#love. lost. stories. lost. lives. lost. history. lost. media. lost.

[hemmingsleclerc]

Since 2013┃SV5

The year was 2013 and the young and charismatic Sebastian Vettel was dominating the racing scene with Red Bull Racing. Across the paddock, the talented and determined Y/N L/N was making waves as Ferrari's first female driver.

The connections between them was undeniable, both on and off the track. Amidst races with champagne-soaked podiums, Sebastian and Y/N found moments to exchange glances, winks, and playful smirks. Their chemistry was evident and the F1 fans couldn't help but speculate about the nature of their relationship.

As the 2013 season progressed, Sebastian claimed his fourth consecutive World Championship title, leaving fans in awe of his racing talent. Meanwhile, Y/N demonstrated her skills behind the wheel of the scarlet red Ferrari with the number 22, earning the respect and admiration of fans around the world, and especially of young girls dreaming of becoming like her. The two drivers continued their subtle flirtation.

A year later, in 2014, Y/N made history by taking the World Championship title, becoming the first female driver to achieve such a feat in Formula 1. The whispers among the fans grew louder and the media speculated about the connection between the two racing stars after the celebration shared between both drivers. Still, Sebastian and Y/N remained silent about their relationship, and continued to share glances and secret smiles just for themselves, telling the world they were ''just best friends''.

Fast forward to 2015 and the rumors remained the same or with more intensity. F1 fans began to suspect that there was more to the relationship between Sebastian Vettel and Y/N L/N than met the eye. The duo, however, chose to keep their personal lives private, maintaining an air of mystery around their connection. Although their physical behaviors gave them away.

Time passed, races were won and lost and the duo continued to shine in their respective teams, but always together on the track. By 2022, with four World Championships under his belt, Sebastian had joined Aston Martin, while three-time world champion Y/N had become a force to be reckoned with at Mercedes two years earlier.

Then came the unexpected announcement that shocked the F1 world. Seb and Y/N stated that they were expecting their first child and would retire from racing at the end of that season. The news was greeted with a mix of joy and sadness from their fellow drivers – the younger generation on the grid who had come to see them as their racing parents. Who were their greatest support on the track, giving them advices, raising their spirits and taking care of them as if they were their own blood childrens.

Charles, Max, Lando, George, Alex, Lance, Mick and other drivers expressed their excitement for their growing family, but couldn't hide a hint of sadness that their grid parents were leaving the racing world. The F1 community, which had witnessed the love story between Seb and Y/N over the years, sent them their sincere wishes for their new journey beyond the track.

''You two promise to come back sometime?'' Mick asked with watery eyes

''Of course Mick, we will never forget about our grid childrens'' Y/N responded with a warm smile

[turnstileskyline]

The Oral History of Take This To Your Grave – transcription under the cut

The pages that are just photographs, I haven't included. This post is already long enough.

Things that happened in 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Teen Vogue published its first issue. The world lost Johnny Cash. Johnny Depp appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time. A third Lord of the Rings movie arrived. Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley released Take This To Your Grave.

"About 21 years ago or so, as I was applying to colleges I would ultimately never go to, Fall Out Boy began as a little pop-punk side project of what we assumed was Pete's more serious band, Arma Angelus," Patrick wrote in a May 2023 social media post.

"We were sloppy and couldn't solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give up on it."

"We were really rough around the edges. As an example of how rough, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside after hearing the recording that would eventually become Evening Out With Your Girlfriend and tactfully said, 'What do you think your best instrument is, Patrick? Drums. It's drums. Probably not singing, Patrick.'"

"We went into Smart Studios with the Sean O'Keefe... So, there we were, 3/5 of a band with a singer who'd only been singing a year, no drummer, and one out of two guitarists. But we had the opportunity to record with Sean at Butch Vig's legendary studio.

"Eight or so months later, Fueled by Ramen would give us a contract to record the remaining songs. We'd sleep on floors, eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly, live in a van for the next three years, and somehow despite that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay-Z and for President Obama and the NFC championship, and all these other wildly unpredictable things. But none of that would ever come close to happening if Andy hadn't made it to the session and Joe hadn't dragged us kicking and screaming into being a band."

Two decades after its release, Take This To Your Grave sits comfortable in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums, edging out landmark records from Buzzcocks, Generation X, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, and The Ramones.

It even ranked higher than Through Being Cool by Saves The Day and Jersey's Best Dancers from Lifetime, two records the guys in Fall Out Boy particularly revere.

Fall Out Boy's proper full-length debut on Fueled by Ramen is a deceptively smart, sugar-sweet, raw, energetic masterpiece owing as much to the bass player's pop culture passions, the singers deep love of R&B and soul, and their shared history in the hardcore scene as any pioneering punk band. Fall Out Boy's creative and commercial heights were still ahead, but Take This To Your Grave kicked it off, a harbinger for the enduring songwriting partnership between Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, the eclectic contributions from Joe Trohman, and the propulsive powerhouse that is Andy Hurley.

The recordings document a special moment when Fall Out Boy was big in "the scene" but a "secret" from the mainstream. The band (and some of their friends) first sat down for an Oral History (which doubled as an Oral History of their origin story) with their old friend Ryan J. Downey, then Senior Editor for Alternative Press, upon the occasion of the album's 10th anniversary. What follows is an updated, sharper, and expanded version of that story, newly re-edited in 2023. As Patrick eloquently said: "Happy 20th birthday, Take This To Your Grave, you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record."

– Ryan J. Downey.

A Weird, Brilliant Lightning Strike Of A Record. The Oral History Of Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave.

As told by:

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Joe Trohman

Andy Hurley

Bob McLynn - Crush Music

Sean O'Keefe - Producer/Mixer

John Janick - Fueled By Ramen

Tim McIlrath - Rise Against

Mani Mostofi - Racetraitor

Chris Gutierrez - Arma Angelus

Mark Rose - Spitalfield

Sean Muttaqi - Uprising Records

Rory Felton - The Militia Group

Richard Reines - Drive-Thru Records

"To Feel No More Bitterness Forever" - From Hardcore to Softcore, 1998-2000

PETE WENTZ: When I got into hardcore, it was about discovering the world beyond yourself. There was a culture of trying to be a better person. That was part of what was so alluring about hardcore and punk for me. But for whatever reason, it shifted. Maybe this was just in Chicago, but it became less about the thought process behind it and more about moshing and breakdowns. There was a close-mindedness that felt very reactive.

TIM MCILRITH: I saw First Born many years ago, which was the first time I saw Pete and met him around then. This was '90s hardcore - p.c., vegan, activist kind of hardcore music. Pete was in many of those bands doing that kind of thing, and I was at many of those shows. The hardcore scene in Chicago was pretty small, so everyone kind of knew each other. I knew Andy Hurley as the drummer in Racetraitor. I was in a band called Baxter, so Pete always called me 'Baxter.' I was just 'Baxter' to a lot of those guys.

JOE TROHMAN: I was a young hardcore kid coming to the shows. The same way we all started doing bands. You're a shitty kid who goes to punk and hardcore shows, and you see the other bands playing, and you want to make friends with those guys because you want to play in bands too. Pete and I had a bit of a connection because we're from the same area. I was the youngest dude at most shows. I would see Extinction, Racetraitor, Burn It Down, and all the bands of that era.

WENTZ: My driver's license was suspended then, so Joe drove me everywhere. We listened to either Metalcore like Shai Hulud or pop-punk stuff like Screeching Weasel.

MCILRITH: I was in a band with Pete called Arma Angelus. I was like their fifth or sixth bass player. I wasn't doing anything musically when they hit me up to play bass, so I said, 'Of course.' I liked everyone in the band. We were rehearsing, playing a few shows here and there, with an ever-revolving cast of characters. We recorded a record together at the time. I even sing on that record, believe it or not, they gave me a vocal part. Around that same time, I began meeting with [bassist] Joe [Principe] about starting what would become Rise Against.

CHRIS GUTIERREZ: Wentz played me the Arma Angelus demo in the car. He said he wanted it to be a mix of Despair, Buried Alive, and Damnation A.D. He told me Tim was leaving to start another band - which ended up being Rise Against - and asked if I wanted to play bass.

TROHMAN: Pete asked me to fill in for a tour when I was 15. Pete had to call my dad to convince him to let me go. He did it, too. It was my first tour, in a shitty cargo van, with those dudes. They hazed the shit out of me. It was the best and worst experience. Best overall, worst at the time.

GUTIERREZ: Enthusiasm was starting to wane in Arma Angelus. Our drummer was really into cock-rock. It wasn't an ironic thing. He loved L.A. Guns, Whitesnake, and Hanoi Rocks. It drove Pete nuts because the scene was about Bleeding Through and Throwdown, not cock rock. He was frustrated that things weren't panning out for the band, and of course, there's a ceiling for how big a metalcore band can get, anyway.

MANI MOSTOFI: Pete had honed this tough guy persona, which I think was a defense mechanism. He had some volatile moments in his childhood. Underneath, he was a pretty sensitive and vulnerable person. After playing in every mosh-metal band in the Midwest and listening exclusively to Earth Crisis, Damnation A.D., Chokehold, and stuff like that for a long time, I think Pete wanted to do something fresh. He had gotten into Lifetime, Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and bands like that. Pete was at that moment where the softer side of him needed an outlet, and didn't want to hide behind mosh-machismo. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a band that more girls could listen to.

MCILRATH: Pete was talking about starting a pop-punk band. Bands like New Found Glory and Saves The Day were successful then. The whole pop-punk sound was accessible. Pete was just one of those guys destined for bigger things than screaming for mediocre hardcore bands in Chicago. He's a smart guy, a brilliant guy. All the endeavors he had taken on, even in the microcosm of the 1990s Chicago hardcore world, he put a lot of though into it. You could tell that if he were given a bigger receptacle to put that thought into, it could become something huge. He was always talented: lyrics, imagery, that whole thing. He was ahead of the curve. We were in this hardcore band from Chicago together, but we were both talking about endeavors beyond it.

TROHMAN: The drummer for Arma Angelus was moving. Pete and I talked about doing something different. It was just Pete and me at first. There was this thuggishness happening in the Chicago hardcore scene at that time that wasn't part of our vibe. It was cool, but it wasn't our thing.

MCILRITH: One day at Arma Angelus practice, Pete asked me, 'Are you going to do that thing with Joe?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so.' He was like, 'You should do that, dude. Don't let this band hold you back. I'll be doing something else, too. We should be doing other things.' He was really ambitious. It was so amazing to me, too, because Pete was a guy who, at the time, was kind of learning how to play the bass. A guy who didn't really play an instrument will do down in history as one of the more brilliant musicians in Chicago. He had everything else in his corner. He knew how to do everything else. He needed to get some guys behind him because he had the rest covered. He had topics, themes, lyrics, artwork, this whole image he wanted to do, and he was uncompromising. He also tapped into something the rest of us were just waking up to: the advent of the internet. I mean, the internet wasn't new, but higher-speed internet was.

MOSTOFI: Joe was excited to be invited by Pete to do a band. Joe was the youngest in our crew by far, and Pete was the 'coolest' in a Fonzie sort of way. Joe deferred to Pete's judgement for years. But eventually, his whole life centered around bossy big-brother Pete. I think doing The Damned Things was for Joe what Fall Out Boy was for Pete, in a way. It was a way to find his own space within the group of friends. Unsurprisingly, Joe now plays a much more significant role in Fall Out Boy's music.

WENTZ: I wanted to do something easy and escapist. When Joe and I started the band, it was the worst band of all time. I feel like people said, 'Oh, yeah, you started Fall Out Boy to get big.' Dude, there was way more of a chance of every other band getting big in my head than Fall Out Boy. It was a side thing that was fun to do. Racetraitor and Extinction were big bands to me. We wanted to do pop-punk because it would be fun and hilarious. It was definitely on a lark. We weren't good. If it was an attempt at selling out, it was a very poor attempt.

MCILRITH: It was such a thing for people to move from hardcore bands to bands called 'emo' or pop-punk, as those bands were starting to get some radio play and signed to major labels. Everyone thought it was easy, but it's not as easy as that. Most guys we knew who tried it never did anything more successful than their hardcore bands. But Pete did it! And if anyone was going to, it was going to be him. He never did anything half-assed. He ended up playing bass in so many bands in Chicago, even though he could barely play the bass then, because simply putting him in your band meant you'd have a better show. He was just more into it. He knew more about dynamics, about getting a crowd to react to what you're doing than most people. Putting Pete in your band put you up a few notches.

"I'm Writing You A Chorus And Here Is Your Verse" - When Pete met Patrick, early 2001.

MARK ROSE: Patrick Stump played drums in this grindcore band called Grinding Process. They had put out a live split cassette tape.

PATRICK STUMP: My ambition always outweighed my ability or actual place in the world. I was a drummer and played in many bands and tried to finagle my way into better ones but never really managed. I was usually outgunned by the same two guys: this guy Rocky Senesce; I'm not sure if he's playing anymore, but he was amazing. And this other guy, De'Mar Hamilton, who is now in Plain White T's. We'd always go out for the same bands. I felt like I was pretty good, but then those guys just mopped the floor with me. I hadn't been playing music for a few months. I think my girlfriend dumped me. I was feeling down. I wasn't really into pop-punk or emo. I think at the time I was into Rhino Records box sets.

TROHMAN: I was at the Borders in Eden's Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois. My friend Arthur was asking me about Neurosis. Patrick just walked up and started talking to me.

STUMP: I was a bit arrogant and cocky, like a lot of young musicians. Joe was talking kind of loudly and I overheard him say something about Neurosis, and I think I came in kind of snotty, kind of correcting whatever they had said.

TROHMAN: We just started talking about music, and my buddy Arthur got shoved out of the conversation. I told him about the band we were starting. Pete was this local hardcore celebrity, which intrigued Patrick.

STUMP: I had similar conversations with any number of kids my age. This conversation didn't feel crazy special. That's one of the things that's real about [Joe and I meeting], and that's honest about it, that's it's not some 'love at first sight' thing where we started talking about music and 'Holy smokes, we're going to have the best band ever!' I had been in a lot of bands up until then. Hardcore was a couple of years away from me at that point. I was over it, but Pete was in real bands; that was interesting. Now I'm curious and I want to do this thing, or at least see what happens. Joe said they needed a drummer, guitar player, or singer, and I kind of bluffed and said I could do any one of those things for a pop-punk band. I'd had a lot of conversations about starting bands where I meet up with somebody and maybe try to figure out some songs and then we'd never see each other again. There were a lot of false starts and I assumed this would be just another one of those, but it would be fun for this one to be with the guy from Racetraitor and Extinction.

TROHMAN: He gave me the link to his MP3.com page. There were a few songs of him just playing acoustic and singing. He was awesome.

WENTZ: Joe told me we were going to this kid's house who would probably be our drummer but could also sing. He sent me a link to Patrick singing some acoustic thing, but the quality was so horrible it was hard to tell what it was. Patrick answered the door in some wild outfit. He looked like an emo kid but from the Endpoint era - dorky and cool. We went into the basement, and he was like, trying to set up his drums.

TROHMAN: Patrick has said many times that he intended to try out on drums. I was pushing for him to sing after hearing his demos. 'Hey! Sing for us!' I asked him to take out his acoustic guitar. He played songs from Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. I think he sang most of the record to us. We were thrilled. We had never been around someone who could sing like that.

WENTZ: I don't think Patrick thought we were cool at all. We were hanging out, and he started playing acoustic guitar. He started singing, and I realized he could sing any Saves The Day song. I was like, 'Wow, that's the way those bands sound! We should just have you sing.' It had to be serendipity because Patrick drumming and Joe singing is not the same band. I never thought about singing. It wasn't the type of thing I could sing. I knew I'd be playing bass. I didn't think it'd even go beyond a few practices. It didn't seem like the thing I was setting myself up to do for the next several years of my life in any way. I was going to college. It was just a fun getaway from the rest of life kind of thing to do.

STUMP: Andy was the first person we asked to play drums. Joe even brought him up in the Borders conversation. But Andy was too busy. He wasn't really interested, either, because we kind of sucked.

WENTZ: I wanted Hurley in the band, I was closest to him at the time, I had known him for a long time. I identified with him in the way that we were the younger dudes in our larger group. I tried to get him, but he was doing another band at the time, or multiple bands. He was Mani's go-to guy to play drums, always. I had asked him a few times. That should clue people into the fact that we weren't that good.

ANDY HURLEY: I knew Joe as 'Number One Fan.' We called him that because he was a huge fan of a band I was in, Kill The Slavemaster. When Fall Out Boy started, I was going to college full-time. I was in the band Project Rocket and I think The Kill Pill then, too.

MOSTOFI: After they got together the first or second time, Pete played me a recording and said, 'This is going to be big.' They had no songs, no name, no drummer. They could barely play their instruments. But Pete knew, and we believed him because we could see his drive and Patrick's potential. Patrick was prodigy. I imagine the first moment Pete heard him sing was probably like when I heard 15-year-old Andy Hurley play drums.

GUTIERREZ: One day at practice, Pete told me he had met some dudes with whom he was starting a pop-punk band. He said it would sound like a cross between New Found Glory and Lifetime. Then the more Fall Out Boy started to practice, the less active Arma Angelus became.

TROHMAN: We got hooked up with a friend named Ben Rose, who became our original drummer. We would practice in his parents' basement. We eventually wrote some pretty bad songs. I don't even have the demo. I have copies of Arma's demo, but I don't have that one.

MOSTOFI: We all knew that hardcore kids write better pop-punk songs than actual pop-punk kids. It had been proven. An experienced hardcore musician could bring a sense of aggression and urgency to the pop hooks in a way that a band like Yellowcard could never achieve. Pete and I had many conversations about this. He jokingly called it 'Softcore,' but that's precisely what it was. It's what he was going for. Take This To Your Grave sounds like Hot Topic, but it feels like CBGBs.

MCILRITH: Many hardcore guys who transitioned into pop-punk bands dumbed it down musically and lyrically. Fall Out Boy found a way to do it that wasn't dumbed down. They wrote music and lyrics that, if you listened closely, you could tell came from people who grew up into hardcore. Pete seemed to approach the song titles and lyrics the same way he attacked hardcore songs. You could see his signature on all of that.

STUMP: We all had very different ideas of what it should sound like. I signed up for Kid Dynamite, Strike Anywhere, or Dillinger Four. Pete was very into Lifetime and Saves The Day. I think both he and Joe were into New Found Glory and Blink-182. I still hadn't heard a lot of stuff. I was arrogant; I was a rock snob. I was over most pop-punk. But then I had this renaissance week where I was like, 'Man, you know what? I really do like The Descendents.' Like, the specific week I met Joe, it just happened to be that I was listening to a lot of Descendents. So, there was a part of me that was tickled by that idea. 'You know what? I'll try a pop-punk band. Why not?'

MOSTOFI: To be clear, they were trying to become a big band. But they did it by elevating radio-friendly pop punk, not debasing themselves for popularity. They were closely studying Drive-Thru Records bands like The Starting Line, who I couldn't stand. But they knew what they were doing. They extracted a few good elements from those bands and combined them with their other influences. Patrick never needed to be auto-tuned. He can sing. Pete never had to contrive this emotional depth. He always had it.

STUMP: The ideas for band names were obnoxious. At some point, Pete and I were arguing over it, and I think our first drummer, Ben Rose, who was in the hardcore band Strength In Numbers, suggested Fall Out Boy. Pete and I were like, 'Well, we don't hate that one. We'll keep it on the list.' But we never voted on a name.

"Fake It Like You Matter" - The Early Shows, 2001

The name Fall Out Boy made their shortlist, but their friends ultimately chose it for them. The line-up at the band's first show was Patrick Stump (sans guitar), Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, drummer Ben Rose, and guitarist John Flamandan in his only FOB appearance.

STUMP: We didn't have a name at our two or three shows. We were basically booked as 'Pete's new band' as he was the most known of any of us. Pete and I were the artsy two.

TROHMAN: The rest of us had no idea what we were doing onstage.

STUMP: We took ourselves very seriously and completely different ideas on what was 'cool.' Pete at the time was somewhere between maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski, and kind of New Romantic and Manchester stuff, so he had that in mind. The band names he suggested were long and verbose, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I was pretty much only into Tom Waits, so I wanted everything to be a reference to Tom Waits. The first show was at DePaul [University] in some cafeteria. The room looked a lot nicer than punk rock shows are supposed to look, like a room where you couldn't jump off the walls. We played with a band called Stillwell. I want to say one of the other bands played Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath in its entirety. We were out of place. We were tossing a few different names around. The singer for Stillwell was in earshot of the conversation so I was like 'Hey, settle this for us,' and told him whatever name it was, which I can't remember. 'What do you think of this name?' He goes, 'It sucks.' And the way he said it, there was this element to it, like, 'You guys probably suck, too, so whatever.' That was our first show. We played first and only had three songs. That was John's only show with us, and I never saw him again. I was just singing without a guitar, and I had never just sung before; that was horrifying. We blazed through those songs.

ROSE: Patrick had this shoulder-length hair. Watching these guys who were known for heavier stuff play pop-punk was strange. Pete was hopping around with the X's on his hands. Spitalfield was similar; we were kids playing another style of music who heard Texas Is The Reason and Get Up Kids and said, 'We have to start a band like this.'

MOSTOFI: The first show was a lot of fun. The musical side wasn't there, but Pete and Patrick's humor and charisma were front and center.

TROHMAN: I remember having a conversation with Mani about stage presence. He was telling me how important it was. Coalesce and The Dillinger Escape Plan would throw mic stands and cabinets. We loved that visual excitement and appeal. Years later, Patrick sang a Fall Out Boy song with Taylor Swift at Giants Stadium. It was such a great show to watch that I was reminded of how wise Mani was to give me that advice back then. Mani was like a mentor for me, honestly. He would always guide me through stuff.

MOSTOFI: Those guys grew up in Chicago, either playing in or seeing Extinction, Racetraitor, Los Crudos, and other bands that liked to talk and talk between songs. Fall Out Boy did that, and it was amazing. Patrick was awkward in a knowing and hilarious way. He'd say something odd, and then Pete would zing him. Or Pete would try to say something too cool, and Patrick would remind him they were nerds. These are very personal memories for me. Millions of people have seen the well-oiled machine, but so few of us saw those guys when they were so carefree.

TROHMAN: We had this goofy, bad first show, but all I can tell you was that I was determined to make this band work, no matter what.

STUMP: I kind of assumed that was the end of that. 'Whatever, on with our lives.' But Joe was very determined. He was going to pick us up for practice and we were going to keep playing shows. He was going to make the band happen whether the rest of us wanted to or not. That's how we got past show number one. John left the band because we only had three songs and he wasn't very interested. In the interim, I filled in on guitar. I didn't consider myself a guitar player. Our second show was a college show in Southern Illinois or something.

MCILRITH: That show was with my other band, The Killing Tree.

STUMP: We showed up late and played before The Killing Tree. There was no one there besides the bands and our friends. I think we had voted on some names. Pete said 'Hey, we're whatever!'; probably something very long. And someone yells out, 'Fuck that, no, you're Fall Out Boy!' Then when The Killing Tree was playing, Tim said, 'I want to thank Fall Out Boy.' Everyone looked up to Tim, so when he forced the name on us, it was fine. I was a diehard Simpsons fan, without question. I go pretty deep on The Simpsons. Joe and I would just rattle off Simpsons quotes. I used to do a lot of Simpsons impressions. Ben was very into Simpsons; he had a whole closet full of Simpsons action figures.

"If Only You Knew I Was Terrified" - The Early Recordings, 2002-2003

Wentz's relationships in the hardcore scene led to Fall Out Boy's first official releases. A convoluted and rarely properly explained chain of events resulted in the Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket split EP and Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. Both were issued by California's Uprising Records, whose discography included Racetraitor's first album and the debut EP by Burn It Down. The band traveled to Wisconsin to record their first proper demo with engineer Jared Logan, drummer for Uprising's 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

TROHMAN: This isn't to be confused with the demo we did in Ben's basement, which was like a tape demo. This was our first real demo.

STUMP: Between booking the demo and recording it, we lost Ben Rose. He was the greatest guy, but it wasn't working out musically. Pete and Joe decided I should play drums on the demo. But Jared is a sick drummer, so he just did it.

TROHMAN: We had gotten this great singer but went through a series of drummers that didn't work out. I had to be the one who kicked Ben out. Not long after, our friend Brett Bunting played with us. I don't think he really wanted to do it, which was a bummer.

STUMP: I showed up to record that demo, feeling pulled into it. I liked hanging out with the guys, but I was a rock snob who didn't really want to be making that type of music. The first few songs were really rough. We were sloppy. We barely practiced. Pete was in Arma Angelus. Joe was the guy determined to make it happen. We couldn't keep a drummer or guitar player, and I could barely play guitar. I didn't really want to be in Fall Out Boy. We had these crappy songs that kind of happened; it didn't feel like anything. Joe did the guitars. I go in to do the vocals, I put on the headphones, and it starts playing and was kind of not bad! It was pretty good, actually. I was shocked. That was the first time I was like, 'Maybe I am supposed to be in this band.' I enjoyed hearing it back.

SEAN MUTTAQI: Wentz and I were pretty tight. He sent me some demos, and while I didn't know it would get as big as it did, I knew it was special. Wentz had a clear vision. Of all the guys from that scene, he was the most singularly focused on taking things to the next level. He was ahead of the game with promotion and the early days of social media.

STUMP: Arma Angelus had been on Eulogy. We talked to them a bit and spoke to Uprising because they had put out Racetraitor. At some point, the demo got to Sean, and he decided to make it half of a split with Andy's band, Project Rocket. We were pretty happy with that.

HURLEY: It was kind of competitive for me at the time. Project Rocket and Fall Out Boy were both doing pop-punk/pop-rock, I met Patrick through the band. I didn't really know him before Fall Out Boy.

TROHMAN: We got this drummer, Mike Pareskuwicz, who had been in a hardcore band from Central Illinois called Subsist.

STUMP: Uprising wanted us to make an album. We thought that was cool, but we only had those three songs that were on the split. We were still figuring ourselves out. One of the times we were recording with Jared in the studio, for the split or the album, this guy T.J. Kunasch was there. He was like, 'Hey, do you guys need a guitarist?' And he joined.

MUTTAQI: I borrowed some money to get them back in the studio. The songwriting was cool on that record, but it was all rushed. The urgency to get something out led to the recording being subpar. Their new drummer looked the part but couldn't really play. They had already tracked the drums before they realized it didn't sound so hot.

STUMP: The recording experience was not fun. We had two days to do an entire album. Mike was an awesome dude, but he lived crazy far away, in Kanakee, Illinois, so the drive to Milwaukee wasn't easy for him. He had to work or something the next day. So, he did everything in one take and left. He played alone, without a click, so it was a ness to figure out. We had to guess where the guitar was supposed to go. None of us liked the songs because we had slapped them together. We thought it all sucked. But I thought, 'Well, at least it'll be cool to have something out.' Then a lot of time went by. Smaller labels were at the mercy of money, and it was crazy expensive to put out a record back then.

MUTTAQI: Our record was being rushed out to help generate some interest, but that interest was building before we could even get the record out. We were beholden to finances while changing distribution partners and dealing with other delays. The buck stops with me, yes, but I didn't have that much control over the scheduling.

WENTZ: It's not what I would consider the first Fall Out Boy record. Hurley isn't on it and he's an integral part of the Fall Out Boy sound. But it is part of the history, the legacy. NASA didn't go right to the moon. They did test flights in the desert. Those are our test flights in the desert. It's not something I'm ashamed of or have weird feelings about.

STUMP: It's kind of embarrassing to me. Evening Out... isn't representative of the band we became. I liked Sean a lot, so it's nothing against him. If anybody wants to check out the band in that era, I think the split EP is a lot cooler. Plus, Andy is on that one.

TROHMAN: T.J. was the guy who showed up to the show without a guitar. He was the guy that could never get it right, but he was in the band for a while because we wanted a second guitar player. He's a nice dude but wasn't great to be in a band with back then. One day he drove unprompted from Racine to Chicago to pick up some gear. I don't know how he got into my parents' house, but the next thing I knew, he was in my bedroom. I didn't like being woken up and kicked him out of the band from bed.

STUMP: Our friend Brian Bennance asked us to do a split 7" with 504 Plan, which was a big band to us. Brian offered to pay for us to record with Sean O'Keefe, which was also a big deal. Mike couldn't get the time off work to record with us. We asked Andy to play on the songs. He agreed to do it, but only if he could make it in time after recording an entire EP with his band, The Kill Pill, in Chicago, on the same day.

MOSTOFI: Andy and I started The Kill Pill shortly after Racetraitor split up, not long after Fall Out Boy had formed. We played a bunch of local shows together. The minute Andy finished tracking drums for our EP in Chicago, he raced to the other studio in Madison.

STUMP: I'm getting ready to record the drums myself, getting levels and checking the drums, pretty much ready to go. And then in walks Andy Hurley. I was a little bummed because I really wanted to play drums that day. But then Andy goes through it all in like two takes and fucking nailed the entire thing. He just knocked it out of the park. All of us were like, 'That's crazy!'

WENTZ: When Andy came in, It just felt different. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments.

STUMP: Sean leaned over to us and said, 'You need to get this guy in the band.'

SEAN O'KEEFE: We had a blast. We pumped It out. We did it fast and to analog tape. People believe it was very Pro Tools oriented, but it really was done to 24-track tape. Patrick sang his ass off.

STUMP: The songs we had were 'Dead On Arrival,' 'Saturday,' and 'Homesick at Space Camp. There are quite a few songs that ended up on Take This To You Grave where I wrote most of the lyrics but Pete titled them.

WENTZ: 'Space Camp' was a reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp, and the idea of space camp. Space camp wasn't something anyone in my area went to. Maybe they did, but it was never an option for me. It seems like the little kid version of meeting Jay-Z. The idea was also: what if you, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie, took off to outer space and wanted to get home? 'I made it to space and now I'm just homesick and want to hang out with my friends.' In the greater sense, it's about having it all, but it's still not enough. There's a pop culture reference in 'Saturday' that a lot of people miss. 'Pete and I attack the lost Astoria' was a reference to The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria, Oregon.

HURLEY: I remember hearing those recordings, especially 'Dead on Arrival,' and Patrick's voice and how well written those songs were, especially relative to anything else I had done - I had a feeling that this could do something.

WENTZ: It seemed like it would stall out if we didn't get a solid drummer in the band soon. That was the link that we couldn't nail down. Patrick was always a big musical presence. He thinks and writes rhythmi-cally, and we couldn't get a drummer to do what he wanted or speak his language. Hurley was the first one that could. It's like hearing two drummers talk together when they really get it. It sounds like a foreign language because it's not something I'm keyed into. Patrick needed someone on a similar musical plane. I wasn't there. Joe was younger and was probably headed there.

HURLEY: When Patrick was doing harmonies, it was like Queen. He's such a brilliant dude. I was always in bands that did a record and then broke up. I felt like this was a band that could tour a lot like the hardcore bands we loved, even if we had to have day jobs, too.

"(Four) Tired Boys And A Broken Down Van" - The Early Tours, 2002-2003

STUMP: We booked a tour with Spitalfield, another Chicago band, who had records out, so they were a big deal to us. We replaced T.J. with a guy named Brandon Hamm. He was never officially in the band. He quit when we were practicing 'Saturday.' He goes, 'I don't like that. I don't want to do this anymore.' Pete talked with guitarist Chris Envy from Showoff, who had just broken up. Chris said, 'Yeah, I'll play in your band.' He came to two practices, then quit like two days before the tour. It was only a two-week tour, but Mike couldn't get the time off work from Best Buy, or maybe it was Blockbuster. We had to lose Mike, which was the hardest member change for me. It was unpleasant.

TROHMAN: We had been trying to get Andy to join the band for a while. Even back at that first Borders conversation, we talked about him, but he was too busy at the time.

STUMP: I borrowed one of Joe's guitars and jumped in the fire. We were in this legendarily shitty used van Pete had gotten. It belonged to some flower shop, so it had this ominously worn-out flower decal outside and no windows [except in the front]. Crappy brakes, no A/C, missing the rearview mirror, no seats in the back, only the driver's seat. About 10 minutes into the tour, we hit something. A tire exploded and slingshot into the passenger side mirror, sending glass flying into the van. We pulled over into some weird animal petting zoo. I remember thinking, 'This is a bad omen for this tour.' Spitalfield was awesome, and we became tight with them. Drew Brown, who was later in Weekend Nachos, was out with them, too. But most of the shows were canceled.

WENTZ: We'd end up in a town, and our show was canceled, or we'd have three days off. 'Let's just get on whatever show we can. Whatever, you can pay us in pizza.'

STUMP: We played in a pizza place. We basically blocked the line of people trying to order pizza, maybe a foot away from the shitty tables. Nobody is trying to watch a band. They're just there to eat pizza. And that was perhaps the biggest show we played on that tour. One of the best moments on the Spitalfied tour was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The local opener wasn't even there - they were at the bar across the street and showed up later with two people. Fall Out Boy played for Spitalfield, and Spitalfield played for Fall Out Boy. Even the sound guy had left. It was basically an empty room. It was miserable.

HURLEY: Even though we played a ton of shows in front of just the other bands, it was awesome. I've known Pete forever and always loved being in bands with him. After that tour, it was pretty much agreed that I would be in the band. I wanted to be in the band.

WENTZ: We would play literally any show in those days for free. We played Chain Reaction in Orange County with a bunch of metalcore bands. I want to say Underoath was one of them. I remember a lot of black shirts and crossed arms at those kinds of shows. STUMP: One thing that gets lost in the annals of history is Fall Out Boy, the discarded hardcore band. We played so many hardcore shows! The audiences were cool, but they were just like, 'This is OK, but we'd really rather be moshing right now.' Which was better than many of the receptions we got from pop-punk kids.

MOSTOFI: Pete made sure there was little division between the band and the audience. In hardcore, kids are encouraged to grab the mic. Pete was very conscious about making the crowd feel like friends. I saw them in Austin, Texas, in front of maybe ten kids. But it was very clear all ten of those kids felt like Pete's best friends. And they were, in a way.

MCILRITH: People started to get into social networking. That kind of thing was all new to us, and they were way ahead. They networked with their fans before any of us.

MOSTOFI: Pete shared a lot about his life online and was intimate as hell. It was a new type of scene. Pete extended the band's community as far as fiber optics let him.

ROSE: Pete was extremely driven. Looking back, I wish I had that killer instinct. During that tour; we played a show in Colorado. On the day of the show, we went to Kinko's to make flyers to hand out to college kids. Pete put ‘members of Saves The Day and Screeching Weasel’ on the flyer. He was just like, 'This will get people in.'

WENTZ: We booked a lot of our early shows through hardcore connections, and to some extent, that carries through to what Fall Out Boy shows are like today. If you come to see us play live, we're basically Slayer compared to everyone else when we play these pop radio shows. Some of that carries back to what you must do to avoid being heckled at hardcore shows. You may not like our music, but you will leave here respecting us. Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to give a shit. But you need to earn a crowd's respect. That was an important way for us to learn that.

MOSTOFI: All those dudes, except Andy, lived in this great apartment with our friend Brett Bunting, who was almost their drummer at one point. The proximity helped them gel.

STUMP: There were a lot of renegade last-minute shows where we'd just call and get added. We somehow ended up on a show with Head Automatica that way.

MCILRITH: At some point early on, they opened for Rise Against in a church basement in Downers Grove. We were doing well then; headlining that place was a big deal. Then Pete's band was coming up right behind us, and you could tell there was a lot of chatter about Fall Out Boy. I remember getting to the show, and there were many people there, many of whom I had never seen in the scene before. A lot of unfamiliar faces. A lot of people that wouldn't have normally found their way to the seedy Fireside Bowl in Chicago. These were young kids, and I was 21 then, so when I say young, I mean really young. Clearly, Fall Out Boy had tapped into something the rest of us had not. People were super excited to see them play and freaked out; there was a lot of enthusiasm at that show. After they finished, their fans bailed. They were dedicated. They wanted to see Fall Out Boy. They didn't necessarily want to see Rise Against play. That was my first clue that, 'Whoa, what Pete told me that day at Arma Angelus rehearsal is coming true. He was right.' Whatever he was doing was working.

"My Insides Are Copper, And I'd Like To Make Them Gold" - The Record Labels Come Calling, 2002

STUMP: The split EP was going to be a three-way split with 504 Plan, August Premier, and us at one point. But then the record just never happened. Brian backed out of putting it out. We asked him if we could do something else with the three songs and he didn't really seem to care. So, we started shopping the three songs as a demo. Pete ended up framing the rejection letters we got from a lot of pop-punk labels. But some were interested.

HURLEY: We wanted to be on Drive-Thru Records so bad. That was the label.

RICHARD REINES: After we started talking to them, I found the demo they had sent us in the office. I played it for my sister. We decided everything together. She liked them but wasn't as crazy about them as I was. We arranged with Pete to see them practice. We had started a new label called Rushmore. Fall Out Boy wasn't the best live band. We weren't thrilled [by the showcase]. But the songs were great. We both had to love a band to sign them, so my sister said, 'If you love them so much, let's sign them to Rushmore, not Drive Thru.'

HURLEY: We did a showcase for Richard and Stephanie Reines. They were just kind of like, 'Yeah, we have this side label thing. We'd be interested in having you on that.' I remember them saying they passed on Saves The Day and wished they would have put out Through Being Cool. But then they [basically] passed on us by offering to put us on Rushmore. We realized we could settle for that, but we knew it wasn't the right thing.

RORY FELTON: Kevin Knight had a website, TheScout, which always featured great new bands. I believe he shared the demo with us. I flew out to Chicago. Joe and Patrick picked me up at the airport. I saw them play at a VFW hall, Patrick drank an entire bottle of hot sauce on a dare at dinner, and then we all went to see the movie The Ring. I slept on the couch in their apartment, the one featured on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. Chad [Pearson], my partner, also flew out to meet with the band.

STUMP: It was a weird time to be a band because it was feast or famine. At first, no one wanted us. Then as soon as one label said, 'Maybe we'll give 'em a shot,' suddenly there's a frenzy of phone calls from record labels. We were getting our shirts printed by Victory Records. One day, we went to pick up shirts, and someone came downstairs and said, 'Um, guys? [Owner] Tony [Brummel] wants to see you.' We were like, 'Did we forget to pay an invoice?' He made us an offer on the spot. We said, 'That's awesome, but we need to think about it.' It was one of those 'now or never' kinds of things. I think we had even left the van running. It was that kind of sudden; we were overwhelmed by it.

HURLEY: They told me Tony said something like, 'You can be with the Nike of the record industry or the Keds of the record industry.'

STUMP: We'd get random calls at the apartment. 'Hey, I'm a manager with so-and-so.' I talked to some boy band manager who said, 'We think you'll be a good fit.'

TROHMAN: The idea of a manager was a ‘big-time' thing. I answered a call one day, and this guy is like, 'I'm the manager for the Butthole Surfers, and I'd really like to work with you guys.' I just said, Yeah, I really like the Butthole Surfers, but I'll have to call you back.' And I do love that band. But I just knew that wasn't the right thing.

STUMP: Not all the archetypes you always read about are true. The label guys aren't all out to get you. Some are total douchebags. But then there are a lot who are sweet and genuine. It's the same thing with managers. I really liked the Militia Group. They told us it was poor form to talk to us without a manager. They recommended Bob McLynn.

FELTON: We knew the guys at Crush from working with Acceptance and The Beautiful Mistake. We thought they'd be great for Fall Out Boy, so we sent the music to their team.

STUMP: They said Crush was their favorite management company and gave us their number. Crush's biggest band at the time was American Hi-Fi. Jonathan Daniels, the guy who started the company, sent a manager to see us. The guy was like, "This band sucks!' But Jonathan liked us and thought someone should do something with us. Bob was his youngest rookie manager. He had never managed anyone, and we had never been managed.

BOB MCLYNN: Someone else from my office who isn't with us anymore had seen them, but I hadn't seen them yet. At the time, we'd tried to manage Brand New; they went elsewhere, and I was bummed. Then we got the Fall Out Boy demo, and I was like, Wow. This sounds even better. This guy can really sing, and these songs are great.' I remember going at it hard after that whole thing. Fall Out Boy was my consolation prize. I don't know if they were talking to other managers or not, but Pete and I clicked.

TROHMAN: In addition to being really creative, Pete is really business savvy. We all have a bullshit detector these days, but Pete already had one back then. We met Bob, and we felt like this dude wouldn't fuck us over.

STUMP: We were the misfit toy that nobody else wanted. Bob really believed in us when nobody else did and when nobody believed in him. What's funny is that all the other managers at Crush were gone within a year. It was just Bob and Jonathan, and now they're partners. Bob was the weird New York Hardcore guy who scared me at the time.

TROHMAN: We felt safe with him. He's a big, hulking dude.

MCLYNN: We tried to make a deal with The Militia Group, but they wouldn't back off on a few things in the agreement. I told them those were deal breakers, opening the door to everyone else. I knew this band needed a shot to do bigger and better things.

TROHMAN: He told us not to sign with the label that recommended him to us. We thought there was something very honest about that.

MCLYNN: They paid all their dues. Those guys worked harder than any band I'd ever seen, and I was all about it. I had been in bands before and had just gotten out. I was getting out of the van just as these guys got into one. They busted their asses.

STUMP: A few labels basically said the same thing: they wanted to hear more. They weren't convinced we could write another song as good as 'Dead On Arrival.' I took that as a challenge. We returned to Sean a few months after those initial three songs, this time at Gravity Studios in Chicago. We recorded ‘Grenade Jumper' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy' in a night or two. 'Where is Your Boy' was my, 'Fine, you don't think I can write a fucking song? Here's your hit song, jerks!' But I must have pushed Pete pretty hard [arguing about the songs]. One night, as he and I drove with Joe, Pete said, 'Guys, I don't think I want to do this band anymore.' We talked about it for the rest of the ride home. I didn't want to be in the band in the first place! I was like, 'No! That's not fair! Don't leave me with this band! Don't make me kind of like this band, and then leave it! That's bullshit!' Pete didn't stay at the apartment that night. I called him at his parent's house. I told him I wasn't going to do the band without him. He was like, 'Don't break up your band over it.' I said, 'It's not my band. It's a band that you, Joe, and I started.' He was like, 'OK, I'll stick around.' And he came back with a vengeance.

WENTZ: It was maybe the first time we realized we could do these songs titles that didn't have much do with the song from the outside. Grand Theft Auto was such a big pop culture franchise. If you said the phrase back then, everyone recognized it. The play on words was about someone stealing your time in the fall. It was the earliest experimentation with that so it was a little simplistic compared to the stuff we did later. At the time, we'd tell someone the song title, and they'd say, 'You mean "Auto"'?

JOHN JANICK: I saw their name on fliers and thought it was strange. But I remembered it. Then I saw them on a flyer with one of our bands from Chicago, August Premier. I called them and asked about this band whose name I had seen on a few flyers now. They told me they were good and I should check it out. I heard an early version of a song online and instantly fell in love with it. Drive-Thru, The Militia Group, and a few majors tried to sign them. I was the odd man out. But I knew I wanted them right away.

HURLEY: Fueled By Ramen was co-owned by Vinnie [Fiorello] from Less Than Jake. It wasn't necessarily a band I grew up loving, but I had so much respect for them and what they had done and were doing.

JANICK: I randomly cold-called them at the apartment and spoke to Patrick. He told me I had to talk to Pete. I spoke to Pete later that day. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour. It was crazy. I never flew out there. I just got to know them over the phone.

MCLYNN: There were majors [interested], but I didn't want the band on a major right away. I knew they wouldn't understand the band. Rob Stevenson from Island Records knew all the indie labels were trying to sign Fall Out Boy. We did this first-ever incubator sort of deal. I also didn't want to stay on an indie forever; I felt we needed to develop and have a chance to do bigger and better things, but these indies didn't necessarily have radio staff. It was sort of the perfect scenario. Island gave us money to go on Fueled By Ramen, with whom we did a one-off. No one else would offer a one-off on an indie.

STUMP: They were the smallest of the labels involved, with the least 'gloss.' I said, 'I don't know about this, Pete.' Pete was the one who thought it was the smartest move. He pointed out that we could be a big fish in a small pond. So, we rolled the dice.

HURLEY: It was a one-record deal with Fueled By Ramen. We didn't necessarily get signed to Island, but they had the 'right of first refusal' [for the album following Take This To Your Grave]. It was an awesome deal. It was kind of unheard of, maybe, but there was a bunch of money coming from Island that we didn't have to recoup for promo type of things.

JANICK: The company was so focused on making sure we broke Fall Out Boy; any other label probably wouldn't have had that dedication. Pete and I talked for at least an hour every day. Pete and I became so close, so much so that we started Decaydance. It was his thing, but we ended up signing Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship.

GUTIERREZ: Who could predict Pete would A&R all those bands? There's no Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes without Wentz. He made them into celebrities.

"Turn This Up And I'll Tune You Out" - The Making of Take This To You Grave, 2003

The versions of "Dead on Arrival," "Saturday," and "Homesick at Space Camp" from the first sessions with Andy on drums are what appear on the album. "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy" and "Grenade Jumper" are the demo versions recorded later in Chicago. O'Keefe recorded the music for the rest of the songs at Smart Studios once again. They knocked out the remaining songs in just nine days. Sean and Patrick snuck into Gravity Studios in the middle of the night to track vocals in the dead of winter. Patrick sang those seven songs from two to five in the morning in those sessions.

STUMP: John Janick basically said, ‘I'll buy those five songs and we'll make them part of the album, and here's some money to go record seven more.'

MCLYNN: It was a true indie deal with Fueled by Ramen. I think we got between $15,000 and $18,000 all-in to make the album. The band slept on the studio floor some nights.

STUMP: From a recording standpoint, it was amazing. It was very pro, we had Sean, all this gear, the fun studio accoutrements were there. It was competitive with anything we did afterward. But meanwhile, we're still four broke idiots.

WENTZ: We fibbed to our parents about what we were doing. I was supposed to be in school. I didn't have access to money or a credit card. I don't think any of us did.

STUMP: I don't think we slept anywhere we could shower, which was horrifying. There was a girl that Andy's girlfriend at the time went to school with who let us sleep on her floor, but we'd be there for maybe four hours at a time. It was crazy.

HURLEY: Once, Patrick thought it would be a good idea to spray this citrus bathroom spray under his arms like deodorant. It just destroyed him because it's not made for that. But it was all an awesome adventure.

WENTZ: We were so green we didn't really know how studios worked. Every day there was soda for the band. We asked, 'Could you take that soda money and buy us peanut butter, jelly, and bread?' which they did. I hear that stuff in some ways when I listen to that album.

HURLEY: Sean pushed us. He was such a perfectionist, which was awesome. I felt like, ‘This is what a real professional band does.' It was our first real studio experience.

WENTZ: Seeing the Nirvana Nevermind plaque on the wall was mind-blowing. They showed us the mic that had been used on that album.

HURLEY: The mic that Kurt Cobain used, that was pretty awesome, crazy, legendary, and cool. But we didn't get to use it.

WENTZ: They said only Shirley Manson] from Garbage could use it.

O'KEEFE: Those dudes were all straight edge at the time. It came up in conversation that I had smoked weed once a few months before. That started this joke that I was this huge stoner, which obviously I wasn't. They'd call me 'Scoobie Snacks O'Keefe' and all these things. When they turned in the art for the record, they thanked me with like ten different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe' and stuff like that. The record company made Pete take like seven of them out because they said it was excessively ridiculous.

WENTZ: Sean was very helpful. He worked within the budget and took us more seriously than anyone else other than Patrick. There were no cameras around. There was no documentation. There was nothing to indicate this would be some ‘legendary' session. There are 12 songs on the album because those were all the songs we had. There was no pomp or circumstance or anything to suggest it would be an 'important’ record.

STUMP: Pete and I were starting to carve out our niches. When Pete [re-committed himself to the band], it felt like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to do right. Lyrics were on that list. He wasn't playing around anymore. I wrote the majority of the lyrics up to that point - ‘Saturday,' 'Dead on Arrival,' ‘Where's Your Boy?,’ ‘Grenade Jumper,' and ‘Homesick at Space Camp.' I was an artsy-fartsy dude who didn't want to be in a pop-punk band, so I was going really easy on the lyrics. I wasn't taking them seriously. When I look back on it, I did write some alright stuff. But I wasn't trying. Pete doesn't fuck around like that, and he does not take that kindly. When we returned to the studio, he started picking apart every word, every syllable. He started giving me [notes]. I got so exasperated at one point I was like, ‘You just write the fucking lyrics, dude. Just give me your lyrics, and I'll write around them.' Kind of angrily. So, he did. We hadn't quite figured out how to do it, though. I would write a song, scrap my lyrics, and try to fit his into where mine had been. It was exhausting. It was a rough process. It made both of us unhappy.

MCLYNN: I came from the post-hardcore scene in New York and wasn't a big fan of the pop-punk stuff happening. What struck me with these guys was the phenomenal lyrics and Patrick's insane voice. Many guys in these kinds of bands can sing alright, but Patrick was like a real singer. This guy had soul. He'd take these great lyrics Pete wrote and combine it with that soul, and that's what made their unique sound. They both put their hearts on their sleeves when they wrote together.

STUMP: We had a massive fight over 'Chicago is So Two Years Ago.' I didn't even want to record that song. I was being precious with things that were mine. Part of me thought the band wouldn't work out, and I'd go to college and do some music alone. I had a skeletal version of 'Chicago...'. I was playing it to myself in the lobby of the studio. I didn't know anyone was listening. Sean was walking by and wanted to [introduce it to the others]. I kind of lost my song. I was very precious about it. Pete didn't like some of the lyrics, so we fought. We argued over each word, one at a time. 'Tell That Mick...' was also a pretty big fight. Pete ended up throwing out all my words on that one. That was the first song where he wrote the entire set of lyrics. My only change was light that smoke' instead of ‘cigarette' because I didn't have enough syllables to say 'cigarette.' Everything else was verbatim what he handed to me. I realized I must really want to be in this band at this point if I'm willing to put up with this much fuss. The sound was always more important to me - the rhythm of the words, alliteration, syncopation - was all very exciting. Pete didn't care about any of that. He was all meaning. He didn't care how good the words sounded if they weren't amazing when you read them. Man, did we fight about that. We fought for nine days straight while not sleeping and smelling like shit. It was one long argument, but I think some of the best moments resulted from that.

WENTZ: In 'Calm Before the Storm,' Patrick wrote the line, 'There's a song on the radio that says, 'Let's Get This Party Started' which is a direct reference to Pink's 2001 song 'Get the Party Started.' 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today' is a line from the movie Rushmore. I thought we'd catch a little more flack for that, but even when we played it in Ireland, there was none of that. It's embraced, more like a shoutout.

STUMP: Pete and I met up on a lot of the same pop culture. He was more into '80s stuff than I was. One of the first things we talked about were Wes Anderson movies.

WENTZ: Another thing driving that song title was the knowledge that our fanbase wouldn't necessarily be familiar with Wes Anderson. It could be something that not only inspired us but something fans could also go check out. People don't ask us about that song so much now, but in that era, we'd answer and tell them to go watch Rushmore. You gotta see this movie. This line is a hilarious part of it.' Hopefully some people did. I encountered Jason Schwartzman at a party once. We didn't get to talk about the movie, but he was the sweetest human, and I was just geeking out. He told me he was writing a film with Wes Anderson about a train trip in India. I wanted to know about the writing process. He was like, 'Well, he's in New York City, I'm in LA. It's crazy because I'm on the phone all the time and my ear gets really hot.' That's the anecdote I got, and I loved it.

O'KEEFE: They're totally different people who approach making music from entirely different angles. It's cool to see them work. Pete would want a certain lyric. Patrick was focused on the phrasing. Pete would say the words were stupid and hand Patrick a revision, and Patrick would say I can't sing those the way I need to sing this. They would go through ten revisions for one song. I thought I would lose my mind with both of them, but then they would find it, and it would be fantastic. When they work together, it lights up. It takes on a life of its own. It's not always happy. There's a lot of push and pull, and each is trying to get their thing. With Take This To Your Grave, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy. Those guys were made to do this together.

WENTZ: A lot of the little things weren't a big deal, but those were things that [felt like] major decisions. I didn't want 'Where Is Your Boy' on Take This To Your Grave.

JANICK: I freaked out. I called Bob and said, 'We must put this song on the album! It's one of the biggest songs.' He agreed. We called Pete and talked about it; he was cool about it and heard us out.

WENTZ: I thought many things were humongous, and they just weren't. They didn't matter one way or another.

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The (Album Cover)" - That Photo On Take This To Your Grave, 2003

STUMP: The band was rooted in nostalgia from early on. The '80s references were very much Pete's aesthetic. He had an idea for the cover. It ended up being his girlfriend at the time, face down on the bed, exhausted, in his bedroom. That was his bedroom in our apartment. His room was full of toys, '80s cereals. If we ended up with the Abbey Road cover of pop-punk, that original one was Sgt. Pepper's. But we couldn't legally clear any of the stuff in the photo. Darth Vader, Count Chocula…

WENTZ: There's a bunch of junk in there: a Morrissey poster, I think a Cher poster, Edward Scissorhands. We submitted it to Fueled by Ramen, and they were like, 'We can't clear any of this stuff.’ The original album cover did eventually come out on the vinyl version.

STUMP: The photo that ended up being the cover was simply a promo photo for that album cycle. We had to scramble. I was pushing the Blue Note jazz records feel. That's why the CD looks a bit like vinyl and why our names are listed on the front. I wanted a live photo on the cover. Pete liked the Blue Note idea but didn't like the live photo idea. I also made the fateful decision to have my name listed as 'Stump' rather than Stumph.

WENTZ: What we used was initially supposed to be the back cover. I remember someone in the band being pissed about it forever. Not everyone was into having our names on the cover. It was a strange thing to do at the time. But had the original cover been used, it wouldn't have been as iconic as what we ended up with. It wouldn't have been a conversation piece. That stupid futon in our house was busted in the middle. We're sitting close to each other because the futon was broken. The exposed brick wall was because it was the worst apartment ever. It makes me wonder: How many of these are accidental moments? At the time, there was nothing iconic about it. If we had a bigger budget, we probably would have ended up with a goofier cover that no one would have cared about.

STUMP: One of the things I liked about the cover was that it went along with something Pete had always said. I'm sure people will find this ironic, but Pete had always wanted to create a culture with the band where it was about all four guys and not just one guy. He had the foresight to even think about things like that. I didn't think anyone would give a fuck about our band! At the time, it was The Pete Wentz Band to most people. With that album cover, he was trying to reject that and [demonstrate] that all four of us mattered. A lot of people still don't get that, but whatever. I liked that element of the cover. It felt like a team. It felt like Voltron. It wasn't what I like to call 'the flying V photo' where the singer is squarely in the center, the most important, and everyone else is nearest the camera in order of 'importance.' The drummer would be in the very back. Maybe the DJ guy who scratches records was behind the drummer.

"You Need Him. I Could Be Him. Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" - The Dynamics of Punk Pop's Fab 4, 2003

Patrick seemed like something of the anti-frontman, never hogging the spotlight and often shrinking underneath his baseball hat. Wentz was more talkative, more out front on stage and in interviews, in a way that felt unprecedented for a bass player who wasn't also singing. In some ways, Fall Out Boy operated as a two-headed dictatorship. Wentz and Stump are in the car's front seat while Joe and Andy ride in the back.

STUMP: There is a lot of truth to that. Somebody must be in the front seat, no question. But the analogy doesn't really work for us; were more like a Swiss Army knife. You've got all these different attachments, but they are all part of the same thing. When you need one specific tool, the rest go back into the handle. That was how the band functioned and still does in many ways. Pete didn't want anyone to get screwed. Some things we've done might not have been the best business decision but were the right human decision. That was very much Pete's thing. I was 19 and very reactionary. If someone pissed me off, I'd be like, 'Screw them forever!' But Pete was very tactful. He was the business guy. Joe was active on the internet. He wouldn't stop believing in this band. He was the promotions guy. Andy was an honest instrumentalist: ‘I'm a drummer, and I'm going to be the best fucking drummer I can be.' He is very disciplined. None of us were that way aside from him. I was the dictator in the studio. I didn't know what producing was at the time or how it worked, but in retrospect, I've produced a lot of records because I'm an asshole in the studio. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the nicest guy in the studio. It's a lot easier to know what you don't want. We carved out those roles early. We were very dependent on each other.

MCLYNN: I remember sitting in Japan with those guys. None of them were drinking then, but I was drinking plenty. It was happening there, their first time over, and all the shows were sold out. I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, ‘You're the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.' Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. Because really, they're yin and yang. They fit together so perfectly. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision, Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. Patrick, how he can sing, and what he did with Pete's lyrics - no one else could have done that. We tried it, even with the Black Cards project in 2010. We'd find these vocalists. Pete would write lyrics, and they'd try to form them into songs, but they just couldn't do it the way Patrick could. Pete has notebooks full of stuff that Patrick turns into songs. Not only can he sing like that, but how he turns those into songs is an art unto itself. It's really the combination of those two guys that make Fall Out Boy what it is. They're fortunate they found each other.

"I Could Walk This Fine Line Between Elation And Success. We All Know Which Way I'm Going To Strike The Stake Between My Chest" - Fall Out Boy Hits the Mainstream, 2003

Released on May 6, 2003, Take This To Your Grave massively connected with fans. (Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend arrived in stores less than two months earlier.) While Take This To Your Grave didn't crack the Billboard 200 upon its release, it eventually spent 30 weeks on the charts. From Under the Cork Tree debuted in the Top 10 just two years later, largely on Grave's momentum. 2007's Infinity on High bowed at #1.

WENTZ: I remember noticing it was getting insane when we would do in-stores. We'd still play anywhere. That was our deal. We liked being able to sell our stuff in the stores, too. It would turn into a riot. We played a Hollister at the mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. A lot of these stores were pretty corporate with a lot of rules, but Hollister would let us rip. Our merch guy was wearing board shorts, took this surfboard off the wall, and started crowd-surfing with it during the last song. I remember thinking things had gotten insane right at that moment.

HURLEY: When we toured with Less Than Jake, there were these samplers with two of their songs and two of ours. Giving those out was a surreal moment. To have real promotion for a record... It wasn't just an ad in a 'zine or something. It was awesome.

MCLYNN: They toured with The Reunion Show, Knockout, and Punch-line. One of their first big tours as an opening act was with MEST. There would be sold-out shows with 1,000 kids, and they would be singing along to Fall Out Boy much louder than to MEST. It was like, 'What's going on here?' It was the same deal with Less Than Jake. It really started catching fire months into the album being out. You just knew something was happening. As a headliner, they went from 500-capacity clubs to 1500 - 2000 capacity venues.

WENTZ: We always wanted to play The Metro in Chicago. It got awkward when they started asking us to play after this band or that band. There were bands we grew up with that were now smaller than us. Headlining The Metro was just wild. My parents came.

MCLYNN: There was a week on Warped Tour, and there was some beel because these guys were up-and-comers, and some of the bands that were a little more established weren't too happy. They were getting a little shit on Warped Tour that week, sort of their initiation. They were on this little, shitty stage. So many kids showed up to watch them in Detroit, and the kids rushed the stage, and it collapsed. The PA failed after like three songs. They finished with an acapella, 'Where is Your Boy,’ and the whole crowd sang along.

WENTZ: That's when every show started ending in a riot because it couldn't be contained. We ended up getting banned from a lot of venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. It was pure energy. We'd be billed on tour as the opening band, and the promoter would tell us we had to close the show or else everyone would leave after we played. We were a good band to have that happen to because there wasn't any ego. We were just like, "Oh, that's weird.' It was just bizarre. When my parents saw it was this wid thing, they said, 'OK, yeah, maybe take a year off from college.' That year is still going on.

MCLYNN: That Warped Tour was when the band's first big magazine cover, by far, hit the stands. I give a lot of credit to Norman Wonderly and Mike Shea at Alternative Press. They saw what was happening with Fall Out Boy and were like, 'We know it's early with you guys, but we want to give you a cover.' It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us. It really helped kick it to another level. It helped stoke the fires that were burning. This is back when bands like Green Day, Blink-182, and No Doubt still sold millions of records left and right. It was a leap of faith for AP to step out on Fall Out Boy the way they did.

STUMP: That was our first big cover. It was crazy. My parents flipped out. That wasn't a small zine. It was a magazine my mom could find in a bookstore and tell her friends. It was a shocking time. It's still like that. Once the surrealism starts, it never ends. I was onstage with Taylor Swift ten years later. That statement just sounds insane. It's fucking crazy. But when I was onstage, I just fell into it. I wasn't thinking about how crazy it was until afterward. It was the same thing with the AP cover. We were so busy that it was just another one of those things we were doing that day. When we left, I was like, 'Holy fuck! We're on the cover of a magazine! One that I read! I have a subscription to that!'

HURLEY: Getting an 'In The Studio' blurb was a big deal. I remember seeing bands 'in the studio' and thinking, Man, I would love to be in that and have people care that we're in the studio.' There were more minor things, but that was our first big cover.

STUMP: One thing I remember about the photo shoot is I was asked to take off my hat. I was forced to take it off and had been wearing that hat for a while. I never wanted to be the lead singer. I always hoped to be a second guitarist with a backup singer role. I lobbied to find someone else to be the proper singer. But here I was, being the lead singer, and I fucking hated it. When I was a drummer, I was always behind something. Somehow the hat thing started. Pete gave me a hat instead of throwing it away - I think it's the one I'm wearing on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. It became like my Linus blanket. I had my hat, and I could permanently hide. You couldn't see my eyes or much of me, and I was very comfortable that way. The AP cover shoot was the first time someone asked me to remove it. My mom has a poster of that cover in her house, and every time I see it, I see the fear on my face - just trying to maintain composure while filled with terror and insecurity. ‘Why is there a camera on me?'

JANICK: We pounded the pavement every week for two years. We believed early on that something great was going to happen. As we moved to 100,000 and 200,000 albums, there were points where everything was tipping. When they were on the cover of Alternative Press. When they did Warped for five days, and the stage collapsed. We went into Christmas with the band selling 2000 to 3000 a week and in the listening stations at Hot Topic. Fueled By Ramen had never had anything like that before.

MOSTOFI: Pete and I used to joke that if he weren't straight edge, he would have likely been sent to prison or worse at some point before Fall Out Boy. Pete has a predisposition to addictive behavior and chemical dependency. This is something we talked about a lot back in the day. Straight Edge helped him avoid some of the traps of adolescence.

WENTZ: I was straight edge at the time. I don't think our band would have been so successful without that. The bands we were touring with were partying like crazy. Straight Edge helped solidify the relationship between the four of us. We were playing for the love of music, not for partying or girls or stuff like that. We liked being little maniacs running around. Hurley and I were kind of the younger brothers of the hardcore kids we were in bands with. This was an attempt to get out of that shadow a little bit. Nobody is going to compare this band to Racetraitor. You know when you don't want to do exactly what your dad or older brother does? There was a little bit of that.

"Take This To Your Grave, And I'll Take It To Mine" - The Legacy of Take This To Your Grave, 2003-2023

Take This To Your Grave represents a time before the paparazzi followed Wentz to Starbucks, before marriages and children, Disney soundtracks, and all the highs and lows of an illustrious career. The album altered the course for everyone involved with its creation. Crush Music added Miley Cyrus, Green Day, and Weezer to their roster. Fueled By Ramen signed Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, A Day To Remember, and All Time Low.

STUMP: I'm so proud of Take This To Your Grave. I had no idea how much people were going to react to it. I didn't know Fall Out Boy was that good of a band. We were this shitty post-hardcore band that decided to do a bunch of pop-punk before I went to college, and Pete went back to opening for Hatebreed. That was the plan. Somehow this record happened. To explain to people now how beautiful and accidental that record was is difficult. It seems like it had to have been planned, but no, we were that shitty band that opened for 25 Ta Life.

HURLEY: We wanted to make a record as perfect as Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. A front-to-back perfect collection of songs. That was our obsession with Take This To Your Grave. We were just trying to make a record that could be compared in any way to that record. There's just something special about when the four of us came together.

WENTZ: It blows my mind when I hear people talking about Take This To Your Grave or see people including it on lists because it was just this tiny personal thing. It was very barebones. That was all we had, and we gave everything we had to it. Maybe that's how these big iconic bands feel about those records, too. Perhaps that's how James Hetfield feels when we talk about Kill 'Em All. That album was probably the last moment many people had of having us as their band that their little brother didn't know about. I have those feelings about certain bands, too. 'This band was mine. That was the last time I could talk about them at school without anyone knowing who the fuck I was talking about.' That was the case with Take This To Your Grave.

TROHMAN: Before Save Rock N' Roll, there was a rumor that we would come back with one new song and then do a Take This To Your Grave tenth-anniversary tour. But we weren't going to do what people thought we would do. We weren't going to [wear out] our old material by just returning from the hiatus with a Take This To Your Grave tour.

WENTZ: We've been asked why we haven't done a Take This To Your Grave tour. In some ways, it's more respectful not to do that. It would feel like we were taking advantage of where that record sits, what it means to people and us.

HURLEY: When Metallica released Death Magnetic, I loved the record, but I feel like Load and Reload were better in a way, because you knew that's what they wanted to do.

TROHMAN: Some people want us to make Grave again, but I'm not 17. It would be hard to do something like that without it being contrived. Were proud of those songs. We know that’s where we came from. We know the album is an important part of our history.

STUMP: There's always going to be a Take This To Your Grave purist fan who wants that forever: But no matter what we do, we cannot give you 2003. It'll never happen again. I know the feeling, because I've lived it with my favorite bands, too. But there's a whole other chunk of our fans who have grown with us and followed this journey we're on. We were this happy accident that somehow came together. It’s tempting to plagarize yourself. But it’s way more satisfying and exciting to surprise yourself.

MCILRITH: Fall Out Boy is an important band for so many reasons. I know people don't expect the singer of Rise Against to say that, but they really are. If nothing else, they created so much dialog and conversation within not just a scene but an international scene. They were smart. They got accused of being this kiddie pop punk band, but they did smart things with their success. I say that, especially as a guy who grew up playing in the same Chicago hardcore bands that would go on and confront be-ing a part of mainstream music. Mainstream music and the mainstream world are machines that can chew your band up if you don't have your head on straight when you get into it. It's a fast-moving river, and you need to know what direction you're going in before you get into it. If you don't and you hesitate, it'll take you for a ride. Knowing those guys, they went into it with a really good idea. That's something that the hardcore instilled in all of us. Knowing where you stand on those things, we cut our teeth on the hardcore scene, and it made us ready for anything that the world could throw at us, including the giant music industry.

[centrally-unplanned]

In news from a different world, last December J-pop idol Miho Nakayama passed away, quite shockingly so at the age of 54. I have no connection to her music or acting, but of course I do appreciate her role in the very early history of video game development and dating sims via the 1987 Famicom game Nakayama Miho no Tokimeki High School, which I have discussed before. I decided to play the game "in memoriam", as it were - it does in fact have an English patch, and you can see a playthrough of said patch on YouTube here. It was time to experience my very own 80's high school idol love story <3.

To the surprise of no one, this game sucks. It essentially had to, no real fault on the developers, but that doesn't change the facts. It is working with incredibly limited graphical capabilities of course, with the average scene looking like this:

Which just isn’t enough for “ambiance” immersion to work, every setting is generic by definition. That can of course be saved by a good plot or gameplay, but neither shows up here; there is barely any story to speak of. Main Guy goes to new school, meets “Mizuho”, realizes she is secretly pop idol Miho trying to live a normal life, they start dating, and paparazzi-types and the pressures of her career get in the way such that eventually (based on your route progression) she breaks up with you or you stay a couple and ride off into the sunset together. Literally by the way, a friend loans you a motorcycle so you can escape the press:

You might be saying “surely you are skipping some things” but I assure you it is nothing important. Neither Miho nor the main character have any personality to speak of, and your time is filled generally by comedic hijinks or just the mechanics of progressing the relationship. There is a fat-faced friend who gossips about school, you have a family that ~exists, there is a stuck-up rich girl you speak to about twice before she kidnaps you in order to serve you drugged food so you will date her (as was typical for 1980’s courtship norms) which happens solely to make you late for a date with Miho to create drama, and so on - it is all as tiresome as it is irrelevant. You can even poke your head into the girl’s locker room at some point, the crown jewel of filler content:

This isn’t even arcade-cabinet-strip-mahjong levels of hot, I know video games of the era could do better than this! Though for all the extraneous plot beats and side characters, I did like “The Trio”, a group of cackling girls who follow you around like a Greek chorus taunting you for your desires:

In another game these fey spirits would devour your organs at the right moment, mad respect. 

Anyway, all of this plot filler is used to stretch out the non-story but in that task it gets a helping hand from the game mechanics, which are a classic example of arbitrary progression gatekeeping. Half the dialogue options are just variants of the same core emotion, and the right answer is inscrutable. You get moments like this one, where Miho is apologizing to you for a misunderstanding:

And all of these answers are pretty dismissive? But the right answer is A, the meanest of them! Guess she has a type, but since you as a player haven’t negotiated her safe words yet you don’t know that and are just gonna facecheck your way through these.

As the cherry on top the advertised “facial expression” system is actually a letdown - it is very rarely used, most dialogue options don’t ask for it, and when they do you have six options:

But you actually never use half of these, and 90% of the time the correct answer is “normal”. At least this was bad in a “too easy” way, so it doesn’t waste your time, but you could just remove it as a mechanic and miss nothing. All of the “interactive” elements could be replaced by linear narrative, actually, and nothing would be lost.

Besides the competitive media mix aspects of the game, obviously. Which is what it is all about, right? This ain’t some random 8-bit idol, this is Miho Nakayama! And even in-game she is pretty cute, I do like the design for the close-up convos:

The glasses-for-disguise are nice with her moe eyes, the details of the shading really pop in an 8-bit context, and really the whole framework of the UI as this sort of flip picture book is adding value here (as opposed to being irrelevant in the location shots). They even give her a bunch of different outfits on your dates because as the heroine she deserves it:

“Ash, those first two are literally just palette swaps” “No man, look, the red one is using dithering to create a fade effect on the colors, implying a more complicated pattern like plaid thatching, while the blue one uses bold lines to imply a striped coat”. It was impressive in 1987, alright! This girl has no textual personality but there is life in this design that stands out from its peers.

But of course it isn’t the in-game graphics doing the heavy lifting here. As mentioned before, this was a “Telephone Game”, where players would be prompted at times to call phone numbers Nintendo had rented out to hear voicemails Nakayama had recorded. These voicemails are, to the best I can tell, lost to us - I have not found an existing recording online. They were only up briefly actually, for a few months after the game was released - this was not an era where longevity for games was considered important. We do have transcripts of them though, and I can imagine that picking up your house phone, calling a phone number, and getting the actual voice of the “character” in the game talking to you - making your heart go doki doki if you will - must have been pretty cool.

(Miho even travels throughout the game, and the phone numbers - according to this blogger - actually use location-appropriate area codes so it feels like you are really calling Osaka or Hokkaido! Very cool…unless - according to another blogger - you got hit with long distance calling charges for your pursuit of troubled love, as was reported in the media at the time. Now that’s authenticity?)

This mechanic is essentially a ludomantic experience that is impossible to capture today, because voice acting in video games is incredibly common; so much so that it would come off as gimmicky to make someone go through such a multi-device process. But since the Famicom couldn’t make vocal sounds, it had to make you use your phone, which created the simulacrum of actually calling a real human outside of the game to talk to. That is pretty neat!

As mentioned, the media mix came bundled with a competition - the winners were the first 16,000 players to submit a “Best Ending” record via the barely-used Famicom Disk Fax system. As helpfully explained in the instruction manual alongside photos of the IRL Nakayama:

And the big prize of a VHS tape of behind-the-scenes Nakayama stuff has been preserved, and is easily available if you want to watch it. Don’t though, it isn’t worth it; it is primarily b-roll footage of her doing typical day-to-day tasks and softball interview questions about “what is her type” with generic answers, stuff like that. Solid C- for the genre. But still, you didn’t know that when competing, right? The pressure to get your game file in was fierce.

I mentioned how the game essentially “had to be bad” at the start, and I want to dig into why that is. In my initial post I linked, I actually made a false statement - I said the development time for the game was “2 weeks”. I said that because the game’s Wikipedia page in English says it and so it is common trivia on the net, but I don’t think that it is true. Even when I typed it in that original post, the back of my mind was going “wait, that can’t be literally true, it is very hard to make a game that fast in that era - these guys are coding in Assembly!”, but I sort of hand-waived it away as, oh something like they were harvesting an existing game prototype or somesuch. But I believe this fact comes from a mistranslation of interviews like this one:

岩田: 坂口さんは『ファイナルファンタジー』の開発を終えて、『トキメキハイスクール』に合流されたんですか？ 坂口: ええ。チームの何名かが合流して、３カ月間くらいでしょうか。で、最後は１０名くらいのメンバーといっしょに京都にやって来て、２週間くらいカンヅメになって、なんとか開発を終えることができたんです。

Or:

Iwata: Sakaguchi, did you join the "Tokimeki High School" project after finishing development on "Final Fantasy"? Sakaguchi: Yes, that’s right. Several team members joined the project for about 3 months, I think. And then near the end of development, about 10 of us came down to Kyoto and we holed up for around 2 weeks until we somehow managed to finish the game.

So what is going on here is the game’s development was a joint production between Nintendo - in Kyoto at this time - and up-and-coming game company Square in Tokyo. And yes, they were literally working on Final Fantasy right before this game, and switched gears to tackle this new project. Or at least some of them did, for 3 months, and then famed-director-of-Final-Fantasy Sakaguchi came down to Kyoto and lived out of a hotel for two weeks doing crunch to finish it off. That fact, probably because Sakaguchi is the famous person reporters would care about, got transformed into the idea that the whole game took 2 weeks to make. 

In this same interview they talk about how, at the end of that crunch, they all went out for drinks to celebrate…until they got a phone call about how the motorcycle in the ending credits is glitching out and flying off the screen, which they thought was a hilarious, beautifully fitting bug for their time together. And that is hilarious, the primary reason I am recounting it, but I also think it goes to show that this was a hot mess of a game dev process. 2 weeks or ~3 months, both of those are not enough time. And with two companies in different cities, doing crunch out of a hotel, wrangling with a record label for a pop idol’s permission, setting up phone line recordings and VHS tapes and a bonus competition using experimental fax machines, all aligned with a media blitz? All for a game genre that honestly hadn’t been done before? I have checked, and you can authentically argue this is the first ever dating sim, at least on a console. People overstate what it is inventing - it is pulling tropes from romance anime and manga, of course - but even that process of transference is tough. This wasn’t a genre yet, and in a way they weren’t even trying to make a dating sim. They were trying to make an event.

One that today you just can’t experience. Very few people care about Nakayama Miho “like that” anymore, we aren’t seeing the commercials or the magazine ads or buying the discount unofficial strategy guide that invented a fake protagonist and never used Miho’s name because they didn’t have the rights. Today you play the game just because it is a game, and when you hit the phone numbers you tab over to a transcript of the voicemails…or maybe don’t even bother. The game was just a vessel for the hype. That doesn’t make the game good, by the way, I don’t want to go that far. The game was a not-very-good vessel for the hype, and an anachronistically better team could have made a better game. It isn’t really worth playing, in the end. But it is worth researching! As an event, it is really cool. As a piece of history, it is probably unique. And I respect the team behind it for that.

[polysucks]

What’s ur take on Elia/Lyanna

call me robert the way i hate rhaegar targaryen

let's talk about the romanticized martyrdom of these beautiful brown women and the tragedy that is the narrative they are forced to haunt.

Mourned, But Never Saved: How We Failed Elia and Lyanna

Word count: 1651 Time to read: 9 - 15 mins No major CWs except for my opinions, which are classified by the SCP Foundation as optic hazards

In literature, media, and even real-life tragedies, there is an obsession with The Perfect Victim—the young, beautiful, tragic woman whose suffering is romanticized, whose fate is mourned but never queried. She is consecrated in death, turned into an emblem of loss rather than a person with wants, needs, and a right to legacy of her own. It is easier to weep for her than to hold the men who destroyed her accountable.

It is easier to say, how sad, than to say, who did this?

Who let this happen?

Who benefited from it?

This phenomenon is not unique to Elia Martell and Lyanna Stark.

It is everywhere. We see it in the way murder victims—especially young, beautiful women—are transformed into icons of sorrow, their faces plastered across documentaries and true crime podcasts, their lives reduced to cautionary tales or poetic misfortunes for profit of more men who are so far removed from the tragedy they can justify the commodification. We see it in the way literature often treats female suffering as tragic inevitability, a necessary sacrifice to elevate the story of a male protagonist. And we see it in how Westerosi history records women like Elia and Lyanna—not as figures in their own right, but as the lost wives and lovers of great men.

There is a reason the world (and us, the fandom. myself included. I love a good Lyanna deification) linger on their beauty, their youth, their tragic ends, but not their anger.

Not their suffering.

Not their humanity.

The waif aesthetic that dominates social media—the fetishization of frailty, of doomed beauty—allows women like Elia and Lyanna to be preserved in glass (Metaphorically, but Lyanna is literally encased in stone), as if they were expected to die young the whole time, as if their stories had no other possible ending. It allows them to be stripped of their voices, reduced to passive, inevitable victims to their gender, and therefore circumstances, while the men who led them to their deaths remains shrouded in legendary calamity.

Rhaegar was a dreamer. Rhaegar was burdened by prophecy. Rhaegar was torn between love and duty. Excuses.

These justifications place his choices above their suffering, making their deaths seem like collateral damage in his grand narrative. Reduced to pitstops on the journey that is Rhaegar’s lamentable fate.

Their suffering is seen as a necessary part of his legend. Their deaths serve his myth.

Elia’s murder is not seen as an act of racialized violence against a Dornish woman and her mixed-race children, but as a tragic consequence of Rhaegar’s failure. Lyanna’s death is not treated as the cost of her own choices—whatever choices she may have made, but as the romantic conclusion to an ill-fated love story. They are not given full stories of their own. Their deaths are simply moments in his.

This is the same blindness that allows figures like Humbert Humbert in Lolita to frame themselves as misunderstood lovers rather than predators to the untrained eyes, and pseudo-critical thinker. Just as Humbert tells the story of Dolores Haze through his own selfish, delusional lens—robbing her of her voice, her autonomy, her anger, her right to be seen as more than his obsession—so too does Westerosi history rob Elia and Lyanna of their full truths. We mourn them, but only as beautiful ghosts, not as women who deserved better.

But Elia Martell was not just a forsaken wife. She was a Dornish princess with pride in her homeland, a mother, a woman who fought for the survival of her children. And Lyanna Stark was not a stolen maiden. She was a Northern girl with a wolf’s heart, with confidence, with autonomy, a woman who knew what she wanted, even if the world refused to let her have it.

To mourn them without condemning him is to continue the same cycle that destroyed them. It is to let them remain frozen in time, tragic saints of Rhaegar’s doomed love story, rather than women whose lives were stolen by a man’s choices.

We cannot allow them to become hollowed-out saints of tragedy, their stories reduced to romantic footnotes in the Targaryen legacy. They were not just victims. They were women. And they deserved more.

The Women Rhaegar Targaryen Left Behind: The Perfect Victims of a Flawed Legacy

Elia Martell: A Princess, A Mother, A Betrayed Woman

Elia Martell was a Dornish princess, born in a land where women had more agency and political power than most of Westeros. In Dorne, daughters can inherit titles, rule in their own right, and are not cast aside for the crime of being born female. Though, even in this progressive culture, Elia was still used as a political pawn. Under the weight of political pressure on her homeland, she was married off not as an equal partner, but as a tool to serve the Targaryen dynasty—her body reduced to a vessel meant to bridge two kingdoms in subservience, not unity.

Unlike most Westerosi noblewomen, Elia likely grew up learning court intrigue, family honor, and the weight of responsibility alongside her brother Oberyn. She was not a sheltered damsel but a woman of sharp mind and fierce spirit—something we see reflected in Oberyn’s devotion to her memory. He does not recall her as fragile or passive but as someone who deserved better, someone whose suffering should not be forgotten.

When Oberyn confronted Gregor Clegane in King’s Landing, he demanded that Gregor say her name. Not Rhaegar’s. Not Aerys’. Elia’s. He refused to let her become just another nameless casualty of the Targaryen downfall. He forced her murderer to acknowledge that she was more than Rhaegar’s discarded wife—that she was a woman, a mother, a sister. That she mattered.

Yet history continues to erase her. The common narrative reduces Elia to a tragic mistake in Rhaegar’s story, the wrong wife he had to cast aside to fulfill his grand destiny. But Elia was not the wrong wife. She was the right wife—for herself, for her children, and for her people. It was Rhaegar who failed her, not the other way around.

Lyanna Stark: A Wolf, Not a Maiden

Lyanna Stark exists in the public consciousness as a ghost of two extremes: either a helpless girl stolen away against her will or a reckless romantic who doomed herself and thousands of others for love. But neither of these simplifications capture the full truth of who she was.

Ned remembers Lyanna as fierce and willful, a girl with a warrior’s spirit, more like Arya than Sansa. He openly wonders if she would have carried a sword if their father had allowed it. She was not passive, not delicate—she was a Stark through and through, wild-hearted and strong.

She was also perceptive. She saw through Robert Baratheon’s romanticized view of her and understood that he would never be faithful. She knew what kind of life awaited her as Robert’s queen, and she wanted no part of it.

At Harrenhal, she was not just Rhaegar’s great love—she was a girl who made an impact on those around her. She was remembered for her boldness, for her defiance of traditional expectations. If she was, as many believe, the Knight of the Laughing Tree, then she was not some lovestruck maiden swept away by fate—she was a protector, a rebel, someone who took action in the face of injustice. And that act had nothing to do with Rhaegar.

Even in death, her final words to Ned—Promise me, Ned—were not about Rhaegar. She was not mourning her lost love. She was not asking Ned to preserve Rhaegar’s dream. She was thinking of her son, of the next generation, of ensuring his survival. Her last act was not about romance—it was about family, about duty, about love in the way only a Stark would understand it.

And just as her own agency is stripped from her, so too is her son’s identity. Jon Snow is often defined entirely by his Targaryen heritage, despite the fact that Lyanna fought to ensure he would not be a pawn of House Targaryen. She did not die for Rhaegar’s prophecy—she died whilst ensuring her child lived outside of it.

The stories of Elia Martell and Lyanna Stark are not just footnotes in the legend of Rhaegar Targaryen. They are not sacrifices for prophecy, not symbols of doomed romance, not mere casualties of a tragic war. They were women with agency, with convictions, with love for their families that transcended the narrative they are forced to haunt. To remember them only as victims is to betray them all over again—to strip them of the depth and defiance that made them who they were. If their suffering is to mean anything, it must be seen for what it truly was: not a poetic tragedy, but an injustice. Not a love story, but a loss. And not a justification for Rhaegar’s actions, but an indictment of them. We do not honor them by mourning their deaths—we honor them by remembering their lives.

But history, both fictional and real, loves to turn women like them into saints of sorrow—The Perfect Victims. The world mourns them but does not seek justice for them. It remembers their beauty, their tragedy, but not their anger. It allows their suffering to be poeticized, aestheticized, while the men who doomed them remain enigmatic, misunderstood figures.

But Elia Martell was not misunderstood. She was betrayed.

Lyanna Stark was not a tragic mystery. She was a woman who acted.

And that is how they deserve to be remembered.

[di-42]

September's Scrumptious Fictions

Another month where I wish I could have read more fictions! But definitely some gems in the ones I did read, among which a couple of stories that touched me at a very a deep level, and I'm so, so glad I read them!

As usual I will tag the writers whose Tumblr usernames i know, so they can know they bring joy to their readers. Hope you enjoy these lovely stories as much as i did! If you do, please, please, please, let the writers know!

WIPs:

Wavelengths & Frequencies by @shadesofecclescakes and imposterssyndrome @maaikeatthefullmoon (Rated E, chapters 9/?)

If you feel like you're going through one of those phases where you need to curl up on a sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and something good to read, something safe and reassuring, then this fantastic fiction is for you. It's a human AU enemies-to-lovers fiction where Aziraphale and Crowley can't stand each other, but work for the same media corporation as radio DJs and have to attend charity events together. The characterisation is spot on and the humour great. And what an incredible soundtrack! I honestly can't tell you how happy each notification of a new chapter of this story makes me!

You're The Bad Guys by Nebz_AlphaCentauri @alphacentaurinebula (Rated E, chapters 12/?)

Cold War human AUs in which Aziraphale is an MI6 agent ans Crowley a KGB agent. They get assigned to the same mission in Berlin in 1981. They're on opposite sides. Great characterisation and suspense! And great nods to canon!

Love Lost Is Sweeter When It's Finally Found... by Hopeless_old_romantic_67 (Rated E, chapters 13/?)

After the Second Coming has been averted God allows Crowley and Aziraphale to live as humans for as many loves as they want, but with no memory of who they really are. Welcome to a Quantum Leap-y fiction, inspired by the video Past Loves by Børns. Unlike me, most of you will probably get all the names refernces!

My own WIP And I Did (Rated E, chapters 9/14)

Post season two fiction featuring Supreme Archangel Aziraphale and Grand Duke of Hell Crowley. Satan tasks Crowley with leading Hell to the End of the World. God tasks Aziraphale with leading Heaven to the End of the World. They both have made their choice and they were never going to make a different one.

Complete works:

Wrong Turn by anticyclone, D20Owlbear (Rated Teen, 37,565 words)

Honestly, I don't know why this fiction touched me so much. I just couldn't stop thinking about it for days after I finished it. It's a post season 1 fiction where Crowley suddenly finds himself in a parallel universe at the time the apocalypse is just about to happen. The Crowley and Aziraphale in that universe have a different history to our Crowley and Aziraphale. All our Crowley wants to do is to go back to his universe and his very own angel, but how? As you follow the main plot and focus on Crowley's thoughts and actions, you'll start slowly feeling the other story get hold of you, and it won't let go until the very end and beyond.

Happiness, More Or Less by mllekurtz (TheKnittingJedi) (Rated M, 21,445 words)

If you read only one story out of this list, make it this one. This human AU moved me so very much I cried. Crowley moves into his new flat in Soho, only to discover the flat in haunted by the ghost of the owner of the bookshop downstairs. I won't tell anything else about the plot other than it does have a very sweet happy ending, and it gets there via a rollercoaster of emotions. This is really one of those fictions that leave me in awe of the fandom's talent and creativity. Read it, read it, read it!

Time Marches Forward by @bellisima-writes (Rated M, 129,182 words)

Post season two story with an incredible plot! This story has multiple POVs, including Adam's, who's one of the main characters, and rightly so! Aziraphale is in heaven as supreme archangel, while on earth Adam and Crowley form a very strong bond. We follow their journey in the two years between the end of season two and the second coming. Lots of angst with a very happy ending!

One Shots:

Accidental Sleepover by MetalMiez (Rated Teen, 11,525 words)

Set after season one, this fiction is a sweet account of how Crowley and Aziraphale get to confess their feelings to each other. There are references to season two, but in this what-if universe it never happened.

We Keep Love In A Photograph by @itsscottiesstark (Rated G, 2,066 words)

A very sweet and credible account of what might have happened next on that night in 1941, and what Aziraphale and Crowley's thoughts might have been.

One Perfect Day by PirateFanatic (Rated Teen, 4,821 words)

Canon universe story where Crowley and Aziraphale are safe. In fact, they are about to go to a wedding. As Aziraphale dresses up, Crowley moans that he doesn't want to go, but Aziraphale doesn't give him a choice. And, in the words of the writer, with good reason.

The Bentley And The Pumpkin by graywings @smua70 (Rated G, 1,559 words)

Such an incredibly sweet and fun story, told in the Bentley's POV! The poor car was feeling lonely there in the South Downs, away from the hustle and bustle of London. But not to worry, she'll have her happy ending!

August's list here.

October's list here.

[karmacharmeleon18]

I love your analysis. What's your prediction for Jean in TSC3?

There are so many things I want to happen and have deluded myself will happen that at this point I cannot be objective and try to predict what could realistically happen 😂

(be warned that this once again turned into a massive, nonsensical yapping session and I'm sorry if it's not what you were looking for 😓)

Let's focus on the most realistic thing, the thing that makes the most sense and that will disappoint the entire fandom if it doesn’t happen:

the Trojans win the Championship

It has to happen. But how?

I don’t believe the final will be against the Foxes, but against Penn State, the team most similar to the Ravens for playing style, cheap shots, ruthless violence, etc..

The Trojans - Jean - winning against a team that conducts itself exactly like the Ravens is the final confirmation he needs that he and Jeremy and the Trojans are doing something right, something good

The Foxes have a bunch of unruly freshmen to deal with, a lot of internal conflict because of them, and Neil and Andrew will be out of commission for months, possibly. If Kevin’s history with the Foxes has taught us anything, it’s that the Queen is not enough to carry an entire team, especially a divided team. The Foxes have lost the delicate balance they had achieved in TKM, and as a consequence they won’t win the whole thing this year, or even make it to the final. And that’s ok. That’s realistic. The Foxes have defied all odds in their own story, but this isn’t their story anymore

Maybe they will make it to the semi-finals? And face the Trojans then

Which brings me to the second most realistic thing that could happen: Foxes vs Trojans

The match has to happen, right? We’re all expecting it. We all want it so badly. And it makes sense story-wise to have a confrontation between Jean, Neil, Kevin, Renee. For Jean to see Waymack again

Now here’s where the more abstract predictions begin, what I want to happen but don’t exactly expect to happen, and haven't worked out the details too much, you know?

During the game I want to see Jean throw Kevin off his feet with a single hand and Kevin being shocked, bewildered, because he has never played against a non-injured Jean and Jean doesn't know how to fight me and yet I'm on the floor and I'm looking up at him what the fuck

I want Jean to offer Kevin his hand and help him up, and Kevin to nod at Jean because that's what I've been talking about all these years, Moreau, and Jean to not care and say Have a winning day, and maybe that's the only type of closure we'll ever get between them

I want to see Kevin finally humbled by the narrative, but I'm not delusional enough to count on it

Kevin will never truly realize what he did to Jean, what he keeps doing to Jean and to everyone around him, he will just take the credit for the formidable player Jean has become, Kevin Day, ever the media Exy hero, and at this point we have to accept that he'll never be held accountable for his past betrayals and continuous mistakes and horrible behavior towards everyone

I want Jean to never have to see him again unless it's on the court

I want Waymack to put a hand on Jean's shoulder and squeeze, because you made it, kid, and Jean not flinching but relishing in the contact, in the praise, in the pride he can see in David's eyes

And game aside, this is what I want:

I want Jean to smile, laugh, be happy, be free

I want the Moriyamas to get hit so hard by the crash of 2007/8 that they all off themselves LMAO PLEASE NORA PLEASE

I want the FBI to, against all odds, find Elodie alive so she and Jean can be free together

These children who spent their whole lives in a cage

(and if not alive, I want them to find her full stop, and give Jean a place where he can go talk to her and grieve; resting places/cemeteries are for the living, not the dead)

I want to see the trial and I want Jean unafraid in front of his parents, his fear replaced by rightful anger

I want him to be furious

If not all the Moriyamas, I want at least Ichirou to die, get killed by someone that wants to take his place

I want to see what role Tetsuji still has to play, because it makes no sense for Ichirou to let him live after all the scandals and stains he caused to the family name, so the only reason is plot armor because Nora needs him alive for something and maybe that something is Ichirou's fall

I want to see the French tutor from Marseille and what role they have to play, if maybe they're connected to Jean's past (if maybe they're Elodie, because this is the delusional section of the post and everything is allowed)

I want Jeremy to spiral, to rely on Jean like the only rock solid certainty he has in a sea of chaos, because Laila and Cat love him but they cannot deal with his trauma the same way Jean can, like a wall that will never crumble under the weight of Jeremy and his perceived "sins"

I want him to get in a minor car crash because he's sleep deprived and become Jean's passenger princess

I want his mother to let him sleep at the Lofts more often after that, out of convenience, to be closer to campus, get more sleep and not risk another crash (because that would be bad for the family’s reputation)

I do not want him to fall into the spiral of drugs again, because Nora seems to think that a few weeks of rehab (Andrew, past Jeremy) or even just a few days of forced abstinence (Aaron) are all it takes to get over an addiction and be fine until the next mishap, and that's not realistic, I don't want to see that

So maybe I want to see Jeremy get drunk, like utterly trashed, and see the disappointment on Laila, Cat and Jean's faces (disappointed not because Jeremy is above being a common drunk, but because Jeremy, you deserve better than this) and him never, ever wanting to drink again and see those looks again

But let's not forget that Jeremy already, currently has an addiction: the casual sex that he uses as a way to self-harm, to repent, because at least while he has sex he is useful and can stop thinking, and sometimes things go wrong and he gets chocked and scared and afterwards he suffers and that’s good, that’s the point, that’s what I deserve

It's common for people with an addictive personality to substitute one addiction for another, and that's exactly what Jeremy did: from alcohol&drugs to self harming through sex with men that very openly don't give a damn about his well-being

I want things to go awry with one of his hookups (not assault Nora please I know you’re obsessed with it but please spare Jeremy and us and don’t do that)

I want him to suddenly realize you know what, I’m not in the mood, actually but when he tries to leave the other man throws a fit and Jeremy realizes just in how much danger he actually is any time he meets up with guys like him

I want that to be the alarm bell, he could dismiss being choked by he can't dismiss this

I want him to stand face to face with a man treating him like shit and all Jeremy can see is Jean's kind eyes and all he can think of is he would never treat me like this

I want to see him get over his addiction, or at least begin to

I want to see Bryson overdose and end up in hospital and rehab, breaking the spell he has on their parents

I want to see the mask of the "perfect son and heir" be torn from his face and burned in the fire of public scandal

I want Jeremy to punch him in the face

(Nora alluded to some horrible history between them, about how Bryson always knew how to “put Jeremy in his place”, and we can see it in the way Jeremy freezes when he's near, in the way he sneaks around to avoid him when he’s at his mother’s house; it could be just the drugs, or maybe physical violence, but knowing Nora it could be something even more horrible like CSA and please Nora no)

(and I wonder if this past of violence had anything to do with Noah's depression too, if Bryson tormented him first)

I want Jeremy to fight back because he finally understands that he deserves better than this family, this guilt, this cage

(Jeremy and Jean are so, so similar it's painful)

I want vindication

I want to see Jean stand face to face, eye to eye with Tetsuji and not bow his head because you failed, you piece of shit, you tried to break me but I endured and in the end I prevailed

I want Jean to heal, on his own terms, at his own pace, and get to choose for himself what he wants to do with his life

Right now he must go pro, but maybe that can change, if Ichirou dies, and he'll have a whole year at USC after the book is over to figure out what he wants and decide for himself

Or maybe he'll go pro no matter what, with Jeremy, Laila and Cat, on the same Los Angeles team because none of them wants to leave LA

And Jeremy will be finally free of his family and he will choose Jean and Exy the same way Jean will always choose him

I want to see Jean be at USC with just Cat, after Jeremy and Laila have graduated, going to class on his own, hanging out with the floozies, practicing with the Trojans, and coming home to a beaming Jeremy waiting for him to eat dinner together or take him out on a date

I want to see the four of them living together, actually living together, in their own home, with two master bedrooms, a guest bedroom for the floozies, a nice kitchen for Cat and Jean, a garage for their bikes, a big garden for Jab and Jean that Rhemann will help him set up so Jean can grow his own fruit and vegetables and a peach tree

(and blackberries, when he's ready)

I want Rhemann and Adi and Jean to become family, truly the fathers he never had

And in the future, if Jean and Jeremy ever adopt or foster or whatever, I want grandpa James and grandpa Adi

I want aunt Laila and aunt Cat

(I want aunt Elodie)

I want Jean and Jeremy to live the life they deserve, where love is the only rule

But how much of this is just what I want, and how much is what could realistically happen? I don't know.

[artic-quills]

Mini Rant here...

I don't think Pixelberry realises what a Gold Mine its sitting on

The potential for Choices stories that are adapted into other games/media like movies or TV shows is endless. Fantasy stories like Blades would do really well. Crime of Passions would probably be a hit if given to the right person to direct since it's got literally everything - cults, murders, an exiled Prince. Haven't played HSS story yet, but the way the fandom is so enamoured with it makes me think that the younger Netflix-orientated post gen-Z (or even Gen-Z, which I am) would love it. Don't even get me started on 'The Royal Romance.' The first three books alone would probably fuel the main cast into super-stardom. Endless Summer would probably go down in history, though a few things might need to be changed so they don't get sued by the people who made Lost.

Alastair's dad is literally evil Tony Stark for crying out loud!

(I mean....look at him!🤯✴️)

Side note: And just in case anyone cares... would love to write a script for/direct/act in/produce any Blades Live Action material. Love that series with all my heart. I'm really into film, so I would love to bring that to life.

[literallygwenandjinx]

i don't usually post serious things on my blog, but right now i feel that i have to.

as some of you may know, the worst fire in LA history is currently going on. thousands of structures have been erased, over 180,000 people were forced to evacuate, 3 of my friends have lost their houses, one of my favorite restaurants is gone, my old house burned down, my parents know over 30+ people who have also been displaced, and much much more. my school has been canceled for the next week because of it's close proximity to the fire, as well as the fact that there are almost 50 students who live in the palisades that have lost their homes/been evacuated. homecoming was supposed to be tomorrow night but it's been rescheduled too. what's happening right now is so heartbreaking and i've been worried sick these last few days.

one thing that's really pissed me off is the media's reaction to the fires. i've seen people say things like "karma", and "let it burn", which is absolutely fucking disgusting. people are literally watching their entire neighborhood be destroyed and you can't even bother to show a little sympathy?? i've also seen people be like "oh well people who live in the palisades are rich- they can just rebuild", which is not entirely true, and i'll explain why;

not everybody who lives in the palisades is rich, i know because i've had a lot of friends and family who lived there and weren't rich in the slightest. yes, palisades is primarily known for being where many celebrities and wealthy people live, but that doesn't mean EVERYONE who lives there is wealthy. there are some mansions, but most houses in the palisades are fairly normal-looking. in fact, lots of houses in the palisades have been passed on from generation to generation and were bought when the house was much cheaper and not worth what it is now. (i'm not making all of this up, i've talked to people who live in that area and they've all confirmed this.)

and lets not forget the fact that even if many of these people are rich, they are still dealing with the loss of their houses and neighborhoods, i'm sure if something like this happened to you, you would be as devastated as they are. fire doesn't discriminate, it doesn't care whether you're wealthy or not, so instead of being a dick, try to be sympathetic.

secondly, i've noticed how on pretty much every video addressing the fires or showing people what's happening- a lot of the comments are saying things like; "oh well what about palestine?", or "this happens in palestine every day, free palestine", "this is nothing compared to palestine", etc.. genuinely, shut the fuck up. this isn't about palestine, this is about los angeles. not every tragedy that goes on in the world has to do with palestine, so stop trying to make this about them. am i saying that what's going on in palestine doesn't matter? absolutely not. what's going on in palestine is downright horrific and it definitely needs to be talked about, but what's going on in LA is a COMPLETELY different story and is affecting innocent people as well. you can be sympathetic towards both tragedies, but please don't compare them or say one is worse than the other, it's extremely disrespectful towards the victims and is honestly really insensitive.

these fires have spread so much in such a short period of time and there has been 0% containment so far.. i hate seeing my city like this. if you or your loved ones have been affected by the fires, my heart goes out to you. just know i and many others are here for you, and we see you. if you know someone who's had to evacuate or has lost their home, please try your best to show sympathy. try to be there for them, try helping in any way you can, if you know people who live in LA, reach out to them to see if they're alright, and lastly, please try to spread awareness. i couldn't find many donation links, but i did find this. it's to help the firefighters who are working day and night to stop this, so if you can, please donate.

if you've read up until here, thank you. i myself have not lost my house yet but i'm praying for everyone who has or is at risk, stay strong. i'm going on a hiatus for a bit until i'm less anxious, stay safe and take care everyone 🫶

[zoe-talksalot2]

I just re-watched S11E3 "Rosa' for the first time in years and damn the writing is solid. Ryan, Graham, Yaz and The Doctor all get time to shine. The dynamics of these four played off nicely. It keeps the action going without a lot of quick shots. Here's what I like about it.

History. Alabama in 1950s. At no point did I feel like I was on a set. All the background actors did a good job, making me concerned for the characters. The racism of the time was portrayed well, pointed without being downright miserable.

Speaking of history, the way they kept discussing it I liked. I did not find it condescending like most said they did. I felt like I learned something.

One thing I picked up on this re-watch was all the foreshadowing of future episodes. It was subtle but Yaz working out a timeline of events looks so proud at her work. Foreshadowing how she'll become more like The Doctor. I wish Ryan's arc was flushed out more. But talking with Rosa and meeting Martin Luther King and the rest could've influenced his decision to leave the TARDIS early, if you wanted a reason other than "the actors had other projects."

Thirteen is putting herself on the line here. Remember, this woman stared down the literal Devil so pissing off a racist terrorist is a Tuesday. Gives me the sense that the doctor has been around for a while like Raymond Reddington from Blacklist. I'd say there's more to her than the energetic one like eleven because Jodie brings this tiredness to her that we're gonna see come out in later seasons

Okay back to Rosa. I think the writers did a great job selling you on Rosa as a character. Nothing grand or flashy about her story. She was protesting refusing to give up her seat and she changed thousands of lives like a domino effect and I think that was shown perfectly

Conclusion and timeless child ramble

Krasko is a believable bad guy and I'd say he's a tragic bad guy if only for that inhibitor chip in his head yikes writers we're not gonna mention that? Ok :/ just kidding you know I'm gonna make it about my favorite doctor ok sooo

because The Doctor is the timeless child it was hinted at everywhere but I missed them all but I didn't miss this because the doctor has no idea at this point she was forcibly ripped away from all memory of a past life "lost" her memories. She would've likely had a very different reaction to Krasko but she's still in control still has her sense of self unlike Krasko who is a loser. there is a very different thirteen from season 11 than season 13 and I'm not sure if that was written well I haven't seen the rest of them in a while.

ryan also puts himself in danger his entire episode and he gets no credit by the fandom i'm sad because this is an important episode for him

This episode's writing is really strong and I love history in media when it's explored well. good night

[impatient-traveler]

I realize a lot of the current fandom came to the game after several patches or several *years* since release. So a lot of you might not know the history and how things used to be different.

Now, I personally have very strong feelings about the direction in which FFXV was taken post-launch, but this isn't the point of this post.

The point is to maybe make some newer people in the fandom realize that things used to be very different and hopefully make some of you guys learn something cool about a game you love.

FFXV had several core philosophies that were new, and brave, and really cool, and some of them ended up backfiring really badly. It endeavored to be a multimedia project (the multitude of associated media wasn't just "they weren't able to fit it in the game"!). It was intended to be a live service game (which feels very disconnected from the meaning of that term now, but it was already pretty weird at the time. Tabata, the game's director, seemed to have a very different idea of what it meant from the rest of the world, and to him it meant free monthly updates for multiple years alongside paid DLC). It also was intended to take the players' feedback into account in order to become the best game it could be. That's why we got a huge poll asking for what to add to the game, and that's why a ton of changes were made to the game's main story and content after release. That's also why the original experience is nearly lost to time now.

The initial few patches were mostly a continuation of the game's development. Stuff the devs hadn't managed to do in time or that they thought needed to be better. As time went on, though, more and more updates were made that changed the game's identity in significant ways.

One of the major ideas behind FFXV's storytelling was that it was always intended to be subjective. The main game was Noct's story. You had main characters leaving, you had a lot of things not being explained, a lot of stuff you had to piece together from scraps of info. You were intended to experience the story the way Noctis did. The DLC and other media were supposed to fill those gaps for you. What happened in Insomnia while we were gone? What did the other party members get up to while they weren't with us? You were supposed to get this information from different narrators, different viewpoints.

Think about it. Noctis is only twenty, he was never explicitly told what his destiny would involve, he was never taught how to do this. He's confused, he's terrified, he's just trying to keep going one step at a time through most of the game. It was immersive and impactful when you shared some of those feelings as a player.

The information was there. In other media (Kingsglaive, Brotherhood, A Kings's Tale, Parting Ways, Platinum Demo, eventually all the DLC), but also in little scraps around the game's world. Radio transmissions, Cosmogony books, scraps of newspapers and documents, the environmental storytelling of the nights creeping into your days, the ruined walls of Zegnautus Keep. It was in the context. The subtext. The cross-referencing and theory crafting we, the fandom, did.

You would be surprised just how much of the lore added in DLC and updates elicited no reaction from us back then. It was "duh". It was things we already knew. Things we'd pieced together, discussed, and written fics for months in advance.

Then the Internet did its thing and the loudest voices the devs could hear were the people who didn't love the game, who didn't want to put in the effort, who didn't want to think about it too hard. And instead of only affecting the subsequent content, it also changed the game we used to know.

The random interactable lore dumps they added to many locations with no explanation or reason to be there. The bestiary and character infos (which is a great feature but contributes to making players wait for lore to be fed to them rather than think for themselves). The horrible, disgusting powerpoint presentation they inserted into the middle of the Shiva conversation on the train that just pauses mid-dialogue to offer you an extensive infodump and then continues as if that never happened. There's a lot of things like this.

Did you know the original Ch13 was a horror game? The Ring's spells were tuned in such a way that they incentivised sneaking. It wasn't even mandatory then, you could still bruteforce your way through just by learning the simple counter timing for the Ring. But until you did, you got a precious few minutes of feeling terrified of the MTs patrolling the corridors. People complained that it "took you out of the action" and "interrupted the pace". Oh, do you mean how Noctis was INTERRUPTED by suddenly being all alone, in an unknown, hostile place, trying to rush to save his friend but not get himself killed? It was impactful. It was memorable. Now ch13 feels like a bad joke, Ardyn's attempts at taunts triggering a minute late when you've already moved on from the corpses of the MTs he's warning you about.

Do you know how it felt when Insomnia was a quarter of its current game size and had barely any content? It was rushed, yes. But that was the tragedy of it. The reason why it was so successful at conveying how this felt to Noctis, to the others who'd been waiting for him for a decade. To be reunited only to die. To be robbed of all your freedom in favor of playing the role you were meant for.

Did you realize the entire boss rush at the end is a Royal Edition addition? It's too long. It feels disjointed and at odds with the mood of the story. You're supposed to feel helpless. You're supposed to despair. Instead you get each party member delivering an over-the-top finisher move while yelling extremely cheesy and out of character lines about how much they love their friend. We always knew how much they loved him. It was in their presence. In their willingness to die for him. In the way they didn't look away when they knew they were about to lose him. In the stilted dialogue and awkward attempts at humor, trying to recapture their lost innocence.

This game used to punch you in the gut as it ended. It used to make you feel like you were watching a dear friend walk to his death and had to live with that, with the knowledge that for all its injustice and cruelty, this was "for the best".

Go out. Get the 1.0 mod (which I was consulted for as the person who actually played the old versions and resident modding community grandma but did not touch any of the actual mod making). Get an old disk copy for your console. See this game at its strongest. Experience the version of the story that forces you to grapple with the tragedy and doesn't sugarcoat or distract you from the ugly parts.

[triciaisonline]

WILL & GRACE: LOST EPISODES SEARCH

EPISODES HAVE BEEN FOUND, SEE UNDER THE CUT (December 21st, 2014)

A couple months ago, I reached out on the Will & Grace subreddit in hopes of organizing a search for potential lost media. Now, if you are a fan of the show - you might not know what I mean by "lost episodes". On home media releases and streaming, all known episodes are seemingly available. This is not any "creepypasta unaired episode" situation - but one where it's a matter of version.

During the show's history there were two episodes that were broadcasted live, each of these episodes were performed twice. Once for the East Coast timeslot and another for the West Coast, these were the same stories but often had differences in gags, punchlines and acting choices. Only the East Coast versions are presently available. The West Coast editions used to be easily found online but have become increasing scarce as more torrenting and file hosting sites close down.

In addition to this, there are a handful of episodes that have extended cuts that are in serious risk of being lost fully. These super-sized episodes have circulated online, and on random episode collections over the years. A full list can be found further down.

The goal is to track these episodes down in the highest available quality and archive them on the Internet Archive to prevent them from becoming truly lost media until such a point where they can be properly released and accessible in an official capacity.

Will & Grace currently only lives on in it's syndication edits both in home media and streaming - but with the help of you we can save one small piece of television history from being lost for good.

You can help by:

sharing this post / retweeting this message

posting any leads or information on the reddit page (I am the Original Poster there)

searching on archives, torrent, file hosting, hard-drives, etc - maybe you or someone you know may have one or more of these episodes handy!

Live Tapings

Still Missing

These have been found plus more over at: https://archive.org/details/willandgracearchive

Found

"Alive and Schtiking" (West Coast Version) [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"Bathroom Humor" (West Coast Version) [IMDb | Wikipedia]

Extended Episodes

"Strangers With Candice" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"G*psies, Tramps and Weed" [IMDb | Wikipedia] - This episode has been known to be the hardest to find based on research for past hunts

Supersized Episodes

"Ben? Her?" [IMDb | Wikipedia] - This episode is only known to have an extended cut released on the The Best of Love and Marriage DVD compliation

"Women and Children First" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"Dolls & Dolls" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"May Divorce Be With You" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"23" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"24" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"Dames at Sea" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"A-Story, Bee Story" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"Ice Cream Balls" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

"Friends with Benefits" [IMDb | Wikipedia]

[lesbiansforboromir]

What are your thoughts on how they portrayed Fréaláf in War of the Rohirrim? I have questions about the backstory behind this exceptionally well put together guy who doesn't look quite like he matches the rest of the population of Rohan and goes by a matronymic surname. Did Hild marry a Gondorian Prince or noble, or perhaps did she marry abDunlending as part of a peace treaty and then fled back to Meduseld to raise her son when it fell apart. I love him but I want to know more about the decisions they made about his character.

NOW it's kind of funny because up until this ask my brain had just assumed it was declared somewhere that they had given Frealaf a gondorian father. But I actually cannot think of a particular instance where it is anything but implied... STILL I am fairly sure that was the intention.

His knowledge of the haradrim is probably the clearest nod to me, but there are all the wretched themactic implications they give him too. Like he's 'peaceable', softly spoken, he does not 'love war' 😒, he's basically a film-faramir copy-paste, except that he does display some prowess in combat and when he leads a charge of horsemen it's not at a brick wall. It IS down that goddamn horse-killing hill they love so much but we all have to suspend our horse logic for Tolkien media, it is known. So actually it's a little more book!faramir, Frealaf even gets his own watered down 'think better of me father' moment with Helm too, "my sword is yours if you ask for it 😔 it's so hard to be the most correct person in the room 😔 but I'm so noble and modest about it-" I have to stop being mean, he's nice I did like him.

ALSO it would line up with film!Helm's attempt to marry his daughter off to a Gondorian prince if he also married his sister off to a gondorian prince, and she was so '''safe''' and '''protected''' there as to encourage him to do it again.

Another reason I think he's supposed to be part Gondorian is because he takes the place of Gondor by the end of the film. In book-canon it's actually Beregond who breaks the siege on Helms Deep, whilst Frealaf is retaking Edoras. There is a significant amount of time where he and Beregond are working together to win what was almost a lost war in the rest of Rohan. BUT GONDOR JUST DOESN'T GO TO WAR EVER APPARENTLY SO HAHA WE CAN FORGET ABOUT THAT <3 uvu ... No actually this might be one of the only changes the film makes which I like, it is way more impactful and important for Frealaf to have this final victory. Kind of a no-brainer. BUT THE POINT IS it would be sort of a cohesive nod to book-canon for Frealaf to be part gondorian when he's taking gondor's place in thee narrative, if you see what I mean.

In terms of the matrilineal name usage, I do not particularly agree with it's being a term used for him pre-kingship. Like the reason he is remembered as "Hildsson" in the annuls of history is to define him as the beginning of the second line of rohir kings, ie not Helm's son, which would be a completely superfluous thing to do before all Helm's heirs have died. Honestly I still can't quite believe how absent Hild was in this supposedly feminist interpretation of this story, she is by far the character I want to hear from the most out of any of them. BUT YEAH LIKE, I guess within the narrative it's a useful way to convey information to the viewer and I should not be so grumpy about it.

The questions I have about Frealaf and his history that I most want answered are; Is his mother dead or just still living in Gondor? When did Frealaf come back to Rohan? WHY did he come to Rohan, was it a sense of duty? Belonging? What does his father think? Is his Father still alive? Or did both his father AND mother die for him to be fostered by Helm at a young age? I dont think so, since Frealaf is familiar with Gondorian military information (haradrim and so forth) so it feels like he is more familiar with Gondor in an adult capacity. But I do feel like his father is not alive? IDK!!

Later on Prince Thengel, Theoden's father, will run away from home and be fostered in Gondor because his father's a monster, and then marry a Gondorian noblewoman. But that is not for a very long time. So, depending upon how you read the historical relations between Gondorian and Rohir nobility, Frealaf's parentage could be exceedingly unique for the timeframe, and he would likely be oft compared to Eldacar in Gondor (King whose non-dunedain mother caused a civil war in Gondor incited by eugenicist outrage). So like!! Frealaf could have a lot of complex experiences and emotions surrounding his family, his sense of self, of who he is, of his attachment to one land or another. Like it was probably particularly painful for Frealaf to hear Helm tell him he was no kin of his, when the lingering dunadain supremacists in Gondor might have made him feel just as outcast there.

I hope there was a satisfying answer for you in there somewhere! :)

[ladysif8]

BookTok Made Me Do It

•Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Plus Size OFC

•Rating: Explicit

•Tags: Alternate Universe, Modern Day Bucky, Motorcycle Driver Bucky, Plus Size OFC, She Thick & Curvy, Body Dysmorphia, Weight Issues, BookTok, Bestie Darcy, Sam Wilson Has Seen Somethings, Smooth Talker Bucky, Sex, Flirting.

Summary:

In the heart of steamy Savannah, Georgia, tucked between Spanish moss and cobblestone streets, sits Bean There, Read That-a chaotic little bookstore-slash-coffee-shop serving up caffeine, filth, and every BookTok rec under the sun.

Madison is the unapologetically plus-size, smut-loving owner with a dirty mind and a soft spot for morally gray book boyfriends. Her bestie and chaos partner, Darcy Lewis, helps keep the espresso shots flowing and the spice levels dangerously high.

But nothing could've prepared Madison for the day her walking wet dream strolled through the door in the form of Bucky Barnes-gruff, inked, and sin wrapped in leather. One motorcycle ride later, and Savannah's heat has nothing on them.

Author Note

Look, I've got one WIP. Possibly another, depending on whether caffeine or chaos wins today. I'm also writing an original novel like some kind of overachieving lunatic, working full-time, Mom-ing full-time (yes, it's a verb now), and casually battling insomnia like it's an Olympic sport. And yet... my brain, that twisted little goblin, keeps throwing one-shot ideas at me like it's trying to win a prize I didn't sign up for. Do I know how I'm still functioning? No. Do I know what day it is? Also no. But am I writing anyway? Absolutely. Send snacks.

P.S Also send caffeine!

Savannah, Georgia, is a city that breathes history and charm, where cobblestone streets wind through a landscape draped in Spanish moss. The live oaks stretch their gnarled branches over the walkways, their silvery-green canopies filtering the golden sunlight. Their leaves rustle with a soft, whispering hush in the warm breeze, which carries the mingling scents of blooming jasmine, fresh earth after an afternoon rain, and the briny tang of the nearby river.

Historic buildings with sun-faded facades and ornate wrought-iron balconies stand like silent storytellers, their walls softened by time, their windows reflecting the ever-shifting light of day. Gas lanterns flicker on as dusk settles, their glow casting long shadows across the uneven brick sidewalks. The air feels thick with stories—some whispered through the creak of an old porch swing, others echoing in the hidden courtyards behind ivy-covered gates.

Tucked along one of Savannah's quieter side streets, between a weathered brick coffee shop and a row of historic townhouses, sits a small bookstore with a name as charming as its atmosphere—Bean There, Read That. A faded green-and-gold awning shades the paned front windows, which are crowded with artfully stacked books, handwritten recommendations on notecards, and a small chalkboard announcing the latest arrivals. A brass bell jingles softly as the door swings open, ushering visitors into a world where the scent of aged paper and freshly brewed coffee wraps around them like a well-loved quilt.

This bookstore is a BookTok lover's dream, the kind of place where readers can get lost in every trope imaginable. Dark romance, enemies-to-lovers, morally gray heroes, spicy fantasies, cozy romances—the shelves are overflowing with every genre that has dominated social media feeds. A section near the entrance is dedicated entirely to trending books, their covers displayed with small sticky notes bearing staff recommendations and excited exclamation points. Posters of H.D. Carlton, Nevesa Allen, Penelope Douglas, Colleen Hoover, and other BookTok-favorite authors adorn the walls, their quotes scrawled in looping script beneath their images. A neon sign near the register reads, "One more chapter..." casting a warm glow over the counter where stacks of pre-orders wait for eager readers.

The bookstore's walls are lined with towering wooden shelves that bow slightly under the weight of their treasures. Hardcovers with cracked spines and dog-eared paperbacks sit alongside glossy new editions, their pages whispering with the promise of adventure. A rolling ladder, its rungs worn smooth, glides along the highest shelves, inviting readers to explore hidden gems tucked into forgotten corners. The honey-colored hardwood floors creak gently underfoot, a soothing counterpoint to the distant strains of jazz playing from an old record player near the counter.

A wide archway on the right leads into the coffee shop, a warm, inviting space where the hiss of the espresso machine blends with the rhythmic clinking of ceramic mugs. The walls here are exposed brick, rich and dark with age, adorned with framed literary quotes and watercolor paintings of Savannah's famous squares. The seating is eclectic—mismatched chairs and cozy booths, with a long window seat running beneath the wide front window where customers linger over their lattes, watching the world drift by outside. The air is thick with the scent of roasted coffee beans, cinnamon, and vanilla, punctuated now and then by the buttery sweetness of fresh-baked scones.

The two spaces flow seamlessly together, creating a sanctuary where time slows just enough for stories to unfold—whether on the page or in quiet conversations over steaming cups of coffee. Some customers come for the books and stay for the cappuccino; others arrive for the coffee but find themselves drawn into the aisles, trailing fingertips over well-worn spines as if searching for a story that's been waiting just for them. Here, amid the ink and steam, strangers become friends, words become memories, and for a little while, the world outside feels a little softer, a little slower—just enough for the magic to take hold.

It was a beautiful morning, the air thick with humidity, the kind that settled on your skin like a second layer of clothing. The air clung, heavy and wet, turning every breath into something you had to work for. As you stepped outside, it felt like slicing through a wall of heat—each step a deliberate push through the dense atmosphere. The world shimmered faintly under its weight, the pavement already warm beneath your feet, and it wasn't even 8:30 yet, the scent of damp earth and blooming magnolia hanging in the air like perfume. Even the breeze, when it stirred, was no relief—just a reminder that the heat could move, too.

Standing behind the scuffed wooden counter of Bean There, Read That, Madison's fingers flew over the register, efficiently ringing up a customer's latest haul. Her ombre red hair—shifting from deep auburn to fiery copper—was haphazardly twisted up, secured with a skull-hand clip, looking like something straight out of a gothic fairy tale. A few wild curls had escaped, framing her round, freckled face as she shifted her weight. The hem of her knotted T-shirt—boldly declaring, "Morally Gray Is My Favorite Color"—rode up slightly over the waistband of her worn-in denim shorts, the fabric soft and well-loved from years of wear.

The familiar beep of the scanner blended into the comforting soundtrack of the store—the occasional rustle of a turned page, the murmur of conversation from the café side, and the soft hiss of Darcy expertly steaming milk for a latte.

"Alright," Madison said, flashing her bright, bracey smile as she slid a receipt across the counter. "You're leaving here with some serious heartbreak and highly questionable moral choices, but in the best way." She tapped the top book in the customer's stack—a dark romance with a moody, black-and-red cover—her grin turning downright wicked. "This one? Total emotional devastation. Have snacks ready. And maybe a support group."

Before the customer could respond, a frozen coffee drink—towering with an absurd amount of whipped cream and caramel drizzle—landed on the counter.

"Did she bully you into that one?" Darcy asked, raising an eyebrow at the customer before glancing pointedly at Madison. "She did, didn't she?"

Darcy Lewis—Madison's best friend, her other half, her partner in crime, her soulmate in everything but romance, and, most importantly, her business partner.

They had met in middle school, drawn together like two characters from wildly different genres thrown into the same book club. Madison had been quirky, quiet, and reserved—the kind of girl who got lost in fantasy worlds and always had ink smudges on her fingers from scribbling notes in the margins of her books. Darcy, on the other hand, had been loud, outgoing, and unapologetically blunt—the type who talked too much in class but always had the best book recommendations.

Somehow, they had balanced each other perfectly. Madison thrived in chaos—stacks of books, half-finished projects, and an endless supply of Post-it notes filled with story ideas. Darcy kept things moving, bringing order to the madness with an easy confidence and the kind of attitude that made people believe she had everything under control, even when she didn't.

Now, years later, their dynamic remained the same. Madison sold people on stories; Darcy kept them caffeinated enough to stay up all night reading them. Together, they had turned Bean There, Read That into something more than a bookstore and café—it was a haven for book lovers, a caffeine-fueled sanctuary where mismatched souls found the stories they didn't know they needed.

Madison rolled her eyes, grabbing another book from the pile and slipping it into a tote bag. "Ignore her. I do."

"Gah!" Darcy clutched her chest dramatically. "That is just rude. Why do I put up with you?"

Madison smirked, handing the now-full tote to the blonde on the other side of the counter. "Because nobody else will put up with either of us?"

Darcy narrowed her eyes. "Touché." With a playful glare, she turned and sauntered back toward the café.

The customer—a sweet girl named Abby—laughed, her hands curling around the tote bag's sturdy handles. The bag, printed with the phrase 'Just One More Chapter,' sagged slightly under the weight of her new bookish obsession.

"I'm so excited to read these!" Abby gushed. "I just came across BookTok last night and was immediately intrigued."

Madison adjusted her thick-framed glasses, absently pushing them back up where they had started to slide. "Let me know if you enjoy them," she said, nodding toward the bag. "I've got some new books coming in later this week, you might like if those turn out to be your thing."

Abby's face lit up. "Oh my gosh, really? I totally will!"

Madison grabbed a Bean There, Read That bookmark—this one sporting a doodled stack of books with tiny stars around it—and tucked it into the tote. Enjoy your books! And if that plot twist ruins your life, come back and yell about it with me."

Abby practically bounced out of the store, her grin wide and her arms loaded with stories, and Madison leaned against the counter, exhaling happily as she took in her surroundings.

Books were stacked in precarious, to-be-shelved piles, some dangerously close to toppling. Handwritten staff picks—taped to the shelves with colorful washi tape—were scrawled with passionate notes and doodled hearts, exclamation points, and tiny warnings like "Wrecked me in the best way."

A nearby section, labeled BookTok's Worst (Best) Influence, boasted everything from spicy romantasies to grumpy/sunshine tropes and forbidden love stories so intense they made people clutch their chests dramatically in the aisles. The walls were decorated with posters of BookTok darlings—H.D. Carlton, Penelope Douglas, Neveesa Allen—some of which had cheeky annotations scrawled in Sharpie. Someone—probably Madison herself—had added a sticky note to one cover that read, "This man is RUINING LIVES and I am HERE FOR IT."

At that moment, a low thud echoed from the fairy section, followed by the sound of something clattering to the floor.

"Kyle!" Madison called without even turning around.

From behind a nearby bookshelf emerged the store's resident menace—Kyle, a stocky orange tabby with a white chin, a kinked tail, and the deeply chaotic energy only orange cats possess. His fur was a perpetual mess of static, and his wide, unbothered eyes made it very clear he had no regrets. He hopped onto the counter with a dramatic flick of his tail, narrowly missing a stack of bookmarks.

"He knocked over the Meredith Gentry series again," Darcy called from the café. "Tell your furry son to get a job!"

Kyle blinked slowly, then began aggressively licking his paw like the very picture of innocence.

"Don't let the toe beans fool you," Madison muttered, scratching him under the chin. "He's a menace."

Kyle purred loud enough to vibrate the counter.

The orange terror leapt down again, making a beeline for his cat tree tucked beside the romance section. He clambered up the tower like he owned the place—because, honestly, he did—and then flopped dramatically in the cat bed nestled in the sun-warmed front window. Within seconds, he was sprawled out on his back, paws in the air, basking in a sunbeam like he hadn't just terrorized a customer ten minutes ago for trying to pet him uninvited.

From the café, Darcy muttered something about abandoned coffee cups, and Madison smirked, grabbing her own iced coffee before turning back to the register, already scanning the store for her next victim.

Someone in this shop needed to be lovingly bullied into their next bookish obsession.

And Madison was just the woman for the job.

Madison trudged down the sidewalk, the brown paper takeout bag in her arms rapidly soaking through with sweat from her palms. The air was a sauna, thick and muggy, and every step felt like wading through hot syrup. Her thighs stuck together uncomfortably, and her denim shorts were riding up in places she definitely didn't appreciate. Her T-shirt—normally loose and soft—now clung to her skin like shrink-wrap, damp and suffocating. She felt like a busted can of biscuits, about to pop at the seams. Her face was flushed, a bright red she could feel without needing a mirror, and sweat was collecting at the small of her back in a way that made her want to scream. Not to mention her damn glasses were fogged up. It was one of those days where every inch of your skin just aches from being too hot.

As she turned the corner toward the bookstore, she barely registered the low purr of an engine until it rumbled to a stop right in front of her. A motorcycle. Big. Loud. Sinfully sleek. The guy riding it pulled up with effortless confidence, boots hitting the pavement as he kicked down the stand. Madison's steps slowed. Her eyes widened.

She couldn't see his face thanks to the matte black helmet, but everything else? Lord help her. His black T-shirt was plastered to his chest like a second skin, showing off a body sculpted like he lived in the gym—or maybe just wrestled bears for fun. His jeans were criminally tight, the kind that made her forget how to blink. They clung to him like they were made specifically for him, tracing every muscle, and it was so distracting that she almost forgot to breathe. His motorcycle boots were scuffed in a way that suggested they'd actually seen the road—and that was somehow even hotter. She caught the flash of woven and beaded bracelets on both wrists, and something about that tough guy with artsy wrist candy made her brain short-circuit. He looked like one of those guys she followed on TikTok just to thirst over in silence at 2 a.m.

And then he pulled off the helmet.

Madison tripped over absolutely nothing.

Because underneath that helmet was a face so stupidly beautiful it should've come with a warning label—thick dark hair, messy but perfectly styled, long on top with a fade on the sides. A lightly stubbled jaw that made her heart stutter, and the prettiest damn blue eyes she'd ever seen, framed by lashes that looked like they belonged on a model, not a guy who probably spent half his time getting mud on his boots. She nearly dropped their lunch right there on the sidewalk.

For a split second, all she could do was stare, wide-eyed, her entire brain unable to process anything other than the fact that this man was real and not a figment of her overheated imagination. The heat of the day felt miles away for just a moment, as if the world had narrowed down to just him, the kind of gorgeous that made her feel dizzy.

Bucky swung his leg off the bike, the engine's hum dying down as he pulled the helmet off with one hand and ran the other through his sweat-damp hair. The air hit him like a slap, thick with Southern heat—stifling and relentless, wrapping around him like a damn wet blanket that didn't let go. His shirt clung to his back, sticky and uncomfortable, and even his jeans felt like they were suffocating him. He should've worn something lighter, but honestly? He hadn't exactly planned on sticking around long enough to feel like he was baking in an oven.

He'd been down here a week, visiting his college best friend Sam Wilson with his other lifelong best friend, Steve Rogers.

Steve and Bucky had met Sam one night at a college party—Steve and Sam hit it off right away. Bucky and Sam? That had taken a bit longer. But now the three of them were thick as thieves.

Somehow, Sam had managed to convince them to spend their summer in Savannah fuckin' Georgia. Bucky had been all set to hop back on the bike, head out of this sticky, suffocating town, and get back to somewhere cooler—preferably with fewer bugs.

And then he saw her.

She was coming down the sidewalk, arms full of takeout, looking like every step was a battle she was losing. The way she moved—like the very air was conspiring against her—had Bucky's attention locked on her. Her face was red, hair clinging to her forehead in damp curls, her thighs sticking together in the heat just like his. Her glasses, perched on her nose, were fogged up from the humidity, making her squint slightly as she tried to navigate through the oppressive warmth. But despite the obvious discomfort, there was something endearing about the chaos surrounding her. Her T-shirt was clinging to her in all the right ways, the fabric stretching slightly as it molded to her curves, her shorts—well, they'd definitely seen better days. She looked like she might throw the food in frustration or maybe just break down and cry. Or both.

Then she looked up. Saw him. And stumbled—like walking had suddenly become an Olympic event she hadn't been prepared for.

Bucky blinked, half a smile tugging at his lips as her bag nearly tumbled from her arms. He stepped forward, instinctively ready to catch it or her—if either one fell.

He couldn't help it. He was already stepping in her direction, the rush of the moment pulling him forward without thinking. If anything was going to hit the ground, he was damn sure it wasn't going to be her lunch.

"You okay?" His voice was low, rough from the heat, but with an undercurrent of concern. He shifted his weight, standing just a little too close—but the heat in the air, combined with her flustered expression, made the distance feel a lot smaller than it probably should've been.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, like she'd just seen a ghost—or maybe something even better. For a second, Bucky wondered if he was the one who looked out of place. Maybe she was seeing something about him that he didn't even understand.

Her face flushed deeper, a mix of embarrassment and surprise, and she scrambled to steady the bag, a flicker of a smile pulling at the corner of her lips. It was small, hesitant, but it was there, like she was trying to regain her footing—and not just physically. It was a look of intrigue, maybe even curiosity.

In that moment, Bucky couldn't help but think that maybe—just maybe—this stop in town wasn't going to be as quick and forgettable as he had planned.

Madison opened her mouth, but no actual words came out. Just a soft, breathy sound—maybe the beginning of a "hi" or an "I'm good," but it completely derailed somewhere between her foggy glasses and his very distracting face.

"I—uh—you—yeah, I mean—I'm fine," she finally managed, voice high and shaky as she fumbled the bag in her arms again.

Bucky bit back a grin, watching her scramble to string together a sentence like it was the hardest thing she'd done all day. He thought it was kind of adorable—how her cheeks went pinker the more she tried to act casual. Definitely more endearing than annoying. And considering the number of people he dealt with who couldn't shut up, he found her flustered honesty kind of refreshing.

"Let me get the door for you," he said, stepping around her with ease and pulling it open like it was no big deal.

Madison blinked and followed, feet moving on autopilot as she stepped gratefully into the shop's blissfully cool interior. The whoosh of air conditioning hit her like salvation, and she silently sent up a thank-you prayer to Willis Carrier, the patron saint of people who sweat through their clothes by noon.

She barely had time to adjust to the drop in temperature before a familiar voice called out from the back.

"MADDY! Please tell me that's food and not your ghost 'cause I swear, I was about five minutes away from going out there and scraping your melted remains off the sidewalk!"

Darcy came barreling out from behind the counter, her dark curls piled on top of her head, eyeliner still sharp despite the heat, and a wide grin on her face—until her eyes landed on the man behind Madison.

She skidded to a stop, blinking once, then twice. Slowly, her gaze traveled from his scuffed boots to his jeans to the black T-shirt still clinging to his broad chest. Then up to the helmet tucked under his arm, and finally to his face.

"Oh my god," she breathed. "Did I die? Did I actually pass out from hunger, and now I'm in heaven? Because if you tell me that man came with the food, I'm gonna propose."

Madison groaned softly, wanting the floor to swallow her whole.

Bucky? He just chuckled.

"I will literally throw this bag at you," Madison muttered under her breath as she shoved the takeout into Darcy's hands, avoiding eye contact like it might spontaneously combust.

Darcy, completely unbothered, cradled the bag like it was a newborn. "Worth it."

Bucky leaned against the nearest bookshelf, his helmet tucked under one arm, watching the whole exchange with a spark of amusement in his eyes. The air conditioning was helping, but the flush on Madison's cheeks wasn't going anywhere.

Suddenly, from the far corner of the shop, there was a low hiss. Madison's gaze snapped to the side as Kyle, the shop's orange tabby cat, slinked out from his perch by the window, his amber eyes locked on Bucky.

The cat's ears flattened, and he let out another warning growl, tail flicking in agitation.

Darcy, noticing the commotion, grinned. "Don't mind Kyle. He's just making sure you're not here to steal his girl."

Bucky raised an eyebrow, looking down at the cat, who was now crouched low and giving him a menacing stare.

"I don't mind a little competition," Bucky said with a smirk, watching Kyle warily. "I've got plenty of fight in me."

Kyle responded with an even louder hiss, his back arching slightly.

Madison, half-annoyed and half-amused, knelt down and gave Kyle a soft pat on the head. "Relax, buddy. You're the only man here, okay?"

Kyle gave a disgruntled meow, but he wasn't convinced. He let out a final growl at Bucky before wandering off to find a spot on the counter, eyeing him suspiciously the entire time.

"Looks like he's not a fan of the competition," Madison said with a smile, standing back up.

Bucky chuckled, watching Kyle carefully. "I'll win him over. Maybe."

Darcy was still grinning like the cat was the least of her concerns. "Kyle's a little protective of Maddy. But don't worry, she's got a soft spot for all things fluffy—except you, apparently."

Bucky shook his head, clearly entertained. "Guess I've got to start with the cat first, huh?"

Madison sighed, pushing the takeout bag into Darcy's hands once more. "I hate both of you."

"Aw, don't be like that, Maddy. You're the one who walked in with him like the opening scene of a romance novel. I'm just the best friend who's legally required to say inappropriate things when that happens."

Bucky chuckled under his breath. "She's funny."

"She's relentless," Madison corrected, peeking out from behind her hands. She looked at him, finally meeting his eyes again. "Thanks...for the door. And for not letting me faceplant on Main Street."

"Anytime," he said, voice still carrying that easy, gravelly tone. "You looked like you had your hands full."

"I looked like a heatstroke victim," she muttered.

He shrugged. "You still looked cute."

That made her brain stop working again. Full system reboot. Darcy outright choked on her bite of food.

Madison blinked. "I—uh—thanks?"

He nodded, then looked toward the front door, like he should probably be leaving—but didn't actually move. "This place got coffee?"

Darcy, ever the opportunist, grinned. "Best in town. And since I'm on break—Mads, why don't you show him where the good stuff is?"

Madison gave her a look that said I will kill you in your sleep, but Darcy just hummed and took another bite of her sandwich like the conversation was over.

And just like that, Madison found herself walking toward the coffee bar with Bucky trailing behind her, his presence warm even in the cool air.

"You sure you're not a mirage?" she asked without thinking.

Bucky chuckled. "You sure you're not still overheating?"

She smiled despite herself.

Maybe Steve convincing him to stay another week wasn't such a terrible thing after all.

Madison busied herself behind the counter, pretending the espresso machine required her full attention even though she could work it half-asleep. Her hands moved automatically—grabbing a cup, pressing buttons, avoiding eye contact like it was a weapon. Bucky, of course, leaned casually on the counter, like he had all the time in the world and was fully aware of the way he was throwing her off.

"Y'know," he said, voice low and teasing, "if I knew small towns came with cute girls and decent coffee, I might've started showing up sooner."

She paused, her fingers tightening slightly around the cup. "You don't even know if it's decent yet."

He smiled, slow and deliberate. "Don't need to. You're making it. I trust you."

She finally looked up at him, eyes narrowed in amused suspicion. "Do you flirt with everyone who nearly trips in front of you?"

"Nah." He tilted his head, that smirk not letting up. "Just the ones who look like they walked straight out of my daydreams."

Madison scoffed, trying not to let her smile show. It was a losing battle. "You're ridiculous."

"Maybe. But I'm also very hot, according to you."

Her jaw dropped. "I did not say that."

"You didn't have to." He leaned a little closer across the counter, his voice dropping. "It was written all over your face when you looked up at me."

Madison's cheeks went nuclear. "That was heatstroke."

"Oh yeah? Guess I should check your pulse, then."

She turned away before he could see her laugh, grabbing the cup and pouring the coffee like it was suddenly urgent. "You're awful."

"I've been called worse." He straightened up just enough to give her space, but not before brushing his knuckles lightly along the counter, like he was fighting the urge to reach for her. "But I like the way you say it."

Madison handed him the coffee, fingers brushing his for the briefest second. "Careful. That's hot."

"So am I, apparently."

She almost dropped the cup.

From across the store, Darcy let out a not-so-subtle cackle.

Bucky took a slow sip, blue eyes watching her over the rim of the cup. "Mmm. Not bad."

"Told you," Madison mumbled, folding her arms to keep her hands from fidgeting.

"I'll be back for another," he said, straightening up, still holding her gaze. "And maybe lunch, if you're on the menu."

Her mouth fell open.

He winked, gave a lazy salute with his coffee cup, and headed for the door—boots thudding softly against the wood floor, motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm like he was walking off a movie set.

Darcy wandered over, grinning like a lunatic. "So...when's the wedding?"

Madison stared at the door, still slightly dazed. "I hate you."

"Sure you do, babe. But you love me more."

The sun had finally dipped below the treeline, giving the sticky heat of the day a slight reprieve. Cicadas still hummed outside, but the air felt a little less like soup as Bucky flopped down onto the worn, but surprisingly comfortable couch in Sam's living room. A box fan buzzed lazily in the corner, barely circulating the lukewarm air. The faint scent of grilled chicken and charcoal still lingered from earlier, clinging to the curtains like a memory.

Steve stood in the kitchen doorway, nursing a bottle of beer, his free hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans. He looked relaxed—sun-kissed and content in that way only Steve Rogers ever seemed to manage.

Across the room, Sam was locked in battle with the ancient TV remote—the kind that only worked if you sweet-talked it and held the batteries in just right. His tongue poked out slightly in concentration, thumb jabbing the buttons like it owed him money.

Bucky cracked open a cold bottle of water, the condensation slick in his hand. "Ran into someone interesting today."

Steve glanced over with a knowing grin. "Oh yeah? That why you came back later than you said you would?"

"Yeah, I stopped in that bookstore café—"

"Bean There, Read That?" Sam cut in without looking up.

Bucky raised a brow. "You spying on me now?"

"Nah," Sam said, giving the remote a final, triumphant press. The TV beeped in surrender. "I just know the place. That little indie shop with the espresso bar in the corner and the plants hanging from the ceiling, right?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, kicking his boots up onto the scuffed coffee table. "She works there. Walked right into her—well, almost. She was two seconds from face-planting with a bag of takeout."

Steve chuckled and shook his head. "And let me guess—you turned on the full Barnes charm."

Bucky shrugged like it was nothing, but the way his lips curved said otherwise. "Maybe just a little."

Sam snorted. "Man, you better be careful messing with those BookTok girls."

Bucky blinked. "Book-what now?"

"You know—TikTok, but for readers," Sam explained, flopping into the armchair. "Morally gray romance junkies. They'll flirt with you, write a whole spicy novella about it in their heads, and then ghost you 'cause fictional you broke their imaginary heart."

Steve burst out laughing, nearly choking on his drink.

"I'm serious!" Sam grinned. "They're dangerous. One wrong smirk, and boom—you're the villain in their slow-burn enemies-to-lovers arc."

Bucky looked amused, leaning back like he was settling in for the show. "She didn't seem like the TikTok type."

"They never do," Sam said with a knowing nod, like a man who'd seen things. "Next thing you know, someone's turned you into a broody vampire and tagged you in a thread called 'the man who ruined me and also my credit score.'"

Bucky snorted, clearly entertained. "Sounds intense."

"They're also kinda kinky," Sam added casually, reaching for his own drink.

Bucky perked up. "I could get with that."

Steve groaned dramatically. "He's doomed."

Sam pointed the remote at Bucky like it was a weapon. "Just don't go acting like a walking trope, Barnes. These girls can sniff out emotionally unavailable men like bloodhounds."

"I'm plenty available," Bucky said, overly confident.

"Emotionally?" Steve raised a brow.

Bucky hesitated, then tilted his head. "...I'm workin' on it."

Sam snorted into his drink. "Godspeed, man. Godspeed."

Steve shook his head, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth as he lifted his beer. Just before taking a sip, he paused and glanced at Sam.

"Wait—how do you know BookTok girls are kinky?"

Sam didn't miss a beat. "Because I read, Rogers. And because I made the mistake of dating one once. Let's just say... she owned more rope than a rock-climbing gym."

Steve choked on his beer mid-sip, coughing and laughing as Bucky grinned wide.

"I told you," Sam said, smug. "Dangerous."

The weeks went by in a blur of humidity and heavy summer air, but Bucky's visits to Bean There, Read That became a regular part of his routine. He found himself at the small bookstore-café nearly every afternoon, slipping in with a casual grin, like he was a man on a mission. And, in a way, he was—his mission? Madison.

He'd never been much of a reader. Hell, if you asked him, he'd probably tell you the last book he'd finished was in middle school. But here he was, buying a coffee every day, then standing at the counter like a damn sponge as Madison went off about books he barely understood, just so he could be close to her.

It was some kind of masochistic charm, how she could speak about a book series like she was giving him a tour of another world. Her hands were always moving, her eyes lighting up as she described characters, plot twists, love triangles he didn't even know existed. He hung on every word. He even bought a couple of books based on her recommendations—none of them had gotten read yet, but that wasn't the point.

He just wanted to see that spark in her eyes when she spoke. Wanted to hear her voice, even if he didn't know the difference between Grishaverse and Throne of Glass. He'd even started pretending he understood all the references, nodding along and trying to sound like he knew what the hell she was talking about.

That is, until one afternoon when she caught him.

Madison had just finished talking about The Shadow and Bone series for what felt like an hour. Bucky had been nodding along, his gaze fixed on her face, watching her animated expressions, but his mind was miles away, completely lost in the pull of her words and the way her lips moved when she talked.

She stopped mid-sentence, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Okay, Barnes," she said, crossing her arms. "I don't think you've heard a word I've said."

Bucky blinked, looking at her like she'd just accused him of murder. "What?"

"I said, you've been standing there like you've heard every word, but you're not even listening, are you?"

His lips curled into a sheepish grin. "I'm listening."

"No, you're not," she challenged, her tone playful but firm. "You're pretending."

He gave an exaggerated sigh, looking defeated. "Alright, you caught me."

Madison raised an eyebrow. "What's your deal, huh? You keep coming in here, asking about books, listening to me ramble, and you don't even read them. Why?"

Bucky leaned against the counter, his hands casually resting on it, a half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said, his voice softer now, like he was letting her in on a secret.

She leaned forward, arms still crossed, looking skeptical but intrigued. "Try me."

He paused, the air between them thick with something neither of them had quite put into words yet. "You have no idea, do you?" he said quietly, his voice dropping an octave, making the words feel like they carried a weight. "You have no idea how absolutely beautiful you are, how you drive me crazy every damn time I walk through that door."

Madison froze for a second, her breath catching in her throat. She could feel her face heating up, and she quickly looked away, trying to mask her reaction. "That's cheesy," she said, but even she could hear the way her voice wavered.

Bucky's grin widened. "Yeah, maybe. But it's the truth."

Madison swallowed hard, unsure of how to process the sudden shift in the air between them. She wanted to roll her eyes, to dismiss it as just another line, but something in his gaze made her heart skip a beat. And that was dangerous, because she didn't have the time or energy for anything complicated right now.

But Bucky wasn't done.

He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice again, his eyes locked on hers in a way that made her pulse quicken. "I come in here for the coffee, sure, but I also come in here because I get to see you light up when you talk about the things you love. And that," he said, letting the words settle between them, "that's worth coming back for."

Madison blinked, caught off guard by his honesty. She didn't know what to say at first, so she just shifted awkwardly, letting the silence hang in the air before finally speaking.

"Finally!" Darcy shouted from the back of the store.

Madison's eyes widened, and she realized how close she and Bucky were standing, their faces only inches apart. She quickly took a step back, clearing her throat, but Bucky didn't move, his eyes still locked on hers.

"I have been waiting for this for weeks!" Darcy called as she emerged from the back, holding a tray of pastries like she'd just won a battle. "I mean, I was about to give up hope! You two have been stuck in this endless 'will they, won't they' flirt-fest forever! I was about to just leave and go find you two smooching on the sidewalk."

Bucky and Madison exchanged a look, both of them a little wide-eyed at Darcy's bluntness. But before either of them could react, Darcy was already talking again.

"Listen, Romeo," Darcy said, hands on her hips. "If you're not going to read those books, at least stop acting like you're in the prelude to a rom-com. You've got her wrapped around your finger with all that smooth talk, but I'm done with the games. You want her to notice you for real, Barnes? Here's the thing—at some point, it's time to turn the flirty banter into something else."

Bucky blinked, thrown off for a second by the sudden shift in Darcy's tone, but his smile never fully disappeared. He glanced at Madison, his expression now a little more serious, and she felt the sudden tension between them.

Madison, however, felt a flush creeping up her neck. Darcy was pushing them into uncharted territory. It wasn't that she didn't like the flirting—it was just... well, she wasn't sure where it was headed, and Darcy wasn't giving her any room to breathe.

Darcy was clearly having none of it. She leaned over the counter, glancing between the two of them with a mischievous glint in her eye. "You're both clearly over the whole 'will they, won't they' routine. So how about we cut the crap? I'm tired of waiting for you to make a move, Bucky. You either kiss her already or stop wasting both of our time."

Bucky's smile faltered for a fraction of a second before it returned, sharper, more confident. "I like where your head's at, Darcy. I was just trying to take my time... you know, be a gentleman."

Darcy scoffed, leaning back, crossing her arms. "Gentleman? Bucky, please. The only thing you've been a gentleman about is wasting my time." She turned back to Madison, raising an eyebrow. "You are noticing the difference between banter and the real stuff, right?"

Madison cleared her throat, trying her best to look unaffected by Darcy's bluntness. She could feel Bucky's gaze on her, the tension shifting between them. Darcy was right—she was getting tired of the back and forth, the playful teasing. She was ready for something... more.

Bucky leaned closer, his voice suddenly low, thick with meaning. "Darcy's right. I didn't want to rush it, but hell, I'm done pretending."

Madison's heart skipped a beat. She opened her mouth to say something, but Darcy cut in, winking at her.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. Bucky Barnes is totally head over heels." Darcy reached into the pastry box, pulled out a cinnamon roll, and took a big bite. "I'll just be over here, trying not to gag on the sweetness. Don't mind me."

Bucky's laugh was deep and genuine as he turned his attention back to Madison. "So, what do you say, Madison? Go out with me. You think you can handle me when I'm not pretending to be some 'bookish' guy who's just here for coffee?"

Madison met his eyes, the playful tension finally breaking as a smile tugged at her lips. "I think you might be more than I can handle, Barnes."

Darcy clapped her hands together. "Finally! The R-rated version. I knew it was in you two."

Madison shot Darcy a playful glare. "You're insufferable."

Darcy gave her a sweet, innocent look. "Oh, I'm just getting started."

Madison stood in front of her full-length mirror, arms crossed tightly over her chest, a deep frown pulling at her lips. She pulled another dress over her head, adjusting the straps as she turned side to side, trying to see it from every angle. The fabric clung awkwardly to her stomach, highlighting every bump she didn't want noticed. Her arms—soft and untoned—felt completely exposed.

"God, I look awful," she muttered, tugging at the hem. The material refused to cooperate.

All she wanted was to be comfortable. Cute and comfortable. Was that too much to ask?

She had a date with Bucky tonight. Tonight. Her stomach fluttered just thinking about it, but one glance at her reflection sent that flutter spiraling into full-blown anxiety. She looked less like a confident woman and more like a sack of potatoes in pastel lace.

"Ugh, this is ridiculous," she groaned, throwing her hands up. "Nothing looks good on me!"

With a frustrated sigh, she yanked the dress off and flung it onto the growing pile on her bed. Her closet loomed like a battleground behind her, hangers askew, clothes draped in chaos. She scanned the racks desperately, already half-dreading her next choice.

"Still struggling, huh?" came a familiar voice.

Madison turned to see Darcy leaning casually against the doorframe, arms crossed, smirk firmly in place.

"I don't know what to wear!" Madison exclaimed. "I want to look good, but I don't want to look like I'm trying too hard. How am I supposed to balance that when I look like a potato?"

Darcy snorted, stepping inside like she was entering a fashion intervention. "First off, breathe. Second, you are a sexy potato. And third, I wouldn't wear a dress."

Madison paused, one hand still gripping a hanger. She narrowed her eyes. "No dresses? Why not? You know I was thinking about the cute blue one with the lace trim..."

Darcy flopped onto the bed with all the drama of someone who'd seen this meltdown coming. "Not unless you want to flash the entire street when you hop on the back of his bike."

Madison blinked. "Wait—what?"

Darcy tucked her arms behind her head, fully relaxed now. "He rides a 2024 BMW S1KRR. Sleek, all black, probably purrs like a damn panther. He definitely babies that thing. You wear a dress, and one wrong breeze, and bam—instant Marilyn Monroe moment."

Madison stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "How do you know what kind of bike he rides? Are you stalking him or something?"

Darcy shrugged, entirely unbothered. "I have my ways."

Madison blinked again, still processing. She looked down at the heap of clothes on her bed, then back at Darcy, a mixture of shock and suspicion clouding her face. "I hadn't even thought about his bike."

"Exactly." Darcy sat up and grabbed something from the laundry basket on the floor. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed a pair of soft black shorts onto the bed. "These'll work. Comfortable, flattering, and—bonus—you won't flash the neighborhood. Pair it with that white blouse we found at that boutique, the one with the flutter sleeves and the cute neckline?"

Madison picked up the shorts, running her fingers over the fabric. Soft. Easy. She could sit, move, breathe in these. "Okay... yeah. That would be cute."

"Damn right it will be," Darcy said, standing and brushing invisible lint off her leggings like a job well done. "Now that you're sorted, I'm going to grab a bottle of wine and drown my single sorrows in Grey's Anatomy... and possibly the last of the cheesecake."

Madison laughed, the tension in her chest finally easing a little. "You better leave me a bite."

"No promises," Darcy called over her shoulder as she left.

Madison shook her head, a small smile tugging at her lips as she turned back to the mirror. She set the shorts on the bed, peeled off the last of her indecision, and stepped into them, tugging them over her lacy white panties. The fabric settled perfectly around her hips—comfortable, but still cute.

Her eyes lifted to her reflection again. Better.

Her mind wandered as she pulled the white blouse from her closet. Bucky. BMW S1KRR. How did he even afford something like that? She knew he had a cool, kind of mysterious vibe—but Darcy seemed to know details that Madison hadn't even thought to ask about.

She slipped the blouse over her head, adjusting the hem as her fingers lightly traced the fluttery sleeves.

As she smoothed the fabric down, she couldn't help but wonder—just how much more did Darcy know about Bucky? And more importantly... what exactly was Madison walking into tonight?

The low, throaty growl of a high-performance engine broke the quiet of the late afternoon as Bucky pulled up to the curb in front of the apartment tucked behind the old brick storefront. The sun caught the sleek lines of his matte-black BMW S1KRR, making the whole thing look like it belonged in a movie—polished, powerful, and just a little dangerous.

He cut the engine and kicked the stand down, pulling off his helmet with a practiced flick of his wrist. His dark hair was tousled beneath it, a few strands falling over his brow as he scanned the familiar building with calm eyes and a restless energy that buzzed just under the surface.

Out on the stoop, Darcy was lounging in a weathered patio chair like she was holding court, one leg slung over the other, sunglasses perched on her nose, and a sweating glass of something suspiciously tropical in hand. She looked entirely too pleased with herself.

"Well, well, look what the alley cat dragged in," she called out, flashing a grin like she'd been waiting all afternoon for this moment. "Dark Knight's here!"

Bucky chuckled, one corner of his mouth tugging into a crooked smile. "Hey, Darcy."

Without missing a beat, she turned and hollered toward the open front door like she was trying to wake the dead. "MADDY! YOUR DARK KNIGHT IS HERE TO WHISK YOU AWAY! HOPE YOU WORE PANTS!"

From inside came a muffled groan. "I hate you."

Darcy raised her glass like it was a trophy. "Love you too, sugarplum!"

A few seconds later, the screen door creaked open, and Madison stepped out onto the porch. Her expression was equal parts unimpressed and faintly amused. She ran her fingers along the edge of her flutter-sleeved white blouse, smoothing the fabric as she moved. The blouse was soft and airy, the kind that fluttered with the breeze, and it tucked neatly into black high-waisted shorts that showed off a generous amount of thigh—enough to turn heads, but still casual enough to say I didn't try too hard, this is just how I look.

Bucky had just started swinging a leg off the bike when he spotted her—and immediately froze mid-motion.

He blinked. Then blinked again. His breath caught somewhere between his lungs and throat, stuck like he'd just been sucker-punched.

Madison descended the porch steps at an easy pace, not trying to be graceful but somehow hitting every note just right. His eyes followed the motion of her scuffed-up Doc Martens, up her strong, tanned legs—thighs that shifted and curved as she walked—past the cinch of her waist and the dip of her neckline. Her lips had a faint shimmer of gloss, her cheeks flushed from the heat or maybe just the attention. The glasses she usually wore were gone, leaving her soft eyes more open, more striking. Her chestnut hair had been French braided into two neat pigtails that trailed down past her shoulders, just messy enough to be cute.

Bucky barely remembered how to move.

"You okay there, Barnes?" Darcy called, clearly enjoying herself. "You look like you just got hit with a two-by-four."

He cleared his throat and straightened up quickly, shutting his mouth before it could hang open any longer. "Uh... yeah. Yeah, I'm good."

Good was generous. He was hanging on by a thread.

Madison reached the bottom step and shot Darcy a dry look, though the twitch at the corner of her lips betrayed her. "You're impossible."

Darcy raised her glass again, beaming. "And you're hot. Go have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

"That leaves a very small list," Madison muttered, shaking her head, but her laugh spilled out anyway—light and warm and addictive.

Bucky stepped forward, offering the spare helmet. Their fingers brushed, a spark of contact that made something low in his stomach flip. Madison hesitated for just a moment before taking it, her gaze flicking to his, something unreadable passing between them.

She pulled the helmet on and fumbled with the straps, her fingers unsure.

Without a word, Bucky turned toward her, gently lifting his hands to fasten the chin strap. His fingers grazed her jaw, and for a moment, everything slowed down—the noise of the street, the heat of the sun, even the sound of their breathing. Just him. Just her. Just this.

"Ready?" he asked, his voice lower than he intended, a little rougher—gravel and velvet.

She looked up at him with a slow, knowing smirk. Pure trouble. "You tell me."

And just like that, Bucky knew one thing for certain—

He was screwed.

Bucky swung a leg back over the bike and got situated, his hands moving over the controls like second nature. Madison stood beside him, helmet secured, fingers flexing at her sides like she was gearing up for a skydive instead of a motorcycle ride.

She hesitated for a second, eyeing the seat behind him like it might bite.

"You good?" Bucky asked, glancing over his shoulder, voice calm and patient. The helmet muffled his words a little, but she heard the smile in them.

"Yeah. I just..." She looked down at her hands, then at his back. "I've never ridden one of these before. I don't really know where to—uh—hold on."

She shifted her weight, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "Also, what if I mess something up? Like, I don't know... shift my weight wrong and tip the whole thing over? Or break something?"

Bucky blinked, then let out a soft laugh—warm, not mocking.

"Madison," he said gently, "This bike can take corners at a hundred miles an hour and not flinch. Trust me—you're not gonna break anything."

She gave him a doubtful look, still hovering uncertainly.

"I promise," he added, voice dropping just a little, steady and sure. "You're safe with me. I won't let anything happen to you or the bike. I've got you."

Her heart did a weird flip at that. I've got you.

He reached back, gently taking her hands in his gloved ones. His touch was firm but careful, guiding her arms around his waist and pressing her palms flat against his stomach. His hands lingered just a second longer than necessary.

"Right here," he said. "Hold on tight when we get moving, but otherwise just relax."

She nodded, not trusting her voice, and swung her leg over the bike, settling in behind him. Her thighs hugged the seat, her knees brushing his hips as she scooted closer. The moment her chest touched his back, Bucky bit down on a curse.

The contact was soft, warm, and far more intimate than he'd prepared for. He could feel the rise and fall of her breath, the slight tremble in her hands as they rested against him. She smelled like coconut shampoo and vanilla lotion, and it was doing dangerous things to his ability to think straight.

"You okay?" he asked, half turning his head.

"Mm-hmm," Madison hummed, even though her heart was hammering like a drum in her chest. "Yeah. I'm good."

He smiled again—more to himself this time—then started the engine.

As the bike rumbled to life, Madison instinctively tightened her grip around his waist. Her helmet brushed the back of his shoulder as the powerful machine lurched forward and melted into a smooth glide down the road.

Bucky couldn't help it—he loved the feel of her holding onto him. The way she molded to his back, her legs snug against his sides, her breath occasionally ghosting over his neck. He told himself he had to focus on the road, but her presence made that nearly impossible.

She was nervous. He could tell. But she trusted him. She held on like she believed he'd keep her safe. And he would. No matter where the night took them.

He revved the engine just enough to make her squeak and bury her face briefly between his shoulder blades—and damn if he didn't grin the whole way to their first stop.

The world blurred as they sliced through the quiet streets of Savannah, the late afternoon sun spilling gold across the sidewalks and casting long shadows that danced beneath the tires. A salty breeze rolled in from the coast, carrying the scent of the ocean, warm pavement, and fresh-cut grass. The air was thick with summer, touched by the rich, old-soul perfume of brick buildings warmed by decades of sun.

Bucky's grip on the handlebars was steady, controlled. The weight of Madison pressed against his back was grounding—comforting in a way he hadn't expected. As they zipped past rows of historic townhouses, their iron railings blooming with ivy and flowers, and oak trees heavy with Spanish moss, he felt like the city was guiding them along its winding path.

Streetlights blinked on one by one, painting the cobblestone roads in a soft amber glow. The bike purred beneath them like it belonged to the rhythm of Savannah itself—smooth, easy, timeless.

Behind him, Madison clung tighter, her arms locked around his waist. Her palms rested against the firm muscles of his stomach, and he felt her breath rise and fall in time with the engine's vibrations. The wind tugged at her hair where it peeked out beneath her helmet, strands fluttering like streamers. The breeze was cool, but her body against his was warm—too warm—and the contrast made his skin hum with awareness.

She shifted slightly, trying to find her balance. The movement pressed her thighs closer around him, her knees brushing against his hips. Every dip and lean of the bike molded them together, until the space between them barely existed. Her chest was flush against his back, her breath soft and quick, and he could feel her pulse thudding through her fingers.

They passed an old brick pub with wide windows, laughter and music spilling out into the night air. Strings of lights glowed overhead, and people on patios looked up as they sped past. A moment later, they cruised by a row of art galleries—windows glowing with soft lamplight, paintings gleaming through the glass like secrets waiting to be discovered.

Savannah held a kind of quiet magic this time of day. It was calm but alive, humming just beneath the surface. Like something was always about to happen.

Madison swallowed hard, her thoughts racing almost as fast as they were. But beneath it all was peace—real, solid peace. She hadn't expected to find that with a helmet on her head and her arms wrapped around someone like Bucky Barnes, but here she was. It felt a little like flying. A little like falling. And nothing like fear.

Bucky leaned into a curve, and she moved with him, instinct kicking in. He shifted like the bike was an extension of him, fluid and sure, and she couldn't help but marvel at how natural it looked. He didn't fight the road—he danced with it. She could feel the power in his body, the quiet control in his posture, and the care in the way he kept her steady.

Her heart thudded harder. There was something wild about him, something untouchable—but also something deeply steady. The way he handled the machine, the way he let her be close—it made her feel like maybe they weren't so different after all. Maybe he was just as tightly coiled inside as she was.

They veered onto a side street, quieter than the rest. Old Victorian houses lined the road, their wraparound porches lit with porch lights and flickering lanterns. The trees above formed a soft canopy, branches whispering to each other in the breeze. Even the crickets seemed to hush as they passed.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder, catching her eyes through his visor. There was a spark there—teasing, maybe, or something deeper. It made her breath catch. He revved the engine slightly, a playful jolt that sent the bike forward and Madison closer, her chin brushing between his shoulder blades.

She laughed, quick and breathless, and though the wind swallowed the sound, he felt it. And he smiled.

"Hold on tight," he called, voice muffled but clear. There was something in the way he said it—like it meant more than just the ride.

She tightened her grip, pressing close. Her body molded perfectly to his, and as they sped forward, the lights and sounds of the city melting behind them, she stopped trying to hold herself apart.

The buildings blurred into streaks of color. The trees arched above them like a tunnel. The wind roared past her ears and kissed her skin. Everything she'd been holding inside loosened, like knots finally coming undone.

Bucky was solid in front of her. Unshakable. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn't just surviving.

She was alive.

This was freedom—fast and warm and a little reckless. This was something she hadn't even known she'd been starving for.

And with her arms wrapped around him, the whole world finally felt just a little more within reach.

The bike slowed as they turned onto Habersham Street, the steady hum fading into a softer purr. Warm lights spilled from the windows of a corner brick building ahead, and a neon sign glowed in the dusk—The Green Truck Pub.

Bucky guided the bike into a spot along the curb and cut the engine. The sudden quiet buzzed in Madison's ears after the wind and motion of the ride, and for a second, she stayed still, catching her breath and letting her nerves settle.

He swung a leg over the seat and stood, then reached back to help her down. His gloved hand curled gently around hers—warm, steady, easy.

"Gotcha," he said, guiding her feet to the pavement.

Her legs wobbled a little when her boots hit the ground, but she managed a laugh. "That was... a lot."

Bucky smirked, pulling his helmet off. "You didn't scream once. I'm starting to think you like danger."

"I was too scared to scream," she joked, then tugged her helmet off and shook her hair out. "Also didn't wanna embarrass myself."

His smile widened. "You wouldn't. But I'd have teased you for it anyway."

Madison laughed, brushing her fingers through her windblown hair and glancing up at the pub. "I love this place. It's kind of a local secret."

"Sam pointed me toward it," Bucky said, nodding at the building. "Said it's his go-to when he wants good food and no tourist crap."

She arched a brow, impressed. "Sam's got taste?"

Bucky held up a hand and tilted it side to side. "In food? Hell yeah. In other things?" He made a face. "Debatable."

Her laughter bubbled up again, and some of the tension slipped from her shoulders.

They walked side by side toward the door, the smell of garlic, burgers, and something fried floating in the warm evening air. Inside, the pub was cozy—exposed brick, old wood, chalkboard specials. Vintage soul music hummed softly under the clink of glasses and low conversation.

Bucky held the door open with an exaggerated flourish. "Ladies first."

Madison hesitated, smiling shyly. "Thanks."

"Anytime, darlin'," he said with a wink, following her inside.

They settled into a booth near the back, tucked beneath a ceiling fan that lazily stirred the warm air. Bucky shrugged off his jacket and draped it on the seat beside him, then flopped back like he owned the place.

Madison slid into the other side, tugging at the hem of her shirt. She was hyper-aware of herself—her curves, the way she took up space, how she probably looked after the ride. Her eyes flicked to the menu, grateful for the distraction.

"You like burgers?" he asked, glancing over the top of his menu.

She hesitated. "Yeah, I mean... I was thinking maybe just a salad."

Bucky tilted his head, lowering his menu.

"If that's what you want, salad it is," he said easily. "But just so you know, I'm about to destroy this double bacon jalapeño burger because it looks like it might change my life."

Madison laughed despite herself.

He leaned in, his voice softer. "If you're worried about eating in front of me, don't be. I'm not here to judge you—I'm here to spend time with you. You're beautiful. And you're allowed to enjoy your damn food."

Her cheeks flushed, eyes darting down. "You're really not subtle, huh?"

"Never been accused of that," Bucky said with a grin. "But I am honest."

She smiled, a little shy but warming to him. "Okay... I'll get the burger too."

He grinned, looking pleased. "Atta girl."

The server came by, and they placed their orders, with Bucky adding fries "the size of my face" and a chocolate milkshake "for balance."

As the server walked away, Madison bit her lip to keep from grinning.

"You always flirt this much on a first date?" she asked.

"Only when I'm nervous," he teased, then gave her a wink. "But seriously... you're easy to talk to."

She blinked at that, a little stunned. "Me?"

"Yeah, you," he said, resting his arm along the back of the booth. "You've got this quiet thing going on. Makes a guy want to lean in and listen real close."

She shook her head, half laughing, half disbelieving. "You're ridiculous."

"And you're gorgeous," he shot back. "We all have our flaws."

Madison laughed, ducking her head, a blush blooming across her cheeks.

Their food came, and the conversation flowed easier now—soft teasing, warm glances, the kind of comfort that felt rare. Every time her self-consciousness tried to creep back in, Bucky countered it with something light, something kind.

He caught her staring once as he licked a bit of sauce off his thumb.

"What?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"Nothing," she said quickly.

"Mmhmm," he said, grinning. "Just so we're clear, I know I'm pretty."

Madison snorted. "Modest too."

"Terribly," he agreed. "It's a curse."

When the check came, Bucky slid his card in before she could reach for her purse.

"I could've—"

"You could've," he said, sliding out of the booth. "But you didn't."

They walked slowly, neither in a rush to end the night. The buzz of Savannah nightlife hummed softly in the distance, but here, beneath the hush of swaying Spanish moss and golden streetlight, it felt like they were in their own little world

"You full?" Bucky asked, glancing sideways at her.

Madison nodded, brushing a stray strand of hair back with one hand. "Yeah."

He sighed, exaggerated, and dramatic. "That's a shame, I could go for some dessert." His eyes lingered on her lips at he bit his bottom one, the hint of a smirk curling at the corner.

She shot him a look, half amused, half flustered. "Do you ever not flirt?

He grinned, cocky and unbothered. "Only when I'm sleeping."

Madison shook her head, laughing, but there was no hiding the flush in her cheeks or the way her eyes sparkled when she looked at him.

Bucky stopped under a tree, its branches arching low and heavy with moss. The warm light overhead painted gold across his face, and he turned to her, the teasing softening just a little.

"You've got that look in your eye," he said, stepping closer.

She raised a brow. "What look?"

"Like you want me to kiss you."

Her breath caught, but she didn't look away. "And if I do?"

His hand reached up, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear with feather-light care. "Then I probably would."

"Probably?" she echoed, breathless.

His voice dropped to a slow, southern drawl. "I'm tryin' to be good."

She smiled, lips parted, her eyes locked on his. "I don't I want good."

That was all it took.

In one smooth step, he closed the space between them, his hand cradling the back of her head as he pulled her in. The kiss wasn't soft or tentative. It was hungry—full of heat and tension that had been building from the moment she'd climbed on the back of his bike.

His mouth moved over hers with purpose, tongue brushing hers as her fingers clutched the front of his shirt. He kissed her like he'd been waiting all damn night for permission—and now that he had it, he wasn't going to hold back.

When they finally broke apart, breathless, her lips tingling, Madison stared up at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.

"I don't usually do this," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

"I know," he murmured, brushing his nose against hers. "That's what makes it so damn good."

She swallowed hard. "If we get back on that bike right now, I might not be able to keep my hands to myself."

Bucky grinned like the devil himself. "Then maybe we should get back on the bike."

He kissed her again—slower this time, deeper—right there beneath the moss-draped tree, as Savannah swirled softly around them. The rest of the world faded into the background, leaving nothing but heat, lips, and the slow burn of something that was quickly spiraling into more than either of them expected.

The night air was balmy as they tore down the quiet road, Savannah fading behind them in a blur of golden streetlights and weathered cobblestone. The rumble of the motorcycle beneath them was steady, low and hypnotic, vibrating through Madison's entire body as she wrapped herself around Bucky.

But this time... she wasn't just holding on.

Her hands, once tucked politely at his waist, started to roam—tentative at first, like she was testing the waters. Fingertips glided over the hem of his shirt, then up, brushing lightly against the firm lines of his stomach. The muscles there twitched beneath her touch, flexing with every subtle movement of the bike. She let her palms explore, bolder now, smoothing over the warmth of his body like she'd been dying to do it all night.

Bucky didn't say anything right away—but she felt the shift in him. His posture went a little straighter, tighter. Then came the laugh—low, rough, unmistakably amused.

"Careful, sweetheart," he drawled over the engine's hum. "You keep that up, and I'm liable to forget which one's the brake."

She grinned into his back, heart pounding like crazy. "Thought you said you could multitask."

"Only when I'm sleepin'," he tossed back, a smirk in his voice. "Right now? You're makin' it real hard to focus."

That should've embarrassed her. A week ago, it would've. But something about the way he said it—the teasing warmth, the easy confidence—made her feel bold. Beautiful. Like maybe she wasn't just some quiet girl from out of town. Like maybe she could be his kind of trouble.

So she kept going.

Her hands slid higher, brushing over the planes of his chest through the thin cotton of his shirt. She traced the line where his pecs met his ribs, her fingertips barely there. His breathing hitched. Just slightly. But she caught it.

And then—

His hand slipped from the handlebar, just for a second, reaching back to rest on her thigh. Not just rest—he squeezed gently, slow and deliberate, like he knew exactly what that would do to her. His fingers skimmed up, brushing beneath the hem of her dress, a tease and a threat all in one.

Madison gasped softly—not from shock, but from the jolt of heat it sent straight through her. Her thighs clenched around him instinctively, and suddenly, she wasn't just playing around. She was all in.

Her hands dipped lower, confident now, gliding down the center of his abs, tracing the curve of his hip bones before settling on his thighs—solid and warm beneath his jeans. She gave them a gentle squeeze, just to see what would happen.

The groan he let out was low and raw, cutting through the engine's hum like a live wire.

"Mads..." he said, voice strained. "You tryin' to get us killed?"

She leaned in closer, her helmet nudging his shoulder. "You're still drivin' straight."

"For now," he growled, and the gravel in his voice made her pulse skip.

She smiled—giddy, breathless. "You're really easy to fluster."

"You're really easy to throw over my shoulder and take into the woods," he shot back.

"Promise?" she whispered.

That did it.

The bike swerved—not dangerously, but enough for her to feel it. The tension. The restraint. The edge he was skating just to keep control.

And Madison? She'd never felt so powerful.

And Bucky? He was hanging on by a thread—and wondering how fun it'd be to let go.

The road stretched out ahead, winding and shadowed, moonlight painting silver streaks across the asphalt. The engine throbbed beneath them, but the ride was secondary now—just a backdrop to something far more dangerous.

Bucky's hand didn't stay on her thigh for long—not really. Just enough to make a point. To make her think about it. But it burned, a slow heat that lingered, echoing across her skin long after he pulled away. And now, she wasn't just touching him out of curiosity—she was doing it with intention. Like she knew the rules now, and she wanted to break every single one.

Her fingers swept up his torso again, slow and deliberate, pausing to trace every dip, every line. She circled her thumbs just beneath his pecs, her touch feather-light but full of purpose.

"Y'know," he said, voice rough and low, "I was gonna be a gentleman tonight."

"You still can be," she said sweetly, dragging her fingers lower—down past his ribs, across his stomach, and dangerously close to the waistband of his jeans.

He let out a bark of laughter. "That ain't helpin', sweetheart."

She leaned in, her lips close to his ear. "Then stop pretending you mind."

His groan was low and primal, the kind that wrapped around her spine and made her knees weak. His grip on the handlebars tightened, knuckles white under the soft streetlight glow.

"Damn," he muttered. "You were shy a few hours ago."

She grinned against his shoulder. "Guess I just needed the right motivation."

He glanced down, just enough to catch her hands sliding over his thighs again, slow and sinful. His hips twitched under her touch—just a small shift, but enough to make her smile.

"Keep doin' that," he warned, "and we're not makin' it to your place."

"Sure we are," she murmured. "Eventually."

His breath hitched. She felt it in the way his body tensed, in the way his jaw clenched. And God, she loved it. Loved the power in her hands, the way he was unraveling bit by bit under her touch.

"Bet you're proud of yourself right now," he muttered.

She bit her lip. "A little."

He turned his head slightly, just enough to meet her eyes over his shoulder. His look was smoldering—dark, intense, and laced with a challenge.

"Might have to wipe that smug little smile off your face later."

"I dare you."

That shut him up.

The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was electric. Every beat of the engine, every shift in the wind, every breath between them added to the pressure building under their skin.

He made a sharp turn onto her street, tires crunching over gravel as they pulled into the driveway. The bike rolled to a slow stop, the engine idling for a moment before he cut it off.

But neither of them moved.

Her hands were still on his thighs. His breathing was shallow, almost ragged. The tension between them stretched taut like a wire about to snap.

"You gonna invite me in?" he asked, voice low and intimate.

"I haven't decided yet," she said, her fingers drifting up his stomach again—light, teasing. "You think you earned it?"

His laugh was quiet and dark, more exhale than sound. "Baby, I'm the one who drove you home."

She leaned closer, lips brushing the stubble along his jaw. "Then you're halfway there."

Bucky reached down and turned the key.

The engine died.

The silence that followed?

Deafening.

And full of promise.

The sudden silence was jarring—so sharp it left her ears ringing. Or maybe that was just the blood, rushing fast and wild through her veins, thudding against her skull like a war drum.

Before Madison could catch her breath, Bucky swung off the bike, boots crunching against the gravel. He turned to her without a word, his movements smooth and sure as he reached for her helmet. Fingers brushed her hairline as he lifted it free, strands spilling out in tousled waves. Her cheeks were flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling with each uneven breath.

She looked wrecked—in the best way.

Still, he didn't speak. Didn't hesitate.

Bucky dropped the helmet onto the seat and closed the space between them in one stride. One hand found the back of her neck, firm but gentle, guiding her forward as he crashed his mouth against hers.

There was nothing slow about it.

No warning. No build.

Just fire.

The kiss was hard, messy, hot—his mouth demanding, his teeth catching her lower lip as if he couldn't get close enough. Madison gasped, but he swallowed the sound like he needed it, like it fueled him. His other hand found her waist, pulling her tight against his body, hips pressed to hers. The warmth of him soaked through her clothes, and suddenly, she was gripping his shoulders like a lifeline, kissing him back like she might come apart if she didn't.

Her back bumped the side of the bike, but she barely noticed. Her world had narrowed to the feel of his mouth, the weight of his body, the raw heat pulsing between them.

She dragged her hands over his chest, clutching at the fabric of his shirt, needing something solid to hold onto. Her fingers curled, bunching the fabric in her fists as she pressed closer, chasing the friction, the contact, the chaos of it all. Her hips rolled against his without thinking, and the noise Bucky made—low and wrecked—lit her up from the inside.

"Jesus, Mads," he growled against her lips, breath ragged. "You're driving me fuckin' crazy."

She couldn't help the grin that tugged at her mouth. "That's the idea."

He kissed her again, deeper this time, slower but no less intense. It melted her knees, made her sag into him, fingers clutching his jacket for balance. Her heart hammered in her chest, thudding in time with every brush of his tongue, every stroke of his hands.

He groaned into her mouth, hands sliding lower, over the curve of her ass, gripping tight enough to draw a gasp from her lips.

The air between them was thick, crackling with the kind of tension that couldn't last much longer. Every second they stood there, every shift of their bodies, brought them closer to that edge.

And when he finally broke the kiss—just barely—he didn't move far. His forehead leaned into hers, both of them breathless, lips brushing.

"You wanna take this inside?" he asked, voice rough and low. "Or should we give your neighbors something to talk about?"

His lips ghosted over hers as he added, quieter this time, "Can we...?"

The way he said it—like he wanted to devour her but still needed to be sure—sent a thrill down her spine.

Madison didn't even hesitate. "Yes."

His eyes darkened, pupils blown wide, and that cocky smirk returned. "What about your roommate?"

"Darcy?" Her brain fumbled to keep up, already half-melted from the way his thumbs were sliding just under the edge of her jacket. "She's probably not home. And even if she is..." Madison's mouth curved into a wicked smile. "She owns headphones."

That was all he needed.

And from the way Bucky's hands tightened on her hips, the way his mouth found hers again, hungry and unrelenting—he planned to make damn sure Darcy needed them.

She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the front door, practically dragging him up the walkway. He followed with a low chuckle, the sound sending a shiver down her spine. Her keys fumbled in the lock, nerves and anticipation making her hands unsteady, but the door finally gave way. They stumbled inside—lips crashing together again before it even clicked shut behind them.

He kicked the door closed with a boot, their mouths never parting as she backed him into the living room. Their jackets were discarded in the chaos—his hitting the floor with a heavy thud, hers landing somewhere near the coffee table.

"Tell me to stop," he muttered between kisses, his voice gravelly and burning with need, "and I will."

She hooked her fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, tugging him closer until their bodies were pressed against each other, no space left between them.

"I'm not gonna," she whispered, her voice low, sultry. "So don't."

That was all it took.

Control snapped.

Bucky spun her around, lifting her effortlessly, and she wrapped her legs around his waist with a surprised laugh. "Bucky, wait—put me down," she said, a flush rising to her cheeks. "I don't want to hurt you."

He paused mid-step, brows furrowing as he looked at her. "Madison," he said gently, "you couldn't hurt me, baby."

She opened her mouth to protest, but he kissed her quiet—soft at first, then deeper, more insistent. "You think I don't know exactly how strong I am?" he murmured against her lips, already walking them through the apartment again. "You're perfect. Let me hold you."

Her breath caught as his mouth trailed from her lips to her jaw, down her neck, his touch sure and demanding.

By the time her back hit the wall just outside her bedroom, Madison was trembling, hands tangled in his hair, nails scraping lightly against his scalp as he ground against her.

"Bedroom?" he rasped, eyes dark with want.

She nodded, eyes heavy-lidded, her breath shallow and erratic.

With one last kiss—hard and claiming—he carried her through the door, like he already knew he'd never get enough of her.

Darcy had just settled into bed with a glass of wine and the latest episode of The Bachelor queued up. She sat cross-legged on her bed in her favorite oversized hoodie, a bowl of popcorn in her lap, eyes glued to the screen as one of the contestants fake-cried into a rose.

"Girl, he is not that into you," she muttered, tossing popcorn at the TV just as the front door opened.

She didn't even have to look—those heavy boots and that low murmur? Bucky. Madison's laugh followed, soft and breathy, and Darcy just smiled to herself. Finally.

The bedroom door across the hall shut quietly.

Darcy was just getting into a juicy confrontation on-screen when a faint thump echoed through the wall. Then a pause.

And then— yep. That was Madison.

Darcy blinked, tilted her head slightly like she wasn't sure she heard right, then heard it again—softer, a little breathy, unmistakably not part of the TV show.

The door clicked shut behind them, and Bucky didn't hesitate. He tossed her onto the bed, descending after her with a primal growl. His hands slipped under her shirt, his warm palms gliding over her skin, igniting electric sparks of desire wherever they lingered

Madison gasped, arching her back, her skin alive with sensation. His lips found the hollow of her throat, teeth grazing her pulse point, making her tremble beneath him. "God," she breathed, fingers tangling in his hair again. "Where did this come from?"

He smirked against her skin. "Been holding back."

"Well, don't."

Bucky paused, just enough to gaze into her eyes, which were smoldering with need. His chest heaved with a raw, electric tension. In one fluid motion, he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside, revealing the sculpted strength of his body. Madison's breath caught in her throat as she absorbed the sight——his body lit by the soft bedside lamp, a powerful contrast to the hunger in his gaze.

"You sure, Maddy?" he murmured, his voice thick and gravelly with longing. "Once I start, I'm not stopping unless you tell me to."

She gave a fervent nod, pulling him back to her with urgency, their lips colliding in a heated embrace. "Shut up and kiss me, Barnes."

It was all the invitation he needed.

His mouth crashed onto hers with a consuming hunger, his body pressing her firmly into the mattress. His hands wandered with intent—over her ribs, tracing her plush waist, and caressing the curve of her thick hips—each touch igniting a blazing inferno within her. She couldn't pinpoint when she had become so daring, so insatiable for him, but with him? It felt utterly right.

As if she was finally seizing the desires she had longed to embrace.

Bucky devoured her lips like a man famished, as though he had been yearning for this moment for an eternity. Her clothes disappeared, piece by tantalizing piece, his lips trailing every newly revealed inch of her skin. His touch was both worshipful and voracious, as if he could never have his fill.

When he finally slid her pants down her legs and settled between her thighs, he gazed up with a wicked, knowing grin.

"Still with me, darlin'?"

Madison's breathless reply escaped in a trembling whisper: "All the way."

His grin widened with wicked intent. "Good. Because I'm just beginning."

Bucky's lips descended upon her inner thigh, each kiss and languorous lick igniting torrents of molten heat through her core. She quivered, her hips arching instinctively toward him, drawn like a moth to flame. He chuckled, a low, dark rumble that reverberated against her skin.

"Easy," he murmured, his lips grazing the tender spot below her hip. "I intend to savor every moment."

Madison's fingers clutched the sheets, her heart a wild drumbeat in her chest. "You're driving me insane."

"That's precisely the plan, darlin'," he murmured, his voice a sultry caress, thick with desire.

His strong hands firmly gripped her hips, anchoring her in place as he traced a fervent path of hot, open-mouthed kisses along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Each electrifying touch ignited an inferno within her, a fire that blazed and spread through every fiber of her being. She whimpered his name, a desperate plea that echoed with urgency, and he succumbed, tasting her with a ravenous intensity, as though he could not endure another moment of restraint.

He licked and sucked at her clit, maintaining a rhythm that had Madison writhing beneath him, breaths coming in ragged gasps. His name tumbled from her lips over and again as pleasure mounted, coiling tightly deep within her. Bucky responded by deepening his ministrations, his movements both teasing and assertive.

Madison's fingers found purchase in his hair, guiding him insistently, her body language spelling out exactly what she needed from him as pressure began swirling into an overwhelming crescendo. Her back arched off the bed, pushing against his face as her voice broke on a high, keening wail.

The world narrowed down to the overwhelming sensation spiraling from where Bucky's mouth was fervently at work. Then, with a final cry torn from deep within her throat, Madison climaxed intensely, waves of pleasure breaking over her like a relentless storm her vision burst into a kaleidoscope of stars.

Gradually, the waves ebbed away, leaving her panting and spent on the tangled sheets.

Bucky lifted his head, his lips wet and glistening in the dim light, grinning with the satisfaction of a man who had just conquered untold territories. His eyes sparkled with pride and an unmistakable look of adoration as he watched her come back down to earth.

"Okay?" he whispered, voice husky and laced with affection.

Madison nodded weakly, still catching her breath, her chest heaving. "More than okay," she managed to say, her voice a sultry murmur. She tugged him up by his hair gently to bring his face close to hers.

Their lips met again, this time in a kiss that was sweeter, slower, grounding them both after the intensity of their passion. Bucky's weight shifted as he maneuvered above her, each careful movement calculated not to break their connection. He brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead tenderly, his gaze locked on hers.

"Ready for more?" Bucky's voice was a whisper against her lips, laced with both challenge and promise.

"Yes," she whispered back, pulling him down for another kiss, her hands roaming over his powerful shoulders, tracing the lines of muscle that tensed under her touch.

Bucky's grin was pure mischief as he shifted his body, aligning himself with hers. The flushed head on his weeping cock breached her slowly.

"Oh fuck me—" Bucky grunted.

Madison's nails dug into his shoulders as he thrust into her, their mutual groans filling the room. The intense, carnal sensation of their bodies joining was almost unbearable, their desire having reached a fever pitch.

"Y-you feel so good," Madison moaned.

His movements were deliberate, each shift and touch sending a new wave of anticipation rushing through Madison. He took his time, kissing her deeply, thoroughly, as if each kiss could tell a story of its own.

She wrapped her arms around him, vice-like, crushing her body against his, desperate to feel every inch of him.

Their rhythm started languidly, a primal dance of rediscovery, each sensation raw and exhilarating. But patience was not a virtue they possessed tonight. Their movements quickly turned wild and untamed, each chasing their own pleasure, hungry and relentless. Bucky's hands roamed her body, fingertips mapping the landscape of her curves with reverence and a desperate hunger. Madison met each of his thrusts with an urgency that matched his own, her hips rising to meet him, urging him deeper.

"You're so beautiful," Bucky breathed, his voice raw, eyes hungry.

Bucky's hand slid up her side, slow and sure, then higher—until his fingers curled gently around the front of her throat. Not tight. Not rough. Just there.

The weight of his hand made her breath catch.

Her eyes flicked up to meet his, something sharp and electric pulsing between them. She didn't expect to like it. But the truth hit her fast and hard—she loved it. The heat of his palm, the way his thumb rested just below her jaw, grounding her, claiming her. It was possessive in a way that made her knees weak.

Bucky didn't say a word, but his eyes darkened when he saw the way her lips parted, her chest rising faster. He felt it—the way her pulse jumped beneath his fingers. The way she arched into it, into him. Her velvety pussy gripping his cock like a goddamn vice.

"Didn't know you liked that," he murmured, voice low and rough with want.

Madison swallowed hard, her voice barely a whisper. "Didn't know I did either."

But now? She never wanted him to stop.

Madison's breaths came in short bursts, and every nerve in her body seemed to sing with pleasure from Bucky's relentless pace. He watched her beneath him, his gaze burning with intensity as he studied every reaction, every little sigh and moan that escaped her lips.

Darcy was knee-deep — The Bachelor was on, and the current episode was packed with tears, too much champagne, and a surprise elimination. When the unmistakable sound of something thudding against the wall rattled her picture frames

She froze.

Then came the rhythmic creak of a mattress and—oh god—Madison's voice, soft at first, then not-so-soft.

Darcy's eyes widened. "You've got to be kidding me," she muttered, staring at the wall like it had personally betrayed her.

Another bang against the shared wall had her reaching for the nearest throw pillow and launching it with a dramatic groan. "Guys! Some of us live here too !"

No response. Just more sounds of passion and what she could only assume was a particularly enthusiastic movement of furniture.

Darcy grabbed the nearest object—a shoe—and thumped it against the wall. "Hey! I swear to god, you're emotionally scaring me!"

Still nothing.

"Ugh!" She leapt up, practically spilling her wine, muttering, "Where the hell are my headphones—oh my god, is that a moan ? That's it. I'm moving."

She dove into her nightstand drawer like it held the key to salvation, snatching up her noise-canceling headphones like they were sacred relics. As she jammed them on, she mumbled under her breath, "Madison, I love you, but if I hear one more ' Bucky ' like that——"

"Bucky," she gasped out his name, her voice quivering under the onslaught of sensations he provoked.

Hearing his name spoken with such desperate passion only drove him further, and he adjusted his angle slightly, eliciting a sharp cry from Madison that echoed off the bedroom walls. Her response urged him on, and he moved faster, each thrust deeper than the last. Bucky shoved her thick legs further up, adjusting his angle driving his fat cock deeper into her deliciously, wet heat.

The sound of their bodies colliding was punctuated by heavy breaths and soft moans that crescendoed into the night, filling the room with the evidence of their unabashed need for each other. His pace quickened, the air charged with electricity as every muscle in his body worked in intense focus.

Bucky could feel like pressure building at the base of his spine, the way her greedy cunt sucked him back in with each thrust made his balls pull tight.

"Oooh....nnugh," she whimpered.

Madison could feel another climax building, stronger and more forceful than before. Her moans turned into cries as she clutched at his back, nails scoring his skin as pleasure washed over her again, wave after crashing wave.

"That's it darlin'—Jesus fuck," he groaned.

Bucky's movements became erratic, his breaths ragged against her neck. And then, with a low growl and a final deep thrust, he shuddered above her, his body tensing as he reached his own powerful release, collapsing onto her in a heated, exhausted heap. Their slick bodies melded together as he buried his face into the crook of her neck, breaths slowing, but heartbeats still racing.

The room settled into a quiet calm, save for the occasional soft murmur or chuckle that escaped one of them, punctuating the silence with the intimate sounds of their recovery. As they lay entangled, skin sticky and gleaming with the sheen of their exertion, Madison felt a wave of contentment wash over her. Here, in Bucky's arms, everything felt right—like all the pieces of her world fit perfectly.

Eventually, Bucky propped himself on one elbow to look down at her. His hair was a wild array of tangles, his eyes soft with affection. "You okay?" he asked again, his thumb tracing idle circles on her hip.

Madison smiled up at him, her hand reaching up to trace the lines of exhaustion and satisfaction etched across his face. "Better than okay," she murmured, pulling him down for a gentle kiss that spoke volumes of the gratitude and love swelling in her chest.

Bucky smiled against her lips, a contented sigh escaping him as he settled beside her, pulling her close until she was nestled against his chest. The steady beat of his heart was comforting, rhythmic and reassuring.

They lay like that for a while—quiet, tangled together in the afterglow. Madison traced lazy patterns across his chest, her fingers feather-light as they skimmed over the planes of muscle, the curve of his collarbone, the fine trail of hair that led beneath the sheet. Bucky's breathing had evened out, his eyes closed, a rare look of peace softening the edges of his face.

But then her hand started to wander.

Lower.

And lower still.

Bucky's brow twitched. He let out a low groan, his voice rough with amusement. "What do you think you're doing, sweetheart?"

Madison didn't answer. Not with words.

She pushed herself up on her knees, hair tumbling around her shoulders as she leaned in, brushing her lips along the line of his neck. Her mouth was warm and deliberate, kissing just beneath his ear, trailing down to the hollow of his throat. Bucky shifted beneath her, a low rumble in his chest.

Then, with a wicked little smirk, she adjusted the blanket—peeling it back just enough—and swung her leg over him in one smooth motion, settling herself atop his waist.

Still, she didn't speak.

She just smiled, lip caught between her teeth, eyes full of fire.

Bucky's hands lifted for a moment, as if to touch her, but then he chuckled and let them fall behind his head, the picture of smug surrender. "I think Sam was right about you book girls," he drawled, his gaze drinking her in. "You girls really are a bunch of kinky little things."

Madison leaned in close, her mouth brushing his as she whispered, "You haven't seen anything yet."

Darcy was nestled in her cocoon of blankets, resembling a snug burrito ready to be devoured by the Sandman. Her trusty white noise machine hummed like a sleepy bee, and the toasty flannel sheets were the perfect recipe for a snooze-fest. Just as she was teetering on the brink of dreamland, it hit her—a sound low and rumbly, like a bear with indigestion, vibrating through the wall.

A groan. But not just any groan. The kind that should come with a parental advisory warning.

Darcy blinked her eyes open, staring at the ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe. She was frozen for a moment, like a deer caught in the headlights of her roommate's bedroom antics.

The bed frame squeaked next, confirming her suspicions. She groaned, lifting her pillow and pulling it over her head.

" Again ? Seriously?" she muttered into her pillow, her voice a mix of amusement and muffled resignation. "Girl's gonna kill him."

With a chuckle and a shake of her head, she blindly reached for her headphones on the nightstand. "Guess it's a lo-fi beats and love taps soundtrack tonight."

She giggled, nestling her headphones in place and burrowing deeper into her blanket burrito. "Go get 'em, Mads," she whispered with a grin, allowing the soothing tunes—and the occasional wall-shaking thud—to guide her back into the embrace of sleep.

Mood board

Sif's Masterlist

[thatmexisaurusrex]

Okay, so people have probably already thought about this AU, but... pulls out pitch notecards... Dear Abby BuckTommy AU.

Picture this.

Abby Clark writes a Dear Abby column. Buck, lonely and just moving to LA, finds himself reaching out to the column once and Abby responds. Liking the rapport he has with Dear Abby, he seems to send any little problem over to Dear Abby, becoming almost his own popular little subcolumn within the usual advice column.

However.

Abby's love for her own column has been dwindling for a while. Half the time, it ends up becoming her editor Tommy Kinard's job to finish the articles he should just be editing.

However, Tommy and Abby had been good friends, ill-advised lovers, fiances, then friends again. They still live together. Tommy has history with Abby. He covers for her as she goes through a particularly rough patch when her mother finally dies.

So.

It isn't every time, but slowly but surely, Tommy takes over more and more of Abby's correspondence with Buck - with "Bucking Love". Until it's practically a half-flirtatious conversation with Tommy despite Tommy trying to stop Bucking Love's ministrations.

Then.

Abby disappears. No letter of resignation, no word to Tommy, no nothing. She packed up everything she could, sold the rest without telling Tommy, and based on her social media accounts, had left the country to go on a globetrotting adventure without even a goodbye.

Tommy's distraught.

He comes clean to the magazine, who seem to just give him the Dear Abby column on top of all his other editing because he was already doing the work anyway.

And.

Feeling like it is unfair to allow Bucking Love to continue to email his questions without fully understanding the situation, against the advice of the magazine, Tommy emails Bucking Love for once - emails a man named Evan Buckley. And briefly explains the situation to Evan while also offering to meet with Evan if he wants a further explanation.

Which is terrifying.

Because Tommy knew that it would be dangerous to tell a man that he may or may not have been flirting with another man without him knowing for a good chunk of the time he had been sending questions in as Bucking Love.

He needed to tell Evan, though. Before the paper came clean about it and turned the column into "Dear Tommy". It wasn't fair to Evan if he didn't know.

Evan does ask to meet.

And.

Tommy meets Evan at a bar.

Tommy talks about Abby.

Her life story - how she became the advice columnist for the magazine, how her mother fell ill, how she was bound to do something like this at some point, how she did love her talks with Evan, she truly did.

Tommy explains his entire story with Abby.

Their friendship at the magazine, his work as her editor, their own love story, his coming to terms with being gay, how they lost their friendship after the engagement but rebuilt it, how they had been living together up until Abby left to see the world.

And it's a lot.

It's so much for Evan to wrap his mind around. It might be too much for one sitting.

Evan talks about his own life story.

How his sister left him alone with parents who only acknowledged his existence if he was hurt or if he screwed up. How he ran away from that hoping to bring his sister along with him, but his sister could only offer her jeep. How he traveled two continents searching for happiness and a place to belong only to find himself in LA.

How he found a job that made him feel worth something with the LAFD. How he found true friends and family at his station.

But how he never quite got love.

He wasn't sure if something was deeply wrong with him or maybe he just didn't know how to find it because how could he? When he's never experienced it?

Then.

He started writing Dear Abby.

And maybe it was stupid of him ("It wasn't stupid, Evan"), but he found himself falling for Abby. The correspondence they had made him fall deeper and deeper into wanting to know Abby, meet her, know here. Which he knew was parasocial ("You say that like you barely know what it means" "I really don't. I'm not online a lot. My friend's son taught me the word"), but it happened.

And.

Tommy said there had been a connection. Abby had thought about finding Evan and just talking before. Tommy and Abby had talked about it.

And.

Tommy doesn't tell Evan that there had been a connection with him as well. How Tommy had almost instantly grown excited for every email that came from Bucking Love. That it was a highlight of his day. That sometimes, if he let himself feel it, he wished he was Abby so that Evan could love him.

But.

Tommy couldn't tell that to a straight man. That would be terrifying. He didn't know if Evan would be okay with it. He didn't know if this would all go terribly wrong if he told Evan that.

So.

He doesn't.

Tommy doesn't tell Evan how he started to have feelings for Evan too.

That almost instantly, Evan's Bucking Love emails became the highlight of his days. That every email he sent made Tommy fall more and more into a love he knew he could never have.

He talks about enjoying their conversations. But never talks about his feelings.

And.

It almost feels as if Evan's waiting for something. Waiting for more from Tommy. And it doesn't even seem as though Evan knows what he's waiting for, but there was something more Evan seemed to have wanted that he just didn't get from Tommy in that conversation.

But.

Surprisingly.

Evan asks if he can keep emailing. If it was okay if Bucking Love kept sending in questions even when it changed to "Dear Tommy".

Tommy didn't understand why Evan would want that. He wouldn't be talking to Abby anymore.

But all the same, Tommy tells him yes.

That he could.

So, the Bucking Love subcolumn for "Dear Abby" continues with "Dear Tommy".

And.

Maybe it was because of the honest conversation they had. Maybe it was because Evan was reaching out to someone he had actually met before instead of someone he placed on a pedestal.

But.

The correspondence felt more genuine. Some of the artifice of charm and flirting fell to the wayside in favor of a softness; of dorky jokes and - and a sense of longing. A yearning to talk more and more. And Tommy, despite himself, couldn't help but write back.

Then.

Tommy saw it on the news. A natural disaster. Firefighters hurt while helping.

And one of them?

Was Evan.

And Tommy shouldn't be doing this. He wasn't Evan's friend. He wasn't Evan's anything. But he found himself rushing to the hospital to see if Evan was okay.

And.

Tommy finds himself meeting the 118, the fire family that Evan talked so lovingly about. He meets Evan's sister, who seems to know all about Tommy. Hell, he even meets Evan's niece.

He finds himself oddly accepted into the group of people confused mostly as to why Tommy was even there, but okay with Tommy's presence; all of them waiting to see if Evan will be okay after an intensive surgery.

And.

Evan seems surprised that Tommy showed up. It almost makes Tommy leave immediately, like he shouldn't have come, but Evan stops him.

Because.

Evan almost died.

And.

He would be damned if he lived another second without shooting his shot and asking Tommy out.

Which felt weird.

Because the man was definitely not leaving the hospital anytime soon. But there was no way Tommy was telling him no. Because all Tommy wanted to be was by Evan's side; getting to know him in person.

And.

Tommy decides to stay with Evan until he's out of the hospital. It's not as if he couldn't work while keeping Evan company. And they hang out, laughing a bit as Evan watches Tommy writing his "Dear Tommy" column.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

After doing some thinking on this, I think the most interesting movie in the Creed-Rocky universe is “Creed II”:

While most of the movies in the franchise are good, Creed II fascinates me since it’s actually different in how it approaches the main conflict. Most of the movies follow the same formula of underdog boxer must triumph over superior opponent, while Creed II feels more focused on the behind-the-scenes drama and history.

This movie could’ve easily just been a revenge story. Adonis wants to avenge his dad, so he beats up the son of his dad’s killer. However, it feels like the writers of the movie wanted to dig deeper into this. While the revenge story would be simpler and more theatrical, Creed II instead asks the audience how this would be realistically.

And the answer is…really sad, actually.

You’d think that Adonis would be at Kill Bill-levels of vengeful, but he’s not. Instead, he’s more frustrated by how he’s expected to want to avenge his father. He just became world champion and yet the media is only talking about him fighting Viktor Drago. Even Donnie admits you can’t talk about the Creeds without talking about the Dragos. Sure, he does resent Ivan, of course he would. But he doesn’t have a beef with Viktor, and it shows.

Viktor wasn’t doing any better. Although he was trash talking Donnie, you can tell how frustrated he was with how he was being used to “restore” Ivan’s honor. He hated how the Russian leaders, especially his mother, were only treating him and his father well after he started winning in the ring. None of it felt genuine, it’s like he was just a racehorse to them.

When you look at Donnie and Viktor’s arcs as a whole, it’s fascinating just how the arcs work as an overall discussion on legacy. Legacy ends up being the true villain of the movie:

1) Donnie can’t establish his own legacy since he’s chained to his father’s legacy. Even though he has the belt, no one cared. They just wanted the spiritual successor to Apollo vs. Ivan.

2) Viktor was literally raised in hardship because of what happened to his father in the 1980s. Then, he realized he was being used as a way to restore his father’s legacy, which disgusted him.

3) For both Adonis and Viktor, neither of them harbored any actual hate to each other. Any feelings of resentment came solely from their fathers’ actions.

4) Rocky wouldn’t even put up pictures of his fight with Ivan, which makes sense since there wasn’t anything uplifting about that match. Sure, he ended the Cold War (lol) but it doesn’t change the fact that the fight was about vengeance.

5) Ivan was so traumatized by his defeat that he felt like he deserved his exiling. Exiled…for losing a damn boxing match. It took nearly losing his son in the ring for him to realize that reclaiming his lost glory was not worth it.

The end fight is, in my opinion, the most interesting showdown in the franchise. Instead of feeling like a battle between a hero and a villain, it felt more…therapeutic? It’s like Donnie and Viktor knew that they couldn’t move forward with their lives until they got this fight over with, so that’s what they do. You can tell there’s a feeling of relief on both ends once the fight finishes since Donnie got the win over Viktor (thus ending the media’s obsession over a Creed-Drago revenge match) and Ivan affirmed to Viktor that he’ll always have his father’s love.

I should note that there’s a deleted scene (it shouldn’t have been!) where Donnie, Viktor, and Ivan all make peace with each other. I feel like that was the point of making this sequel. It’s not a revenge story like what most people thought, it’s a story of healing, past trauma, generational conflict, and moving on from the past. That’s also why Creed III is a brilliant follow-up since, for the first time in the Creed series, it’s a movie that’s about Donnie’s legacy, not Apollo or Rocky’s.

Basically, Creed II treated the fight between the sons of Apollo and Ivan as an obligation that needed to be fulfilled. It’s funny since that actually works as meta commentary on the audience since that was what a lot of people wanted to see when the first Creed movie was announced. Once that obligation was finished, Donnie and Viktor were able to move on with their lives and establish their own legacies, as seen in Creed III.

And that’s kinda beautiful.

[musingsofahistorymajor]

really have to thank the algorithm for putting your blog on my dash 🥰

& with that - hello!

will read through your review of “the six triple eight” later (exited for that, in terms of accuracy, even though i thoroughly enjoyed the movie ☺️👀) … but since you pointed out the scarcity of movies/ tv shows featuring the women during ww2 (& probably ww1, too), do you have any recs that fall into that category? or overall, what others did you enjoy?

have a nice day! 💖

Hi there!!! I'm glad you found me!! Welcome!

If after you read my long Six Triple Eight post you have any questions or wanna chat let me know! I love the WACs. I love the 6888th. I love talking about the WACs. Happy to chat.

Oh my god YES. YES I DO HAVE RECS. I devour all media with Women in WWII. Scarce as it may be. And finding a halfway decent representation is even harder to find. Here are some I really enjoy. They aren't perfect but I enjoyed them a lot.

Bomb Girls

Bomb Girls is about the story of the women who joined a munitions factory in Canada during WWII. It's so good.

Lee

This just came out and yeah there were some mistakes/liberties taken but what movie doesn't at this point and it's about Lee Miller who is incredible and Kate Winslet killed it. Definitely give it watch.

All Creatures Great and Small

While not directly about women in the war, this show is one of my FAVORITES. It starts pre war and then goes into the war as the season move on. It's based on the book series that follow the adventures of James Herriot, a Scottish veterinary surgeon, who moves to Yorkshire in the 1930s/1940s. The women in this show are amazing. Helen runs her family farm. Mrs. Hall is the housekeeper but she basically runs everything and I adore her. You can see the homefront side of the war really well here.

The Land Girls (1998 film)

The film is about three young women from very different walks of life join the Women's Land Army during World War II and are sent to work together on a farm in Dorset.

There's also a tv series about the WLA called Land Girls but I freaking hated that show. Way too many inaccuracies and the way the women are portrayed made me so angry. This movie is far from perfect but I liked it enough.

Home Fires

Okay so I haven't watched Home Fires yet but my mom has and she's as into wwii women's history as I am and she said I absolutely should put this on the list.

Home Fires is about group of women living in a rural Cheshire village during World War II who face the challenges of the home front during the war including rationing, the dangers of German bombing, and their loved ones going off to war.

A League of Their Own (the tv series AND the original movie)

Watch both of these!! I love them both so much!! I'm still so mad the show was cancelled.

A League of Their Own is about the women who joined the All American Girls Professional Baseball League and both the movie and the show are excellent. I mean the movie is a classic and I love it but the tv series goes into aspects of the League that the movie never touched. Like the women of color who weren't allowed to join the league and instead joined the men's leagues. And the fact that a lot of the women in the league were lesbians.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Based on a book, this movies is set in 1946. "A London-based writer begins exchanging letters with residents on the island of Guernsey, which was German-occupied during WWII. Feeling compelled to visit the island, she starts to get a picture of what it was like during the occupation." This movie is so good I cry every time. You get a look at life on the homefront and in a German occupied area. Lily James, Jessica Brown Findlay, Penelope Wilton, and Katherine Parkinson are all amazing and play such amazing female characters. Definitely watch it.

Charlotte Gray

"A young Scottish woman joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France."

World on Fire

This one is hard show to watch but it's soo good. And it goes into some really interesting aspect of women's history. You've got homefront, military, resistance. France, Britain, Germany. Allied. Axis. A lot of roles are shown and it's impressive.

A Call To Spy

This movie is about the female members of the British SOE. Female spies! This one made me excited because the characters are Noor Inayat Khan, Virginia Hall, and Vera Atkins. Three real life female spies during the war.

So Proudly We Hail (1943)

About US Army Nurses in the Pacific

Keep Your Powder Dry (1945)

A debutante (Lana Turner), a serviceman's bride (Susan Peters) and a girl (Laraine Day) from a military family join the Women's Army Corps.

And now I'm gonna give two WW1 recs too:

Anzac Girls

I adore this tv series so much. It's incredible. This is based on the Australian and New Zealand Army Nursing Service. Starts with their service in Egypt and then extends to France and the Greek Island Lemnos.

The Crimson Field

This tv series focuses on the VADs and other medical personnel who served in the field hospitals. SO GOOD! Still bitter it was cancelled.

I know I'm missing something but I'll leave off there for now. If I think of more I'll let you know!!