the tentative tenderness of new love for someone who has felt love die not in fire but in ice; please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize everywhere tells a story that creates a person who understands now that love in fact is not a victory march, and heartbreak is no aria. For all her infamy as the girl who will write songs about the boys who dump her, Swift has also woven into her work a version of herself as someone who leaves things that shouldn't be left; what makes her wish for gathering party detritus more believable than her previous playacting at domesticity is what she tells us about why it lasts: but I stay. I stay when I'm scared, I stay when it's hard; I stay, which is something I have learned to do. Locating the power of a love not in someone else's repeated decision to choose you but in your own capacity for remaining present in the face of uncertainty, revering not the luck it takes to be loved but the strength you find in yourself to keep loving, is--well. It's very grown-up. Making this feel like the first song Taylor Swift has truly written as an adult, and more than that: like the song she has spent her entire career learning to write. [10]

Stephen Eisermann: My birthday is on New Year's Eve, so the New Year holiday has always been a very bittersweet one for me. Most people party their night away with the idea that they will wake up as more improved versions of themselves, based only on the resolutions they made a week prior and will forget a week after. It's ritual, but it's a devastating one, really, to want to change so badly that you are willing to drop and forget everything from one year to the next just because you feel like you need to be better. In a quest to better ourselves, we too easily toss aside the experiences, good and bad, that molded us and would rather crumple the paper with our notes for a fresh piece, than bring the key points on to the next paper because maybe we got those key points from something painful... I'm rambling, but there's a point. This past year saw me struggle a lot -- with work, with life, with our country's moral compass -- but I can undoubtedly say that I have never been happier. This, in large part, is due to my boyfriend, who has taught me that you can't let go of unhappiness or darkness, just learn to work with and around it. That piece of advice, however general sounding it seems, has carried me through difficulties this year and I think, with this song, Taylor is saying the same thing. She had a rough couple of years in the media between her album cycles, but some people stuck around for the aftermath -- the cleanup -- and she's eternally grateful and willing to do the rest for her lover and her friends. It's a beautiful feeling, and the lines "hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you" as well as "please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere" are particularly devastating, simply because too many people abandon others they deem unfit solely because they have demons they can't take ownership of, so they'd rather pass the blame to those they love; and that's heartbreaking, especially when accompanied by a sparse, melancholy piano production. [10]

Alfred Soto: Now the party's over, and she's so tired -- even the piano sounds hungover. Taylor Swift, whose contract doesn't allow for hangovers, sounds alert, as if she's been keeping an eye on the condition of the floors all evening. After an album of sometimes compulsive ebullience, "New Year's Day" is supposed to remind listeners of the early Taylor Swift. [6]

Will Adams: A limp olive branch to those who might have been alienated by the EDM production on the preceding Reputation tracklist, "New Year's Day" strips Taylor back to a piano, some guitar, and pretty organ flourishes. Never mind that Regina Spektor wrote this song ten times better a year ago, why leave a ballad at its barest when there's no reason to? [5]

Katherine St Asaph: Taylor Swift makes an album of shamelessly, undeniably pop songs: often missteps, but also big and seething and vital and alive in the way her past glurge never was. Everyone hates it, except on the one song where she regresses back to beige acoustic sap. Rockism lives! "New Year's Day" has the slight edge over the past 20 outings because Swift sounds on occasion like Lisa Loeb. But it's the only thing here that could be called "edge" at all. [3]

Nortey Dowuona: Soft, pulsing piano, barely visible guitar, wailing synths in the corner, dece backing vocals. Tay simply hums without straining. [6]

Thomas Inskeep: Liked Swift out of the box, more with each (country) album, as her songwriting got stronger. Hated her initial pop makeover (wub wub wub). Surprisingly loved 1989. Am indifferent-to-cold on Reputation. And even though "New Year's Day" isn't, necessarily, explicitly country, it's a reminder that she can return to the format whenever she wants. (And her CMA Song of the Year, Little Big Town's "Better Man," is a sterling reminder that her pen has lost none of its punch, even if I find her current popcraft largely lacking.) I think we all know that in an album or two she's likely to make a full-throated return to the format which made her, and we'll be better for it. "New Year's Day" helps smooth that transition, and is nicely underproduced to boot.  [6]

Ashley John: The tender intimacy of stability hides the questions beneath the surface, and in "New Year's Day" Taylor is begging to leave it be. Like Lorde recalling buying groceries in "Hard Feelings/Loveless," Taylor clings to the boring moments shared only between two. The classic Swift specificity is what made Red so good, and we watch her here smartly paying a bit into that savings account each month waiting to cash out on the inevitable full blown country return. But that doesn't matter, now. "New Year's Day" is a treasure I want to keep warm against my chest and share with no one else for fear of them tarnishing it. It is Swift making a moment glimmer with potential and hope by bending time and memory. "Don't read the last page," she asks, and I don't want to. I would rather live in this disillusion before the world wakes up, pretending that we're the only people who've ever been in love like this.  [8]

Alex Clifton: There's so much in "New Year's Day" that made me cry the first time I heard it. The lyric about Polaroids, a clear reference to the 1989 era; the lyrical parallels between "please don't be in love with someone else" from "Enchanted" to "please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I would recognize anywhere"; the lightly waltzing piano in the background, simple but somehow devastating when compared with the overproduced mess that crowds most of Reputation. There's nothing inherently romantic about New Year's Day itself as a holiday; so much stock is put into the night before, all the parties and festivities and anticipation for a new beginning that the day of usually feels like a bleak, empty page. Yet as she always does in her best form, Taylor turns something unromantic like a hangover day into something to pine for. "I'll be cleaning up bottles with you" is so intimate that it almost hurts, like overhearing a snitch of a conversation you weren't meant to hear. It's a far cry from the earnest romanticism shown on former tracks like "Stay Stay Stay," where domestic life was twinkly, cute and fun, backed by toy pianos instead of the real thing. This is the Taylor I've longed for, away from the feuds and self-pity and bad rapping: reveling in the small quiet moments she has always been so good at observing. [9]

Sonia Yang: So many songs about holidays focus on the joy of the moment, that explosive rush of living in the moment; it's what sells. New Year's Day, however, is the subdued reality in the aftermath of such escapist fantasies - "I want your midnights / But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day" - it's unglamorous, hesitant, and more vulnerable than it lets on. Not everybody greets the new year with bombast and resolutions they plan to keep; it's more likely to quietly clean up the mess and go on with life as usual, with all of the same hopes and fears as you carried before the clock struck midnight. The most painful line is "Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere", that aching dissonance between familiarity and isolation that Swift does oh so well. A relationship immortalized in glitter-covered Polaroids can end sooner than one realizes, as if to show that no matter how brightly something shines, nothing gold can stay. It's fragility at its most cutting; the most powerful words are whispered rather than shouted. [10]

Danilo Bortoli: In a way, Taylor Swift has encapsuled 2017. Reputation has been met with some divisive, if not lukewarm, reception, proving to be the album we didn't want, yet managed to admit and love its flaws anyway. In a year devoted to uncovering the world's true colors, her narrative, just like her castle, came crashing down. And also in a year where simply coping seems enough, her happiness has even been seen by some as a luxury - or perhaps a felony. "New Year's Day" might suffer from this same fate, as some may listen to it as a forced reconciliation with her inner self "a la Miley", a retreat back from the reckless journey that fits most of Reputation. Yet, it comes off as the truest moment of this era for Taylor: here's to Old Taylor and the embarrassingly long yet remarkable mantras ("Please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere"). As it often happens with her best songs, this one paints a vivid picture, constructing an entire narrative, this time measuring words with a stripped down piano, all suggesting, finally, some closure. It's candid. It's simple. It's heartbreaking. It's all about character, as she has learnt too late.  [10]

Edward Okulicz: The old Taylor is dead, said the new Taylor, but whoever sequenced the album sure was nice to put this throwback to thoughtful, generous, storytelling Taylor as the last thing you hear. The domestic scene she paints is lived-in, cosy, relatable once more. Her optimism comes through, mercifully, without any smugness and it's easily the best set of lyrics she put out this year. Thanks, Taylor(s). [8]

Maxwell Cavaseno: On a certain level, "New Year's Day" is brilliant because it's a sham of a record; nothing here is organic; it's a sea of strums, piano pawings, and musings to sound intimate and sentimental in the way of a singer-songwriter record, and what deep down we somehow understand Swift to be and keep forcing analogies to. It actually is sequenced really badly because, as always, Antonoff is often too clever for his own good and is deliberately making something unnerving and ambitious rather than functional (yet again the bland ambition of Nate Ruess was truly the foil he deserved, a man who could smother his tics to death in brazen tapioca). Swift, who's clearly not giving a shit on this record vocally or in trying to reign him in, is utterly adrift and her talk of glitter and memory just rings as hollow as the other asemblikit elements of the song. This record could easily be more than it is, but its sense of orphaning is pained and senseless.  [3]

Anthony Easton: Listening to the Harry Styles record this year, I was wondering (and hoping) that Taylor had reached the end of her experiment with taste, and would make something resembling a Laurel Canyon record. Hearing most of Reputation, this was obviously not the case. It was interesting, because it seemed like both Lorde and Saint Vincent made albums which took the sonic experimentation of 1989 in new and difficult directions, trusting Jack Antonoff to take care of their aesthetics, pushing and deconstructing this kind of electronic thicket that marks populist taste right now. (See Craig Jenkins essay in Vulture.) I think that I overrated this single because it provided something new, not quite a rapprochement to old Taylor (if Old Taylor was dead, then who is singing this lovely, old fashioned ballad--a ghost, a zombie, something more technologically advanced) but also not something quite new. I always worry about misogyny when I say these things, that liking the pretty song is not liking the angry song (false dichotomy I know) or liking the ballad and not liking the more abrasive songs, but the ballad is so beautiful, lush, self aware and exquisitely sung, even more exquisitely produced This might be the most conservative thing she has produced, the most republican thing--in the moneyed, tightly private idea of pleasure, but also in the idea that those kind of pleasures are well guarded---thinking of the sexual harassment law suit, thinking of the failure of her kind of me-first feminism, that this is a kind of weaponized good taste, explicitly against the vulgarity of current pop, or current discourse, after an hour of trying to be as vulgar as more interesting pop stars, keeps prodding that Laurel Canyon vibe. It's slippery and fascinating, and probably less good than I want it to be.  [7]

Andy Hutchins: The story of "New Year's Day," in part, is that it was Taylor finding a use for the line "Please ... don't / Ever become a stranger / Whose laugh ... I / Could recognize anywhere" -- a strong bit of writing from someone whose fantastic songwriting chops have been wasted on too many attempts to veer away from being the evolutionary Carole King she could be with nearly no exertion. But even though I know too many strangers whose laughs I could recognize anywhere to not tear up at that line, the one that makes my breath catch is "I want your midnights / But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day." Swift is at her absolute best when she nails the ordinary details it does not beggar belief to think she actually desires -- and when she sings that she wants someone for after the afterparty, it sounds honest and yearning in the way truth and optimism can be. Would that she could focus on that, because I give more damns about it than her reputation. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: Taylor Swift alone somewhere at a piano, playing soft clumsy chords, only half-attentive, barely a melody. "New Year's Day" concludes and recasts Reputation in retrospect; as the unguarded obverse, it accounts for that album's garishness and noxiousness. "New Year's Day" is a song of little details and emotional import, which is another way of saying it is what we have come to recognize as a Taylor Swift song. In this one, she finds in the miniatures of her morning-after tableau -- glitter, candle wax, "girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby" -- a gentle grandeur, and then in that, earnest sentiment. "Don't read the last page," she tells her companion, casting them into a storybook before resolving back into the prosaic: housework and hardships. There are not many songs that do this on Reputation, and, as with "Better Man," casually gifted to Little Big Town, "New Year's Day" is a demonstration that Swift can still do this, that her current work is not a failure to create vividly detailed pop but a conscious rejection of it. Reputation is an album about privacy and turning away from the public; it asserts again and again that there are things in Swift's life that she can refuse to make known. The music and sentiment matches this: it is at times ugly, at others glib, often repellent or anti-social, dangling details before obscuring them in ellipsis or melodrama. "New Year's Day" demonstrates that none of that happened by accident. The old Taylor is dead, but she be summoned at any time: this song casts ordinary life as legend like on "Long Live," voices hopes and fears in the form of mantra as on "Enchanted," and concludes a tumultuous record with a new start like on "Begin Again." It's tender and familiar. It's one of the best songs Taylor Swift has ever recorded. [10]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox ]

[rexylafemme]

day five of being alive another year and basking in the afterglow of it. embracing the preciousness of my own life, as i can so easily and readily do for others. last night, tres and i sat around a patio table in his backyard, too late too late to be awake, but running off of post-performance endorphins, fumes, relation. talking about the powerful communal bonds that exist in our lives, the sense of possibility and potential we all bring each other, that gratifying feeling of nourishment, empowerment, creativity, change. on a day like today, i’m glad we had last night. today has been one of sitting with contradictions—despair, grief, gnawing rage after what happened with healthcare today and that trash executive order, too. to walk around and see children laughing anyway. to walk around and for mundane nyc conversations to be happening anyway. holding onto those small appreciations, despite the grip of fear/anxiety/rage, that clawing. letting myself feel that, letting myself sit for a minute in the grass with the sun on my face, listen to a song and give some space to the fluttery butterfly feeling in my stomach, the feathers ruffling in my little heart.

i got off work after 11 on friday night and stopped over at tres and tanya’s. we were all so sleepy, but so happy to see each other, heart-friends. they said i was glowing, bright-seeming lately. yeah. we had one shot of whiskey at midnight and had a mariah carey sing-along. their advice for me: go all in, surrender to the feelings you have. we can never know what’s going to happen, what comes down the line, which is why we should go for what we want. to trust what we want and what feels good, enjoy it, follow it. to believe in what you’ve built and the work and intention you’ve put into getting where you are now and where you want to go.

i said go big or go home. and then i did go home. laughing on my bike, cruising down the wide dark avenue parallel to greenwood, the smell of grass and so-sweet blooming trees riding on the invisible waves of wind hitting my face. i thanked basquiat. i made it through. i was alive. a few days before, it was gray and misty all day long, but i was restless. i walked to greenwood and took tons of pictures of all the new plants and flowers and trees and bushes, graves. i decided to visit basquiat’s grave and do a ritual there. i offered him flowers i picked, i drew him, and i wrote him a letter. i was thinking a lot about my 27th year coming to a close, living with the irrational fear i would die. having at one time or another been obsessed with many in the 27 club: amy, jimi, kurt, janis, jean-michel, and jim. all the pain we shared. not wanting to be frozen in time, wanting as much of it i can get my hands on, as much time and life and love and abundance as i can get my hands on, as much i can give back and multiply. the difference between desire and avarice hinges upon giving and receiving, tending, not taking, or expecting, or entitlement. nothing i have i own. nothing i want is mine. everything shared.

so, i sat on a damp marble bench behind basquiat’s grave, white sunlight through the dense white sheet of sky cast over everything bright and green and wet and colorful; verdant and juicy and creating such a contrast against the starkness. and, yes, mistakes and, yes, death and, yes, uncertainty, and, yes, wounds, and yes, questions. but, mostly hope. mostly a will to continue, power forth and forward and thoughts on upward spirals, the ascending staircases arranged in fractals that my spirit follows. all the doorways and the windows to walk through, being up from the cellar now. or the bomb shelter, or the panic room. the safe i kept my heart locked up in. the body that was itself a cage where all the broken, feral parts were stored away. the power they had, though, motivating such a craving to escape. do whatever you can. get out. times maybe i was close to following a bad habit down the road to my own death. the week before having watched the rose with femme blood family, thinking of the thorns we’ve all been. thinking of the three little children we were inside these oversized human suits. the ones that aren’t satisfied with anything less than brilliance. the ones that have been drawn to recklessness, excess. always wanting to feel something else, wanting us to be something else. did i forget we were cut from the same cloth? did i forget we mourned the same people, same times? i have held their choices against them, i have held their lives against them, at times, while expecting them to never do that to me. so bratty, so childish. and to them i will always be young, but also the infant with ancient eyes, as they said when i was born.

how much we say without speaking. the things we tell each other underneath the stories. things like i see you, things like i know you are hurting, things like don’t be ashamed, things like i know you. things like i love you. i think we’ve spent so much time feeling heartbroken for each other. so much desire for someone to be safe and healthy and happy and whole, you don’t know what to do with it. it just sloshes around in your blood pumped out from your sore heart. our. we feel each other.

when i got home after tres and tanya’s, it was officially my birthday. tyler and i sat in the living room on the couch together. he did a reading of my solar return chart for the year. my subconscious is a huge focus and a hotbed of activity this year—in a kind of wild, creative way from influences of aries and sagitarrius, but stabilized and slowed down by taurus and venus. i’m being told to face and unleash what i repress through creativity and embodiment. that my body is an instrument in my own healing. and so is whatever i make with it. i’m being told to realize that what i create spiritually and what i express has wider influential reach to others. he said i bring out the spiritual warriors in others, especially through my work. that i’m drawn to the fight in others and in myself and i have connective power. moon and node placements move me to trust my intuition and integrate it into everything that i do. this year is a good year for learning new skills and how to keep living differently. it’s a good year for pursuing dreams and big collaborations. new ways of being. new ways of being with others. the process of growth and learning will be exciting, welcome, and transformative. i’ll grow a lot emotionally and a lot will get released. i will lose and gain myself through my work and what i create/contribute. i desire balance. i want everything, but i have to take it one step at a time and trust i will achieve my goals and get what i desire.

what this says to me, also, is to sink into the ways things feel new and different. that i shouldn’t always be waiting for the floor to fall out from under me, just because i am used to that sort of thing. i put down the floor, i built the foundations and they’re solid. feel good. trust in me. trust what feels true and real.

in the cemetery, after my ritual, i shed some tears, not nearly as many as i need to shed, but i was grateful for a little release. i saw eyes patterned on trees. i stood still and made eye contact with a groundhog. as i was leaving, i stood in the grass with about 25 of the greenwood parrots around me, in the grass, on the trees. they swooped past my face. they were boisterous and yelling at each other and moving too much, i couldn’t get a good picture. sometimes you just have to be there, be in it, take note in yourself.  

i want to go into the magic of the in bloom show, but that feels like it needs its own space. i do want to share two of the poems i read from that night, though, because they feel related to all the life/death, shadow/light, bloom talk.

gently through my shadow

sometimes i walk the streets

of my home city, beer bottle glass crunching

under feet, graves to my right, trains

to my     left    wondering   why   i am

here,    & not living

in a one-room box i built myself   in the forest

no one can reach—gridless ,     me   with just atlas, a tape deck, some lace

& paper flowers, a notebook, upside-down herbs

lining all the walls, & Stevie Nicks

in the background as i am

all Misty Day twirling in circles

with my scarves swirling around me, craving

a tribe, but knowing what we humans do, so

don’t come for me, don’t call to me,

but do   come for me, call to me?—conflicted,

sea-of-love-drowned, downcast androgynous

femme radagast, friends with all the animals

& plants, misanthropic old-soul / baby-face, speaking to creatures like st. francis, but more

prophetic, less catholic &   now   here

i go    again,   i see the crystal vision    i keep

my visions to myself—

write a poem about them instead—poet

of my heart—self, never change & don’t you ever stop—      drowning? in dreams

i remember

how to breathe underwater, sometimes i am so far from the surface, i can almost find happiness there   in my element amidst sunken ships, schools of fish, &     just me    floating— how long ago did you lose yourself— an echo travels backwards through walls of timeless ocean and asks again—how long? your scales so smooth & beautiful, years, iridescent, hexagonal pieces of you— it’s like you’ve always been this gone, this mysterious deep sea creature— is it in your skin or is it a defense mechanism, hiding— do you know? the difference, intricacies of your makeup and what it means to you when an eye casts itself upon them? & didn’t you know fins for swimming evolve into wings eventually? & haven’t you been waiting to take off? go away isn’t the initial message i transmit, not the gut influence i get, but then i did say  i was a cave-dweller & i wasn’t kidding—holy hermitage—oh mirror in the sky, is total solitude the same as bringing safety home with you?

i don’t know, i don’t know   is it

some attempt at human care services, step by step metamorphosis, getting closer to being  taken by the sky, no, but we do get ourselves there, somehow, don’t we?    always overthinking—did   she/he/they   make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusions of love? yes, and,   but,    is it over now? do you know how to pick up the pieces & go home? all i’ve known is evil witches: lousy lovers pick their prey— Fiona Goode burned the Myrtle Snow in me at the stake for my honor, self-defense & killer fashion sense—it was all control & morbid jealousy, rulers make bad lovers    and other descendants: Madison Montgomery said she was my friend, called me a gutter rat, & then stole my beloved covering before throwing me into a coffin underground,

& when they dug me up & revived me for whatever reason, i spit up inky blood & thick mud, my own death, & said fuck this institution—feeling, competition, & who the supreme is—i won’t give a shit anymore, & i never did. in the stillness of remembering   i’m better off dancing alone, i think     like a cat in the dark and then    i am    the darkness—knee-deep

in the swamp—sewer channels of asheville, oakland, queens, or brooklyn, i am a dragon & then    i turned around and the water was closing all around me—writing poetry & communing with crocodiles, black widow spiders, wearing a live snake stole and a cape of slime & ivy wrapped around me with micah swathed on my eyelids, majesty you can call me. but…

stand back    stand back   in the middle of my room if you touch me, i’ll scream. if you touch me, i’ll tell someone. if you touch me, i’ll never be the same again,   i say it like it can only be a bad thing, & it isn’t,   but it is   the risk.   i worry about  feeling anything & coming up for air from within myself for someone to face me    while Stevie sings  have no fear, only love & i try to

listen to that advice, more than the   thunder

only happens when it’s raining, players only love you when they’re playing—but i’m stubborn, full of memories, venom,   like a scorpion: i keep to myself, & i sting when cornered, but there are humans who are healing & open, i know because i am, & i can’t be the only one.

bloom wave

the trees are blooming in greenwood  my favorite

graveyard    playground, the sun is hitting

the glitter on my eyelashes, projecting pixels

in the periphery of my vision     what a feeling,

serotonin and kinship all over  the place, at home

here in brooklyn finally   silver linings

are aware to me   and anxiety is just a state

of consciousness i  pass through on the road back toward

the center of myself, home, breathing doubt out

into fifty-three degree breezes on 40th st. walking

toward sunset park where i will sit and gaze at red hook

across the east river where my family was born

on conover st, end of the docks

on the waterfront     where brando coulda been

a contender and my grandfather watched the lionhearted

majesty of my grandmother in the sun:  a curious feeling

of wonder on a day like today, maybe

everything is kinda charmed and timeless, maybe eternity

looks on me  and smiles, maybe infinity is inside me and

my heart is some prismatic thing that reflects and refracts

light off in a million directions and it won’t ever die again

in my beautiful trash heap of a city   where people struggle

and fall in and out of love again and again with the streets they grew up and re-find themselves on   every day   years 

later  resonating   their own histories in the present moment: a new gift

given back to old ancestries   when people are sweet

to each other like peaches (but less vanilla)—

& on the corner, you can get the treats you want

from the bodega: honey buns, hershey’s kisses,

whatever suits yr preference, or down the block in all five boroughs

mr. softee transmitting his tin-tin ice cream truck music and italian ices at lemon ice king of corona in queens, all things   signaling spring and inspiring all kinds of cuteness—children laughing,

clowning   spraying each other in water fountains   and

playful whirling down the slide into the arms of

april—

feeling like a teenager, all silly riding my bike

in the afternoon up and down hills round the neighborhood,

my thoughts on expanse, abundance, and chance,

saying to myself sometimes someone

says something    really small    and it just fits

right into this empty place    in yr heart—

acting all sentimental, all poor trans adult   angela chase with my messy bottle-fire hair, attempting tiger beat jean jacket pretty dreamboat in a hand-me-down striped ralph lauren sweater, leo/juliet, romeo/claire all in one

hand in my pocket &   singing  i’m lost, but

i’m hopeful and when you have rickie, rayanne, & other-kin

like yrself     who needs anyone     unavailable, too-cool, or

mostly straight—those withholding heartthrobs  always

leaning   away from you    on brick walls blocking yr walking   away in the halls of some sludgy stress dream where you never reach

where yr going & the face you touched was just an image

from the past that disappears

as yr waking— tired and wanting, unrequited—

the jordan catalanos who hated you secretly

for feeling, or who they couldn’t be for you as they wanted you only

kinda/sorta, singing    s/he’s a place to rest my head, a suggestion  

it coulda been you, but really their red wasn’t yr hair, it was a car  

driving away to the desert—  no bye cuz guys like them just    go    &

try to call you months later from a parking lot payphone—i’m wrong

and i’m sorry,   baaaaaby? making you cry alone   in yr bedroom,

& having  you ask constantly  why   are you like this!    all distant,

dumb-founded (huh? like what?)

…like…

                 like…

                                 like…    

          how    you    are?

and the answer always a shrug   in the silence

between us.

going my own way and taking ownership of it—

so many spirits flow over

me and i love it    oh, to be so pleasantly haunted

& embraceable for being true

is the actual thing

i’d always wanted.