#its a great album to close the year off on

[sanstropfremir]

so glad sm's concert reminded me that the hags (positive) are still making absolute bops.ofc you didnt have to watch the concert to know this. tvxq and key really pulled through, im surprised, and disappointed,,, tvxq didnt do more of their newer songs or solos though. I didnt know xiumin had a solo either! have you listened to sm's company wide collab album? did any songs stick out to you?( i thoroughly enjoyed priority)

i love it!! priority is my fave, but i also love the cure and good to be alive! i like time after time, hot and cold, and happier too, but those first three are my top ones. it's a lot better than last year's winter album.

[fuxuannie]

↳ pairing : (seperate) miles morales & pavitr prabhakar x g-neutral reader

↳ synopsis : "i think i'm inlove.." "congrats, you're the last person to know."

↳ authors note : requests by @junipershrubs & @magicdefendorwolf !! i hope you both enjoy !! sort of crack & fluff ??? this isnt super srs just some cute shenanigans :)

Way before Miles became Spiderman, you and him were a pair that couldn't be seperated. Your parents were very close with Miles' parents, leading to various different playdates and meetings with your newfound friend at the time.

Even as kids, Mr and Mrs Morales plus your parents knew something was going to happen between you two when you'd get older. Whether good or bad, it was the way little Miles looked at you and continues to look at you with was something else. That little smile of absolute adoration when he sees you shine was never seen when it came to anyone else, just you, always you.

So he's confused when his parents exchange knowing glances, a smile on his mothers face and a proud one on his fathers. "So.. you're okay that I'm inlove with (name)...?"

"Miles, we knew long before you did."

"What."

He blinks a few times in disbelief, looking at Jeff who nods in confirmation. "Like.. since diapers. It was very very obvious." Miles watches as he walks over to a baby album, one that he hadn't recognized. It wasn't as big as the other ones he had seen before, but it definitely had a lot of pictures. "We were preparing for this moment."

You can imagine his confusion when the first page reads; "How Miles looks at them."

You can also imagine how embarassed he gets when he realizes its a compilation of photos of him looking at you with that love-struck expression he's always had.

"THAT'S HOW I LOOK AT (name)?!" Miles squeaks, in utter disbelief as his father chuckles at his expression. "For years, that's how you've looked at them. Have you seriously not noticed??" Jeff says curiously, raising a brow as he closed the book.

"..N-no? I guess.. I guess I really have been inlove with them all this time."

Rio softly ruffles his hair, still smiling all the while. "Congratulations! You're the last person to know, mi hijo."

PAVITR always thought his affection for you was simply platonic but was completely clueless to his romantic feelings since he thought of you as 'an amazing friend that I'd love to spend my whole life with'

At some point, during a conversation with Hobie and Gwen, the topic shifts to the relationship of him and you.. mostly on how you're doing.

"Oh! Me and (name) are doing great! Actually, their beauty continues to blossom more and more everyday! Their laugh is still as sweet as a song, and their smile?? It's like they get prettier every time I see them!"

Hobie blinks in disbelief, the biscuit in Gwens mouth fell out because of how her jaw that could've probably fall to the floor if it was possible.

"...You guys are just friends, right?"

"Do we seem like something else?"

Pavitr seems just as stunned as the two of them, and Hobie chuckles and puts his hand on his best friends shoulders.

"A'right, Pav. You're really feelin' nothin' a little.. special for this lil friend of yours?" He raises a brow, watching the indian Spiderman nod his head.

"Nooothin'?"

"Nothing! Nothing super strange anyway."

"So if they were to ask you to date 'em right now, would you decline?"

"No! I like them quite a lot so I'd say that-"

Hobie looks him dead in the eye, squeezing his shoulder to cut him off and a dead serious look as he wants Pavitr to reflect on his answer.

"You...?"

"Like them!"

...

"...Ohhhhh."

"This madlad..."

[wildfloweronwheels]

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

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

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

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

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

[wintrrliqht]

Eric Bogosian on Chris Rock [1997]

Who's more racist: black people or white people? Black people. You know why? Because black people hate black people, too. Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. ... Every time black people want to have a good time, niggers mess it up. ... Can't keep a disco open more than three weeks. Grand opening? Grand closing. Can't go to a movie the first week it opens. Why? Because niggers are shooting at the screen. ... I know what all you black readers think. ... ''It isn't us, it's the media. The media has distorted our image to make us look bad.'' ... Please. ... When I go to the money machine at night, I'm not looking over my shoulder for the media. I'm looking for niggers. -- from ''Rock This!'' by Chris Rock

A Chris Rock concert is an exorcism by laughter. One of the first pure comedians to emerge in a generation, he makes us laugh not only because of perfect writing, skewed associations and rock-steady timing but also because of pain. The pain of how we've hurt ourselves with race, the pain of being a man, the pain of confusion. This is the flip side of the deep anger curdling the American dream; it is anger transformed into entertainment. Rock knows how far to go, like a crazed uncle who keeps tickling your toes while you beg for mercy.

Discovered by Eddie Murphy, Rock gained fame as a featured player on ''Saturday Night Live'' and ''In Living Color'' in the early 90's. He had a high-profile part in ''New Jack City'' and was a co-producer and star of ''CB4,'' but when ''In Living Color'' went off the air, Rock found himself without a job. So he returned to stand-up, working the clubs, honing his particular brand of streetwise humor. When his HBO comedy special, ''Bring the Pain,'' was broadcast last year -- with its defining routine ''Black People vs. Niggas'' -- it was clear that Rock, 31, was having a comeback.

Now he seems to be everywhere: in commercials for 1-800-Collect, on MTV and his HBO interview show, on a comedy album and in a new book, ''Rock This!'' Still, it is in concert that he is at his whip-cracking best. His influences range from Buster Keaton to Richard Pryor to Sam Kinison; he brings together a vast black and white audience to laugh at some of the most painful truths. In the end, Chris Rock is funny, and that's all that's important. Or is it?

Eric Bogosian: What's the difference between a black audience and a white audience?

Chris Rock: I'll give it to you in musical terms. When a musical act performs, the black audience goes crazy for all the stuff, the album cuts, everything. White audiences, they're nice and all, but they're not going to lose it until they get the hits. Comedy is the same thing.

Bogosian: How do you know when it is funny? When is the joke finished?

Rock: It's never locked. I mess with it every night. But I really don't improvise that much. I mean, 10 percent of the show is improvised.

Bogosian: What do you do when the audience doesn't get the good stuff?

Rock: I slow down my delivery. The natural thing to do when the show's not going well is to speed it up. Worst thing in the world. Slow it down. Make sure they understand everything you're saying. I'll think, Maybe the abortion bit won't play. But I don't drop that much stuff now.

Bogosian: Do you ever think you stink and they're eating it up?

Rock: I think that all the time. Out of a hundred shows I'll do in a year, I'll think maybe three are great.

Bogosian: Do you ever get angry at the people you work with because they tell you it's a great show and it's not?

Rock: They can't tell. My brothers, Andre and Tony, can tell, my producer, Nelson George, can tell, my sister can tell. Four people in the whole world can see people laughing and still say it's not a good show.

Bogosian: What about anger? You seem to move from mischievousness to malice to outright anger in your show. You talk about the anger of old black men and how they hide it.

Rock: When they're around white people they don't do anything. Then they get really angry when the white man walks away. ''Cracker!''

Bogosian: Young black people don't do that?

Rock: Old black men. These guys rode in the back of the bus. For a long time. And all that went with it. Hard to get rid of that. Someone like me, a lot younger, I didn't go through that.

Bogosian: I'm angry at everybody and I don't even need a reason. If I were black. ...

Rock: You're not.

Bogosian: No. But I get pulled over every time I get on an airplane. It's the ethnic hair, I think. But you seem angry at blacks, like you're resentful of your own kind. You pick on black behavior a lot.

Rock: I pick on ignorance. Anyone who thinks it's cool to be stupid.

Bogosian: There are blacks you are clearly angry at. You used the word ''nigger'' in your HBO show.

Rock: I guess I did.

Bogosian: Your audience is made up of whites, many of whom are happy to hear how lazy or stupid blacks are. You're using the word ''nigger.'' And some of the white audience is saying, ''That's right.''

Rock: Every ethnic group divides itself, criticizes itself. I know gay guys who say ''fag.'' What I said got more attention because it was black people, and we tend to get more attention when we do things.

Bogosian: ''Nigger'' is a heavy-duty word. You better have a good reason for using it.

Rock: It's not that heavy-duty. The thing with ''nigger'' is just that white people are ticked-off because there's something they can't do. That's all it is. ''I'm white, I can do anything in the world. But I can't say that word.'' It's the only thing in the whole world that the average white man cannot use at his discretion.

Bogosian: Your work is full of incisive criticism about the way people act. Is it important to get a message across? Or is it a kind of a cloak you're wearing because it's cool to say loaded stuff?

Rock: Really, really at the end of the day, the only important thing is being funny. I don't go out of my way to be political. My dad drove a newspaper truck. I just read the paper every day as a kid. I was bused to school. My [expletive] was kicked by white kids and I was called ''nigger.'' So I have a point of view. But the most important thing is to be funny.

Bogosian: Paul Reiser is a funny guy and Paul Reiser talks about relationships and it's very funny and it's very sweet and nice. You, on the other hand, are like Loki, you're like the Norse god of mischief who's coming in with that glint in your eye. You talk about Don Rickles a lot.

Rock: Oh, no -- no one's better. No one does a better TV appearance, no one sits down and does a couch better than Rickles.

Bogosian: Yeah, but I remember when Don Rickles broke -- that's how old I am. He used to do all these put-downs, and he looked like he meant it. That was the big thing in the early 60's -- sick comics. You talk about the organ donors who come back from the dead and they don't have any eyes. That's dark. You go after heroes of the black community. Marion Barry, O.J. Simpson. ...

Rock: Hero? O.J.'s picture is not hanging up in my grandmother's kitchen.

Bogosian: Is there such a thing as a black community, really? A welfare mother in Brownsville, a Nigerian selling watches on Fifth Avenue, an upper-middle-class Atlanta suburbanite, a nanny from Jamaica -- what do these people have in common other than skin?

Rock: If it all goes wrong with each one of these people, they'd end up living in the exact same neighborhood. That's reality.

Bogosian: But, I mean, I can't say I belong to the white community. There are plenty of white people who do not for a second include me in their community.

Rock: Automatically you're a community because you're the majority. I mean, it's like your house: you don't have a room in your house, it's your house. You know what I mean? Yes, there is a black community, and we have a room in the white community's house.

l

Bogosian: In this community the message from celebrities in music, on talk shows and in movies seems mixed. There's a lot of talk about family, about God, but there's also a glorification of the street, ''gangsta'' life style. Isn't that kind of schizoid?

Rock: It's about wanting to be accepted where you're from.

Bogosian: But it's like what the racists were saying in the first place -- ''Every young black man is a thug'' has become a cool idea. It's being promoted.

Rock: It's about acceptance at home. I'm always thinking, What happens if I had to go home, had to move back to Bed-Stuy? I'd want to be accepted. People think you're gonna flip out and come all show business and not talk to 'em. People get the big entourage and all and isolate themselves.

Bogosian: You might want that some day. Wasn't your grandfather a preacher?

Rock: My grandfather, who actually just passed, was a preacher. I would watch him and I would listen to stuff: Dr. King, you know, Malcolm X, Kennedy. 'Cause I just looked at it as kind of the same thing as I was trying to do, but without punch lines. I think anybody in front of a crowd is a comedian.

Bogosian: Is there a different kind of intelligence needed for comedy?

Rock: I'm not a smart guy. I dropped out of high school, I've read 10, 11 books in my life. ...

Bogosian: But that isn't what smart is.

Rock: Smart's knowing if you're dumb. Knowing when to shut up and to listen to people that are smarter than you. Put it this way, the inability to get a joke is the first sign of ignorance. Like when you tell a joke about a guy and he gets mad at you? That's a dumb guy.

Bogosian: Adolf Hitler had no sense of humor. Newt Gingrich. Humorless.

Rock: In show business, comedians are the smartest guys.

Bogosian: Well, you know what, Chris, you and I are like in parallel universes, and there's a lot of similarities ----.

Rock: No, I've watched your stuff, I'm not -- I do what a lot of the old white musicians did and watched all the black guys. I watch everybody's stuff, man.

Bogosian: Well, what I do is push people's buttons or get people shocked. And then I got some reviews a few years ago saying I wasn't shocking enough. So now, here's the new nasty kid with this razor-blade intellect ----.

Rock: Me? Razor-blade intellect? I had a 14 in math one time.

Bogosian: That's O.K. Look, I had seven study halls a day when I was in high school.

Rock: Fourteen, man. My mother laughed at the grade. If it was, like, in the middle of the 50's, she would have got mad. Fourteen was, like, this is hysterical.

Bogosian: Is there such a thing as a dumb successful comedian?

Rock: Well, yeah. They're not dumb, they're like Amadeus. Savants.

Bogosian: Like Gilbert Gottfried?

Rock: No, Gilbert's brilliant. I won't name names, but there's some guys, very successful. And you can overcome a lot of handicaps if you're willing to bust your [expletive].

Bogosian: You like to work really hard.

Rock: It's like boxing -- if you don't train, you're going to get the [expletive] kicked out of you. It's not like, you know, if you hang out in basketball, ''Oh, he had a bad game, mmm, he was off that night.'' Boxing, you get the [expletive] kicked out of you and you might not get another shot the rest of your life, that's how boxing is.

You know, the only bad thing about stand-up is that in order to work it out, you have to go back all the way to where you started. There's no other way to get good at it. It's like if Schwarzenegger before he does a movie has to go do a competition lifting weights. So I got to go, you know, to the Boston Comedy Club in the middle of the night. It's not, I will do it. I've got to do it. Or else I'm going to get the [expletive] kicked out of me.

Bogosian: So there's, like, this hair-shirt discipline to what you do.

Rock: I like to work at the latest possible hour and just try to get one of the worst possible circumstances. I like to work in front of all-white audiences to start it off, even with the blackest material. Because I know once I get this black joke to work, when I get it in front of a bunch of black people, it's really going to kill. It's kind of like a baseball player swinging two bats on the on-deck circle. I want to work in front of people who would never pay to see me.

Bogosian: What if everything were going the way that you liked -- if all the movies and TV shows had been hits?

Rock: I'd be the worst guy. I wouldn't be funny at all. No, when I was on ''Saturday Night Live'' I was the worst guy. I loved women I had no business being with. She had to look so good that people would go, ''Why's she [expletive] him?'' And guys would want to fight me. I didn't know how to handle any money. I made 90 grand my first year, so I bought a $40,000 car. Kind of stupid.

Bogosian: But no drugs.

Rock: Nah. I might as well have been drugged, though.

Bogosian: So what's next?

Rock: I'd like to write and direct a movie for myself. Now that I've achieved my greatest success just doing stand-up comedy, which is, like, the lowest medium in all of show business in levels of respect, I want to really take chances. I want to be funny in a lot of different ways. You know, I'd like to be great. I want to reach for greatness.

Bogosian: Is it going to happen in a movie?

Rock: No, it can happen in concert. Richard Pryor did his best work in concert.

Bogosian: Everybody says that Richard Pryor is the big influence.

Rock: Yeah, and that's the best-written comedy you've ever seen. Most every comedian probably, except for Woody, did his best work as a stand-up. And Woody was a great stand-up. Cosby's got the biggest show in the world, whatever, but his best work was stand-up. I mean, you can achieve greatness in comedy, you just have to realize that the critical masses just don't view comedy as great. I think Eddie Murphy should have gotten nominated for an Oscar for ''Nutty Professor,'' just on the performance.

Bogosian: You're not the first person to say that.

Rock: He played five or six people -- incredible, incredible, incredible. If he did that in a movie that had something to do with death or AIDS or something, he'd get nominated in a second.

Bogosian: So the millions are piling up. When will you be buying your Malibu cottage?

Rock: I live in Brooklyn and actually like living in Brooklyn. It's different between New York and L.A. People in New York are proud of what they do, no matter what the hell they do. In L.A., it's just a routine. No one's proud, everybody's like: ''This is what I'm doing now. Yeah, no, I'm a doctor, but I'm just doing that right now. I wrote a script, and me and the other physicians are shopping around.'' Everybody wants to be in show business.

New York's the best place in the world. You know what I love? It's like the garbage men will have a dance, and they'll rent out a big place, and it's cool. My brother Andre drives a truck. In L.A. you wouldn't want to say you drive a truck probably. My brother Andre is, like, the most proud truck driver you ever met in your life. He walks in a room and goes: ''See that coffee cup right there? A truck bought it to you. Everything in here. People talk about computers going to change everything. Hey! You got to get the computer. Who's going to get it to you? Me. The guy with the truck.''

Bogosian: Is this a routine or ----.

Rock: No. It's just my brother Andre.

Eric Bogosian is a playwright and actor. His new play

[malanasims]

Taylor Swift Eras themed Legacy Challenge

i wanted to put together two of my favorite things: the sims and Taylor Swift. so i came up with this 10 generation legacy challenge in which each generation is inspired by a different album. I created this challenge for the sims 2 ultimate collection since that is the game i normally play, but i am sure it can be adapted for sims 3 or sims 4. i also implemented the traits project for ts2 but you can easily do the challenge without it using different personality points. i set up this challenge so that each generation alternates genders but you can switch that up. i also chose first names for each generation based on references of the album. also some of the writing is very cheesy and has a lot of references because why not go crazy. this is my first legacy challenge so if you have any critiques let me know. the rules are not strict and cheats can be used as its a story-based challenge.

Debut- Gen 1: Mary

“Take me home where we met so many years before. 

We'll rock our babies on that very front porch: After all this time, you and I”

You grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other. Your parents never had the greatest relationship and your mom was always with her best friend. Since birth you and her kid have been inseparable. Will you fall into the same patterns as your parents…or will you find a place in this world?

family/romance 

LTW: reach golden anniversary

nurturing, jealous, loves the outdoors, great kisser, family oriented

marry your first love

have 2 children (at least one son)

formal wear is a little black dress

Fearless- Gen 2: Stephen 

“You played in bars, you play guitar

I'm invisible and everyone knows who you are”

Your parents raised you well but something about the fact that they only ever knew each other scares you. You want to get out there and make a name for yourself. You know no ones coming for you on their white horse. You’ll have to be fearless to become a superstar: but for now all you have is your mothers eyes and her old guitar.

fortune/pleasure

virtuoso, charismatic, irresistible, ambitious, non-committal

LTW: become rock god

go on at least 5 first dates

have at least one daughter

date a fan

Speak now- Gen 3: Emma

“When Emma falls apart, it's when she's alone

She takes on the pain and bears it on her own”

You often felt overlooked by your rockstar father. He was always busy and you spent most of your time with your mother until her mysterious disappearance. You feel like you grew up too fast, and now you love to travel back to your youth and fantasize about castles and dragons. So you become an actress; a character. Will you break out of your fathers famously destructive patterns, or will you regain your balance on the tightrope and break out before fire can catch you?

popularity/romance

LTW: Become Icon

natural born performer, childish, bookworm, shy, hopeless romantic

your first love doesn't work out/ you break their heart

have at least one son

have a strained relationship with your father but a good relationship with your mother

meet your true love at a party and then never see eachother again

Red- Gen 4: Bobby

“How you took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out

They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere

Chose the rose garden over Madison Square”

You grew up in the starlight of your mothers fame. You two were always close but after suffering from the tabloids and the camera flashes you decide this life is not for you. You move out of the Angel City and start anew. Your mother has given you some funds and you build up a family home. You tell everyone you left because the city wasn’t right for you… but maybe it was partly to run from your playboy/girl ex who you know was trouble. Now you spend your life painting and searching for your muse. Will you stay paralyzed by time or finally begin again?

Knowledge/family

LTW: become visionary

artistic, eco friendly, night owl, loves the cold, loner

Have an on and off toxic relationship

Move out of your parents house

Settle down with someone nice

Have 3 children (at least one girl)

1989- Gen 5: Love

“You searched the world for somethin' else

To make you feel like what we had

And in the end, in Wonderland, we both went mad”

You grew up secluded from the world, surrounded by your mothers paintings. Your mom loved the environment but you couldn’t wait to get out of the woods and explore new places. Somewhere along the road, you fell into a rabbit hole of insanity: mascara running in the bathroom and rose gardens filled with thorns. You blow money and string lovers along. You have fantastic delusions until your wildest dreams turn into nightmares. Will you accept the help from your family and abandon your affinity for screaming, crying and perfect storms? Or will every day continue to be a battle?

knowledge/pleasure

LTW: Become space pirate

Insane, unstable, diva, adventurous, jealous

Join the adventurer career

Have 3 loves at once

Have children with multiple people (one must be boy/girl twins)

Lose money in poker

Reputation- Gen 6: Burton (the name is so bad help)

“I don't like your kingdom keys

They once belonged to me

You asked me for a place to sleep

Locked me out and threw a feast”

Yeah, your mother may have done a number on you, but who's counting? Maybe your twin sister… Everything you did, she just had to do better. In the wake of your mother’s madness, you turned to dancing. You found peace in swaying as the room burnt down. Your twin sister on the other hand hated how you were lit up every room you walked into, but you couldn’t help it. There's nothing she hates more than what she can't have… so she turned to sabotage. Just when you think that your life is perfect- you're at the top of your career and you finally found love- your sister starts a rumor that you cheated on your love. Your reputation as a famous dancer goes down in seconds. But to your surprise, your lover isn't reading what they call you lately and your relationship is stronger than ever. Will you get revenge on your sister and become exactly what you despise, or sit back and let karma take over?

Popularity/romance

LTW: Become world class ballerina

Party animal, irresistible, social butterfly, hot headed, unlucky

Be enemies with your twin sister

Never be unfaithful

Have a bad reputation

Have at least one daughter

Lover- Gen 7: Cornelia

“I’d be a fearless leader, I'd be an alpha type

When everyone believes ya, what's that like?”

You've always known you wanted to change the world. Who cares if you were overlooked and discouraged. Snakes and stones won’t break your bones. You never had a big family as your father walked away from his. Sometimes it gets lonely trusting the wicked, and your loyalty was often a fault. You turn to politics to combat your feelings of helplessness, but no one takes you seriously and you feel lost in the light. You have to start from the ground up with the help of your best friend. You start to build your picture-perfect life: the kids, the lyrical smiles and the power. Will you drive away your lover by searching for their dark side, or will you put aside your ways and find the daylight?

Popularity/family

LTW: Become mayor

Good, easily impressed, brave, unlucky, perfectionist

Fall in love with your best friend

Have 10 best friends

Have children (at least one son)

Folklore- Gen 8: James

“I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

I didn't know if you'd care if I came back

I have a lot of regrets about that”

You grew up trying to meet the expectations of your politician mother. Everything had to be picture perfect, even your private life. So she set you up with the daughter of one of the most powerful families in town, Betty. At first you are skeptical, but over time you fall for her integrity and affinity for old cardigans. Along the way you begin to feel stuck, tired of the sensual politics and your mother’s watchful eye. That's when you meet August -the polar opposite of Betty- and some part of you has to know what she is like. You meet in parking lots and dive bars, but after Betty finds out, you realize that summer is dwindling. In wake of losing two girls, you turn to writing: poetry and sad prose. You get lost in your stories, but once you start to gain traction, you can’t help but wonder how different your life could have been. Will you rekindle your wild flame with August or go back to the peace you felt with Betty?

knowledge/ romance

LTW: Publish 5,000$ best seller*

Great kisser, coward, bookworm, brooding, commitment issues

Fall in love with Betty

Fall in love with August

Confess to cheating on Betty

Write novels

Move into a cottage by a lake

Finally choose the one girl

Have at least one daughter with her

Evermore- Gen 9: Ivy

“And the skeletons in both our closets

Plotted hard to fuck this up

And the old men that I’ve swindled

Really did believe I was the one”

You always resented your father because he abandoned the good life for a cottage in the woods and his stories. You don’t want that; you want power and wealth. You don't need love, just a fancy car. So you turn to crime, because it’s easy for you; you love the gold rush. You con men and no one will ever prove it. You marry rich men and inherit their money when their time runs out. But then one day you meet your match, a fellow criminal, and wonder if this life will really bring you happiness. But you realized this a little too late, and now you're forced to drink your husband's wine… but he was the wrong guy. Will you leave the life of crime behind or will you stay frozen in time?

Fortune/pleasure

LTW: Gold digger

Kleptomaniac, genius, charismatic, mean-spirited, rebellious

Go into the criminal career

Marry a rich sim

Fall in love with a criminal and have an affair

Have a son

Midnights- Gen 10: Snow

“And I don't dress for villains

Or for innocents

I'm on my vigilante shit again”

You knew your mom wasn’t the most ethically-correct person. You like to think you inherited her better half; but that isn’t entirely true. You are determined to be different, so you become a spy; you get the satisfaction of working for the good guys and the pleasure that comes with great wars. Being a spy is difficult though, and you never know when things could go wrong. You are constantly burning files and deserting old lives. But you’re a mastermind, nobody can deny that. You finally meet your perfect person, but it's hard concealing your true occupation from them. You have money and respect… But can all of that pay for someone to just know you?

Fortune/knowledge

LTW: Become head of the SCIA

Perceptive, disciplined, loner, proper, daredevil

Join the intelligence career

Move homes at least twice

The rest is up to you since it is the last generation 

*50 new LTW mod can be found here

if anyone decides to do this challenge tag me! i'd love to see it

[holly-the-trash-writer]

Matt Smith x Singer/Actress!Reader

Told through Instagram posts

everything.y/n

Liked by y/nfan and 4,687 others

everything.y/n SCREAMINGGGGG!!!! Y/N WAS ANNOUNCED TO BE MATT SMITHS NEW COMPANION!!!! THIS SEASON IS GONNA BE AMAZINGGGGG!!!!! @yourinstagram

View all 1,487 comments

mattfan So jealous she's acting alongside Matt 😭😭😭

y/nn. More Y/n content!!!! They're gonna look so cute together 😍😍😍

drwhovian She won't be as good as past companions. She can't act 💀💀

everything.y/n Keep your wrong opinions to yourself thnx

your.album.name SHE'S ACTING AGAIN 😭❤️

y/nstan A new album and a tv show in one year. She's spoiling us

bbcdoctorwho

Liked by yourinstagram and 30,643 others

bbcdoctorwho Introducing The Doctor and Nancy 💙

We all want to give Y/n Y/L/n a huge welcome to the Doctor Who cast.

You're go-go-going to be brilliant!

View all 2,697 comments

yourinstagram

Liked by mattsmith, florencepugh and 302,584 others

yourinstagram 💙Nancy Sutton reporting for Tardis duty💙

I'm still in a dream. I used to watch Doctor Who every weekend growing up. It was a huge part of my family and my childhood and now I get to be in the show ❤️ My heart could explode right now!

Thank you to Steven for even considering me for the role!

To Matt, you are an amazing actor and Doctor. I couldn't ask for anyone better to act beside and I won't let you down.

I cannot wait to run across the universe with you.

View all 46,975 comments

florencepugh *Tardis Noise*

y/n 👽

y/nfan03 THIS IS EVAH REE THANGGGG

your.album.name She left no crumbs ☠️

mattsmith You're going to be great darling

Liked by yourinstagram

the.y/n.diaries DARLING. The dating rumours start now

y/n.is.mother He really said ✨️darling✨️

user543 He's English. They call everyone darling. YALL CHILLL

drwhofan the 60s look is SO GOOD 😍

E!news

Liked by matt.y/n.endgame and 13,843 others

E!news ‼️BREAKING‼️ Y/N AND MATT DATING RUMOURS‼️

Y/n L/n and Matt Smith have shook up the Doctor Who franchise in more ways than one. Fans have noticed their intense chemistry in front of the camera but has their chemistry made it off camera?

Earlier this week, the co-stars looked very cosy at the Brit Awards, and sources say they were seen leaving together at the end of the night.

View all 18,632 comments

everything.y/n OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING

matt.y/n.endgame STAY CALM

drwhovian she's too young for him. Gold digger 💀💀

y/n.is.life dude. Shut up. If they're happy leave them alone.

your.album.name

Liked by steph753 and 3,975 others

your.album.name NOT A DRILL‼️ Y/N WAS SPOTTED LEAVING HER RECORDING STUDIO IN LONDON TODAY!!!!!

View all 542 comments

user754 where does she find the time. MY GOD

y/n.stan86 This is her era.

celebnews

Liked by yourinstagram, bbcdoctorwho and 84,964 others

celebnews Doctor Who co-stars fuel romance rumours during their photoshoot in Venice. The two have been filming for the past year and a half and during this time the romance rumours have only grown.

During the shoot, the two were pictured in a close moment where Y/n brushed Matt's hair, and then Matt placed his arm over her.

On screen their characters have a slow burning romance story but in real life the romance seems to be blossoming fast.

View all 3,754 comments

nancy.sutton134 YES YES YES @everything.y/n

mattsimp Theyre so f*in cute!!!!

y/n4life I hope they're happy. They're such a power couple.

y/ndeservesit God. Sad, she can't be left alone.

celebtea These ppl clutching at straws. Its a PHOTOSHOOT!

yourinstagram75 LET US HAVE THIS

y/n.sutton Y/N LIKED IT!!!! THATS PROOF 4 ME

Liked by 567 others

yourinstagram

Liked by mattsmith, bbcdoctorwho and 102,754 others

yourinstagram I'll be the universe, and you'll be N.A.S.A 🌌

View all 75,413 comments

tomholland2013 Someone call a doctor

yourinstagram I'm sick 🤭

Liked by mattsmith

bbcdoctorwho 💙

sadiesink_ what a lyric 😍😍

y/n.sutton CONFIRMEDDDDDDDDD

everything.y/n WE KNEW IT

matt.y/n.endgame LOOK HOW HAPPY THEY BOTH LOOK!!!!! 😭😭😭

yourinstagram.queen A lyric from her new song and a relationship confirmation. Deceased💀

queen.y/n ARE WE NOT GONNA MENTION THAT HER SONG IS ABOUT HIM!!!! DOES THIS MEAN WE GET A MATT INTERLUDE?!?!

mattsmith

Liked by yourinstagram, karengillan and 93,864 others

mattsmith Run with me forever, Nancy

Comments have been disabled

[averagewriter-inthedark]

I Want My MTV 🎤 | Jake Seresin Imagine

Takes place after the events of TGM

TGM Masterlist

Characters & Pairings: Jake Seresin x popstar!reader (romantic), dagger squad x reader (platonic)

Content Warnings: fluff, profanity, implied suggestive content if you squint | female!reader (she/her) | wc: 8.6k

Premise: glitter and writing love songs are her favorite things in the world…..and also music that gets people dancing and wishing they were a fictional character in a fan edit. When she meets Lt. Jake Seresin, he becomes not only the light of her life but also the source of her inspiration because every love song has to have a muse. And for international popstar Y/n L/n, the man they call Hangman is the muse that keeps her going.

Requested 📨 yes/no (by the lovely @avaleineandafryingpan w/ some suggestions from @gizmodear on this post)

Note: I’m so sorry this took a bit (forgive me, school has been crazy) but I really really enjoyed writing this and i hope its everything you imagined @avaleineandafryingpan 🥹♥️ I made sure to add all the little hc’s you sent in & added some things of my own I thought would be great so I hope you don’t mind! Please let me know what you think!

Songs headcanoned by popstar!reader: ‘34+35’, ‘Love Me Harder,’ ‘Break Free,’ & ‘Imagine,’ by Ariana Grande + ‘Rain On Me’ w/ Lady Gaga. ‘Summertime Sadness,’ ‘ Young & Beautiful,’ ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell,’ ‘Video Games,’ & ‘Love Song,’ by Lana Del Rey. ‘Last Friday Night,’ ‘Teenage Dream,’ & ‘Firework,’ by Katy Perry. ‘Power,’ ‘Secret Love Song,’ ‘ Between Us,’ & ‘Salute’ by Little Mix

———————————————

August 2026

“Deep breathes, darlin’,” his hands were smooth against her shoulders, instantly calming her nerves. Y/n took a deep inhale, nodding as she slowly let the air leave her lips. Jake beamed at her, “This ain’t the first time you’ve been on stage. You got this.”

“I know, but performing on live television for millions of people is different than a few thousand in a venue,” she reminded him, feeling the anxiety return causing her to close her eyes. “It’s been six years since my last VMA performance, Jake. Also,” she nervously laughs, “This is the Vanguard award they’re giving me—I’m, quite literally, shitting my pants. I want this to be amazing.” To be fair the reason for her not being invited back to the VMAs was a mini break from music she went on after they got married in 2021. The birth of their children was another factor so it wasn’t until late 2025 that Y/n had released the music she’d been working on.

The break was much needed, but she was missing the stage, the touring, the fans. It was what kept her going and made her career worth it. Music was her life, but so was her family which is why she took so long to release an album. Now here she was years later about to step foot on the VMA stage for the first time in six years. Another thing that made it worthwhile was she was being honored with the MTV Video Vanguard Award. Leading up news outlets were covering her return and on the red carpet reporters were eager to know what Y/n was cooking up.

“And it will be,” he told her, cupping her face in his hands, careful not to mess up the gemstones and glitter around her eyes. She could feel the cool metal of his wedding band against her skin. “You are one of the best vocalists of our generation—the High Note Princess. One of the best stage performers of all time—it’s gonna be an amazing show. You’ve been working so hard for months,” he gives a comforting squeeze to her shoulders. “So just breathe with me and then you’ll go out there and sing your pretty little heart out. And it’s gonna be the best performance of the night.”

As she mentally prepared while waiting for the stage manager, Y/n leaned more into Jake’s arms and let her mind wander. Memories started to appear, reeling back to when her career kicked off all the way to when she met her husband and finally to the present day.

February 2008

Like any aspiring star, Y/n L/n made the rash decision to quit college and move to Los Angeles in hopes of achieving her goal of becoming a singer. Hollywood was calling her name, so she spent months applying to jobs in the area before finding a small studio apartment and packed up her little Honda and set sail for the city where dreams are made. Time would be the make or break factor if she stayed or retreated back home with her tail between her legs.

One year.

That was her deadline. One year to get a job at a label, get discovered, or possibly find something worth renewing her lease. Working as a singer at a jazz bar could possibly have one of the options come true. Again, it would take time before something happened.

Y/n wasn’t the only singer at the club. Another girl was on stage Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Saturday’s whereas Y/n was booked Tuesday’s, Thursday’s, and Friday’s. The club was closed Sunday’s and the nights Y/n didn’t sing she was a server or bartender. The pay was good for the most part with her tips racking in more income than the biweekly check for singing and serving. Sometimes she’d get compliments from patrons, especially the older crowd saying, “You have such a unique voice—the way you have control and range makes me think you should be on the radio and not some little jazz club like this. Your talent shouldn’t be wasted, dear.”

The words and support always boosted Y/n’s confidence. Truly did it make her feel she could make it big. Actually break through into the industry. But that takes time and sometimes the opportunity arises when one least expects it.

Maybe she could audition for American Idol. Maybe she could upload videos on that new website YouTube. Maybe she could be bold and send some demos to labels, praying it would land on someone’s desk.

Or, someone important from said label would wander into the club.

That idea seemed like a far stretch. But just three months shy of Y/n’s deadlines she was approached by a gentleman after she finished her number one Friday night. A business card in his hand, he said, “Give me a call Monday morning, I’d like to set up a meeting to talk with you about your potential. Bring some demos if you have any.”

A notebook of songs in her hand and a CD of demos she spent the whole weekend working on, Y/n left Capitol Records that morning with a copy of her contract in hand and the promise of bringing forth the best music of her life. There were tears shed as she relayed the exciting news to her family back home. Her coworkers whom she adored threw her a party at the club in celebration that night. She wouldn’t leave the club just yet. Just because she had signed didn’t mean she would make it big in the long run. No, she decided to stay at the club until she at least was at the level where she could financially afford to.

The first time Y/n heard herself on the radio she broke into tears. It happened unexpectedly too. After packing up her car with two weeks worth of groceries that cost her entire paycheck Y/n switched the the radio to the pop station and was singing along to the tunes when she heard the beginning chords to her song, ‘Teenage Dream.’ Cars honked around after she slammed the brakes and abruptly pulled to the side of the road, eyes wide with her hands covering her mouth.

“You think I’m pretty without any makeup on. You think I’m funny when I tell the punchline wrong. I know you get me, so I let my walls come down, down.”

Y/n literally changed the channel just to change it back to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. That it was actually her song playing.

“Before you met, I was alright, but things were kinda heavy. You brought me to life, now every February, you’ll be Valentine. Valentine.”

“Let’s go all the way tonight. No regrets, just love. We can dance, until we die. You and I, will be young forever.”

“Oh my God!!!” She got out of her car just to scream while jumping up & down. People on the sidewalk were looking at her crazy but she didn’t care. Not when her own song was blasting from her car on the radio.

“You make me, feel like I’m living a Teenage Dream. The way you turn me on, I can’t sleep. Let's run away and don’t ever look back. Don’t ever look back.”

Y/n’s entire life took a 180 after that very day. Her talent agent and manager from Capital Records were calling her saying she was on the Billboard Hot 100. They were planning on releasing her second single earlier than planned in order to push up the release of her album. Every radio station was playing ‘Teenage Dream,’. There were days Y/n would be in a store and would hear in playing, causing her to break out in a grin.

Before long Y/n was getting calls left in right with her manager and publicist securing television appearances and interviews. Her second single ‘Firework’ was an instant hit, becoming a gold certified record in just a few weeks. People auditioning for X-Factor and American Idol were covering it. Videos being posted to YouTube. Then Y/n released ‘Last Friday Night,’, becoming a popular song for teenagers and young adults. The full album shot her off into stardom.

“SNL?” She dropped her muffin, staring wide eyed at her manager. “SNL wants me to perform?”

“I got Lorne Micheals on the phone—I literally have him on hold—and he’s awaiting your answer.”

“Tell him my answer is ‘fuck yeah!’”

“I’ll tell him…you said yes.”

The appearance on SNL only increased Y/n’s popularity. Following it was invitations to the Kids & Teen Choice Awards, the Billboard Music Awards and the MTV VMAS, in which she won Best New Artist at all shows and Song of The Summer at the TCA’s. The first time she won she was a stuttering mess, thanking the fans and people who voted for her and her family, managers, execs at Capitol Records all while trying not to cry on live television.

Then the 2009 Grammys happened. And she won Best Pop Album and Record of The Year for ‘Last Friday Night’. Her hands shook as she accepted the award from none other than Usher, trying not to fangirl as she approached the microphone. She was never gonna get used to meeting the people she admired.

“O-oh wow,” she stuttered over the screams, feeling the cool surface of the award in her hand. A Grammy. She was a Grammy Award winning recording artist. “This is the greatest honor I’ve ever received—bigger than when I graduated with high school honors,” she laughed nervously, causing people in the crowd to smile at her. “Huge thank you to the Recording Academy for this award. It’s an honor to be part of a group with so many artists I admire—some of whom I’ve listened to for years a-and I can’t believe I have the privilege of being in your presence. I-I wanna take a moment to thank everyone at Capitol Records, my managers Raven and Paul. To everyone who helped me on this album who put their heart and soul into it—this award is not just mine it’s yours. To my family watching at home, I know you’re all losing your minds in front of the tv,” she grinned at the laughs around her, “I love you all so so much and thank you for your support—helping me get to where I am. I’m sorry if I forgot anyone else—t-there telling me to wrap up—b-but thank you—thank you so much for this, I’m so blessed and honored—I can’t even put it into words. Thank you!”

All of 2009-2010 was dedicated to her second album. Y/n was in the studio, writing songs on napkins when she was out with friends, mentally hearing the tunes in her head. She presented and performed at award shows and she went on tour. The goal was to have the songs ready and written by the time the tour ended. Luckily she achieved that goal with at least twenty potential for an album. Anytime Y/n found inspiration she made sure to write it down as quickly as possible.

Now with two Grammys under her name, one of which was for her debut album, the pressure was on.

“This is totally different from what you’ve been doing,” her producer said to her after reading the songs.

“I know, that’s the whole point,” she gave a pointed look, “I don’t want everything to be or sound the same. This is gonna have a different sound than what we did last year. Trust me it’s gonna be big.”

Might as well call her psychic cause that’s exactly what she was.

“It’s been a great week for popstar Y/n L/n, her recent single ‘Summertime Sadness,’ has shot to the top spot of this week’s Billboard Hot 100. A new sound that’s more mellow than her previous work, it’s been well received by fans and critics. L/n is finishing up the American leg of her world tour and is set to release her second studio album in the fall. Just two years ago L/n became an international star after winning two Grammys for her debut album and appearing on television such as Saturday Night Live, Ellen Degeneres, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. With her unique voice and style she’s been viewed as the next pop diva, joining that of Madonna, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga.”

‘Video Games’ was released when the tour concluded and it became her best single to date. The music video was played on MTV early in the mornings and predicted to be nominated for every award one could think of. It was that single combined with the critical acclaim from her album in 2011 that had Baz Luhrmann calling Y/n to write a song for his upcoming 2013 movie ‘The Great Gatsby.’

“And the Oscar goes to….” Y/n’s hand clutched her manager’s, keeping a calm face since the camera was panned on her and the other nominees. In Halle Berry’s hand was the envelope with the winner of the 2014 Oscar for ‘Best Original Song.’ Heart pumping out of her chest, she barely registered her song and name leaving the actress's lips. “Young & Beautiful,’ by Y/n L/n.”

Baz jumped from his seat, as did her manager and producer, the latter of whom she was sharing the Oscar with. A hand flew to her mouth, feeling her arm tugged as they lifted her from her seat while the theater erupted in applause. It felt like she was floating when she approached the stairs, taking the arm of her producer when he offered her help.

“Congratulations,” Halle said, opening her arms for a congratulatory hug before handing the gold statue to the singer. Y/n let out a mix of a sob and laugh as she replied, “T-thank you.”

Another statue was presented to her producer, Y/n waiting for the applause to end until giving her speech.

“O-oh my God, I just met Halle Berry,” there were some chuckles, the singer pausing to hold a hand to her thumping heart while the other clutched the Oscar. “I-I don’t know how to start. First, thank you to the Academy foremost—it’s an honor to be receiving this recognition. Shout out to the other nominees and their incredible work—you all are amazing and we’re so lucky to be almost you all. We all have one major thing in common, and that’s music. Music and movies bring people together—it’s a universal language that we get to be a part of and I am so grateful everyday for being a part of it. Thank you to Baz for allowing us this opportunity—it was so fun working on this song for you and your spectacular film. This Oscar is for you, Baz,” she saw the director blow a kiss from his seat. “Thank you to my producer, Tim—who’s standing right next to me. The magic behind Young & Beautiful, Tim you are a genius and I love you so much. Lastly, to my family back home—ah!” She waved the trophy like a little kid, “Look! I love you all so so much—thank you and I can’t wait to celebrate with you when I come home. Thank you everyone!”

Each year came with more success. The rest of 2014 going all the way to 2016 was nonstop energy. She was working day and night, touring, performing on talk shows, collaborating with other artists—like Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, The Weekend, & Justin Bieber—and dabbling in acting jobs. Y/n secured roles in films like The Greatest Showman, The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials & Death Cure, & The Shape of Water. Some television roles included MTV’s Teen Wolf, American Horror Story and guest appearances on Criminal Minds, Greys Anatomy, and Doctor Who. Her role on AHS garnered her an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. After the award show her manager told her with a wink, “All you need is a Tony and you’re part of the EGOT club.”

EGOT. The ‘grand slam’ in show business. Where only more than a dozen people have achieved the status in which they have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. The biggest awards in television, music, film, and theater.

After she heard that….well you could say Y/n was on a mission.

She continued to release music while pursuing acting. She leased her third and fourth studio albums in the span of eight months—a rare sighting for an artist. Both broke records in their own right. ‘Break Free,’ was playing in every club and ‘Imagine’ was used in Riverdale. She won the Grammy for best Pop album once again and performed ‘Imagine’ at the show. The second it was revealed she got the role of Christine in Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera, the buzz was already on if she would achieve EGOT status if she was nominated for the Tony.

The show opened in early 2017, selling out at a rapid rate with people coming from all over the country solely to watch Y/n perform. She already showed the world she was a brilliant singer and actress, now it was time to combine the two.

Never did she think she’d meet the love of her life at a show.

Jake Seresin wasn’t much of a musical man, but his sister and nieces were so he sucked it up and attended with them. Now Jake wasn’t living under a rock, he damn well knew who Y/n L/n was and frankly the man was a fan. A lot of his exes were fans of the popstar so he was quite familiar with her music and even enjoyed her acting. So of course he was more keen to the idea of going to a Broadway show if it meant he got to see her perform live.

What he didn’t expect was to—literally—run into her on his way back to the hotel. After telling his sister he’d pick food up since her daughters were too tired to go to a restaurant, Jake took a shortcut which happened to be the alley between the show venue. The bag in his hand dropped, the pilot falling to his ass when the door suddenly opened and hit smack in the face.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” A voice shouted followed by a gasp. “Are you okay, sir? ‘Please don’t have blood-please don’t have blood.’

“I’m fine,” he moaned, shaking his head a bit and feeling for any sign of a wound. Thankfully he found none. “It’s alright, ma’am.”

“Here let me,” she helped him up, Jake stumbling a bit and apologizing when he bumped into her. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you need me to call an ambulance in case you have a concussion?”

“No, no,” he insisted, finally looking up which only resulted in him freezing. The woman he watched on stage not even an hour ago was standing in front of him. “Oh wow.”

Y/n was frozen too, for he was the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on. The glow from the street light shined down on him, illuminating his green eyes and blonde hair. His bone structure was what most Hollywood heartthrobs would die for. Come to think of it he could literally pass as a young James Dean.

“H-hi,” she smiled, feeling a bit flustered all of a sudden. It didn’t help that he was still holding onto her shoulders, and she was clutching his forearms.

“Hi.” Gosh even his voice was attractive. A southern accent could be made out with the simple word.

“I’m so sorry for not looking before pushing the door out like that. I—,” Y/n cut herself off when she spotted the discarded bag of what appeared to be food. Some of it spilled out causing guilt to fill her, “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry about your food.” Stepping away she reached into her bag to pull out her wallet. “How much was—.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jake says, but the singer shakes her head.

“No I insist,” she takes out a random amount of bills which was likely triple what he had actually paid but she didn’t care. She extended her hand out with the cash, “I rammed a door into you and made you drop your food. Please let me make it up—otherwise I’m gonna have to drag you to the place you got it from and replace it myself.”

Jake couldn’t help but smile, taking the cash and examining it before only keeping the amount he had originally paid. “No need to give me more than what it was worth. Here,” he hands back the extra, making her frown but she takes it regardless. Her eyebrows then raise when he goes, “But you could make it up to me in another way?”

Tilting her head, she can’t help but say, “How so?”

“By having a drink with me. If you’re available.”

So that’s how Y/n L/n met her soulmate. By hitting him face first with a door. He literally fell for her if one thought about it—pun intended.

What made it even better was Broadway not only gifted her future husband, but her status as an EGOT winner.

“Last night was a record breaking night for popstar Y/n L/n. The 30-year-old singer and actress has become one of just over a dozen to join the prestigious EGOT Club after winning the Tony for her Leading Actress in a Musical for her role of Christine in Broadway’s Phantom Of The Opera. L/n won the Grammy for Best Pop Album and Record of The Year in 2009 followed by the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2014 for The Great Gatsby. She then went on to appear in several television series including the popular horror series American Horror Story in which she won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. It was rumored L/n would venture into Broadway to possibly add a Tony to her collection of numerous awards, confirming this in mid-2016 when the cast for the 2017 run of Andrew Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera was released. Classically trained as a child, the popstar showed she can belt a lyric and hold a tune. It was a spectacular night for Y/n L/n, receiving a standing ovation when her name was called for the award and dedicating the Tony to her family, friends, cast members, and managers who’ve been with her since her debut in the music industry almost a decade ago. She is one of the youngest stars to ever achieve EGOT status and the fastest ever in a career.”

Many many songs were inspired by her relationship with Jake. Her entire album released a year after they got together was basically a love letter to him. ‘Love Song’ was regarded as her most beautiful record to date, a source for many fan-made videos for their favorite fictional characters and features in movie soundtracks. ‘Love Me Harder,’ & ‘34+35’ had fans go crazy with how frisky they were. Though their relationship was a secret it was obvious the popstar was in love. It only made fans want to know who was the special man to take her heart.

Jake learned pretty early on the price that came with dating a critically acclaimed songwriter: that if messed up there would be a song about it.

Immediately speculations arose that Y/n and her secret partner were broken up with the release of songs like ‘Woman Like Me,’ & ‘Power.’ She had to get on instagram one day to settle the rumors with a picture of their interlaced hands saying, “You drive me wild sometimes, but my love for you overpowers all.”

Their relationship was eventually exposed when Jake appeared in her music video for ‘Secret Love Song,’ released just shortly before he was set to return to Top Gun. People could easily tell the chemistry between Y/n and her ‘love interest’.

Maybe a little too much chemistry.

Dedicated fans were able to find out who Jake was in less than a week. Matching up his social media post locations and dates with hers, they didn’t even need them to confirm their suspicion to know they were together.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” Jake chuckled, showing Y/n his phone screen with a picture that was just sent to TMZ of the two in San Francisco.

Y/n simply shrugged, “I’m fine with it if you are. I’m happy we got to keep it to ourselves for this long. And considering people are now asking about this—,” she held up her left hand, flashing the diamond engagement ring Jake spent his entire year’s paychecks on. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Was Jake still the arrogant, egotistical pilot amongst his peers? Yes. But was he the type to boast about how he was engaged to one of the best musical artists of the century? Surprisingly no.

He actually enjoyed keeping that little detail a secret. To Jake his personal life was for him and him only. And he didn’t want people going around saying he was a gold-digger or wanting to be that guy who got to say he hooked up with a celebrity. Nah, he was in love with Y/n with his entire being. She was the gravity that kept him down to Earth. Sure they bickered like any couple but never once did either of them cross a line.

The only time they ever had a big argument was when he did get jealous over one of her former co-stars trying to have a shot at her. Y/n tried brushing it off saying it was nothing, but Jake could tell the signs and it upset him Y/n was not taking him seriously. “I just don’t see why you’re being so childish about a dinner party that’s gonna have multiple people.”

“Have you even asked who else is coming? Or wondered why he’s started texting you more when you guys finished filming ages ago? I’m not trying to be insecure or jealous, Y/n, but I know when a guy is trying to flirt. He didn’t even acknowledge me as your date when we were at the premier party. In fact I don’t think he said hello to me when he approached. All his eyes were was on you—which I don’t blame because you’re the most beautiful woman on the planet—but trust me, I know that look because I have it every second I’m with you.”

Needless to say you didn’t go to that dinner party and instead were doing what ‘Love Song’ was about the entire weekend.

When Jake goes to Top Gun for the special detachment, he’s still the arrogant asshole the others thought him to be. But if they were being honest they could see a difference in him. Maybe it was because he wasn’t flirting with anything with legs. Maybe it was the fact he rejected the drink from a pretty blonde. Maybe it was because they caught him smiling at his phone whenever he got a text. Whatever it was, they wanted to find out.

The only person in the detachment who knew of Y/n was Javy considering he was Jake’s best friend. She met him roughly eight months after she and Jake got together after much discussion. Their relationship was still a secret by then so they were hesitant to let anyone besides her team know, but Javy was an important person to Jake. He wanted his best friend to know the woman he loved.

Natasha being the amateur sleuth she was pretty much discovered Jake’s secret in a few days, “No fucking way.”

The evidence was presented to Jake during their lunch break the day after she found out, Nat holding the phone up for him to see. She literally watched the gears turn in his head, a sly smirk forming on his lips. “What about that, Trace?” The question caught the attention of their colleagues, who were trying not to show they were eavesdropping.

“Is that not you?” Nat looked at the screen to make sure it was on the zoomed in image of him and Y/n L/n. The entire music video Jake’s face was pretty much hidden from view, but briefly his face could be made out at certain angles.

“It is,” he shrugged, going back to his sandwich. A cluttered sound indicated Nat had dropped the phone on the table, scrambling to pick it up.

“So you just casually ended up in Y/n L/n’s music video for her iconic song?” By now heads turned, expressions of absolute shock. Well all except Coyote. He just raised his brows at Jake while holding back a laugh, wanting to see what he would say.

“No, I ended up in my fiancé’s music video for her iconic song.”

“You’re what?!”

“Babe, I got a favor to ask you,” Jake’s voice was tainted with exhaustion when he FaceTimed Y/n that night. She was at their Fresno home since he was stationed at NAS Lemoore and was planning to meet him in San Diego that weekend. Raising a brow at him through the screen she could tell he looked apologetic.

“What is it?”

“You think you could come down earlier than planned?” At her reaction he explained, “My detachment found out about us and well……they’re accusing me of photoshopping the photos of you and I—even though they literally saw us make out in your music video. And I want to prove to them I’m telling the truth.”

A moment passed and then Y/n burst into laughter to the point of tears. What got her was the photoshopping accusation.

“Stop laughing,” he pouted, “I’m fighting for me life out here—I could use some backup.”

“My goodness, Jake Seresin,” she calmed down, shaking her head at his butt hurt expression. “You’re something else you know?”

“So does that mean you’re coming?”

“I’ll book my flight for the morning as soon as we get off.”

One could envision the confusion on the pilots/WSOs when Jake prevented them from leaving the airstrip at the end of the work day. It was pushing five in the afternoon, they were tired and hungry, and honestly could care less about what Jake had to show them.

That was until the black SUV with tinted windows pulled up to the parking lot where they were standing. When the door opened jaws dropped to the floor with eyes bulging out at the person emerging from the vehicle. Who happened to jump into Jake’s awaiting arms. Fanboy had to rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing clearly. That it was Y/n L/n sharing a kiss with the resident asshole.

“Oh my God he wasn’t kidding,” Rooster said with a mix of awe and disbelief. Javy patted him on the chest, moving first to greet the popstar who shocked the pilots again with her warm welcome to them. None knew how to react when the couple approached hand in hand.

It’s not everyday someone meets a fucking EGOT winner.

“Hello,” Y/n smiled a dazzling grin, drifting her eyes over each of them and committing their callsign to memory. She could tell what they were likely thinking, ‘How the hell did Hangman manage to pull a fucking popstar?’ And ‘He must be brainwashing her, blink twice if you need help,’ kind of stuff.

Introductions were in store as well as explanations for how the couple came to be. In all the years they knew the pilot, none could’ve predicted that kind of secret. They quickly learned Y/n was not the typical celebrity—some of them were even ashamed to think she’d be stuck up, arrogant, snobbish. They were almost convinced the personality she had in interviews and fan interactions were fake, but Y/n was a truly genuine person. Not only did she come from humble beginnings, but she was a hard, driven worker who truly earned everything she’s gained.

And she was perfect for Jake. They were like two peas in a pod, with Y/n being the only one who could bring him back down to earth. Truly was an amazing thing to witness and the daggers were having trouble comprehending it at times. Hearing the story of how the two met brought tears to Rooster and Fanboy’s eyes by how funny it was, while Phoenix was covering her mouth to hide her smirk at how embarrassed her colleague was.

“In my defense,” he puts his hands on his chest when Bob asks why he thought to pass the side door, “I didn’t expect anyone to still be inside and potentially use that door.”

“He just hates when I tease him about how he literally fell for me,” Y/n winks, making them all smirk.

Later on in the night after going to the Hard Deck for drinks and pool, Rooster says, “You know I feel I won’t be able to use my karaoke song if we ever go cause I’ll be too flustered to sing a song in front of the person it’s written by.” Y/n couldn’t help but blush, giggling lightly.

“What is it?”

“Last Friday Night. Such a banger—really gets the crows going.”

Even after the Uranium mission happened, the daggers continued to remain in contact. Many were offered jobs of instructors but the real surprise came a couple months later from the Pentagon asking if they could remain a permanent team. Selling their San Francisco home, Jake and Y/n moved to San Diego, which was better since it was closer to L.A. The team hung out often with Friday nights reserved for the Hard Deck.

Y/n even found musical inspiration with them.

“So I have a proposal,” she hums to Nat and Callie one day while the guys are playing football on the beach. “Not a marriage one Jake claimed that one already,” she pauses when they all laugh at the joke, “but a ‘if you want to be a part of it I would love it if you did but I understand if you can't be’ kind of one.”

Nat tilts her head curiously, Callie mirroring her, “What is it?”

“I wrote a song….that you two helped inspire,” Y/n smiles at their expressions, “and I’d love for you both to be in the music video after I release it.”

Nat loses it, “OH MY GOD YOU WHAT?!!”

“Can we hear it!?” Callie blushes, “I’m so honored—oh my God I literally don’t know how to react to that.”

“Girl you cannot just drop that on us,” Nat playfully points with narrowed eyes, “If you weren’t Jake’s soon to be wife I would marry you right now.” Y/n just laughs, rummaging through her bag to find her notebook to show them the song.

“If he messes up you’ll be the first to know and we can head to the courthouse.”

“Don’t play with me now, Y/n,” Nat shakes her head. “No man has ever done something like that. Write a song inspired by me?” She gives a dramatic sigh. “Feels like I’m living in a romance novel.”

Both read the song, both fell in love with it and pretty much cried. It was empowering, motivational, a love letter to women, everything they wished they heard growing up in a field where men dominated and looked down upon them. Y/n made sure to keep them updated when she was in the studio, allowing them to hear it first before it was released.

2020 was a year no one could’ve expected.

It started off great with the singer releasing ‘Salute,’ shortly after the New Year and filing the music video in February. The song was well received from fans and critics, with people already calling it the ‘anthem of the year.’ Jake loved it and would send clips of him in the car to Y/n belting the lyrics. The guys all loved it too and loved that their colleagues were the source of inspiration.

Halo and Phoenix were part of the MV as well as women who in real life were doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, athletes, students, astronauts, & scientists from all ages, races/ethnicities, genders, etc. Not all of them were in the armed forces, but a couple were along with Nat and Callie. Special permission from the Navy & Top Gun was needed to put cameras in the F-18’s on the exterior and interior to capture footage of the two flying. Halo was Nat’s backseater for that day and the guys came out just to watch and support.

Released just before March, the music video hit 100 million views in less than 12 hours. It only grew from there with people praising Y/n and the women included in the project. There was talk of ‘Salute’ being nominated for the upcoming awards, Team USA asked permission to use the song for promotion for their women athletes for the upcoming Games. Y/n was over the moon, really looking forward for what the year held. Especially with her wedding around the corner.

Then the world shut down. Literally.

A global pandemic altered everything and everyone. Anything that required a group of people ranging from small to stadium level was banned. States were on curfew and not letting people cross borders, international traveling was restricted. Lockdown was mandated for pretty much everywhere to the point Jake was working from home for a couple months.

In that time Y/n threw herself into writing songs to release her next album. Her reason: she was in need of a break. Not a ‘I’m retiring from music,’ but a ‘I’m drained and in dire need of taking time for myself and start the family I’ve always wanted.’ It was always her plan for after she and Jake got married, just to have a few years for themselves and see where life takes them.

Thankfully when the pandemic hit Y/n was already done with her collaboration with Lady Gaga. The fellow popstar had been her friend since she joined the industry and it was a long time coming for the two to work together. Not to mention they were on American Horror Story together. The Mother Monster approached the High Note Princess in late 2019, both sharing ideas and writing the song together before recording to release in 2020. Filming the music video, they combed both of their aesthetics and styles to create a pop masterpiece.

Fans went crazy. They loved the return to classic pop when both singers had gone off to pursue acting careers and change their sound a bit. Many felt deprived of being able to dance to ‘Rain On Me’ in a club since going out was restricted. And you can best believe the Daggers felt the same—especially Rooster who loved to dance his ass off, “I would be tearing it up right now if Rona wasn’t such a bitch.”

Surprisingly the 2020 VMAs still happened. It was roughly six months after the outbreak and very strict regulations were in place for the show to go on. With ‘Rain On Me,’ being so popular and popstars releasing albums, Y/n and Lady Gaga were invited to perform. After prepping for weeks and self-quarantining, the daggers all gathered around at the couple’s home to watch the live show. Lady Gaga was the first to perform solely when it was their turn, then Y/n joined causing the select few in the crowd to cheer—with her friends and loved ones going crazy in their living room. All were in awe when she hit a high note, killing it with the choreography and honestly being the best performers of the night. Finally Lady Gaga left the stage with her dancers allowing Y/n’s to appear in time for the popstar to sing ‘Salute.’ At the house, Halo and Nat were dancing along and belting the lyrics with the guys while recording the performance on their phones.

“Sisters, we are everywhere! Warriors, your country needs you! If you’re ready, ladies, better keep steady, ready, aim, shoot! Don’t need ammunition, on a mission—now we hit you with the truth! Divas, queen, we don’t need no man, SALUTE!!”

2021 came with hope and breaths of fresh air. A vaccination was developed, restrictions were lifted in most locations meaning Y/n and Jake could finally plan for their wedding. It took a few months to plan, desiring an intimate private wedding at their home with their close friends and family. The daggers were all there, including Maverick, Cyclone, Warlock, and Hondo. Their families were all there as well as Y/n’s managers & agents, some cast members from the shows/films she grew close to, as well as artists like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, David Guetta, and The Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, & Miley Cyrus.

A sweet ceremony, Y/n squealed when Jake tipped her back to the cheers of their loved ones as he kissed her passionately. “I love you so much, Y/n. Or should I say, Mrs. Seresin.”

“I love you too, Mr. Seresin,” she kissed him again, “Now let’s show them we’re the life of the party.”

Rings on their fingers, grins plastered their faces when they ran through the Arch of Swords the guys of the Dagger Squad set up on the aisle. Then came time for the reception. Jake presented Y/n with a sword, per military tradition, to cut the cake and Y/n poured the champagne over the tower of glasses. They had their first dance, which Javy made sure to do his best man duties and record everything.

Which came in handy when it was time for Y/n’s surprise for Jake.

Seating him in a chair at the front of the dance floor, Y/n smirked at his confused expression as she took the mic from the DJ, calling everyone's attention. “All of you know I’m one for surprises. And tonight is no exception,” biting her lip she signaled for her maid of honor, who started rounding up the bridesmaids. “I thought it would be great to give Jake a little treat tonight—do not take that the wrong way, I can already see your minds going somewhere,” she pointed at the daggers who were hollering, giggling as she continued, “Stop it. Anyways, we’ve been cooking up this little number for the past month and now it’s time to let it shine. Baby, this is for you.”

Jake slapped a hand to his mouth containing his expression of glee when the opening chords to Y/n’s ‘Power’ echoed through the speakers. Her bridesmaids got into place, the singer discarding her veil and moving to the center. Everyone was on their feet hooting and hollering, capturing the performance on their phones for memory. Javy even put the phone right up in Jake’s face, Payback slapping the pilot on the back as the others whistled and danced. Just the expression of his mother and family sent Jake into tears of laughter.

She was flabbergasted. Unlike his sister and brother who were having the time of their lives witnessing the masterpiece that was Y/n practically seducing her husband live and singer her own song.

“I don’t think she’s heard this song until now!” He shouted over the music to the phone, blushing when Y/n winked at him. To be fair, the bridge of ‘Power’ was a little on the frisky side and Y/n was edging closer to Jake until she was basically in his lap.

“Don’t be fooled, I got you wrapped up. In the arms of an animal—get you thinking that I’m all innocent. But wait ‘til I get you home. If you don’t, baby, you should know. I’m the one who’s in control.”

Hell yeah she was in control when she got home that night….well at least for a few rounds she was.

Sadness came with the announcement of her break from music. The hot topic for media outlets, Y/n had released a statement on Twitter and Instagram confirming the suspicions many had after her wedding. Fans were understandably upset that their favorite artist wouldn’t be releasing new material until further notice, but they’d rather have Y/n at her best and not give half ass energy in her work. She was burnt out. It was time for a break after 13 years with six albums, each with their own tour. Don’t get her wrong, the popstar loved to be on the road, but after a while she was ready to just stay home for some time without planning for what was next.

In the meantime she sold songs for other people, collaborated on writing with artists, and acted when filming was either in L.A or San Diego. She and Jake were happily married, little to no financial stress or personal issues, and were ready to expand their family. By mid 2025 they had/adopted two kids, two dogs, and a cat. They were a full house with no dull days whatsoever.

“Are you going to get back in the studio like you mentioned the other week?” Jake asked at dinner, helping cut his son's food into smaller pieces.

Y/n nibbled on her floor while also assisting their daughter, “Yeah I think this weekend I’m gonna call Jack up and see what his schedule is like. I got some lyrics I’d like him to read.” Sipping on her drink briefly she then asks, “How long do you think this next mission is going to be?”

“Probably a week or two. Mav is working out the details and hopes to tell us Monday. I just pray I’ll make it in time for your birthday.”

Y/n feels her heart skip, giving a soft smile, “You know I understand if you can’t, honey. If the Pentagon is tasking you then you know it’s important. We’ll celebrate either before or after you get back,” she assured, reaching over to hold his hand when he frowned.

“I just hate the idea of missing it, you know? It’s your birthday and I missed our anniversary last year,” he pauses to sigh, “I just hate leaving you guys for so long. And I never wanna make you feel like you’re always alone.”

“I knew what I was getting into when we fell in love. Don’t feel like you’re missing out or I’m going to suddenly start giving ultimatums because you know I’m not that person. If it was our anniversary or another memorable date I would still feel the same. You have a job, Jake, you’re the best there is to do it. There will be plenty more birthdays for us to be together for.”

Being back in the studio felt like a whole new world. It had been nearly five years since her last single was in late 2020. When Jake was working the kids would come with her and be the stars of the crew, playing in the mini play area they had set up while Y/n was recording. Besides the people she worked with, only Jake knew she was releasing new music. Quite literally Y/n did not announce anything until the night before with a single Tweet and Instagram post with the art cover and the caption, “Tomorrow at midnight, Between Us.”

She broke the internet to put it lightly.

@ Y/ns_microphone: WE’RE GETTING NEW MUSIC OMFG PLEASE TELL ME IT’S A WHOLE ALBUM!!

@ livinginharryshouse: y’all the High Note Princess is back I’m gonna lose it.

@ a_teenage_dream: 2025 ending on a great note 🥹 five years and the wait is over!!!!

@ dylanobrien ✔️: crying, shitting, throwing up. Thank you @ Y/n

August 2026

18 years in the music industry and the rush before a live performance had Y/n pacing backstage during the commercial break of the VMAs. Their children were being occupied by her manager while Jake helped her mentally prepare. He was going to be the one to present her the award at the end of her set, so they were just waiting for the green light from the stage manager. The performance was going to be nearly ten minutes, the longest she’s ever done live on an award show since it was going to be a medley of some of her classic hits while also including ‘Between Us’. Lady Gaga, Y/n’s close friend and who collaborated with her again on her most recent album, was going to introduce her.

“Deep breaths with me, baby,” Jake held her in his arms, kissing her forehead. “I can feel you shaking. But once you get on stage it’s gonna be like you never left.” Taking a strong inhale, Y/n let it out slowly before repeating.

“I know it probably won’t happen,” she starts to laugh, “but I can’t help but dread the idea of me falling on my ass or forgetting my lyrics.” Jake laughs with her, shaking his head while pulling away to look at her.

“Knowing you, you’d fall gracefully and make it look like it was intentional. Also you mumble those lyrics in your sleep…you won’t forget them.”

She leans more into him just as the stage manager yells, “You’re on in five, Y/n!” The commercial break must have ended. Lady Gaga was already being pulled on stage after wishing the popstar good luck with a hug and friendly kiss to the cheek. “We need you over here please.”

“That’s your cue,” Jake grins, cupping his wife’s face before bringing her in for a passionate kiss. Y/n smiles into it, nuzzling their noses together causing him to chuckle. When they pull away he says, “Go out there and have fun. Bottom line, baby, have fun out there and sing your heart out. I’m so lucky and honored to be your husband and share this life with you. Don’t start crying,” he playfully scolds when her eyes tear up, “you’ll ruin your nice makeup your team worked so hard on.” That makes her laugh. Jake kisses her again, “I love you, baby. I’ll see you at the end.”

“I love you, Jake,” she hugs him tightly, feeling comfort in the smell of his cologne. “Thank you for being by my side everyday. You’re the light of my life—,” she nods to the stage manager who was waving frantically. “Fuck okay, I wanted to be more romantic but I got to go before they drag me.”

“Go, go,” he kisses her cheek, Y/n moving quickly to kiss her children and hug her managers before waving goodbye. “We love you!!”

Running to the nearly annoyed stage manager, she throws off her robe to reveal her stage outfit and takes the microphone. Heart pounding, she adjusts her earpiece as they escort her to the spot she was needed just as Lady Gaga finished her introduction speech, “Los Angeles and to everyone watching at home, it is my honor to present to you your recipient of this year’s MTV Video Vanguard Award. Get on your feet and make some noise for the one and only, Y/n L/n!!”

It was still dark on stage where Y/n was hidden from the audience as all attention went to the giant screens all around showing the pre-recorded video montage with her face in black and white and eyes closed. The crowd was already going crazy as the camera zoomed in toward Y/n’s face while audio played of her talking about her love for music and the thrill of performing. The camera continued to pan in, the popstar on stage thinking about everything that had led her to that moment. From starting out her days singing in a jazz club, to becoming one of only 19 EGOT winners, and now the recipient of the Video Vanguard award.

The microphone went to her mouth, Y/n putting on the show of the year when the video ended with her eyes opening and voice echoing the music channel’s iconic phrase in the stadium, “I want my MTV!!”

…………

TGM Tag List: @avaleineandafryingpan, @caitsymichelle13, @poppyalice2001, @cutelittlepotatofry, @luckyladycreator2, @americaarse, @elenavampire21, @back-tooo-black

[hlupdate]

W​​hat’s the secret to a great portrait? At 86 years old, David Hockney has a few ideas. A lifetime of looking has taught him to always start with the face. “I begin with the head first,” he says, matter-of-factly, from his home in France. “From there, I place everything else.”

That was his approach when, late last May, Harry Styles traveled to his light-filled studio in Normandy and stationed himself on a cane chair, ready to become the esteemed artist’s latest subject. Over two days, Hockney worked to capture the exact hues of red and yellow in Styles’s striped cardigan, the indigo of his jeans, the string of pearls at his neck—not to mention the unmistakable tousled fringe of one of the world’s biggest pop stars. For the artist, though, the goal was merely to capture the essence of the person in front of him. “I wasn’t really aware of his celebrity then,” Hockney says, with a shrug. “He was just another person who came to the studio.”

The pair struck up an instant rapport that was likely helped by Styles being a full-on fanboy. For his Vogue cover shoot in 2020, Styles wore a pair of hand-painted Bode cords that featured a talismanic illustration of Hockney by artist Aayushia Khowala. It’s also hard to imagine the wide-eyed wonder of a flamboyant Brit discovering the sunny thrills and spills of California—a theme, and sound, that has permeated the former One Direction singer’s solo albums—without Hockney as a precedent. “David Hockney has been reinventing the way we look at the world for decades,” says Styles. “It was a complete privilege to be painted by him.”

The unveiling of the portrait kicks off the second iteration of the National Portrait Gallery’s Hockney exhibition “Drawing From Life,” which first opened in February 2020, only to close weeks later due to the pandemic. With the addition of a new room of pictures charting Hockney’s creative impulses throughout lockdown, the show returns on November 2—a few months after a refurbishment of the entire museum—with Styles’s portrait as its crown jewel. “The whole world shut down, and the exhibition was still sitting there, in the dark,” recalls Sarah Howgate, the gallery’s senior curator of contemporary collections, who oversaw the exhibition in both phases. “So it’s nice to know it will have another life.”

The Styles painting may bring star wattage, but the unassuming genius of Hockney’s portraiture is still the main exhibition draw. What makes his images tick, you quickly learn, is their honesty: whether in the tension bubbling beneath the surface of his famed double portrait of Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, painted between 1970 and ’71, or the seated figures that populated his 2016 Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, which included the likes of his own sister, Margaret, and the late comedian Barry Humphries. Hockney’s eye for the human figure may be playful, often kaleidoscopic, sometimes fantastical—but it’s always, most importantly, frank.

Styles’s portrait will hang alongside those of writer Gregory Evans, Hockney’s printer Maurice Payne, the mayor of his local town Dozulé, his gardener, and even his chiropodist, or in Hockney’s words, “the dandy who cuts my toenails.”

One of his more recent subjects was the eminent music producer Clive Davis, who first suggested inviting Styles to swing by. “Clive told me about Harry’s new album, and JP [Hockney’s studio assistant] sent Harry a note and asked him if he’d like to come to my studio and sit for his portrait,” Hockney remembers. “He replied straight away and said, yes, he’d love to.” From there, Hockney’s process of painting Styles was instinctive. “Everybody just came to sit,” he says, breezily, before admitting: “Now I know Harry’s a celebrity, though: I’ve seen all his music videos.”

“He’s not a traditional portrait painter,” says Howgate. Hockney’s interest is not in what people do, but rather in who they are. “He’s not interested in fame. He’s interested in depicting people and their relationships.” It’s why his eye is primarily trained on his inner circle these days—but it also pays testament to his enduring curiosity that he’s still willing to open that up to a newcomer every so often. Styles seems to know how lucky he is, adding, with a tinge of disbelief: “I’m in awe of the man with enough one-liners for a lifetime.” As to what those one-liners might be? Styles and Hockney’s mutual silence on that question suggests that what happens in the studio, stays in the studio.

“David Hockney: Drawing From Life” will be at the National Portrait Gallery from November 2 to January 21, 2024.

[gingerjolover]

hiii mama g!!! it’s my birthday today and so i’ve been thinking about what julien would be like on soft!gf’s birthday. first off, BIRTHDAY POST!!! (i’m taking her birthday post for herself into consideration while typing this) i think it’d be a slideshow of pictures, a couple that she’s taken of you and a couple that the boys or members of muna have taken of you. she’d definitely write a lengthy paragraph where every sentence is articulate and sooo meaningful to the point where it’s like your heart beats abnormally faster as you continue to read because she’s just SOOOO!!!!!!

secondly, i don’t really Imagine julien and soft!gf as hugeeee party people, so i don’t think they’d stay up at the strike of midnight waiting for soft!gf’s birthday. instead, i think julien wakes up at the crack of dawn, and obviously she knows how to cook, so she makes not only the most pleasing breakfast JUST to look at, but the most delicious breakfast for the both of them. so then soft!gf wakes up to julien, who’s already smiling ear to ear holding a tray table and setting it down before just peppering you with kisses and saying happy birthday in between each kiss I CANTTTTT IM FEELING ALL FUZZY shes so cutesie

and 24/7 on your bday, acts of service julien just never stops. she does every minor thing you’re so capable of doing for you. finished your breakfast? julien’s already taken it to the kitchen and washing the dishes. dropped something? she’s bent down to grab it for you. also, even though she already does this, she makes sure to open every single door for you, pull out the chair you’re gonna sit at, open the car door for you… like she is ON IT!

and then after having made sure she’s done (almost……) everything in her power to ensure that the day was all about you, there’s just oneeee more thing she was waiting to do to realllyyyy show how much she loves you…….. you get the VIBES! won’t say too much on that cause i’ve already talked your ear off and once i start, i won’t be able to stop BUT YEAHHHH JULIEN ON SOFT!GF’S BDAY ☹️☹️☹️💘

first off, HAPPY BDAY BABY!!!!! I hope you had SUCH a great day<3

and you are soooooooo right, i fully believe that acts of service is julien’s main love language (i have a blurb coming up about love languages for munagenius) and your birthday is the PERFECT excuse for her to literally wait on you hand and foot

as for the insta post i think you’re 1000% right and i can literally imagine julien scrolling through her album of you (of pics she’s taken but also ones that she’s been sent of you from muna or the boys or mutual friends) she would be so fucking picky about which photos to post making sure they encapsulate your personality perfectly and you’re right the post would be so beautiful and so heartwarming 😭 i think she would take the time to post the pics of your initials on her finger or a tattoo she got for you with you like posing cheekily with a thumbs up next to her or something

and i agree, unless it was a big birthday i can’t imagine them throwing a party but maybe if your best friend was in town or maybe your family or if it was a bigger bday and the boys, muna, kelli and ally and other friends wanted to do something for you it would still be super lowkey and julien would spend the whole day with you beforehand

she gives off the vibes of like if you open your door yourself she leans over, closes it and then runs to your side of the car like a bullet and then opens it, she def gets grumbly when you try and do stuff yourself

and I GET THE VIBES BABE I DO, i think she would just want it to be extra special and do everything you wanna do (she def makes a birthday sex playlist with an obsecure name i will die on this hill)

i also wanted to add she def wants to do everything for you on your bday, i think canonically soft!gf and julien don’t exchange gifts, like not big ones, mainly because they both do a lot of little things throughout the year, but julien ALWAYS spoils you on your bday, its usually stuff that’s practical but she loves to get you little things to watch you open in bed when your hair is all messy and eyes are sleepy, you’re like holding the covers up over your chest and she’s rubbing your back as you unwrap a bunch of little presents 🥹

[calciumdeficientt]

Ive been talking about everyone else’s ocs so much I’ve totally neglected my own! Shes my very special girl, but i pinky promise ill keep these as short and sweet as humanly possible before going back to reqs!

LENORA HARKER HCS

Meet Lenora harker, a fun loving jock hailing from Encino California. Lenora’s dad is in the armed forces, and during the events of the game, is off in Iraq. Her mother and father are divorced, not long after they split, lenora’s mum was jailed on charges that Lenora is ADAMANT are false. When school’s out she lives at home with her stepdad Akash, her older stepsister Manal and her half brother Danny. She has four dogs: buckeye, Elvira, Tostito and jackhammer.

Lenora is bullworth’s leading female track star…… because she’s their only female track star. In fact she’s the only track runner period. She joined the track team in her sophomore year after her move from California, seeking some normalcy, but pretty much as soon as she joined the budget was cut and she was the only one who kept running. This puts a lot of pressure on her to keep going, and keep winning, for that matter. She does all her conditioning drills with the football team and then gets sent out on her own onto the track. Currently, she is the academy’s record holder for most medals won by any student, its great for her ego but bad for Constantinos because every time she gets a new medal, Crabblesnitch insists that he retake her photo for the sports section of the yearbook

She treats every school day as her own personal episode of jackass. It’s not that she’s a particularly thrill seeking person either, she’s just easily led and likes validation. This means she’s also a frequent flier to nurse McRae’s office with anything from a bust nose, to a chipped tooth, to a fractured wrist. There’s always some form of injury somewhere on the poor girl, but she likes to act macho and pretend that her broken ribs and torn meniscus dont bother her. If you see her crying in the bathroom, mind your fucking business, its just allergies and not the broken glass in her leg GREASEBALL.

Unlike the other jocks, Crabblesnitch was very reluctant to let Lenora wear her track uniform and varsity jacket like every other jock. He felt it would be too much like blurring the lines between the masculine and feminine dress codes if he let her wear track shorts instead of a skirt. But, he was at the tail end of far too many meltdowns where Lenora just couldn’t cope with the fabric of the standard bullworth uniform, so he had to relent and let her wear the track uniform instead. This allowance comes with its own set of dress code rules, she’s too damn tall (looming at around 6’0 in freedom units) to wear the shorts with nothing underneath, so best believe she will be dress coded if she forgets to wear cycling shorts or longjohns underneath them.

When she was still in California, she was a lot more alternative than when she moved to Bullworth, she skateboarded and tagged buildings and let her tattoo apprentice friends use her as a canvas. she still carries that part of her with her in the form of literal hundreds of CDs of punk, emo and grunge bands most of them shitty illegal copies of albums from bands no one has ever heard of, as well as the tips of her hair, still pitch black from box dye that she just cannot get to budge, and the shitty tattoos too, obviously. In her free time she still goes to gigs, often dragging Kirby or Juri along with her. If you look super close on her face you can see dents from an eyebrow ring and a set of snakebites she had to take out to come to the academy. She also frequents dodgy warehouse parties in Blue Skies,furthering her injuries by diving headfirst into mosh pits full of very angry Townies.

Lenora is very gay, so she quite likes all the locker room talk about girls from the other jocks. The fact she’s gay is pretty obvious by looking at her, but even so she’s still absolutely terrified that someone will find out and she’ll lose both the trust of every girl at the academy as well as her scholarship. One girl she’s especially scared of is Christy. if Christy even had so much of a SUSPICION that she wasn’t into guys like she loudly proclaims she does, Lenora would waste no time changing her name, throwing her phone off the dock in Old Bullworth vale, deleting her MySpace, and driving her beat up old VW Beetle back to sunny California. However, she does eventually settle into a relationship with @bifs ‘ oc Becca (more on that to come) and accepts that she’s another member of the woke mob.

A young Olympic hopeful, Lenora does everything she can to stay in good shape. She wakes up early to run a 5k around campus, eats a fully vegetarian diet (A fact that irks Edna to no end because it means she has to prepare a special meal for her, although she has found that lenora will settle for pescatarian if she can’t be bothered with just veggies) and drinks sparingly. Despite this, after the events of fire in the gym, her hopes of the olympics are squashed when she gets trapped under some heavy climbing equipment and becomes a double amputee. Naturally, this event is a total bummer, but as soon as she learns how to walk in her new prosthetics, she sets her sighs on the paralympics instead. You go girl.

She is definitely one of Bullworth’s worst, academically if not also in attitude. Lenora isn’t disruptive, she’s just stupid. And who are we to hold that against her? It could be the sheer amount of hash she smokes, or the amount of head trauma she gets on a daily basis but its definitely a case of ‘the lights are on but nobody’s home’ in Lenora’s little pea brain.

[louisupdates]

[Translated from Spanish]

Ten years after the One Direction shows, Louis Tomlinson returned to Vélez to make the stadium vibrate

The 32-year-old British singer showed off on a cold night, to which he knew how to change the temperature with his music and his fans,

"This is fucking crazy. Sing with me!" he said in one of his many interactions with the public.

[Photo: Martin Bonetto]

Barbara Ventura | 05/19/24 16:37 / Updated on 05/20/2024 03:45

After a brief promotional visit, British singer Louis Tomlinson (32 years old) returned to Argentina with his world tour Faith in the Future to offer an electric and unforgettable show this Saturday at the José Amalfitani. The Vélez stadium was the epicenter of a night full of emotions, where euphoria and nostalgia mixed in the air when the former member of One Direction took the same stage that he shared with the British-Irish band in his two shows of 10 years ago.

Unlike the tour that brought him to the country in 2022 to present his debut album Walls at the Movistar Arena, this time Louis was accompanied by another former member of the band, Liam Payne, who at 20.40 caused a great surprise by appearing on the northern preferential stage of the court to enjoy the concert from a private box.

As it could not be otherwise, when they saw him, the fans sang his name in unison: "Liam, Liam! Liam, Liam!", a gesture that did not go unnoticed for the English singer who decided to leave the box for a few seconds to say hello, smiling and lively.

After 21.15, the reflectors that illuminated the stadium suddenly went out to start the concert, which took place on an almost winter night that was felt to the bones due to the low temperatures that reached a minimum of 8°. But nothing and no one could tarnish the party that was about to begin.

It was then that the stadium became a tide of cell phones ready to record the triumphant arrival of Louis Tomlinson, who when he met again with his audience after two years, began to sing the opening song, The Greatest, which is part of his second album that gives its name to the world tour.

In this way, the performer led an almost two-hour show whose setlist was made up of 21 songs, 16 of which belong to his first two albums: Walls and Faith In The Future.

He also performed Night Changes and Where Do Broken Hearts Go?, two iconic songs from One Direction's album Four (2014) that reverted from pop to rock to accompany the live sound of his solo project crossed by musical influences of Britpop and Brit Rock.

Tomlinson and his fans, an indestructible bond

Over the years, on more than one occasion, the British singer was frank about the close bond that unites him to his fans around the world, who for shows usually organize fan projects - massive creative actions organized on social networks to deploy at different moments of a concert - and when playing his first solo show in an Argentine stadium, it was no different.

The first one that was seen on the Vélez court occurred during the second song, Kill My Mind. "This is absolutely crazy. Sing with me!" exclaimed Tomlinson, visibly surprised, realizing that the stadium had turned into a great tide of white lights that moved up and down as he sang the bridge of the song "Kill my, kill my, kill my."

Other fan projects that stood out throughout the night were given during the performance of Saturday, which consisted of printing white posters with the black legend that read "This saturday takes the pain away", a phrase that alludes to the lyrics.

For Out of My System, the public was organized to have white and red handkerchiefs, characteristic colors of the album Faith in the Future and to be able to wave them at the beginning of the song and also in the choruses, which generated a real rock climate.

"Buenos Aires, I need to talk because this is fucking crazy! I want to start the show by thanking each of the people who are here tonight. You’ve blown my mind!" said the singer from Doncaster, United Kingdom, obnce the concert began.

In the middle of his speech, Tomlinson was honest about how shocked he felt at the warm welcome he received at the José Amalfitani stadium: "Maybe you have a different opinion, but I never, not even in a fucking million years, expected to be alone on a stage of this size, and be proud for me, I can feel it, but be proud of yourself for what we create together."

"This is incredible but... Jesus, it’s fucking cold!" was one of the many comments that Louis made, with a funny tone throughout the cold night.

When singing the sixth song We Made It, he made sure to go through the stage from end to end and also used the catwalk to be in contact with the largest number of people present in the audience.

Then, he asked his loyal fans that by singing it "to think about how far we’ve come together" referring to the ups and downs he faced after the end of One Direction in 2015 that meant five years of global success and the uncertainties he overcame to encourage himself to launch his career as a solo singer in 2020. And by way of support, the audience sang in unison: "Olé olé olé olé, Louis, Louis!"

As if time had not passed and it was still 2014, fans chanted every word of the hits Night Changes and Where Do Broken Hearts Go?, which marked One Direction's career. The band has left precedents that, although no longer active, left a mark with its discography for more than a generation.

As the concert came to the end, Tomlinson said: "Tonight I enjoyed every second, except for the cold" in terms of how he experienced the concert he gave in Argentina after 2 years.

"Every one of you has been incredible. It feels fucking good to play in a stadium of this size, feel so good on stage and have all of you here so again, thank you, thank you, thank you," Louis thanked his fans for the last time before warning that there was only one song left in the repertoire: Silver Tongues to recognize that he was not ready for the concert to end: "I don't want this to end but we have to.”

As it usually happens and it has already become a tradition during his concerts, Louis came down from the stage to approach the fans who were on the barricades at the front, and thus interact with them and greet them up close.

The physical papers [via TLouiesPresent and Louisargbot]

Louis Tomlinson, FITFWT24: Buenos Aires [18.5.2024]

[thestylesindependent]

W​​hat’s the secret to a great portrait? At 86 years old, David Hockney has a few ideas. A lifetime of looking has taught him to always start with the face. “I begin with the head first,” he says, matter-of-factly, from his home in France. “From there, I place everything else.”

That was his approach when, late last May, Harry Styles travelled to his light-filled studio in Normandy and stationed himself on a cane chair, ready to become the esteemed artist’s latest subject. Over two days, Hockney worked to capture the exact hues of red and yellow in Styles’s striped cardigan, the indigo of his jeans, the string of pearls at his neck – not to mention the unmistakable tousled fringe of one of the world’s biggest pop stars. For the artist, though, the goal was merely to capture the essence of the person in front of him. “I wasn’t really aware of his celebrity then,” Hockney says, with a shrug. “He was just another person who came to the studio.”

The pair struck up an instant rapport that was likely helped by Styles being a full-on fanboy. For his US Vogue cover shoot in 2020, Styles wore a pair of hand-painted Bode cords that featured a talismanic illustration of Hockney by artist Aayushia Khowala. It’s also hard to imagine the wide-eyed wonder of a flamboyant Brit discovering the sunny thrills and spills of California – a theme, and sound, that has permeated the former One Direction singer’s solo albums – without Hockney as a precedent. “David Hockney has been reinventing the way we look at the world for decades,” says Styles. “It was a complete privilege to be painted by him.”

The unveiling of the portrait kicks off the second iteration of the National Portrait Gallery’s Hockney exhibition Drawing From Life, which first opened in February 2020, only to close weeks later due to the pandemic. With the addition of a new room of pictures charting Hockney’s creative impulses throughout lockdown, the show returns on 2 November – a few months after a refurbishment of the entire museum – with Styles’s portrait as its crown jewel. “The whole world shut down, and the exhibition was still sitting there, in the dark,” recalls Sarah Howgate, the gallery’s senior curator of contemporary collections, who oversaw the exhibition in both phases. “So it’s nice to know it will have another life.”

The Styles painting may bring star wattage, but the unassuming genius of Hockney’s portraiture is still the main exhibition draw. What makes his images tick, you quickly learn, is their honesty: whether in the tension bubbling beneath the surface of his famed double portrait of Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, painted between 1970 and ’71, or the seated figures that populated his 2016 Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, which included the likes of his own sister, Margaret, and the late comedian Barry Humphries. Hockney’s eye for the human figure may be playful, often kaleidoscopic, sometimes fantastical – but it’s always, most importantly, frank.

Styles’s portrait will hang alongside those of writer Gregory Evans, Hockney’s printer Maurice Payne, the mayor of his local town Dozulé, his gardener and even his chiropodist, or in Hockney’s words, “the dandy who cuts my toenails” .

One of his more recent subjects was the eminent music producer Clive Davis, who first suggested inviting Styles to swing by. “Clive told me about Harry’s new album, and JP [Hockney’s studio assistant] sent Harry a note and asked him if he’d like to come to my studio and sit for his portrait,” Hockney remembers. “He replied straight away and said, yes, he’d love to.” From there, Hockney’s process of painting Styles was instinctive. “Everybody just came to sit,” he says, breezily, before admitting: “Now I know Harry’s a celebrity, though: I’ve seen all his music videos.”

“He’s not a traditional portrait painter,” says Howgate. Hockney’s interest is not in what people do, but rather in who they are. “He’s not interested in fame. He’s interested in depicting people and their relationships.” It’s why his eye is primarily trained on his inner circle these days – but it also pays testament to his enduring curiosity that he’s still willing to open that up to a newcomer every so often. Styles seems to know how lucky he is, adding, with a tinge of disbelief: “I’m in awe of the man with enough one-liners for a lifetime.” As to what those one-liners might be? Styles and Hockney’s mutual silence on that question suggests that what happens in the studio, stays in the studio.

David Hockney: Drawing From Life will be at the National Portrait Gallery from 2 November to 21 January 2024

[behindthesefangirleyes]

Fellow Travelers - Arthur Russell 'Love Is Overtaking Me'

The reel that Jonny posted on his Instagram yesterday made me all types of emotional for a lot of reasons. It also got me thinking about how perfect the song choice was for it.

I've long thought it was such an interesting song selection for the closing 50's/80's parallel sequence before the final fast-forward scene. It works sonically with the sort of hopeful/nostalgic sound that it evokes, which feels representative of where the characters exist in the moment.

For the 50's: Hopeful for a new beginning (Hawk) and devastated by new life (Tim) as both relate to Jackson.

For the 80's: Hopeful for victory/a better life for future generations (Tim) and nostalgic about the end of a life/relationship (Hawk).

Anyway, I didn't know the name of the song. I finally looked it up yesterday and ... boy. Ron Nyswaner, the man that you are.

For anyone who does not already know, the name of the song that I'm talking about is Arthur Russell's 'Love Is Overtaking Me' on the album of the same name.

For a little bit of context, the album was released posthumously in 2008. Arthur died in 1992 (but more on that to come).

What struck me first about Arthur's biography are the details surrounding the end of his life and his death.

Right off the bat, I'm like, 'Oh. So there are parallels to Tim.'

As I continued reading, I started seeing some of the Hawk x Tim dynamic slip into place.

Which made me think of how Tim said he needed Hawk to let him go so that he could let everything else go and keep fighting. Despite the grief it would cause Hawk.

Arthur, like the character of Tim, sadly died of AIDS-related illnesses on April 4, 1992 at just 40 years old.

The idea of living on through something so deeply meaningful to him runs parallel to Tim as well.

So now here I am thinking, 'Wow. What a great choice for a closing song.' (Not including PLM's final composition, which is just *chef's kiss*) It profoundly connects to the story and only adds to a bigger narrative surrounding one of its characters.

Then I continued reading further about Arthur's personal life.

Like, EXCUSE ME? We know damn well which character this reminds us of and how every time Hawk and Tim reunited/said goodbye, there was always some degree of fireworks/devastation.

So basically ... that song was a perfect bow-tie to a perfect series. I wish I could climb into Ron's brain for just one single day, because my brain has just about exploded.

[angstics]

When making a record, bands tend to write into infinity and then hold the songs they've created accountable. They set up the lot in front of a firing squad and see which, if any, are worthy. A trial by fire, at least that's what our band did. If My Chem was anything, it was discerning. We kept the bar high and were extremely critically of out craft, at times to a fault... because sometimes that pressure we put upon ourselves leaked out of the creative process, and turned into a self-criticism that ultimately fed our personal demons. The recording of The Black Parade was probably the pinnacle of our homemade torture chamber. Thirsty for punishment, we locked ourselves away in a haunted mansion and worked feverishly until we dropped off like flies. The air was often heavy in that house. We lived amongst ghosts and haunted each other... pushing one another, pushing ourselves, often to the brink, occasionally over the edge, always searching for greatness. It was a time of tremendous stress for our band. When I look back I think we had something to prove, maybe to the world, definitely to ourselves. We ended up writing close to 30 songs in that month and change, some of which had multiple versions... 14 of them made the record you've come to know as The Black Parade. The rest were sentenced to death in that ghastly manor, and are hopefully still floating around its halls... perhaps stuck in the head of the poltergeist that kept us awake night after night. Today some of those pieces will rise again, resurrected in this 10 year anniversary release of the album they took a bullet for.... perhaps they were never killed, merely grazed or maybe nothing ever truly dies... The Black Parade is dead, long live The Black Parade.

from The Black Parade/Living with Ghosts (2016) Vinyl (source)

[ourfatherwhoartinhell]

Ghostober - Day 14 [Alpha]

“Do you ever think we should just stop doing this?" - 1.6k

CW: None I don't think? Just angsty/sad Alpha

⊹ Ghostober Masterlist ⊹

Alpha has got to be one of the oldest ghouls the Ministry had ever summoned. He was over 1000 Earth years old, only close in age to the likes of Chain and Omega. The first water ghoul was by far the oldest. Followed by Alpha, who was younger by 100 years, and then Omega, who was 50 years younger than Alpha. 

All in all, the first group of Ministry ghouls were not the youngest kits on the block by any means. Primo wasn’t either when he first summoned them. Perhaps that’s why the older generation felt drawn to his unholy request? They thought they wouldn’t be worked as hard as they were in the Pit if they had an older human taking care of them. Surely an old guy like Primo would let them rest for the first time in their eternal lives?

For the first album and tour with Primo, that was pretty much what he did. The ghouls were able to settle into the surface routine nicely, and in their own time. Primo was more than happy to let them have time to themselves and naturally appreciated their age and immense power, never once arguing or raising his voice. There was an unspoken respect between all of the original band ghouls and their first Papa.

Until Secondo.

When Secondo took over, Primo had decided to retire Chain. Though if you ask the ghoul himself, he would say it was his decision to leave. His many years of life had sensed the wrong kind of evilness radiating off the new Papa, and he was - as he put it - “too old to deal with that shit”. 

Chain just wanted to just live out the rest of his time in the black lake that rested behind the Abbey, passing his role to one of Secondo’s new summons. Ghouls much younger and more appreciative of their new life.

Alpha and Omega both loved performing. For the older ghouls, they found it to be a great way to naturally regulate their elements. Especially Alpha. The fire ghoul absolutely loved performing! The stage lights were like a cozy heat lamp, while the others were sweating he just got more energy the hotter they got. He was overjoyed to be up there every night and bringing unholy joy to the ever-growing crowds.

Alpha also enjoyed Secondo’s presence on stage much more than Primo. He enjoyed all the attention. Having his Papa’s eyes on him and teasing him all night long was an unexpected bonus. He learnt that he loved performing during the first tour, but the second? With Secondo? Man that was something else.

That all changed when Terzo took over however. Sure the third Papa would acknowledge him and the others, but for the most part he wanted to die if he heard Omega’s name one more time. Omega and Terzo had a bond like he had never seen before. Up until the beginning of the tour, Alpha had never even heard of a ghoul and a human being connected in such a way. Jealousy quickly crept in and sank its teeth in deep. 

During breaks in the tour schedule, Alpha would venture to Secondo’s office to try and relieve some of the stress, and silence the unwanted voices in his head telling him things he didn’t want to believe. However, every time he got there, the former Papa wanted nothing to do with him. 

For Secondo, he only saw Alpha as a pawn to improve the show. Nothing more. Their previous antics and playfulness on stage was simply for show, and the human held no actual affections for the fire ghoul at all. As soon as Alpha threatened to burn the Abbey to the ground, he was banished from visiting Secondo’s office without notice.

The second half of the tour after that was horrible.

Alpha couldn’t sleep, and refused to eat. Omega had to hit him with just enough quintessence to get him awake enough to last through the shows, though he knew this wasn’t healthy.

His element was all over the place too. He would be overheating constantly. The once comforting warmth of the stage lights now felt like hellfire burning through his uniform. He was convinced one night that his mask had actually melted to his face and he would be faceless for the rest of eternity.

Because of this, Alpha started to get a lot more irritable. It was during the Meliora era people started to notice his temper set at a steady boil, ready to spill over at any moment. The other ghouls gave him a larger birth, even Terzo made a conscious effort to not say the wrong thing or stand too close. Always opting to stand beside Omega when he had to speak to the lead guitarist, simply for protection purposes. 

No one had seen a fire ghoul as old as Alpha explode, there was no way to imagine the amount of damage he would inevitably cause.

Alpha had been sitting in the back room, just finished up one of the last shows of the tour. Terzo had noticed his normally energetic and mischievous stage presence was missing all night. He never once missed a note, but the ghoul was just not right, and he wanted to help.

Terzo had found Alpha scrolling on his phone on the couch, not even noticing his Papa walking up. Of course Alpha knew he was there, he was a ghoul after all. He could smell Terzo’s scent getting stronger the moment he left his dressing room and started his trek over to him.

The youngest Emeritus took a seat a good distance from his guitarist, lounging back against the couch yet there was still an air of uneasiness surrounding him. Alpha sensed it easily, but said nothing. Terzo knew it probably wasn’t the smartest decision to confront Alpha without Omega nearby, but he hoped talking one-on-one would help after neglecting the struggling ghoul for so long.

“You were great out there as always, Alpha.” Terzo started, keeping his voice cheerful.

The ghoul just huffed, a faint stream of black smoke expelled from his nose.

“I know I have not been.. eh, how you say? Atten-tive?” Terzo shifted to rest his elbows on his knees. “But I am here now, if you need to chat.”

“Do you ever think we should just stop doing this?”

Whatever Terzo had expected Alpha to say, it definitely was not that. He deliberated for a minute on whether to beat around the bush and redirect, or to just talk about it man to man.

“Eh… honestly?”

Alpha finally looked up from his phone at the Papa beside him and nodded. Terzo could see how tired he looked. The ghoul’s dark skin was frightfully ashy, and not in the normal way. The embers in his eyes didn’t crackle and sparkle with life like they used to, and his sharp ears hadn’t moved from their drooped state for months - unless a loud noise had startled him of course, which normally ended up with a roadie running and fearing for their life with the glare Alpha sent their way.

“I have thought about it, yes.” Terzo admitted. “Not for myself though. No, I just got here and I have things to do. But for you and Omega? I have.”

Alpha’s sharp eyes flicked towards the floor, cracking a smile as he noticed Terzo wearing the most atrocious pair of fluffy pink bunny slippers. The contrast of his face paint to his chosen after show footwear was something Alpha, in all his years of life, still could not wrap his head around.

Terzo knew Alpha hated those slippers, and wore them on purpose. Just seeing the ghoul smile once again made the embarrassment more than worth it.

“You both have been some of our oldest, and most loyal ghouls to date. You have served the Ministry and my family far beyond what we ever expected of you. Which is why I will be setting you two free before the next tour.” Terzo said calmly, resting a gloved hand on Alpha’s knee.

Alpha looked at him with sincere concern. “Setting us free?” 

Yes, he had thought about leaving, but never about what he would do afterwards. The band and touring had been his sole purpose, the entire reason he was summoned. If he didn’t have that, then what was next?

“Retired, my ghoul.” A smile, warm smile slipped onto Terzo’s face as he gave Alpha’s leg a reassuring squeeze. “You will finally have the retirement you deserve. It’s time to let the young ones have their moment, yes?”

Alpha couldn’t mask the shocked expression. “I suppose.”

“All will be well, Alpha. I will still need you to help train my newest fire ghoul. He’s a handful, a complete handful. You’ll hate him for sure.” Terzo chuckled and Alpha joined, the odd feeling of laughter once again escaping his mouth after months of silence.

“I can help with that, Papa. Thank you.” The smile he gave Terzo was the most sincere smile he had ever given since the day he was first summoned. 

While Alpha understandably found this sudden news heartbreaking, it was almost bittersweet in a way too? Tour after tour had been taking its toll, yet he would never voluntarily step away or admit it.

He was thankful to Terzo for a lot of things, yet this moment might have brought him the biggest relief of them all. Not only was he finally able to get some much needed rest, but he was equally excited to teach this new kid, Ifrit, a thing or two about the spotlight.

A/N: Alpha my poor poor husband. I'm sorry. Not proofread btw!

[orpheusdrinkinga40inadeathbasket]

A woman drives fast along the California freeway with the radio screaming, delirious with grief. She does this every morning, dressing quickly in her Beverly Hills home so as to leave no time to think. Changing lanes is like a dance the way she's trained herself to do it, seamlessly and to the beat. She walks barefoot into gas stations, rinsing down pills with warm Coca-Cola and chatting mindlessly with the attendants. Her marriage is over. Her showbiz career is dead. Her child has been taken away. She is known to cry at parties or get carried home; close friends have come to believe she's insane. It is only on the freeway, when the music is loud, that she can forget what's become of her life. To fall asleep she imagines herself on the road: "The Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world."

How chic the story sounds the way Joan Didion tells it in her 1970 novel Play It as It Lays. The woman is a trainwreck but a sharp and glamorous one, numbing out on pills as a critique of moral rot in 1960s Tinseltown. Books are great that way. Played out in real life in the year 2007, the tale loses its cool; now the woman is a punchline whose endless personal disasters keep a burgeoning new media economy afloat. It seemed that every week, or sometimes even every day, brought a hysterical new headline regarding the downward spiral of America's pop princess. ("HELP ME!" "INSANE!" "OUT OF CONTROL!") "We serialize Britney Spears. She's our President Bush," said TMZ founder Harvey Levin in a gruesome Rolling Stone cover story from early 2008, which began with Britney wailing in a San Fernando Valley shopping mall as a crowd closed around her with their Sidekick smartphones brandished. "I don't know who you think I am, bitch," 26-year-old Spears snarled to a shopgirl approaching for a photo. "But I'm not that person."

...

"Do you feel out of control in your life?" asks an interviewer off-screen in Britney: For the Record, the MTV documentary on Spears' "post-breakdown" life released at the end of 2008. That February, she had been placed against her will under the conservatorship of her father and former business manager, which would last for the next 13 years. "No, I don't feel it's out of control. I think it's too in control," Spears answers without pause. "There's no excitement. There's no passion. It's like Groundhog Day every day." The camera pulls in close as she wipes away her tears. "When did you last feel free?" the man asks later. "When I got to drive my car a lot," she wistfully replies. "I haven't been able to drive my car."

Meaghan Garvey, "Blackout Album Review"