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ithinkilikeit-reactions · 5 years ago

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Red Curtain (Bang Yongguk/Smut)

A/N: The smut isn’t really the focus point on this one. It’s more about the build up and the feelings around it all. I really hope you guys enjoy and please leave feedback.

tags: Burlesque, glittery costumes, Yongguk in a suit, Piano player! Yongguk, fist fights (vague), some old school 50′s romantic stuff, a day on the town and some sweet sweet love making

Word count: 8385 words (my too much gene happened)

His hand came up to adjust the cuff of his shirt sleeve, a small smile playing on his lips as he did so. Yongguk entered the club fearlessly and revelled in the sound of heavy bass filling his ears. He felt good.

It wasn’t often he got to indulge in evenings like this, being a hard worker he tended to just go home after a long day at work. But tonight he was feeling energetic and decided to treat himself to a show. The show his work buddies couldn’t seem to shut up about and he wanted to see for himself.

“Burlesque.” The word sounded funny in his mouth. It wasn’t a word he had ever really heard before, yet it seemed to be so incredibly popular. The club was full, men and women sitting and staring at the stage waiting for the next performance. Yongguk had no idea what to expect as he entered, but he was excited none the less.

Brushing past a waitress dressed in a corset, suspenders, thigh high stockings and high heels, he smiled at her gently. He was starting to feel a bit out of place and awkward. She was very pretty and when he took a look around to the other’s, he could see every woman there was beautiful. It was paradise on earth.

The club was filled with rich reds, heavy curtains keeping the stage hidden from the world before show time. The soft scent of perfume and alcohol filled the room and there was a soft chatter mixed with laughter. Groups of men with cigar’s sat at their tables close to the stage, waiting for the show to start. The band was sat in the corner of the stage playing a lively tune as an interlude to the rest of the evening’s events.

“Are you going to have a seat handsome?” The waitress returned to Yongguk and he felt a blush set on his cheeks. “Oh, yes here is fine.” He stuttered and she smiled at him, it was so obvious he was knew. The new ones always sat furthest away from the stage, not knowing what to expect. “Can I get you a drink?” She asked, leaning down to his level and Yongguk couldn’t help but swallow thickly at the close proximity of her cleavage. “Whiskey, please.” He said and she smiled, knowing the effect she had on men. All the woman here knew that they had that effect.

You especially knew you had that effect. Looking at yourself, you touched up your lipstick and added a little more powder to your nose. Intense smokey eyes, soft pink cheeks and red lips, the show was almost ready to start.

Slipping your satin robe off of your shoulder’s, the stage help moved to put your costume on and pulled the strings of your corset tightly. Watching as your waist cinched you couldn’t help but smile as you felt a rush of adrenaline course through your body. This was what you lived for.

You rolled your stockings over your legs, clipping them to the suspenders and you pulled your heels on. You were ready and you were excited to get back out there. Loving your job made work easier and your job made you feel incredibly special.

Yongguk tapped his fingers against the table in anticipation, the lights in the room had gone dim. He felt nervous listening to the drum roll as a spotlight shined on the red curtains. They opened with a dramatic trumpet sound filling the room and the watchers clapped.

The curtains pulled back to reveal two girls, each holding large feathered fans that were white and red. Yongguk could see that they were hiding someone, presumably the star of the show from the way the others looked at the stage anticipation. The girls holding the fans shook them along to the beat of the music before on lifted the top fan away, uncovering the face of possibly the most beautiful person Yongguk had ever seen.

You cheekily winked at the crowd as the fan lifted away from your face and made a surprised face as the fan closest to the ground lifted away, revealing your heel covered feet. Yongguk wasn’t nervous anymore, no he was intrigued. He leaned forward slightly, almost as if he wanted to get closer to the stage as the other fans lifted away from you completely. You were wearing a black sheer dressing gown, that fell down to the floor, embellished with red feathers on the ends of the sleeves and the lining of it.

You waved at the crowd cheekily, greeting the familiars in the club before waltzing your way over to the band on the other end of the stage. Yongguk was absolutely amazed watching you, smiling at your little gestures and feigned innocence as you acted for the crowd. You were absolutely captivating and he was starting to understand what the buzz was about.

He watched as you worked through your dance, swinging your hips to the music seductively and smiling as your fingers moved to the little silk belt holding your dressing gown together. You undid it slowly, not taking your eyes off the audience even once before revealling your glittering corset.

Yongguk was absolutely amazed, the way you revealed yourself with such confidence and the way you looked. The corset was red satin with black boning, little diamonds embellishing it and catching the stage lights. Your panties matched, red satin and black lace leaving very little to the imagination. A simple black garter belt held your stockings up and your heels were red, all very cohesive and all of his favorite colors.

The dressing gown slipped off of your shoulders and onto the ground and you winked before walking away from the band, back to center stage. Your back faced the audience and you shook your bum a little before going through your routine and slowly your corset came off.

Smiling softly, he propped his elbow up on the table watching as you moved to undo your corset. It almost felt like when you looked at the crowd you were making eye contact with him. Of course Yongguk knew that, that was insane but he admired the fact that you could make people feel that way. You threw the corset to the side, your chest now only being covered by a thin, black lace bra and you shook your chest slightly. Afterall, burlesque had some comedy to it. You smiled as the crowd laughed slightly. You lived to entertain.

To say that Yongguk was sad your performance ended was an understatement. You were his introduction to burlesque and he had seemingly fallen in love with you at first sight. Even though your performance was over, he stayed. He stayed and watched the other performances. They were all good as well, but you had stayed in his mind. Imprinted in the best way.

The final performance had ended and it felt like the evening only lasted 20 minutes in total, with how much he was enjoying himself. But in reality he had spent almost his whole night there. Looking at his watch and noticing it was 3 a.m and the club was closing.

“Have a good time handsome?” The waitress who had been serving him the entire night asked. “Oh, yeah I did.” She smiled softly at his answer and took his empty glass. “You’re a first timer. I can tell. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” She said and he turned pink. “Make sure you come back.” She added and he simply nodded, heading for the door. “I will.” He said shortly, smiling at her before leaving the club.

You yawned as you slipped your coat on, rubbing your eyes slightly as you pulled your regular shoes on. These heels were significantly shorter and your regular clothing was significantly less extravagent and sparkly. But you managed to keep your personality shining through, even with your shin length pencil skirt and oxford heels.

“Girls, I’ll be heading home now.” You told the other girls in the dressing room who were taking their makeup off and getting ready to leave. With a choir of “Bye’s” and “See you later’s” you exited through the back door. You were greeted with the semi dark alley that you left through every work day. Moving to close your coat, you felt a hand on your hip and you jumped back in surprise.

“You were on stage earlier tonight.” The voice said and you turned to look at your agressor. He looked greasy, hair hanging over his eyes and breath reeking of alcohol. “Yes I was.” You smiled politely, just praying that your kindness would be enough to get the man to leave you be. He huffed, looking you up and down and disappointment was very visable on his face. “I should’ve known you’d be disappointing up close.” He said and his other hand came up, cupping your cheek. You cringed, his dirty hands touching your face was more than you could handle. “Please leave me alone.” You said, trying to move away from his touch and leave.

However, his hand came up and grabbed your arm. You were now pressed against the brick wall of the club and had nowhere to escape too. “You pretty things on stage are never what you say you are.” You couldn’t tell if he was angry and going to hurt you or just trying to scare you. But his face got really close to yours and his hands held you in place, you had no place to go once again. As his face got closer and closer, you closed your eyes not wanting to have any more visuals to this experience. Only to feel him getting ripped off of you and pushed to the concrete.

Your eyes flew open, confused as to what happened. Your agressor was now sprawled out on the ground, too drunk to stand back up after the forcefull blow he had received. You looked at the man standing over him, who had his fists clenched and one strand of his slicked back hair had fallen into his face.

“I hate cowards who sneak up on women and drink themselves to death.” His voice was incredibly deep, surprising you greatly as you stood still against the brick wall. The drunk finally pushed himself onto his feet and managed to scramble away, running as fast as he could. A coward indeed.

Your saviour looked at you, warm dark eyes scanning you over as you stood frozen. “He didn’t hurt you did he?” He asked and you shook your head no. He looked familiar, like you had seen him in the club that night. “Thank you.” Your voice was small and shakier than you cared to admit. “It’s no problem really.” Yongguk said and smiled, he would have done this for any woman, not just you. But the fact that he had helped you out made him feel even better.

You looked just as beautiful as you did on stage, even in your regular clothes and no makeup. Some stray glitter was scattered over your face, but it added a certain appeal in his opinion.

Yongguk stood up straight, adjusting his clothes slightly before nodding. “I’ll be going then. Please stay safe.” He said and moved to walk back down the exit of the alley. “Wait!” You called after him, scrambling to walk beside him. “Can I get your name and maybe buy you breakfast?” You asked, a small hopefull smile in your face. You wanted him to say yes, you wanted to thank him.

Yongguk stopped and turned to look at you. However he had to look away quickly, feeling shy under your gaze. “Uhm, my name’s Yongguk and yes you can buy me breakfast.” He said softly and finally locked eyes with you. “It’s nice to meet you, Yongguk.” You said and stuck your hand out for him to shake. “I’m Y/N.”

You couldn’t help but look Yongguk over as you sat across from eachother in the diner. He was incredibly handsome. Warm eyes, attractive face and an incredibly deep voice. He was wearing a simple suit, showing that he was a working man and had slight bags under his eyes. But none of these features stifled how attractive he was, especially as he drank his coffee slowly.

It’s was 4 a.m and your local diner was serving breakfast for the early bird workers. It was a place you often came after work for a nice cup of coffee before heading home. Today wasn’t any different, only now you had a guest.

“You look familiar.” You said and he looked at you with wide eyes. He cleared his throat and wiped his lips with his napkin before replying. “I was at the club last night, I was leaving when I spotted what was happening in the alley.” His words surprised you, you had never seen him at the club before. You grabbed your own mug, taking a sip of your coffee gingerly because it was too hot and maybe because you wanted to leave a good impression on him.

“I’d never been there before.” Yongguk started, not looking at you again. His ears and cheeks were tinted pink in embarrassment as he spoke. “But you were my favorite performer tonight. Not just to be shameless.” He said and you couldn’t help but blush yourself. Sure, you had been complimented on your performances outside of the club. However this seemed so genuine.

“I’m glad you had a good time.” You said softly with a little laugh. Yongguk noticed his compliment flustered you and he thought it was cute as your cheeks turned pink. The waitress came by and placed your food infront of you and smiled greatfully. You never realised how hungry you were after work until food was placed in front of you.

“Now, I’m probably going to shatter that lovely image you have of me on stage here. But I am absolutely starving so I am not going to hold back.” You said and listened as his laugh filled your ears. In that moment, you decided that his laugh might have been the best you had ever heard.

“Please enjoy your food. You worked hard last night.” He said and you smiled before digging into your eggs. Yongguk watched before starting to eat himself. You had seemed so unreal the night before. As if you were almost a figment of his imagination, yet here you were, sharing a breakfast with him.

“So it seems you know a little bit about me. Tell me about yourself, what do you do? What are your passions?” You asked, genuinely interested in him. This meeting was unconventional but it made you seem almost more relaxed with him. “interesting choice in questions.” Yongguk stated and you smiled cheekily. You propped your head up on your hand and looked at him intently. “I’m curious about you.” You told him and meaning it completely.

He didn’t know how to respond at first, but mentally cursed his cheeks and ears for giving his emotions away. He was also confused as to why you were curious about him, in his own eyes he seemed horribly average.

“I work in an office. A 9 to 5 job, every week day.” Yongguk said, trying to hide the hatred for his work. It was never something he wanted to do, but it was the encouraged choice. “Ah, but your work is not what you’re passionate about.” You stated, taking a bite of your toast. It was quite evident in his voice that his job was simply a way to make money. “You’re right. It’s not. But I work hard. I’m steady, sometimes that’s better than exploring your passions.” He said and he sounded unhappy. You frowned, allowing your hand to reach out to his. “Stability is nice. But happiness is even better. What brings you joy?” You wanted to provide comfort for him.

“I like music.” Yongguk confessed softly, looking at your hand that was on his. “I love music. I love playing the piano.” You couldn’t hide your smile at all as it stretched over your face. You grabbed his hand and examined his fingers. “These seem like piano playing fingers.” You commented, running your own fingers over his skin. “They seem like skilled piano playing fingers.” You corrected, listening to his stifled laughter. You looked up from his hand and into his eyes. “I’d love to hear you play.” You told him and released his hand. He felt like he was back in school, staring at that girl he used to like. He felt giddy.

The rest of your breakfast was pretty silent, general small talk and light laughter. Yongguk found himself absentmindedly looking at you, you seemed to bring your elegance and quirkiness that you had on stage with you everywhere you went. He could tell you loved your job and he couldn’t help but wonder what that was like.

You exited the diner together and the city was now waking up. It was 5 in the morning and as tired as you were before, you felt full of life again. Yongguk was a breath of fresh air to you.

“Thank you again for helping me out.” You told him, smiling softly. You didn’t really want this to end, you were having a good time. “It’s really not a big deal. any decent person would have. Thank you for breakfast.” He thanked you, bowing slightly. That was when you had a thought that made you smile a little brighter.

“Do you have some more time?” You sounded eager, a little more eager than you would have liked. But it had been a while since you had had the company of anyone outside of work in a while and this was just really nice.

He froze for a moment, thinking about the fact that he hadn’t gotten any sleep. However Yongguk realised he had fallen into a pattern a weekly pattern, a monthly pattern even. Today was as good of a day as any to break that pattern in his opinion.

“I have all the time in the world.” He smiled at you and you felt butterflies in your stomach. “Good. I want to show you something.” You said and grabbed his hand. He felt his heart pounding in his chest at the sudden contact, completely flustered and nervous. “What do you want to show me?” He asked, walking with you as you pulled him along. “A place to think. A place to take a deep breath.” You simply responded, not wanting to give away too much. Your mother always told you men liked a woman with an air of mystery to them. However your mother also always said that you shouldn’t take your clothes off on a stage.

Picking and choosing between your mothers’ advice was a talent of yours.

With every step you both took it seemed like the world was waking up a little more. You dodged cars as you crossed the street, waved to people you recognized and held Yongguk’s hand tightly as you pulled him towards your safe spot.

“Okay now just climb up here.” You said and looped around the back of a tall building. Yongguk was confused, quiet as you let his hand go climb up a fire escape. He could tell you were close to the harbor, the sounds of freighter ships and water being incredibly loud. “I’m-” He was going to say confused before you started laughing and pushing your hair out of your face. The action itself was simple, but just so attractive in his eyes. “I realise I sound crazy. But trust me. It’s the best view in the city... or maybe just my favorite view in the city.” You corrected yourself and noticed Yongguk just looking at you.

“If it’s your favorite view in the city, it must be the best. Let’s go.” His words were warm and comforting, making you feel all warm and mushy inside. You watched him as he started climbing up the fire escape, going first because you were wearing a skirt and even though he had seen you in lingerie before, you still had modesty.

You both reached the top, Yongguk helping you up onto the roof by lending you a hand. His other hand held your waist carefully to steady you and for a split second, or what seemed like a split second, your eyes were locked. You pulled away, swallowing thickly. Many men had approached you, especially men who came to the club. However Yongguk was different. He was shy and he was considerate and not as straightforward. It had a much better appeal than others.

“So this is the best view in the city.” Yongguk said and looked out at the water. You couldn’t help but blush, this was your spot and you had now exposed it to criticism. Yongguk placed his hands into his pockets as he stared out. The sun light reflected off the waves and big ships were on the horizon.

“The ships, remind me of people.” You started, moving to stand next to Yongguk and stare out over the water. “They have a schedule. They travel hours to do their jobs and then they go back, or where ever they are ordered to go. They make less noise than people though.” You said with a little laugh at your explanation. Yongguk understood what you meant, however poorly expressed it was. “I’m sorry that makes no sense.” You quickly said when your words were met with silence.

“No, I understand. Even with the colorfull explanation.” He laughed before pausing again. “It seems like you like your job.” He commented with a carefull tone. “I do. I love my job. But you can’t help but wonder about other career choices. After all beauty fades.” Your words came off sadder then you intended and you kicked your heel against the ground.

“No beauty doesn’t fade. Especially not a beauty like yours. Your personality is half the charm.” Yongguk said and you laughed. You knew it was just a poor choice of words and you could take a joke. “Are you saying I’m not visually beautiful?” You asked through laughs. Yongguk’s eyes went wide with panic and he frantically tried to think of what to say, stuttering a few syllables. “Calm down, sir. I’m only joking.” You said, looking away from him and out to the ships again.

Yongguk sighed in relief, starting to laugh a little himself. He hadn’t flirted with someone in a while, it seemed he had lost his way with words.

Leaning slightly, you nudged him to get his attention. “Thank you.” You looked at him, your eyes glittering as the sun caught them. “I’m glad you understood what I meant. I saw you tonight for the first time ever. Your personality carries into your everyday life. Even if I never see you again after today, I know I’ll remember you.” His words almost made you tear up. Being memorable wasn’t something you ever truly strived for, but it meant a lot that someone you had just met saw something in you.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” You joked, trying to hide just how deep his words hit you, in a positive way. “Actually this is the longest I have been with one in a long time.” Yongguk was embarrassed but he felt the need to be honest with you.

It seemed the roles had changed and now Yongguk grabbed your hand. “My turn to show you something.” He said and pulled you along.

The city was fully awake now, the sidewalk alot harder to maneuver but you and Yongguk managed. His hand never let go of you once, but he still clearly lead the way and cleared the path for you to make it through easily. It was a simple gesture, but a sweet one none the less.

So now you both stood in the train station. “Now, now, now. I just met you sir. I don’t think I’m ready to go away with you.” Yongguk laughed at your joke, his fingers lacing with yours. “No, this is what I wanted to show you.” He gestured to the people waiting on the platforms, the people buying their tickets and people running to catch their trains.

“I like coming here when I need to think. Like you with your ships. These people are all on schedule to do things and come back. Almost everyone experiences the same things in life, yet the stories are always different. It’s nice to think I’m not the only one who feels this way.” Yongguk explained and you felt your heart lurch forward.

Never in your whole life had you made a connection this deep with someone so quickly and Yongguk felt the same.

“Yongguk.” Your voice was soft as you said his name. You continued to look at the people as he hummed in response. “You need to stop making me fall in love so fast. I think it’s giving me whiplash.” You admitted and a pitifull sight caught your eyes.

His chest tightened with an overwhelming feeling and a wave of emotions. Turning to look at you, he noticed your attention was on a couple in the station. The girl’s luggage was in her hand as she held her lover close. Tears streaming down her face as they said goodbye to eachother.

“It’s sad, I wonder if she’s leaving for good.” Yongguk thought out loud and you smiled softly. “It’s always sad seeing love being pulled apart.” You squeezed his hand softly. “But being pulled apart at least means they got together in the first place.” You were adding on to eachother’s sentences and you felt like a school girl with her crush.

The sound of piano filling the station distracted you from your thoughts and you turned your head to look at the source. In the corner of the station, a man sat at a piano to entertain the people waiting.

“Seems like I’ll be hearing you play sooner than I thought.” You said and Yongguk looked at you with a raised brow. “What?” He asked and you ignored his question, walking off into the direction of the piano.

Yongguk stood frozen as he watched you walk away and towards the pianist. You tapped the man’s shoulder and the music stopped as he looked at you. You were talking, a beautiful smile over your face as you gestured to Yongguk. The pianist nodded and stood up from his bench and you smiled even brighter. Making eye contact with Yongguk, you gestured for him to come over.

He felt a big wave of nerves as he approached the piano, knowing you meant for him to play. “You’re crazy, you know.” He told you before bowing and saying hello to the pianist. “So I’ve been told. Now sit and play. Blow me away.” You said and pushed him towards the bench. Yongguk took a deep breath as he sat, not only would he now be playing for you but for a train station filled with people.

He had made the choice that today would be great day to break pattern, boy had he under estimated how much he would actually be breaking his pattern.

You sat down next to him on the bench, shoulders touching and your leg touching his. You were watching his finger’s intently as they decided what to play and you couldn’t help but admire his hands. It felt like your brain went into the gutter as you did so, imagining his hands touching your skin. But thankfully, the notes that started playing snapped you out of your thoughts.

His touches on the key were light, yet they created a beautiful tune. It was a light and airy song, something different than the heavy songs that were playing in the club all the time.

You simply watched as his fingers danced over the keys and you leaned over, resting your head on his shoulder. Yongguk was a blushing mess before this but this really elevated it all. But he felt good, he hadn’t played for people in a long time, but it was so nice to him. He wanted to do this forever, he was passionate about it.

He continued to play, people now standing to watch the pianist. Not a large group but enough to make you smile at the small gesture of appreciation. Yongguk however refused to look up from the keys, in the fear that he would mess up before his song was over. Turning your head, you watch his face. Concentration was all over it but there was a small smile playing on his lips. He was enjoying this.

He finished and you lifted your head from his shoulder with a proud smile. The people watching clapped lightly and he felt his cheeks turn beet red.

“That was beautiful. It seemed like you enjoyed it too. I know I did.” You said, eyes staring into his. Now Yongguk was going through a mental debate. He was so happy could kiss you and your lips were so horribly inviting. But it was so soon, he had just met you.

Your faces were close and his breath fanned over your lips. “I- I’m really glad I went to your show last night.” Yongguk said and you nodded. “I’m glad too.” You said and stood up from the bench. Thanking the pianist, you left with Yongguk in tow.

No that the moment was over, Yongguk felt silly for not taking the chance. Especially seeing you walk in front of him, he was wondering what was next because now, now he was in and he didn’t want this day to end.

Yongguk grabbed your hand, making you turn around and collide with his chest. “Hello.” You said in surprise as your free hand pressed against his chest to brace yourself. “I’m breaking my pattern today.” Yongguk started, words shaking slightly as his eyes flickered down to your lips. “Okay.” You responded softly and waited for him to finish what he was saying. His eyes flickered down to your lips again and you caught on. “If you want to kiss me, you don’t have to ask.” You smiled, your hand slowly moving up his chest to wrap your arm around his neck. His eyes widened at your words and how you seemingly managed to read his mind.

Leaning forward, his lips met yours and you smiled against him. How this felt so right confused you, but sometimes things just don’t make sense and this was one of them.

Your fingers played with the hairs on the back of his neck as your lips moved against his. His hand released yours and moved to wrap around your waist and pull you against him tighter. This felt so right and Yongguk was regretting nothing about his day. Even though it was a very long one.

Humming against his lips, you pulled away and took a deep breath. It really was like a scene in a movie to those who didn’t know what was going on. Even for you, it felt unreal. Especially when he pressed his forehead to yours.

“Why am I so comfortable with you?” He asked, feeling so utterly confused at his emotions. “I don’t know but I feel the same way.” Your hand moved again as you spoke, now caressing his cheek lightly and moving to his lips. You ran your thumb over them and bit your bottom lip slightly. This man was singlehandedly the most attractive man you had ever come across, not only physically but intellectually.

Watching you bite your bottom lip brought him back to seeing you on stage. Only this was better, this wasn’t a show, this was all for him.

Leaning forward, you burried your face into his chest. There was comfortable silence surrounding you both even though you were in a highly crowded train station. As you inhaled his scent, the mix of coffee and whiskey from the night before, you realised how tired you were. Feeling so safe and comfortable allowed your body to relax and exhaustion was setting in. However the yawn you felt bubbling up stressed you out, you didn’t want to think you were tired of him.

As you yawned, Yongguk laughed and looked at you. “It’s been a long day for you too hasn’t it?” He asked, no judgement in his voice and no assumptions about your feelings. “Yeah it has, I’m really sorry. I’m having such a good time.” You said and pecked his lips again, maybe to prove a point but also because you wanted too. “The good time doesn’t have to end. I live nearby, if you would like to lay down... I realise how straight forward this is.” Yongguk rambled making you giggle. It was straight forward and you understood he didn’t mean any harm to it.

“Yeah it is straightforward. But you’ve seen me in lingerie. It doesn’t get much more straight forward than that.” Yongguk instantly turned pink at your words and you stifled a laugh. You weren’t wrong and he knew that. Grabbing your hand, he remained silent as he tugged you towards the exit and the laughter you were holding in escaped you.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he lived nearby. Only really needing to turn a few street corners before reaching his apartment building. Yongguk seemed humble of his home. It was a small apartment on the third floor of a grungey brick building but you admired it. It was simple and it suited him. You yourself didn’t live large either, being an entertainer didn’t make you as much as you would have liked. Your apartment looked quite similar to this, maybe a bit more color around but the size was similar. It was homey none the less.

Yongguk had hardly looked up from the floor since you entered his home, he was debating why he suggested this in the first place. His home was small and he considered you to be quite glamorous and thought your home would be incredibly extravagent.

“Your apartment looks a lot like mine.” You said and looked around with a smile. Yongguk finally looked up, surprised at you words and now feeling a lot more comfortable. “Let me take your coat.” He quickly said and realised he had lost his manners a little. “Oh, thank you.” You said as he stood behind you, slipping your jacket off of your shoulders. The action was simple, but so undeniably sexy to him and when you ran your fingers through your hair after, he couldn’t help but swallow thickly.

Your heels clicked on the floor as you took a step forward, adjusting your blouse and pencil skirt. You weren’t nervous and you weren’t as tired as you were not half an hour ago. Possibly you got your second wind, or when you turned and saw Yongguk rolling his button up’s sleeves something inside of you gave you new energy.

“I can make some coffee if you want, or if you want to lay down you can.” He said softly, walking towards you. He was sweet, that was for sure. Once he was in arms length, you took his shirt between your fingers and pulled him even closer. Then you noticed the tattoo on his lower arm, tattoos weren’t a common thing and this made him even more special.

Allowing your fingers to trace over the lines, your other arm wrapped around the back of his neck. Yongguk was just watching you, fascinated with the way you were fascinated by him. “Do you have anymore?” You asked, finally looking up and in his eyes. His tongue swiped over his bottom lip before he nodded. “A few.” He said, eyes not leaving yours. He was so intriguing to you, and the sexual tension had grown instantaneously.

Yongguk’s lips found yours, alot needier than before and it caught you off guard. But you definitely didn’t mind, your hands moving up his body and tangling into his hair. His hands held your waist, tugging you closer to him to feel your chest press against his. The action was confident and it made you moan against his lips. His grip on your waist tightened as he was trying to decide if he could let his hands roam your body, still not incredibly sure how far this was going to go.

Your tongue swiped over his bottom lip and you tugged his hair slightly. His breath hitched in his throat in reaction, causing a low groan to escape him. The sound instantly fueled the heat that was forming between your legs and you decided, you wanted to hear that sound again.

Moving your lips down to his jaw, his hold on your waist tightened further as he sighed. “I want to see them.” You started, kissing his jaw lightly. “Your other tattoos.” You added on and he moaned as you nipped his skin lightly.

“Fuck.” He mumbled under his breath, grabbing your hand and tugging you further into his home. You stumbled lightly as he did so and pulled you into his bedroom.

His kiss was even more unexpected now, catching you by surprise and moving you back against his wall. Yongguk felt addicted to the feeling of your lips on his, it was like they were made for him and he couldn’t get enough. Your kisses were sloppy, teeth clashing slightly and so horribly intoxicating.

Your hands moved to the collar of his shirt, fumbling with his tie and trying to get it undone. Laughing as you couldn’t manage to do it without looking. Yongguk pulled his lips away from yours and you could focus on the work your fingers were doing. He smiled, the action being incredibly sweet and clumsy and it was such a nice contrast to the hot and heavy.

“Darn things.” You said as you finally got it loose, tossing it to the side. You sighed in relief and he started laughing, finding the whole thing horribly endearing. Pushing yourself off of the wall, you moved towards his bed and looked back at him with a coy smile.

This was different than how teasing happened on stage. Burlesque was all about the show never more than that.

His hand came around to your front, resting just under your breast as his palm flattened against the fabric of your shirt. Your back now pressing to his chest and his other hand moved your hair to the side. Yongguk leaned down, kissing the side of your neck and taking his time to make a mark. Generally your job wouldn’t have allowed the marks but you had never had a problem following this rule. Breaking the rules was good every once in a while, especially when it felt so right.

Your hand moved to his own that was on your torso. Grabbing it, you moved it up and allowed him to cup your breast. Yongguk moaned into your neck and he massaged your breast lightly. His lips moved to your ear and goosebumps covered your skin. “Do you have any tattoos for me to find?” He asked, his fingers moving to the buttons of your blouse. His fingers were notably more nimble than yours as he undid them all swiftly, untucking your shirt from your skirt. Pianist fingers most definitely.

His hands started exploring the new skin, revelling how soft it was between his rough fingers. You sighed in enjoyment, your head rolling back to rest on his shoulder. “Yongguk-” You sighed, feeling his finger tips graze over your nipples.

Not being able to handle it anymore, you turned in his arms and slipped your blouse off of your shoulders and onto the floor. Yongguk thought you were even more beautiful like this. Your underwear wasn’t extravagent like your stage outfit, simple white bra covering your chest. Yongguk hummed in approval at the sight of you up close.

You reached the last buttons, smiling at the large chest tattoo you had revealed. “This is beautiful.” You said softly, tracing your fingers over the intricate design. Yongguk could feel goosebumps coating his skin especially as you pushed the clothing off of his shoulders. You smiled up at him before capturing his lips for another kiss.

His hands made quick work of your bra as you kissed, not wanting to waste any more time and wanting to explore your body as much as he could. After your bra, your skirt soon followed and fell to the floor. It left you almost completely bare to him.

But you weren’t uncomfortable or shy or feeling odd at all. You had met this man today and you weren’t scared of a thing.

“I was hoping to find a tattoo.” He said and you held back a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint you.” You said and let out a small squeal as he pushed you back onto the bed. “You haven’t disappointed me this far. I’ll let this slide.” He joked while crawling over you. “What a relief.” You responded, enjoying how light hearted this whole situation was.

He settled inbetween your legs and started leaving open mouthed kisses over your chest. Your fingers tangled in his hair, tugging and moving him where you wanted him. Yongguk didn’t mind at all, he loved that you weren’t afraid to direct him where you wanted him.

The trail of kisses lead to your nipple and he wrapped his lips around the nub gentley. He was listening intently to your sighs and his fingers danced over your stomach, gradually going lower and lower. Tracing over the lace of your panties, he moved them to the side. You were practically shivering with anticipation at his actions, your grip on his hair tightening.

His index finger swiped over your slit, teasing you a little. After all teasing was half the fun. Your breaths were shaky and even more so as he slowly slipped a finger into you, curling it antagonizingly slow. You were starting to get frustrated and Yongguk could tell, his eyes being trained on your expressions.

“You’re impatient.” He commented and placed a kiss on your skin. “Only a little.” You said, stopping your comment with a gasp as he added another finger. “I’m used to getting what I want.” You finished, pulling his lips up to yours. The pace of his fingers gradually increased, leaving you tetering on the edge.

Yongguk’s lips teased you, lightly grazing over your jaw as your sounds progressed. He didn’t want to stifle any of them, he was enjoying them far too much. He was also enjoying the feeling of you tightening around his fingers. You gripped the sheets with your other hand, feeling your orgasm fast approaching. It was so intense, making your toes curls and your breath get caught in your throat as you were thrown over the edge. He simply watched, curling his fingers to ride it all out and to prolong this beautiful sight.

Your legs closed on instinct and your curled into Yongguk. He was smiling petting your hair as you came down from your high. You moved your hand, palming him through his pants and feeling the need to return the favor. He helped you push the clothing down his legs, taking his underwear with it. You bit your lip at the sight of him laying proud against his stomach, before reaching for his cock.

You stroked him softly as you laced kisses over his chest tattoo, running your lips over the flesh. Moving to his neck, you paused and looked at him. His eyes were shut, long eyelashes seemingly stretching for miles and soft sighs came out of his mouth. “Can I leave marks?” You asked, kissing his neck lightly, You didn’t want to possibly get him in trouble. “Yes please.” He said, the words coming out more as a beg as your hand picked up speed.

Smiling, you got to work adding your own personal artwork to his body. Moving all around his neck, small purple marks started to bloom. You might have been overly proud but he really did look like a piece of art in your eyes.

Your thumb swiped over his slit, making a small growl almost leave him. Yongguk’s eyes fluttered open before stopping your hand with his own and looking at you. “I want to be inside of you.” His words were low and hushed as his hips bucked slightly. Nodding, you pulled him to lay over you and wrapped your arms around his neck.

“If that’s what you want.” You paused, kissing his lips and resuming your sentence. “Who am I to deny that?” Yongguk loved the way you spoke, the way you teased him and the way you kept him on his toes, this situation wasn’t any different than earlier on in the day.

Lining himself up with your core, you took a deep breath and let your fingers play with the hairs on the back of his neck. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist as he pushed in to you and you let out a sigh at the pressure. Yongguk released the deep groans he had been holding in when he felt your tight walls swallowing him. He hadn’t expected you to feel this good or this tight. His hands moved to your thighs and gripping the flesh when he bottomed out completely.

However he wasted no time fucking into you. His hips taking over before his mind really could. Your nails raked down his back at the sudden wave of pleasure coursing through your body. It felt like your nerves were on fire and everywhere he touched left a flame in it’s wake. It was all so intense, even his face burrying in the crook of your neck.

As he picked up the speed, he hit your sweet spot catching you off guard and making you let out a small scream. “Oh, right there.” You said, holding him down against your chest. Yongguk was letting out the most beautiful sounds by your ear, moaning as he felt your walls flutter around him. Picking up the speed a bit more, the room was now filled with the sound of skin on skin and your moans.

The sun was pouring into his bedroom, it was hardly 1 in the afternoon and anyone one of his neighbors could hear you both. In all honesty, you both could have cared less. In that moment, the only thing that mattered was how you both felt.

“I’m so close.” You whimpered and he lifted his head from your neck. Your eyes locked as his hand rubbed core lightly, knowing you might the little extra push to reach your climax. He himself was close too, refraining from holding your hips down and fucking you into the mattress.

A loud moan tore from you, only to be silenced by his lips pressing against yours. Your orgasm tore through you, leaving your body in tremors as Yongguk strived for his own release. Holding him close, you slowly started to feel overstimulated and your legs shook around his waist.

“Fuckkk.” He groaned against your lips pulling out of to finish on your abdomen. The gutteral moans that left him were absolute music to your ears as you watched him come undone on you.

He sat up straight for a moment and the room was in complete silence. His chest rose and fell deeply as you both caught your breath. You watched him, admiring his little details as you let your body relax.

Finally opening his eyes again, he looked at you. Taking note of your swollen lips, red tinted cheeks and small marks gracing your skin.

“You’re so beautiful.” He said softly, leaning over you again to place a soft kiss on your lips. “Let me clean us up.” You nodded at his words, trying to resist the horrible sleepy feeling you were experiencing. Watching him disappear to another room, your eyes fell shut. Mentally claiming you were only closing them for a moment. However when your eyes opened again, 10 minutes had passed and Yongguk had cleaned you up, slipping his button up onto you after. An arm was wrapped around you loosely and his light snoring had filled the room.

It was only logical how tired and drained you were feeling. You had been awake for almost 24 hours and it had finally hit you both. Threading your fingers through his hair lightly, you couldn’t help but smile.

“Do you have to work tonight?” His voice surprised you, considering you thought he was asleep. “Yes I do.” You answered and watched his eyes slowly open. Pulling you into him more, Yongguk held you tightly.

“I’m aware I sound like an absolute mad man. But I haven’t met anyone like you. I want to keep you, I want to love you.” He admitted to himself. Yongguk meant it, never had he had a connection with anyone like this. His previous relationships never reached the level of passion you both had reached within a few hours.

Even though your mind was tired, your brain could still register his words. Oh how sweet they were. You had to look away from him for a moment, resisting the urge to spill tears. “I want to keep you, I want to love you too.” You said softly wiping your eyes as you turned to look at him again.

His smile was so beautiful and it was what you were met with when you faced him again. “You’re beautiful on stage, but so much more beautiful like this.” His compliments were too much really, however you revelled in them. You felt like you were glowing.

“Come to my show tonight.” You said softly, wanting him near you always. Yongguk looked at you with a soft expression and you almost felt shy under his gaze. “I’ll come to all of your shows if it means I get to love you.” He smiled and it was horribly cheesy yet it tugged your heartstrings immensly. Laughing slightly, you kissed him suddenly.

“Please do, as long as you remember that I’m the on behind the red curtain.”

A/n: my god it’s finished. It’s here. I worked so hard on this please. This is my new baby. I hope you enjoyed it.

#b.a.p #b.a.p smut #b.a.p reaction #yongguk #yongguk smut #yongguk reaction #b.a.p scenario #yongguk scenario #bang yongguk #bang yongguk smut #bang yongguk reaction #bang yongguk scenario

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tomorrow-human · 5 years ago

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MY THOUGHTS ON iDKHOW'S ALBUM DEBUT: RAZZMATAZZ

So I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME have just released RAZZMATAZZ today and heres what I think...

[SIDE A]

¹LEAVE ME ALONE:

A bombastic opening track. Was released in the beginning of August...? Probably? This song just SCREAMS at you with retro futuristic funkiness. It has 8-bity flourishes in the instrumentation and seems to be maybe talking to the same person as Choke (from 1981 E.P.) and the title track Razzmatazz have been (or maybe a separate entity as suggested by the vinyl booklet and Indoctoration?).

Anyway, fantastic track, great opener, and nice mood-setter.

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²INDOCTORATION:

It's... eerie. It's not a song in the same sense as Leave Me Alone, despite having a wobbly backing track. It's a spoken interlude that seems to be initiating you into Tellex maybe? It yet again mentions the White Shadows that will be overseeing your progress with Tellex. It seems oddly nostalgic for some reason. That's strange. Overall, solid little piece of lore building that really reinforces the concept aspects.

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³MAD IQs:

It's the first song from this album that wasn't released as a single and it made my jaw literally drop. It has a similar lyrical and vocal structure to the opener and New Invention, but what I like is how much they were able to do with it, though it makes you wonder about how far apart these songs were written; but In the context of the albums concept and the Tellex stuff however, it could be interpreted as a corporate decision, this repetition. The minimal instrumentation in the verses with Ryan's sturdy drumming and Dallon's bassline makes me go fucking bananas. It's so fucking great and full of this punchy energy. And the HARMONIES. YES. "Voluntary victim~" "I'm burning~ in your mad IQs" SIR STOP BEING SO VOCALLY TALENTED. Also I think i heard him shriek right before the bridge which? Snazzy. So Mad IQs, energetic track, filled with more of iDKHOWs signature darkness.

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⁴NOBODY LIKE THE OPENING BAND:

Ah yes, Opening Band. Ironic considering how often iDKHOW are the opening band, but I'm sure that's obvious, seeing how they usually sing this one at the start of their gigs. It was actually (I think) the first or second song I didn't know how but found through youtube so I might be pretty biased here. It's a sweet sounding change of pace with the instrumentation being made up of only the piano and tambourine that tells of a typical opening band, that no ones ever heard before and likely will never hear again, via a sympathetic narrator with a hint of the typical iDKHOW teasing. In all honesty, it would've worked better as the album opener, which then could've been followed by Leave Me Alone, but it's a nice change of pace overall.

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⁵NEW INVENTION:

I already reviewed this song on my other blog right here so imma keep this brief. It shares similar aspects to Leave Me Alone, with the music video concept and song structure, but It manages to darken the narrative, and the choir-esq harmonies sound like ultra bright neon lights that only push this mood further. It still is a magnificent song and by far one of my favourites in the album.

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⁶IN THE GALLOWS:

MASSIVE SHIFT IN STYLE HOLY FUCKOLY-. The track opens with a very cutesy old timey little piano intro and starts the verse with a little funny beat. If you don't listen to the lyrics, it sounds like a silly little oldie song. But as we all know, iDKHOW doesn't do silly. The lines "For you, I'd die▪︎Or kill myself▪︎which ever makes you smile," From just the first verse are a prime example of this. The narrators murderous and suicidal intentions have clouded the romantic attraction into obsession- And I kinda like that, in a poetic way. The chorus is a standout, with the calm start to the explosion in the line "I'd swing from the gallows and wave" that just swings at you with a baseball bat to the chest. Oh, and the sax solo? Magnificent. This whole song is a chefs kiss from me.

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⁷CLUSTERHUG:

I love the lyrics of this song the most of it all. It sounds like a rebellious teenager wrote it after thinking about how shit their hometown is and wanting to get out. It also incorporates how much the narrator would want to do all this with their crush, adding that slightly goofy and pretend-aloof chorus of "only if you'd like me to I could fall in love with you" as if they weren't already in love or at least that's how I see it. The vibe of this song is more pop-y than the rest of the album, but that's more likely because it was repurposed for Razzmatazz after being originally written for The Brobecks, their older band. It's a nice little tune :).

[SIDE B]

⁸SUGAR PILLS:

This. Will. Get. Stuck. In. Your. Head- and. You. Will. Like. It. Basically, just seems like a song about drugs that, for some reason, reminds me of Gorillaz (who I dont even listen to). But the BASSLINE AGAIN- Jesus help me live. It has more of that energy we saw with the first few tracks and adds even more electronic elements. It's probably my second favourite song from this album that's not a single because of how fun the chorus sounds. What else can I say? I can just imagine myself bopping to this in the car screaming 'SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR PILLS' On a hot day.

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⁹KISS GOODNIGHT:

It's so sweet 🥺. It's one of those songs I could imagine a character in a movie singing to someone from a stage. If you want pretty song vibes just listen to it. Because it is a pretty song. And that's all I have to say on it. Now allow me to take a moment and shove it into my pretty song playlist that acts like my personal lullaby machine.

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¹⁰LIGHTS GO DOWN:

Yes. F u n k y. Give me that sweet sweet disco energy, thank you. It's just filled with all these *☆~blingy and sparkly~☆* effects, and, combined with the drumming, the result is just glorious. The best part of this song is in my opinion the bridge where it goes darker lyrically and in sound that just naturally slides into another funky-ass sax solo. I can definitely see myself dancing to this at a party and then in later years growing nostalgic for those days.

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¹¹NEED YOU HERE:

It's supposed to be happy in tone and hopeful slightly but it just makes me sad. It's a song about how, because Dallon has to tour because it's his job, he has to be away from his family often. And he had nO RIGHT ADDING HIS DAUGHTERS VOCALS AND RECORDINGS INTO THE MIX ITS LIKE HE WANTS US TO CRY. It's not my favourite of the album, not going to lie here, but it's also such a sweet song with nice instrumentals and vibe 🥺 so that's all I'll say.

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¹²DOOR:

It seems like this one was written around the time sad ukulele music was really at its peak but am I complaining? Fuck no because this song is great. It just gives it to you straight, that if the narrator ever does anything that the recipient doesn't like, they can always cut them out of their life. It's nice in that regard- you don't usually get songs that don't try to deflect the pain or gain pity. We need more of these kinds of songs. The shortness of it really adds to the effect of this being more like a regularly said thing, even though I'm always a bit sad that it ends so fast. It does, however, nicely close the near end of the album before Razzmatazz.

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¹³TOMORROW PEOPLE:

Creepy Tellex thank-you note. You're welcome..? I want no part in your conspiracy tho. Go away weird American corporate man voice.

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¹³RAZZMATAZZ:

And there it is. The title track. Like new inventions, I have already reviewed it here on that same blog so this will be brief also and more just thoughts. It's a great closer and is more old timey than most of the songs here as well. And with the last instrumental and sax solo, we come to the albums inevitable end... until next time.

[GENERAL THOUGHTS]

Overall, this was a fantastic little debut for iDKHOW and I loved it. So worth the pre-order. The songs were great and the lyrics were just excellent. My only real criticism is that the song order on Side A was a bit strange. I feel a way to fix this would be to throw Nobody Likes The Opening Band into the beginning, then have Leave Me Alone as a second track, and maybe even switch one of the songs on this side with one from Side B (either Mad IQs or New Invention with something else but then that would be kind of stretching it). Or maybe even switching Clusterhug with Mad IQs or New Invention could work. So in general? Razzmatazz good album. Next question.

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Thank you for reading, anyone who happens to see this and have read this. Hope you've enjoyed some of my thoughts on the debut and agreed with at least 2 points I made. See y'all on another review (or shitpost)!

-L.J

#idkhow #i dont know how but they found me #idkhbtfm #the i dont knows #dallon weekes #ryan seaman #lenas opinions #razzmatazz

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trainthief · 7 years ago

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Hey I was wondering if you'd ever consider doing like a top 20 fav classical music albums or composers list or something. Obviously if that just sounds stressful disregard this but I know you are like, into classical music & I grew up with my parents playing it & recently got, like, into the classical station but aside from like 3 artists I like I don't know where to start & I like your blog and would be interested in hearing about like, your taste

Sorry for responding to this so late, I’ve had a real week and I wanted to make sure I had time to put some thought into answering this ask. I’d definitely love to help, I always like recc’ing classical stuff to people! The idea of 20 absolute all time favorites is a difficult one for me because I love so much stuff and it’s really difficult to compare like… Caroline Shaw’s modern experimental chorale stuff to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Anyway, instead I will give you some full length pieces in different styles that I think are great for new listeners, and explain a little about what each one is doing and what I love about it, and some more pieces I recommend if you enjoy what you’re hearing. Hopefully that will help!

In no particular order:

Appalachian Spring by Copland: Let’s just get this one out of the way up front. If you’ve been following me for any amount of time at all, you know I’m deeply in love with Copland. He essentially invented the American compositional style by adding jazz elements to the established practices, which caused an absolute uproar at the beginning of his career as people then considered it an unholy mix of high and low culture. He doubled down on this concept when he wrote “Fanfare For The Common Man” which essentially stands as a celebration of the working class and those who couldn’t afford to see the symphony anyway. He was, I should also note, both gay and Jewish. A real icon. Anyhow, although I love so much of his work and could go on forever, I consider listening to Appalachian Spring in its entirety a spiritual experience, no exaggeration. Take it on a hike, listen to it while you look at the trees and think about whatever crosses your mind, and by the time the Coda hits you… well I personally can’t tell you what experience to have, but I feel for a second like I can see and be seen. Anyway, aside from that, just good music, very pretty. If you’d like similar music that incorporated jazz effectively into classical work, I’d of course recommend another favorite of mine: Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin.

Russian Easter Festival by Rimsky-Korsakov: As a general rule of thumb, Russian composers are ALWAYS good for some drama. This piece in particular is great because it’s not only fanfare and excitement, there’s a touch of pastoral calmness that I really love (more on that as a concept later) at the beginning, but we still get plenty of wildness. There’s a frantic octave part the violins play around minute 5 that always makes me want to scream. If you like this, I’d also recommend checking out Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. The man knows how to write sexy.

Romance in D by Berkey: I recommend this partially because it’s a lesser known and very beautiful piece, and also because it’s a good lead-in to a whole subset of classical called Furniture Music. Essentially called that - originally by the composer Satie - because it’s nice to put on in the background. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun to listen to, and from a compositional and performance standpoint it can still be very impressive. But it’s just good and calming and you could certainly sip tea to it in the restaurant area of a ritzy 1920’s hotel while you read a novel and ignore your rich husband asking if you’d like any marmalade. A good example of the same effect is the soundtrack to Phantom Thread. It’s also good for studying. If you like that conceptually, I’ve got a whole playlist here.

Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky: A really excellent intro to classical and one of my favorite works, AND like the last one, also a lead-in to an informal format. Pictures was written with the idea that each song was a separate painting that the listener could imagine they were looking at in a museum. For that reason, each one has a different style and personality, and feels very descriptive and exciting. A collection of small related pieces is called a suite, but I haven’t yet been able to find a technical name for that specific kind of storytelling structure within a suite. It’s not uncommon though, and in that same vein I’d also recommend The Planets by Holst (about the planets, as you might assume), and Carnival of the Animals by Saint Saens (about… yeah you get it).

Spem in Alium by Tallis: We’re taking a wild left turn now and veering into the Christian choral tradition dating back to the 1500s. Like anyone else who isn’t even a Christian, there’s a few things about Catholicism that I’m obsessed with. Namely the hymns and the stained glass. Focusing only on the hymns, Tallis is one of the best examples of polyphonic hymnal work. Polyphonic, essentially, means that the different voices in the piece are moving around each other and will frequently change their notes in a way that will compliment - but is not necessarily in line with - the direction of the piece as a whole. It makes more sense if you just listen. The style, however, was developed in an attempt to capture the idea of the stars and planets circling each other in their own independent orbits, because at the time people had just started to turn their gaze to the sky for answers about their own lives. Aside from that very cool background, I just find the really human side of the choir format in particular paired with the elevation of music being this untouchable but powerful thing paired with the holiness of the concept paired with how awesome the acoustics of a chapel can be…. It’s just a lot. If you like this I’d also recommend Miserere Mei by Allegri, Ave Maris Stella by Dufay, and O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen

Peter Grimes by Britten: Classical music is so rooted in every musical tradition, and visa versa, that it’s almost impossible to separate it conceptually from a lot of genres. Technically, “classical” refers to a period of time more than it does a genre anyway, but let’s not get pretentious about it. While we’re pushing the boundaries of what can and can’t be included in this list, let’s talk Opera, and specifically Peter Grimes. When asked to describe it, Britten said it was “a subject very close to my heart—the struggle of the individual against the masses. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual.” More specifically the struggle was an allegory for gay oppression, and ironically Britten wrote the lead role with his lifelong partner Peter Pears - an opera singer - in mind. To give a taste without giving too much away, the Prologue establishes that Grimes, a fisherman, is being questioned over the death of his apprentice. The townspeople are all convinced before the questioning even begins that he must have done it, but the coroner decides the death was accidental. Grimes is let free and advised not to get another apprentice, but he of course ignores this…. If the vocal side of opera doesn’t do it for you, there are 4 Sea Interludes from this work that are really great independently. If you want even more opera with even more drama, I’d recommend looking at Tosca or Turandot both by Pucccini. If you think classic opera is too high brow and you want something a little sillier, try Mozart’s Magic Flute. If you want something more new age and weird, try listening to Two Boys by Muhly or selections from Einstein on the Beach by Glass (but probably not all 5 hours, Knee Play 5 and Spaceship would be my top 2).

Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” by Beethoven: I mentioned earlier when describing the Russian Easter Festival that I love a piece with pastoral calmness. Getting back to that point, I haven’t ever seen one word that’s commonly used to describe this particular sense in a piece, but I personally call it a Pastoral after Beethoven’s 6th. In general, the symphony is one of my favorites as a composer and listener, especially given that it’s really just about taking a walk in nature which is one of only 3 themes music should have anyway in my opinion. A good amount of my music is written with this feeling in mind. Aside from all that context, the first movement in particular is very nice, passionate but not sensational, and is just about being excited to be outside. Nothing wrong with that. This subset of music is probably the most informal of all the ones I’ve listed so far, but if you’d like more “Pastorals,” or pieces that have a nice calm passion to them, I’d also highly recommend Enigma Variations: Nimrod by Elgar, Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis by Vaughan Williams, Once Upon A Time In America by Morricone, Musica Celestis by Kernis, and of course again Appalachian Spring by Copland. (I would also be legally sent to jail if I didn’t mention that while we’re on the subject of Beethoven, his 9th Symphony is generally considered one of the greatest achievements in classical music).

Rite of Spring by Stravinsky: A lot of these pieces have been good jumping off points into different musical concepts, but with this one I’m sticking my description to the initial piece itself. I got the chance to email with a composer I admire and he at one point described composition not in the sense of writing something “smart”, but in writing something “detailed”. The Rite of Spring is a really great example of detailed composition. It’s extremely experimental with its time changes - essentially the way that you should be counting your notes as a musician constantly changes and always into a pattern that’s difficult to keep track of - and also with its chord structure. The music itself can be jarring and odd to listen to but the composition wasn’t random and when studied shows an obsessive elbows-deep involvement in the work that I really admire. It might not surprise you to hear, however, that at the initial performance the audience was so furious that the lighting technician had to continually flash the lights to confuse them, out of fear of a riot. If you’d like something a bit more fun to listen to by the same composer, however, Firebird is a good one. And if you’d like another great piece that was completely booed off the stage at its premier, I’d recommend Grand Pianola by Adams.

Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev: While we’re in the general vicinity of ballet, I should get into that deeper. Ballets can have some of the most fun music to listen to because the timing is required to be so much more specific. Romeo and Juliet is a lot of fun, particularly the “Montagues and Capulets” and “Masks” sections. Another great ballet is, of course, The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. I’d also recommend Don Quixote by Minkus, and Rodeo by Copland…. I know I know

Violin Concerto in D by Tchaikovsky: I said Russians bring the drama, and it’s doubly so when it’s a gay Russian. This piece is a classic example of the solo concerto format, which is a staple of classical as a whole. The setup is a single player on whatever instrument the piece is written for accompanied by an orchestra, and is usually a showcase of technical skill by the soloist. This one in particular is basically THE turning point in a violinist’s studies and just about every violinist learns it as soon as they’re capable of taking it on. Personally I still vividly remember when my teacher finally gave it to me, it’s a very specific sense of accomplishment. Similar examples of the solo concerto format on different instruments would be Piano Concerto in F by Rachmaninoff, and Oboe Concerto in C by Mozart, both of which I absolutely love.

The Revd Mustard His Installation Prelude by Muhly: I’ve gone on forever so I’m trying to be quick. Nico Muhly is one of my favorite modern composers and Revd Mustard combines his classic ecstatic and constantly moving style with an organ, which I’m a sucker for. Contemporary classical in his style can be difficult to listen to because it’s gotten very experimental and as a result, very complicated. But if you don’t go into it with the expectation that you’re going to hear a structured and logical Mozart-like piece and you instead surrender your opinion until the whole thing has come together for you, it can be really interesting at the very least. As a side note, Nico has collaborated with Sufjan, Bjork, Jonsi, Teitur…. lots of people. You’ve certainly heard him before even if you didn’t know it. For more classical from the last few decades I’d recommend Partita for 8 Singers by Shaw, Tissue No. 7 by Glass, Different Trains by Reich, the Red Violin Concerto by Corigliano (especially because I just saw it live a few days ago and am still reeling), Perpetuum Mobile by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Part. Each of which is vastly different, stylistically speaking, but all of which I really love. And for more organ listen to one of my favorite pieces of all time, Symphony 3 by Saint Saens.

Ok, you know what? I’m cutting myself off because I’ve gone on forever. If you haven’t been put off of asking me questions entirely by now, please feel free if you want even more recommendations in a specific style, or want to know more about something you enjoy. Clearly I love talking about this. Hope that helped!

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loadacademy575 · 4 years ago

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Soundtrack Download

00:00 - A Land Of War And Poetry 04:01 - Currents Of The Odai 09:13 - Magnus Smiles on Suran 14:25 - Vvardenfell Vista 15:27 - Ascadian Idyll 20:24 - Shadow. Most tracks were given a title on the soundtrack CD ('Original Title') included in the Collector's Edition of Morrowind, and later another title ('Remastered Title') when Jeremy Soule released a remastered version of the Morrowind soundtrack on DirectSong. The Original Title also corresponds to the 15-track CD seen on some sites. 1 day ago Each one is iconic. That's why ESO Morrowind looked at ES III for music inspiration. The soundtrack of ES III-V had strong identity and atmosphere and alot of the vague track in eso (imo) lacks the atmosphere of the single player games #26. The best Elder Scrolls music for me is the Forgotten Vale theme from.

Beyond a Steel Sky (Video Game 2020) SoundTracks on IMDb: Memorable quotes and exchanges from movies, TV series and more. Beyond a steel sky soundtrack. Beyond a Steel Sky Soundtrack This is additional content for Beyond a Steel Sky, but does not include the base game. Beneath A Steel Sky Soundtrack The Beneath A Steel Sky soundtrack can be downloaded here. Before using this support area be sure to check you are running on or above the recommended system requirements located at the bottom of this page. Listen to Beyond A Steel Sky (Original Soundtrack) on Spotify. Alistair Kerley Album 2020 46 songs.

Overview

There was a time when the Elder Scrolls franchise wasn't one of the biggest names in the RPG genre. That all changed in 2002 with The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the first Elder Scrolls game to be released on both computers and consoles (Xbox). The game continued the franchise's fascination with open-ended gameplay that placed few restrictions on the gamer's actions — you might choose to follow Morrowind's main plot or lose yourself in exploring the game's vast world and its myriad sidequests. One of the consequences of this approach was that, probably involuntarily, Morrowind came to embody the difference between more non-linear Western RPGs and the traditionally story-driven JRPGs. With more than four million copies of the game sold, very strong reviews and a slew of end-of-the-year awards, Morrowind remains one of the cornerstones of Western RPGs.

To score Morrowind's soundtrack, developer Bethesda Softworks called upon the services of one of Western game music's biggest names, Jeremy Soule. Although still a relatively young composer at the time, Soule had already proven himself an expert at writing music for fantasy games with his work on the Harry Potter and Icewind Dale games, as well for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Dungeon Siege. Morrowind would prove to be another steppingstone for Soule on his way to becoming one of the foremost composers for this genre of games. In a press release, Soule emphasised that the 'stunning epic quality of the Elder Scrolls series is particularly compatible with the grand, orchestral style of music I enjoy composing the most.' At the same time however, Soule was aware that due to Morrowind's free-wheeling nature, gamers might spend hours roaming a particular area in the game, similar to an MMORPG. Soule then chose to create a soft and minimalist soundtrack that wouldn't be too dominant during these long stretches of exploration, so the music wouldn't wear out its welcome.

This approach yielded mixed results, at least according to various game reviewers, who commented on the soundtrack's limited scope and on its overreliance on its main theme. Complaints were also levelled at the ambient, non-adaptive nature of the music, which failed to reflect the gamer's actions and current situation. Despite such criticism, Morrowind's soundtrack was nominated for 'Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition' at the Annual Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences's Interactive Achievement Awards in 2003, where it lost out to Michael Giacchino's Medal of Honor: Frontline.

On album, Morrowind's music was first made available on a 40-minute bonus CD that came with the game's Collector's Edition. Soundtrack collectors eager to find out how well Morrowind's music played outside of the game were later given an easier way to satisfy their curiosity. In 2006, Soule released Morrowind's soundtrack via his online music store DirectSong. This new release presented the music in remastered form and added six minutes to the difficult-to-find physical album, effectively superseding it. This review refers to the original physical release.

Body

So, are Soule's efforts for Morrowind as difficult to enjoy on album as during the in-game experience? Short answer: no. Fortunately, this is one of those rare cases where the soundtrack actually plays better outside of the game. First case in point: Morrowind's main theme. It's first presented on opening track 'Nerevar Rising' in obvious fashion. The track is effectively a series of presentations of the main theme, increasing in volume and scope as the melody is being passed from harp and flute to the celli, before a climactic finish on violins and full brass caps off the piece's development. It's to Soule's credit that the theme — essentially a simple three-note motif extended by two different secondary phrases — adapts well to all these different instrumental settings. The melody communicates lyricism just as much as an optimistic spirit of adventure once the orchestra cranks up the volume. This mellifluous quality comes to benefit the easily recognisable theme and helps it to adapt to other tracks' atmospheres, instead of blatantly putting its stamp on these compositions. 'Peaceful Waters' quotes the main theme briefly on flute and teases out its reflective character, while 'The Road Most Travelled' incorporates a rendition of the theme on solo cello into its lush textures. The melody plays equally well in the more energetic setting of Morrowind's battle cues, where the theme appears on flowing violins on 'Bright Spears, Dark Blood' and subtly referenced in the background of the second half of 'Dance of Swords.'

All these quotations of the main theme are fashioned intelligently and are inserted seamlessly into the flow of the compositions. It's a shame then that the theme only occurs regularly during the album's first half and then disappears — for good actually on the original physical album. If there's any issue with the main theme and Soule's use of it then, it's that the theme is actually underused and doesn't tie the soundtrack's second half together as well as the first half. Next to the main theme, there's a number of secondary themes which are specific to particular cues as a lightly-sprung but determined melody that's heard in various disguises throughout 'The Road Most Travelled'.

And what about the soundtrack's soft and minimalist nature? Good news here as well: Morrowind's music is anything but background droning. Instead, it's a rich score with pieces that develop formidably within their limited running times — ultimately the title's biggest strength. The album's compositions showcase fluid and expertly layered orchestrations that give every instrument section of the synth orchestra an opportunity to shine. Stylistically, it never goes beyond that classical fantasy sound that's been a mainstay of many games, with its rhapsodic and heroic strains. But on Morrowind, Soule applies this formula with an assured hand and the results are thoroughly convincing.

The album alternates battle tracks with more expansive compositions that seem to describe a scenery rather than actions. Its on these cues that the soundtrack develops a spellbinding pull and occasionally even a sense of grandeur that's most befitting for a world as large at that of Morrowind. Tracks like 'Blessing of Vivec', 'Silt Sunrise' and 'Shed Your Travails' are a well of soulful string melodies that don't fail to tug at the heartstrings, yet never sacrifice their noble air. Soule's talent for creating colourful, ever-changing orchestral layers is in full force on these pieces. The opening string melody of 'Silt Sunrise' is backed by increasingly complex orchestrations before calming down for a serene melodic statement, which in turn leads to a splendid conclusion over busy string ostinati and brass interjections. 'Shed Your Travails' and 'Caprice' calm down in their middle sections to include an ethereal female choir that instils the music with a real sense of wonder. On 'Shed Your Travails', this episode leads into an appropriately otherwordly, peaceful finish over glistening violin tremoli and a dying flute melody. 'Caprice', on the other hand, frames its spiritual interlude with light-hearted string ostinati and effortlessly segues from one musical extreme into the other. 'Blessing of Vivec' is just as beautiful and emotionally gripping as these cues, but remains more austere through its jagged solo cello lead whose cautiously ascending notes are a lot less flowing than most string writing on the album. While none of these tracks run longer than three-and-a-half minutes, they pack more development and symphonic drama into their running times than other compositions twice their length.

Morrowind's action material doesn't quite reach the same lofty heights, but it's convincing enough in its own right. Again, it's standard fantasy stuff: bold brass, driving strings and dramatic percussion. But Soule uses these familiar ingredients skilfully and presents them in well-composed shape. And his ear for details ensures these tracks merit repeat listens to tease out their intricacies, such as the rapidly descending violin ostinato figures on 'Dance of Swords' and 'Ambush!' Instead of using them to simply increase the tracks' rhythmic power, Soule places the cascading motifs between beats to create ear-catching, syncopated counterrhythms. Soule's penchant for constantly changing textures benefits the action tracks as well, even though their instrumentations are less colourful than those of Morrowind's slower tracks. Frequently, Soule casts his battle cues in an ABA structure that sees these compositions calming down in their middle section after a dynamic start, before ramping up the volume again towards the end. This change in tempo and texture is quite transparent, but helps to pace these cues and avoid monotony. And Soule makes sure that tension never sags during these quieter passages through the inclusion of lighter rhythmic elements such string pizzicati, hand percussion and tinkling piano notes.

All these positive qualities help to overcome the biggest criticism one could level at the battle cues: that their sound isn't powerful enough to allow them make their full impact. To a degree, this ties in with Soule's declared approach of not trying to overwhelm the listener with his music in-game. And make no mistake, the majority of Morrowind's action tracks are energy-laden enough to satisfy, even though you sometimes wish the percussion elements would have greater presence. But it's only once Soule's strips back the many layers of his compositions and focuses on the primal qualities of repetitive rhythms that things start to sound less promising, for example on 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer' and 'Stormclouds on the Battlefield'. The only thing that the minimalist rhythms of 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer' could have going for them is a resonant, forceful sound, and Morrowind fails to provide this. Tyranny bastard's wound ending. In general, the album sounds somewhat dull and compressed, with the effect that the detailed orchestral textures, particularly on the colourful slower tracks, aren't always rendered with a desirable level of clarity. Orchestral climaxes that should soar occasionally have their wings clipped, and the sustained double bass chords on 'Over the Next Hill' have way too much presence and muddy the soundscape. Sure, this is a synthesised soundtrack from 2002, but there are enough better-sounding albums around from the same time to suggest that Morrowind's acoustic appearance is hardly reference quality.

Summary

With The Elder Scrolls III -Morrowind- Special Edition Soundtrack, Soule further cemented his elevated standing among Western game music composers. The album impressively displays why Soule would come to be regarded as a specialist for scoring fantasy games. Particularly the more measured tracks on Morrowind are beautifully orchestrated and splendidly developed, to the degree that they sometimes feel like mini-epics convincingly compressed into three minutes. To a slightly lesser degree goes for the soundtrack's battle tunes, which are nicely varied in their textures and filled with intricacies, particularly when it comes to their rhythms. All the way through, Morrowind exudes that wondrous, yet bold feeling of high adventure that's so indispensable for a fantasy score of this character, captured in the score's strong but slightly under-used main theme.

Unless you insist on listening to your scores in a lossless format, the physical release of Morrowind's score is superseded by the digital version. The disc lacks the remastering and bonus tracks of the digital version, and ends particularly underwhelmingly with 'Drumbeat of the Dunmer'. That all said, fantasy score enthusiasts should not hesitate to purchase a version of this soundtrack.

7/10

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The Elder Scrolls Iii: Morrowind Soundtrack Download Torrent

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The Elder Scrolls Iii Morrowind Soundtrack

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r5h · 8 years ago

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Moving On—Interlude III: The Scientist

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Major props to @hecallsmehischild, without whose help this chapter wouldn’t be out for quite some time. (Go read her fanfiction, it’s good!)

“Take it,” Cherry said.

Her brother leaned forward in an old, upholstered chair. Its dark fabric combined with his skull face, funeral clothes, and lurid locket to paint a bleak, moody picture. Cherry imagined him in some of the poems from that Edgar Allan Poe book—Lewis had given it to her for Christmas a while before—and decided he fit perfectly.

Lewis looked down at the Sailor Moon-themed bandaid outstretched in Cherry's hand, which did not fit perfectly. “Cherry, thank you, but....” He looked down at his cracked locket, then back into her eyes. “I don't know if this will help.”

“Bandaids always help. Take it!” She shoved it closer to his locket.

“That doesn't seem to be how it heals,” he said, holding the locket in both hands. “And it's already better than it was before, right?”

Cherry had to agree: before the locket had been cracked all the way across its front, but now the damage only went halfway across the face. She wasn't sure when it had happened: one moment she'd seen it cracking worse than before in the restaurant, then they were all making up, and then the next time she'd gotten a look at it, all the new cracks were gone, and so was a lot of the old crack.

But that was no excuse. Cherry glanced up at him: just up enough to see the skull, and then she looked straight forward at the locket before she could see his fire—his hair. “You gotta put a bandaid on it,” she said, pouting because this was first grade stuff, and she was at least third grade smart: he knew more stuff than her in turn, so shouldn't he know this stuff too? “So that it can heal properly.”

Lewis just kept looking at her—he saw his sockets staring blankly in her peripheral vision—so she groaned. “So your soul goo doesn't leak out! Duh! You're gonna get a ghost infection!”

“I don't think I....” Lewis stopped talking, then laughed gently. “Well, all right.”

He didn't move away as she pulled the paper off the bandaid and applied it, ever so carefully, to his locket's crack. When she was done, the whole crack was covered, and Cherry smiled. “There,” she said. “Now mean ghosts can't slip in and possess you.”

Lewis lifted a finger halfway before stopping and tilting his head; then the finger moved to rest lightly upon the bandaid. “Hmm.” He traced the length of the crack under its cover, wincing slightly as he did so. “Thank you,” he said. There was something in the way he held his head: even though she couldn't see a mouth, she could see him smiling.

Cherry felt herself beaming—almost as if actual light was coming from her, not just a smile. “By the way,” she added, “there's this thing I wanted to ask you, but Dad said to ask Mom, and Mom said to ask Dad, and maybe you know it?”

Lewis nodded, leaning toward her once more, still with that undefinable smile.

“You know that word Ginnie said yesterday, the one she got in trouble for?” His smile seemed to be disappearing. She persevered. “What does it—”

The phone rang from the kitchen. Lewis immediately stood from the seat and stepped clean over her head to stride over there. Cherry followed with a disappointed pout—but she'd be able to ask later.

Lewis picked up the phone. “Hello, Pepper household.” A pause, and then Cherry saw his shoulders relax a little with happiness, as he said, “Vivi!” Then, however, he frowned—well, his face didn't frown, because he didn't have one at the moment, but his whole body sort of frowned. He leaned forward slightly, slumping his head with annoyance. Then, he groaned and pressed the 'speaker' button on the phone's charging dock. Immediately, Vivi's voice rang out:

“—gonna assume that's Lewis trying to talk to me—Lewis, you're a ghost now, regular cameras can't see you, and regular phones can't hear you. If that is you on the other end, you're gonna need someone to transcribe—trans-say, whatever—so that I can hear you, okay?”

“Would you, please?” Lewis murmured, glancing down at Cherry.

“I'm just gonna keep talking,” Vivi continued, “until I hear someone—”

“Hello?” Cherry asked.

There was a pause. “Bell! Hello, how are you doing?”

“I'm... Cherry.”

“Cherry, Cherry, oh my gadzooks I am sorry!” Nervous laughter came through the phone line. “The audio quality's not that great. Anyway, Lewis is there, right?”

“Yeah,” Cherry replied.

“Hello, Vivi,” he said.

“He says hello.”

“Hi, Lewis! Okay, um. This is going to be weird if your little sister is the intermediary, but... whatever, it was gonna be weird no matter how I said it. Lewis, I'd like for you to....”

A series of “ums” and “ahs” followed, as Vivi tried to figure out how to say whatever it was she was going to say. Meanwhile, something occurred to Cherry—how come a phone couldn't hear Lewis, but she could?

She remembered what Dad had told her—sounds were actually vibrations in the air, and then they vibrated your ear and that was how you heard things. She pulled out a chair from under the kitchen counter, climbed up on it, and grabbed a napkin. “Testing,” she said, with the napkin almost touching her mouth: the napkin fluttered as she spoke.

“Okay, I think I'm ready,” Vivi said. “Still there, Lewis?”

“Yes,” he said. Cherry echoed him as she laboriously pushed the chair over to his side, the friction making sounds like a brass horn. “What are you doing?” he asked, looking down at her.

“What are you doing?” Cherry asked, then realized—with a blush appropriate to her name—that this line hadn't been meant for Vivi.

“What I am doing,” Vivi replied, “is saying this: Lewis. I would like. For you. To come over to my house.”

Cherry was finished pushing the chair, and she clambered upon it again as Lewis leaned forward expectantly. She held the napkin in front of where his mouth would be.

“Privately,” Vivi added.

“Privately?” Lewis asked, eyesockets widening. The napkin didn't flutter at all. Cherry repeated the word, the implications filling her mind. Mostly the implications about the napkin, though she knew 'privately' probably implied things too, even if they weren't as interesting things.

“Privately,” Vivi repeated. “Okay, wow, I guess we've probably said 'privately' four times and I'm totally semantically satiated, privately privately privately shut up Vivi.” Resonant slapping sounds cut her off: she was probably smacking herself in the head. “It is not, let's be clear, a date. Not exactly. But it is at least a friendly visit between two people, one of whom would like to get to know the other one better. So, uh, what times work for you this weekend?”

Lewis pressed his fingertips against his chest and scratched without seeming to realize it. “I... don't have a job, per se, so... tell her any time,” he said, glancing down at Cherry before his stare returned to nothing in particular.

“Lewis says any time,” she said.

“Awesome! Okay, then let's go for noon on Saturday. Sounds good to you?” Vivi's voice was accelerating. “Sounds good to me. Oh, almost forgot, bring your violin, okay? Okay, Lewis and Cherry, thanks! Talk to you later! Bye!”

Cherry thought she heard a deep breath heaved on Vivi's end of the line, one which sounded like the first of many, just before the call ended. Then again it could have been static. Whatever—the conclusions she could draw from this were huge!

“You're psychic!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

“A date!” Lewis said, scratching his chest more rapidly. “A date with Vivi!”

“Lewis, didn't you hear me? You're a tele—wait,” Cherry said, squinting. “Didn't she say it wasn't a date?”

“My violin,” he said, turning around absentmindedly and walking out of the kitchen. For Lewis, it wasn't a fast pace—for Cherry, whose legs clocked in at approximately a third of the length of his, it was pretty fast. “She wanted me to bring it. I think I left it in my room—it's been a year, have Mom and Dad been tuning it?”

“Come on, Lewis, listen!” Cherry ran up the stairs behind him as he took them, with unthinking ease, three at a time. “If you're not talking with regular sounds, then either you've gotta be talking with weird ghost sounds, which is crazy, or you're just using telepathy to talk right into people's—”

Lewis walked into his room, and forgot to open the door first. His body phased right through, leaving Cherry stuck outside. “Brains,” she finished.

She looked up and realized she wasn't the only thing stuck outside. The Sailor Moon bandaid she'd applied not ten minutes before had failed to pass through the door with the rest of Lewis, and was now adhered to the dark brown wood.

Cherry frowned. Sometimes, Lewis didn't know how to worry about the important stuff.

Lewis stared at Vivi's tiny, yellowing front lawn, and imagined the smell of October grass. Then he stepped up to her porch, violin case in hand.

He'd had all sorts of plans. An impressive entrance in a cloud of flame and smoke, astonishing Vivi as he appeared out of nowhere and swept her off her feet upon the doorstep. And perhaps a full choir of Deadbeats, who would have happily provided backing vocals on any lovesong he could have cared to name: “My Girl”, “Fly Me to the Moon”, anything—he could take his pick. Dozens of grand romantic gestures had paraded their way though his head, in the sleepless nights leading up to their date.

Except, of course, that it wasn't a date. She'd been insistent on the point.

Lewis reached up to knock at Vivi's simple, slightly disrepaired wooden door. He hesitated, opened his case, pulled out his violin, and quietly tested that it was in tune. Satisfied, he returned it to its case, and stood straighter as he knocked three times.

It wasn't a date. Of course. But no point in doing this if he wasn't doing it right, after all. Fifth impressions were important.

After a couple of footsteps from inside, Vivi opened the door partway, and the first thing he noticed was the awkward smile on her face as she looked up. The second thing was the strap over her shoulder. “Vivi,” he said, nodding in greeting—was that enough? Should he do something friendlier?

“Hey there!” She half-extended her hand to shake, before raising it for a clumsy wave. “So, ready for our re-first non-date?”

“Hm?”

“Or maybe our first re-non-date....”

“Perhaps—” Lewis decided: he offered his hand to shake. “Just a meeting.”

“What kinda made-up word is that?” Vivi laughed, and grabbed his hand. After a few good shakes, she quickly released it and turned slightly—Lewis made to walk forward, but she was just lifting the strap from her shoulder, and hefting what it was attached to.

“So,” she said, holding up her guitar in front of herself. “I found this in my closet. Look familiar to you?”

Lewis's eyes widened: he hadn't seen it in a while. Vivi's guitar wasn't particularly well taken-care of: the clean curve defining the guitar's face was marred with chips and scratches, like dog-ears in a well-read book. It looked a little dustier than he'd remembered—but yes, he recognized this.

“Because here's the thing,” Vivi continued, “it doesn't look familiar to me. I think I know how to play it a little bit, but I can hardly remember ever seeing this thing. I don't remember noticing it all year—I must have been tripping over it and not realizing every time I used that dang closet.” She snorted with something like frustration. “Which means, something about this guitar has a lot to do with you, right?”

Lewis nodded. “We met a lot, before we were officially dating—you wanted me to help you learn to play the guitar. I told you I only knew how to play the violin, but you said it was close enough.”

“Well, it is, isn't it? They're basically the same idea.”

“I eventually decided it was just an excuse to spend time with me.”

Well, it is, isn't—” Vivi caught herself, with a blush that seemed to glow brighter than Lewis could. “Anyway, the point is that thanks to you—” she shot him a stink-eye, but without actual malice to it “—I no longer remember how to play guitar. So I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me relearn.”

Lewis smiled. “I would be delighted. May I come in?”

He rested his violin on his shoulder and, once more, made to step forward—but Vivi didn't budge, and her shoulders were tensed. She stared up at him and, after a few seconds, blurted out, “So, how's the family doing?”

His eyes narrowed as he gently lowered his foot. “Are you stalling?”

“Yes I am.” She looked relieved to have been found out: her shoulders relaxed immediately.

“Hm.” He considered this for a few seconds. “Why are you stalling?”

“Well.” Vivi leaned against the doorframe. “Erm. The thing is... the thing is....”

A compact white shape interposed itself between Vivi's legs and the door. “I believe this is where I come in.”

Lewis looked down at the voice, and saw Mystery—small dog Mystery, not giant kitsune Mystery—standing in front of her. “Hello, Lewis,” he said.

Lewis stared at him. “Hello, Mystery,” he said flatly.

“Sorry, am I butting into your private time together? I wouldn't want you to feel uncomfortable just because I'm around.” Mystery wore the most self-satisfied grin Lewis could remember seeing. And Lewis distinctly remembered the vetala.

“Uh, yeah,” Vivi said, as her lean deepened into a slump. “He's 'the thing'. Sorry.”

Lewis looked back her way, jabbing his index finger down. “What is he doing here?”

Mystery laughed. “You know I live here, right?”

“Ugh, come on in, I'll tell you.” Vivi opened the door fully and walked inside, with a more sullen gait than Lewis was used to seeing.

What a day.

Vivi slumped against her front door with a groan, dawdling for a minute before she pulled out her key. She hadn't had much time to dally after the vetala was destroyed, and after Lewis reconciled with his family: she had to run back to Tome Tomb, if she wanted any chance at keeping a job.

Somehow, Duet had been satisfied with her vague explanation of “family troubles”, albeit after one of his weird, personal-space-invading forehead touches. So she'd gotten to keep her job—which was somewhat difficult to get excited about.

And then there had been Chloe, and the tedium, and her muscles still aching, and just somehow her day had managed to be the perfect mix of bad supernatural stuff and bad mundane stuff. Like some sort of combination fan-vacuum, it both sucked and blew.

At last she pulled out her key, shoved it in the lock, and opened it. She was so ready to fall into a bed.

Vivi barely had time to comprehend the white blur of movement before it slammed her, knocking her hard on her back against the slats of the porch. She'd instinctively exhaled just before impact, so she didn't have the wind knocked out of her, but that didn't exactly make the experience fun. She blinked the spots out of her eyes.

When her vision cleared, she saw a tiny pair of yellow spectacles, resting on a panting snout in front of furious black eyes. “Er... hello, Hobbes?” she said, as hot, dry breaths abraded her face.

“That's not my name,” Mystery growled. “What were you thinking?”

He was big. Not as gigantic as she'd ever seen him, but certainly bigger than the lap-dog he usually masqueraded as. This seemed to be an intermediate form, big enough to pin her but small enough to fit through her door. She could see a sort of haze behind his head where his tails would be—or maybe that was just the recent cranial trauma messing with her vision.

Vivi glared back at him, as best as she could. “Could you get more specific? And also, off me?” She struggled to lift her arm to push at him, but it was held down by his paw. Mystery had successfully held down Lewis, so Vivi guessed she didn't have much chance of getting free, but she had to try.

“You were dealing with an immensely dangerous creature, and your best idea was to attack it with someone who would make it more dangerous. What were you thinking?”

“We didn't,” Vivi said, enunciating each syllable in her frustration, “have a lot of time—”

“You had me!”

Mystery's fangs were bared, right up against her nose. He snarled again, before continuing, “Or at least you would have had me if you'd thought. You could have come and gotten me, and I would have been in and out of that restaurant in a minute. No stupid emotions, just one destroyed vetala!”

He pushed himself off of her, briefly putting a shock-load of force on Vivi's forearms: she let out a muffled cry of pain, to her displeasure. He turned around and slowly walked back into the house. “What were you thinking,” he muttered.

With many a grunt of discomfort, Vivi pushed herself to her feet. “If you were so consarned concerned, maybe you could have come on your own? No one was stopping you.” She rubbed her inner forearms, trying to mitigate the pain, as she stumbled through the door.

Mystery glared at her over his shoulder, as he stalked his way over to the other end of the room. “I don't know if you understand this, but I have a cover. There's a reason I don't go around everywhere at full size, and it's not just because of your pitiful human ceilings.”

“So come over as a regular dog!”

“How fast does a regular dog run? And that's not the point—the point is that you need to start taking some responsibility for your team's well-being.” Mystery turned in a circle on the spot, like an angry cat, then dropped into a resting position. His illusory tails curled around his entire body with their tips pointed slightly up, like some sort of huffy lotus flower.

“Oh, like you did?” Vivi slumped onto her couch with the approximate grace and self-control of a crash test dummy. “Don't act like your phone call thing was any sort of great idea, either. Getting me to guilt-trip Lewis just after the nick of time—what were you thinking?” She flopped an accusatory hand at him.

“You're all still alive, aren't you?” His eye swiveled her way, but the rest of his face stayed sullenly pointed away. He shifted a bit, burying his snout deeper into his body, and muttered, “At least the ones I could keep alive, this time—”

Mystery cut himself off, and glanced her way: then, with a muffled growl, he turned entirely away.

Vivi sighed. From here, he looked... well, she was starting to get the feeling she wasn't great at reading people, and she could only imagine reading dog-kitsune-intermediate-stage things would be even tougher. But, if she had to hazard a guess—and life seemed to be telling her, loud and clear, that she did have to—then she'd have said that Mystery looked worried.

“Mystery,” she said, “I'm sorry I didn't—”

“Keys,” he interrupted, without moving.

Vivi blinked. “What?”

“Another reason I couldn't exactly come on my own? You lock your condo up each day you leave for work, and you don't leave a key in here. It's like you think you live alone, without any other sentient creatures in the building.”

He uncurled a bit, enough to glare at her with both eyes, though without any apparent genuine anger. Or genuine anything, for that matter. All she saw was the smarmy, annoying amusement she was coming to really dislike. “For all my many talents, Vivi, I'm not very good at opening locked doors. No—let me rephrase that.” He laughed, briefly, and in a way that seemed designed to flash as many teeth as possible. “I am exceptional at opening locked doors, provided you won't ever need to close the door afterward. But I think you might prefer to just leave me a spare key.”

Vivi inelegantly shoved her hand into her pocket: jack-kitsune though he might be, Mystery had a point. “Here,” she said, as she pulled out her keyring, wound her spare key from it, and tossed it onto his body. “Where are you going to put it?”

“You let me worry about where I'm going to put it.”

Vivi sighed with indifference and let her eyes sag shut, ready and willing to take a nap without transferring herself the few feet to her bed. Her breathing became regular, all ambient noise faded away, and then she felt the couch sinking to her sides, sinking into two points of pressure.

With great regret, she opened her eyes once more to see Mystery's eyes not three inches away, his paws surrounding her legs. “Actually,” he said, “as long as we're talking, here's a few more ground rules.”

“And one of the ground rules is, whenever I'm in contact with any potentially dangerous supernatural entity, Mystery wants to be there. And potentially dangerous supernatural entities includes you.”

Vivi slung her guitar into her arms and leaned against the wall as she finished speaking, too frustrated to sit. Lewis, to her right, settled into the room's couch; he shrugged in response to the new rule, and his head tilted briefly to the side. What was that, Vivi wondered? If nodding indicated agreement, and shaking the head meant disagreement, then maybe this head tilt was the middle option: “I don't quite agree, but I can't dispute it either.”

From the other side of the room, resting in a doggy bed, Mystery smirked. Well, he continued to smirk. Vivi didn't know if it was a conscious effort, or if he just had resting... lady-dog face.

She looked away from Lewis, and also away from Mystery as best as she could. “Son of a musket, I'm sorry,” she mumbled at the wall. “I made this big deal about you being here privately, and now he's here too.”

“Might I repeat that I live here.” Mystery rolled his eyes. “What would you have done, tie me outside?”

Vivi grunted. “Keep bringing the sass, mister—see what happens.”

“Oh, please. I'm the superior life form here. I'd be the one putting you outside to think about what you did. But if it makes you feel better, I'm not—” he interrupted himself with a big yawn, stretching out and turning over to find a more comfortable position. “Oh, that's better. I'm not actually interested in your date, I'm just here—”

“Not a date—”

“—call it what you like, Vivi—I'm just here to make sure no one does anything stupid.” Mystery flicked a glance at Lewis. “Just pretend I'm not here, and have fun, you crazy kids. Don't do anything I wouldn't do,” he said, winking at Vivi.

“Sure thing, Dad.” Vivi felt her eye twitch. She closed her eyes. One, two, three, four....

She took a deep breath, reopened her eyes, and focused on Lewis. “So,” she said, and crossed the room to squeeze her keister onto the couch, in the scant space that Lewis did not occupy. He felt warm beside her. “Are you ready for some guitar teaching?”

“Hm.” Lewis pulled out his violin. “What do you know already?”

“Well, I wanted this meeting to be fun as well as instructive, so I got some of the boring stuff out of the way already. I learned what the different guitar parts are, I learned how to tune it—” she pulled gently along the strings, strumming each one in turn and playing their notes: Lewis nodded in approval “—and I can do a scale.”

As scales went, it was a disjointed, halting thing. Squinting in concentration, she took two or three seconds between some notes—then jumped between other pairs in a moment. But when she'd traversed up, and then down, an entire octave without a single mistaken note, she had to beam with pride.

And then she had to stop, when she looked up and saw Mystery wincing with his paws over his ears. “What?” she blurted.

“Nailed it,” he mumbled, wincing—he had to be exaggerating, the little son-of-his-mom. “Now can you do something about the rhythm?”

Vivi groaned, and turned away, leaning her head to Lewis before motioning toward the bedroom. “Look,” Mystery continued, as she walked into her bedroom and Lewis followed. “It's not my fault that I have such a keenly developed sense of musical theory and timing, which your playing so rudely offended—”

Vivi shut the door, trying not to slam it. “Jackass,” she whispered.

“He does have a point.”

Vivi glared at Lewis, who shrugged and held up one hand. “A small point,” he explained, with his thumb and middle finger infinitesimally close together, almost touching. “About as small as... hm.”

“As an actual, mathematical point?” Vivi slammed her butt onto the bed. “As in, no volume at all? As in, he has no point at all. I played all of those notes perfectly, thank you very much.”

Lewis hummed, and hemmed and hawed, as he pulled up Vivi's desk chair from by her computer and made to sit in it—but then seemed to think better of it, standing up straighter again. “You did use to have a stronger sense of rhythm, though. Before... well.” He sat down on the adjacent corner of the bed, which sank heavily toward the floor, and laid his violin on the desk.

“Hence, this visit.” Vivi strummed out a few F chords—slowly, so that no one could complain about her rhythm—and tried to control her scowl. “Whatever. I'm not really here to play chords or scales. I wanna play a song!”

“That does sound more fun.” Something about Lewis's voice traced a smile onto his features, even if his mouth only moved a little. “Any suggestions?”

“Well, I already know an entire scale and how to play chords, soooo....” Vivi grinned cheekily, as if storing acorns. “I was thinking, Classical Gas—”

“No.”

“—would be a terrible idea. Gotcha!” She giggled. “And that's why you shouldn't interrupt. Honestly, though, what are some good songs for beginners?”

“Four minutes and thirty three seconds,” Mystery called from the other room. “On repeat, please.”

Oh, good. Now, at the age of twenty-four, Vivi had a snarky overbearing parent, and it was her dog. “Play it yourself!” she yelled, pounding on the door a couple of times. “Anyway,” she said, returning her gaze to Lewis and socketing a smile onto her face.

Lewis, for his part, was leaning over her laptop, sparing her swivel chair. “May I?” he asked, and Vivi nodded, leaning forward to unlock it—but Lewis typed in a password, and her desktop appeared. “Good to know I can use keyboards, at least,” he grumbled, pulling up a web browser.

Vivi stared. Eternal, undying love—or whatever—was one thing, but she'd given him her password? Hare Krishna and the Sorcerer's Stone! she swore internally, trying to think of a new one.

Lewis hummed with indecision as he typed and deleted a few likely search strings—“beginner guitar song”, “guitar tutorial beginner”, “basic guitar chords”—before sitting up straighter, all of a sudden. “Here's one I'm fond of,” he said, typing in a less generic search string: “coldplay the scientist tutorial”.

“It's not a guitar song originally, but it sounds nice on one. Oh, but don't tell Arthur,” Lewis mentioned as an aside, glancing Vivi's way as he opened the video. “I don't need a spat regarding my musical infidelity and unrefined tastes.”

“I don't think he'd insect you about stuff like that.”

Lewis just stared at her: was he failing to parse 'insect' as 'bug'? But a realization approached Vivi like an oncoming train: distant at first, but before too long, blaring and far too close. “Oh, come on.” She pouted with all her might, sinking forward into a huffy leaning pose. “I'm only supposed to have forgotten stuff about you!”

“Did that only come up when we were all together?” Lewis scratched his chin. “Hum.”

The music tutorial played uninterrupted in the background, as some bearded man spoke in a curiously high-pitched voice about the particular chords involved. Funny, how there could be an awkward silence even with so much background noise.

“Turn it off!”

In a way, it was almost a relief when Mystery barged through the door and leapt onto the desk. Almost but not quite, because, well, Mystery.

“What in dangnation are you doing?” Vivi managed, as he struck the laptop's touchpad repeatedly until he hit the left mouse button, pausing the video. She winced at the sound of claws on plastic. “Hey, don't scratch my laptop, that's expensive!”

“You're welcome,” Mystery said, an intense look in his eyes. “That wasn't just any video, it was a mind virus.”

Lewis glanced at the friendly-looking bearded man on the screen, then stared at Mystery, head tilted incrementally to the side. It would have been redundant, Vivi imagined, to say something like “A what?”, “What's a mind virus?”, or “That's the stupidest thing I've heard all week.”

Mystery growled at him, perhaps hearing the unsaid jibes. “A mind virus! Encoded in online data. It's inserting instructions into your brain, that you'll carry out later!”

“Mystery.” Vivi squinted. “You just described a tutorial.”

“Don't be snarky about it—I mean subliminally! I heard him trail off mid-sentence as it devoured his brain!”

Lewis sighed. “I finished my sentence,” he said, standing up fully. “And then I stopped talking for a while, because that's how conversations work.” His head brushed the ceiling, and his hair might have been stirring—Vivi certainly hoped not, for the sake of having a roof over her head. “Now,” Lewis said, “get out.”

Mystery grunted, and hopped down to the rolling chair. He leaned forward and grew just enough for illusory tails to appear behind himself. They sprouted forward, jacking into every kind of port the laptop had: HDMI, USB, even the headphone input. Vivi watched, eyebrows raised, as the video returned to the start, then played at incredible speed. Mystery's eyes locked wide-open.

Before a minute had passed, the twelve-minute video was done. Mystery sighed, his voice coming out at a deeper pitch in his larger form. “All right. False alarm. But you would have been very grateful, had there been a subliminal message.”

With jerky movements, his tails pulled out of the holes where they'd been implanted. “At least take my laptop out to dinner first,” Vivi muttered.

“Vivi, it's a laptop. It consumes electricity, not food. Don't be ridiculous.” Mystery stared at her.

Vivi stared back. There wasn't really any response to make.

“Ah. An awkward silence.” Lewis loomed further over Mystery. “Now you know. Should I repeat myself, or will you get out?”

“Fine,” Mystery groaned. “I'll get out of your hair... but not the room.” He retreated to the back corner, near the head of the bed. “I know it's hard, but just keep ignoring me.”

As Lewis restarted the video, Vivi counted in her head until her hand relaxed from its claw-like shape. She watched in relative silence with Lewis for a couple minutes, as the man on the screen played a snippet of the song.

“Doesn't seem hard,” Lewis said, picking up the violin. “Basic chords are D minor, B-flat major, F major....” He sawed them out on his violin in quick succession. “And then this one's a little tricky, but not much. It's called a Fadd9. Or maybe an F-add-9,” he amended, pronouncing the second one as 'eff-add-nine' instead of 'fad-nine'. “I don't... know how it's pronounced, I've only ever seen it written.”

He drew another chord, one which sounded sort of... harmoniously dissonant, Vivi decided. “Let's see if I was right,” Lewis continued.

The first thing the video described was the placement of the capo—a sort of guitar clamp to change the pitch of the notes, which Vivi wasn't sure if she owned. Drat. “Hm,” Lewis said, as the capo went on the fifth fret. “That changes the absolute but not the relative pitches of what you play.... A minor, F major, C major and then Cadd9, or cee-add-nine. Whichever.”

Lo and behold, as the video went on, the bearded fellow named each chord in turn—except the last, which he just described as 'C but with a D on top, like so'. Lewis grunted. “I was hoping to learn to pronounce it.”

“You know a lot about this music theory stuff,” Vivi said, turning his way. “But it sounds like you didn't learn it out loud?”

Lewis looked her way—then stopped himself, turned back to the video, and paused it. Then he returned his gaze to meet hers. “Mom had this violin, and a bunch of leftover music theory books. She used to play back when she was younger, but with a restaurant and one-two-three-four kids, she didn't have much time to keep it up. It was actually one of the first things I saw the first time I got to the Peppers' house.” He laughed gently. “But I must have told you this story a hundred times.”

Vivi rolled her eyes, and after a moment of realization, Lewis jolted in his seat. “Oh, of course. Well, I didn't have much time either, too much catch-up for missed years of school—and then the restaurant, before long. But I wanted to learn to play, even if I couldn't attend one-on-one lessons. So I devoured those books, got more from the library, listened to classical CDs. Anything.” He smiled. “But I'm rambling. You've got a song to learn.”

“No, keep going, it's interesting rambling! Actually, wait,” Vivi said, frowning in consternation, “if it's 'interesting', can it still be called 'rambling'? Or is that an oxymoron?”

“You invite me over for a guitar lesson, so you can hear me ramble about my mom's old music books.” Lewis lifted an eyebrow. “Almost as if the guitar lesson still isn't the point.”

“Ah, you've seen through my charade. Yes, I admit it, I'm tricking you all into social situations so that I can learn more about the members of my team. How devious of me.” Vivi smirked, and punched Lewis in the arm. “And besides, it's totally relevant. Similar instruments, remember?”

“I remember. All right.” Lewis sighed. “But that's actually where the story ends. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Ugh, fine. Lesson it is.” Vivi propped the guitar up on her lap, made to strum, then stopped herself. “Ah, shoot. Do I have a capo?”

She looked up at the ceiling, trying to think of whether or not she'd seen such a thing in her house, but then Lewis's hand moved in her peripheral vision. She looked back down to see his index finger pressing down on the fifth fret. “You have me,” he said.

She smiled back, then positioned her hand for the A minor chord—the one that would become D minor with the improvised capo. Fingers went here and here, and—she strummed.

The notes flew out exactly as she was hoping for, and matching the video. She strummed eight times—one and two and three and four and—then paused to reposition her fingers for the Bb major, or rather the F major chord.

Another eight strums. Another pause to move her left fingers around for the tonic chord, and then another eight strums. The video had said she just needed to pick up her middle finger to switch chords on this one, so without pausing she did so after the eighth chord and kept going.

A single laugh escaped her, and she kept going, emboldened enough not to pause. D minor, eight strums—Bb major, eight strums—F major, sixteen strums but with lifting the middle finger on the ninth.

And she was into the first verse. “Come up to meet—” she said, and her playing immediately went to heck in a hamper. The jarring, discordant notes stopped her cold.

“Don't do that,” Lewis said, gently and without admonishing. “Singing while playing is tough for beginners. It's like trying to control a couple of new, extra limbs.”

“Wow,” drawled Mystery's voice from behind them. “That sounds so hard.” Vivi glanced his way to see him with one of his tails curled far forward, scratching his nose.

With obvious care, Lewis removed his hand from the guitar, then clenched it into a crushing fist. It shook with the strain for several seconds; then Lewis relaxed it and returned it to the fifth fret. “Start from the top. I'll keep time. One, two,” he counted off at a slow, steady pace, “three, four—”

Vivi restarted, and Lewis's tapping foot provided a steady, thudding metronome. Eight strums in D minor, eight in Bb major, eight in F major, another eight in Fadd9, and then repeat—

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry,

You don't know how lovely you are....

Vivi vaguely heard the words in her head, even as she focused on the pattern of her fingers. She must have heard this song before.

I had to find you, tell you I need you,

Tell you I set you apart....

There came a humming—outside her head, not inside. Was that Lewis?

Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions,

“Oh, let's go back to the start....”

And was Lewis singing? A bulb of jealousy blossomed, the idea that Lewis got to sing and not her—except that wasn't Lewis's voice.

“Running in circles, coming up tails,

Heads on a science—”

The chord shattered like dropped china as she whipped her head around, and at that moment Mystery stopped singing. He was staring into the wall, apparently not by design. “Wrong,” he murmured, with the same quiet volume he'd been using. “Gotta focus, lift your middle finger off the chord.”

She glared at him, strumming halted. I'll show you lifting my middle finger!

In time, he looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “What? I absorbed the whole video, remember? Now after this, there's the chorus, you'll have to stay in Bb major for sixteen—”

Lewis released the guitar, stood up, and was in front of Mystery in two strides. “You know, all things considered,” Lewis said, “I've kept quite calm.” His tone agreed; he seemed to be musing out loud.

Then he grabbed Mystery by the scruff of the neck, lifting him like an empty plastic bag. “That will soon change dramatically,” Lewis hissed, as the flesh vanished from his face, leaving the skull to stare Mystery down. “Stop ruining this.”

Mystery flinched, then snorted. “How terrifying.” His grin glinted, and he seemed no more rattled than he had a moment before, coiled up and snoozing. “Pardon me, to be sure, but where I come from we like to do things correctly. Especially music.”

Vivi blinked. “Hold on. Where you come from?”

Lewis growled, and his grip tightened: Mystery might have been on the cusp of opening his mouth, but instead his grin now seemed more like gritting his teeth. Vivi stared at his muzzle and remembered another muzzle, like that one but shorter. Howling along to some tune playing in the car.

Faking it, of course. Because he'd been lying about literally everything, including being a dog. So clearly he'd faked that too. Right?

“Lewis!” she called out, as he wound his arm back in preparation to toss Mystery out. “Put him down!”

He glanced back at her, arm still cocked. “Why?”

“Because—” Vivi couldn't very well say the real reason why. Not with Mystery in hearing range. So she'd have to find something else, something convincing.... “Because... animal abuse is wrong!”

Aw, stag, that wasn't it. The two of them were briefly united in squinting at her. “Because, well, don't sink to his level!” she managed. “You've been trying to control your anger—don't let him rile you up, okay? Just... count the beat with me. One, two—”

“Three, four.” Somehow, even with no lower jaw, Lewis's voice seemed to be coming out through gritted teeth. “One, two... all right.”

He dropped Mystery without ceremony. The kitsune landed with (inappropriately, for his supposed species) catlike grace.

Lewis stalked over to the foot of the bed and sat down, not bothering to account for his weight. Vivi winced, hoping she hadn't heard a crack. “Why,” Lewis muttered, “are you—one, two, three, four—why are you tolerating this?”

“Look, I know he's being a little turd, but—just trust me on this, okay? I've got an idea.”

“What idea?”

“I really can't explain it—he can probably hear me.”

“Yup,” Mystery piped in. “Don't think too loud, either. What are you talking about, anyway?”

Lewis trembled, and Vivi rested a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, I've still got some chords to learn, right? How does the chorus go?”

After a few seconds, Lewis heaved a sigh. “You're right. He just wants attention.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Vivi saw Mystery blinking. No snappy comeback this time.

“Anyway,” Lewis said, “if I'm right, the next chords are....”

It had been fifteen minutes—she had kept track, for purposes of bragging rights—and now Vivi was confident in her ability to play the song through. Or at least the chords.

It was time for phase two.

“Give me a beat?” she said to Lewis, who still held the fifth fret. He nodded, smiling more easily than before. Mystery hadn't had any further lip to offer after Lewis's shutdown, which probably explained it.

Lewis tapped his foot in time. “One,” he said for two beats, “two—”

They counted together: “One, two, three, four!”

Strum. She'd done it so many times in the past fifteen minutes that she barely knew where her left hand was, and still the notes seemed to be coming out correctly. Her fingers changed position after eight strums, and then again, and again. It was second nature.

“You're a natural,” Lewis said.

“Pun intended?”

Suddenly, speaking threw her whole body back into mind, and she felt like she had a hundred feet to keep track of. Her hand spasmed in panic, but she remembered: F major next, and then Fadd9—lift that middle finger.

“What pun?” Lewis asked.

Vivi ignored this, and not just for fear of further speech. The first verse was starting, and she wanted to listen. Would phase two of the plan work.

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry,

You don't know how lovely you are....

No, he wasn't singing yet, but if she'd read him right, he wouldn't be able to help himself. Faintly, she thought she heard humming.

I had to find you, tell you I need you,

The humming evolved to a murmur—

“Tell you I set you apart....”

—and the murmur evolved to a gentle croon.

“Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions,

Oh, let's go back to the start....”

Lewis's eyes widened with what was probably realization. Vivi spared him a wink, which was about all she dared manage: she had to keep the beat.

“Running in circles, coming up tails,

Heads on a science apart....”

Otherwise, what sort of backup guitarist would she be?

“Nobody said it was easy!

It's such a shame for us to part... Nobody said it was easy! No one ever said it would be this hard—”

Vivi scooted her butt around on the bed, rotating bit by bit until she could see Mystery in something other than her peripheral vision. She was just in time for the end of the chorus.

“Oh, take me back to the start.”

Mystery lay in the corner, looking slightly skyward as if experiencing revelation. There was something strange about his face, and she couldn't figure it out with the limited brainpower she had at the moment. F major for eight, Bb major for eight, and then F major for another sixteen—then back to the first pattern.

“I was just guessing at numbers and figures, Pulling the puzzles apart...

Questions of science, science and progress, Do not speak as loud as my heart....”

Mystery's voice suffused the room like palpable warmth, and quite frankly, it was beautiful. Maybe even beautiful enough that Vivi wouldn't mind paying him the compliment—especially since, even with those incredible ears, he didn't seem to hear his own singing.

And it wasn't just that he hit the notes.

“Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me, Oh, and I rush to the start...”

It was, basically, because he sounded like he gave a damn. No begrudging half-effort, no snark, no self-righteous anger. And no guarding.

“Running in circles, chasing our tails, Coming back as we are....”

Finally, Vivi realized what was so strange about his face, and she could have laughed—but she had a chorus to play.

“Nobody said it was easy!”

It was the simplest thing in the world. He was relaxed.

“It's such a shame for us to part...”

The way he had looked when he was playing the role of a happy little dog. And of course he'd been faking it, she'd concluded, because now his features seemed taut and tense all the time, whether smirking or growling—

“Nobody said it was easy!”

No. Not even close. The tension was the put-on—this was real.

“No one ever said it would be this hard—”

He took a breath, and he looked like the kitsune who'd admitted to caring about their little group, not so many days prior.

He looked like her dog, from too many days ago.

“Oh, take me back to the start.”

No more words were left: just the outro, with some wordless 'ooh's to finish it out. Mystery howled them out with the same quiet passion he'd brought to the rest of the song, and they echoed in Vivi's head long after his mouth finally closed.

It was done. Vivi released the guitar, shook out her achey hands, and glanced up to see that Lewis, too, had been staring at Mystery the whole time.

The subject in question blinked a few times, then glanced toward them. At once he noticed the twin gazes pinning him, and he drew himself more upright, closer to the wall. A hint of tension leaked into his face once more.

Vivi spoke quickly. “That—that was really good.”

Mystery's head cocked to the side, like a dog trying to interpret a sound. Finally, he said, “Um... thanks. It wasn't terrible, I suppose.”

“No, really,” Lewis said, glancing at Vivi. “Do you have training of some sort?” Vivi gave him a wink, which she hoped Mystery missed.

“Not as such... where I, um.... where I came from, there was always a lot of music. Not like your music—” he gave out a short, harsh laugh “—you probably couldn't appreciate it, but it was good. Good like that.”

“Where you came from?” Vivi blurted.

“Where I—”

He blinked, and Vivi cursed herself internally with a few choice words from the NC-17 shelf. “I see what this is,” he said, smirking. The tension was back: she'd pushed too hard. “You think you can just pry me open with a pretty tune, and I'll spill my guts about my tragic childhood and emotional neuroses, is that it?”

“Mystery—” she began.

He was sitting up straight now, with none of that floppy relaxation in his body. “It's none of your business. Nice try, but I'm afraid I've got a brand to live up to—it's in the name, remember? Now, if you'd named me 'Tedious Backstory Exposition', we might have a different situation, but no.”

“I wasn't going to ask about your neuroses—”

“Good, because it's none of your business!”

His teeth were bared. Vivi couldn't help but think, in a drably amused way, that they were the only part of him to be so.

“This is enough,” Lewis said, abruptly standing. He offered a hand to her. “Vivi, would you mind if we went somewhere else?”

Vivi squeezed shut her eyes for a few moments, then sighed and stood, pulling herself up with his hand. “You're right. Let's go.”

“A-hem—isn't there someone you forgot to ask?” Mystery stood on all four legs now. “You'll have to tell me where this new, romantic location is.”

Lewis folded his arms. “You're not coming. Clearly.”

“And you think you can stop me?” Mystery laughed once, and loudly. “I found you in another reality. I can run as fast as you can drive. No matter how fast you go, no matter what barrier you erect—there is nowhere, land or sea, where I can't pursue you.”

Lewis just smiled.

“Now, this is a C7. Mind if I—”

Vivi nodded. Lewis leaned over the back of her thick, oaken chair, and let her left hand off the frets for a moment, so that Lewis could finger it. She paid close attention to where his fingertips rested, and then strummed once, producing a sound that was less like the Gadd9, more... “Jazzy,” she mused aloud.

“It is used often in jazz.” Lewis waited until she'd placed her fingers by his, then lifted his hand and walked back around her chair. From the end-table next to his much larger chair, he picked up his violin and bow, then sawed out a few notes in an arpeggiated sort of C7, until they resolved to a C major by way of F major and F minor. “'Sweet Home Chicago',” he explained, with another self-satisfied smile like the one he'd turned on Mystery about twenty minutes before. “Who says I don't appreciate the classics?”

“Who does say that?” Vivi asked.

Lewis paused, stock still. “Hm... long story.”

A knocking sound drew their attention, and they looked to the room's large, glass windows. A single Deadbeat was bonking its head against the window, its stubby arms occupied by a pile of books.

“The music theory!” Vivi said, beaming as Lewis opened a window to let the Deadbeat—and a fair amount of rushing wind—inside. “Good job, little guy.”

The Deadbeat dropped the books in a heap on the end-table, then zipped under Vivi's outstretched hand for scritches. Its need satisfied, it darted into a corner and curled up, instantly snoozing.

“These are....” Lewis picked up the heap of books and frowned. “About half of the theory books I asked for. Also, several cookbooks—Mom's going to want these back—and one Ikea manual.” He sighed. “Deadbeats.”

“Hey, you can't be mad at a little buddy like that, can you? Come on.”

He smiled back at her, for a moment; then he looked at her. Maybe even through her. Vivi couldn't help feeling on edge, or perhaps on trial, as he sat down without breaking eye contact.

“I saw what you were doing with Mystery,” he said. “It almost worked.”

Vivi groaned. At least he wasn't judging, or rather he was judging in her favor. “Almost is the marketer's word for didn't. Sorry to mess up our date for that.”

“I—er, I thought it wasn't a date?” He leaned forward, and his eye-lights brightened a degree.

“It's kind of a date.”

Vivi stared out the windows. Lewis had created this room of the mansion especially to order—exactly cozy enough for two people and zero dog-things. A row of windows lined the opposite wall, revealing the kind of view that could sell for millions in the big city. All crystal clear and simple.

She groaned. “I just don't get him! What's to gain from pulling back, huh? What's so bad about—is it so wrong to want to know things about your team?” She slumped forward. “Being team leader sucks sometimes.”

“Hey.” Lewis leaned forward, smiling. “Nobody said it was easy.”

She shook her head, looking down at her feet. “No one ever said it would be this hard.”

“I told you already, you don't get to sing—it'll ruin your playing.”

All right, fine—she gave in, and chuckled. “All right, let's keep going. What was that thing you mentioned, 'Sweet Home Chicago'—I wonder if I can find a video?”

She pulled out her phone, but after a second of squinting, she put it away and chuckled. “Oh, of course. Shame—there's no WiFi up here.”

“Lewis! This isn't funny!”

Stupid, clever humans.

Mystery's eyes fixated on a black point, high in the air. He tensed his haunches, then took off like a shot across Vivi's backyard, accelerating quickly. One leap landed him on the peaked roof: he gained what velocity he could running up the shingles, then jumped up with all of his might—

And got nowhere close to the single room of Lewis's mansion, floating hundreds of feet directly above Vivi's condo.

With a heavy, even clumsy landing, Mystery returned to earth, kicking up a plume of dust. “Get down here!” he yelled, before realizing he'd landed in the front yard: he quickly shrank back to his doggy disguise and padded around the back.

Stupid Lewis with his ill-defined powers. Stupid Vivi with her prying. Stupid Coldplay with their... cold playing. Why did I ever fall for that?

He groaned and looked skyward, but not at Lewis's room.

And why her? Of all people, why was I thinking of her?

#mystery skulls #fanfiction #mystery skulls animated #lewis #vivi #mystery #shiromori #moving on

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deadcactuswalking · 7 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 9th September 2018

Okay, so, when I put this show in the Wednesday slot, I expect to have a calmer week, but that is far from what I got here. We have seven new arrivals, three of which are one of our occasional mini-album bombs. Usually, we get the three most popular songs from an album which had nearly all of his songs chart on the Hot 100 – for example, here, the whole album charted in the US (excluding the skits) but we only get the lead single, first or so song on the album and the surprise breakout hit, as usual with album bombs. However, expect me to not be looking forward to reviewing each song here. When I have one of these mini-bombs to cover, usually either the album is pretty decent (Kanye West’s ye and Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD) or at least some of the better songs actually chart high so I don’t need to be as cynical towards the artist and the record as a whole while covering the individual hits (Drake’s Scorpion). We have a 4/10 album on our hands, folks, and the three songs that charted... well, we’ll get to them in a second, and you know what album it is already... if you don’t, well, here’s the top 10 to remind you.

Top 10

We start with a new #1... seriously, guys? Alright, well, Calvin Harris, now the man with the most #1s this decade, has added a new entry to the list, “Promises” with Sam Smith, up a spot from last week’s placing.

Next, we have last week’s #1 at the runner-up spot, “Eastside” by benny blanco, Khalid and Halsey. I told you this wouldn’t last long at the tip.

Meanwhile, “Shotgun” by George Ezra is still at number-three, proving its surprising amount of longevity in the top 10 at its 24th week on the chart.

We now have the first of three new arrivals in the top 10 from Eminem’s new album Kamikaze at number-four, with the spot taken by intro track, “The Ringer”.

Oh, and “Body” by Loud Luxury and brando is still at number-five. I’m surprised by how much stability it has.

The second new arrival from Eminem is at number-six, and that would be “Lucky You” featuring rapper Joyner Lucas, making his UK top 40 debut, and, damn, if he doesn’t finally deserve it, 11 years into his career.

Down three spots and slowly collapsing is “In My Feelings” by Drake featuring City Girls at number-seven. The faster this goes, the better.

“Taste”, however, by Tyga and Offset, is up a spot to number-eight, which doesn’t exactly shock me too much but I’m surprised it took this long, if anything.

Finally, our third and final (thankfully) new arrival from Eminem is “Fall” featuring uncredited (and fortunately so) vocals from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, debuting at number-nine.

Rounding off the top 10 is “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B down three spaces to number-ten.

Climbers

I’ll try and keep everything before the new arrivals brief, especially since we have seven of them, so let’s go past the climbers, fallers and such in pretty much rapid-fire speed.

The only really notable climbers here are “Lost Without You” by Freya Ridings fortunately jumping up seven spaces to #29, as well as “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong unfortunately taking a five-space increase to #32. Again, it shouldn’t be charting – it’s not even two minutes! I’m not saying short songs shouldn’t enter the charts, hell, I root for Lil Pump’s success, but this is only six seconds over of what I’d call an interlude track. Come on, guys, pull it together.

Fallers

Now the fallers are a different story... let’s go by genre.

For pop and... “rock”, we have “God is a woman” and “breathin’” by Ariana Grande both down six positions to #12 and #17 respectively, while “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer is down seven spaces to #25.

EDM suffered a lot this week, for some reason, with “Rise” by Jonas Blue and Jack & Jack taking a five-spot blow to #24, and six-space losses for both “Solo” by Clean Bandit and Demi Lovato and “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto and Dzeko featuring Preme and Post Malone to #28 and #33, as well as a whopping 23-space droop down to #37 for “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones featuring Mabel and Rich the Kid, alongside milder drops for Calvin Harris and David Guetta.

Hip-hop and R&B on the other hand just had one interesting enough loss, surprisingly, and that was the five-space drop for “SICKO MODE” by Travis Scott featuring Drake and Swae Lee. Now, drop-outs!

Dropouts

So, yeah, Drake had a rough week. As well as a drop for “In My Feelings” discussed earlier, both “Don’t Matter to Me” with Michael Jackson and “Nonstop” dropped out from #29 and #30, assumingly because of Eminem getting much more streams this week. Hopefully they’ll then go for good. Other than that, we had quite a few notable drops... genres again.

For pop, we have “IDOL” by BTS – kind of featuring Nicki Minaj – out from #21, “2002” by Anne-Marie out from #34, finally, “no tears left to cry” by Ariana Grande out from #35 straight off the re-entry and “This is Me” by Keala Settle and the Greatest Showman Ensemble out once again from #38.

For hip-hop and R&B, we just have a few little drop outs that were expected like “Fine Girl” by ZieZie out from #31 and “I Like It” by Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin out from #39.

Returning Entries

“TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME” by the 1975 is back to #40... please go back to #46, trust me, guys, you were better there. Now, since the Ed Sheeran Update is somewhat redundant, I’m scrapping that feature, so, we’re just going straight into the new arrivals...joy.

NEW ARRIVALS

I’m splitting this set of new arrivals into two parts: Eminem and non-Eminem. It won’t be a different blog, and they’ll still be in descending order of where they entered the charts at, but it’s just easier to separate this way, especially since seven new arrivals and their reviews could look very messy when there’s loads of them, so I thought why not separate them into halves. Let’s start.

#38 – “LO(V/S)ER” – AJ Tracey

We’ve talked about AJ Tracey before and I wasn’t impressed by his breakout hit, but his follow-up, with a quirky title showing how it has the potential to be an introspective look into how he trusts partners too easily or something related to that interesting “loser”/”lover” combination, could be much better, after all, he had Not3s to weigh him down last time, so how does he do solo, without the pop audience to please?

Well, first of all, it’s a trap beat with a sample that I’m pretty sure is out-of-tune for the neverending melody, hence it transcends monotonous and becomes pretty grating, especially with that repetitive hook and the simplistic flow... but what about the lyrics? Do they exceed or at least meet my expectations? Well, I was kidding myself, really, wasn’t I? It’s about how he’s a lover for “a pretty Latina” and how you, the listener, are a loser because you’re going to get hit with the strap while he’s chilling in Cuba sipping Hennessey and... running away from the police. Surely you shouldn’t mention that in your hit song, right? It just makes you more of a target. At least it’s more of a lust song for a pretty Latina, at least he’s not taking MY girl or anything.

I’m with your girl, she got blow on her nose (oh)

Well, damn, nevermind.

#36 – “Beautiful” – Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello

Sigh, Bazzi. I was so disappointed in this guy’s debut record after loving “Mine”, it was mostly just mediocre trite – and way too much of it, may I add. Camila Cabello’s hopped on a remix of one of the least tolerable songs on COSMIC, and knowing her tendency to have very squeaky, borderline unbearable vocals on a lot of her hits, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that she made an already trash song... a tad MORE listenable? Bazzi sounds out-of-breath and desperate, fitting for the pretty thirsty lyrics here, with the lines about the Gucci and how she looks better naked not exactly fitting with the lovestruck angelic theme he’s going for. The production is typical Bazzi fare, with “pretty” synths clouding the non-presence of the deeper 808s, however Camila Cabello’s performance is actually pretty song, and she goes for a more seductive vibe that I really like here, although the autotuned belting could really have been rid of. It’s not as awful as it was on the album, but it’s not like it’s any good either.

#35 – “Be Alright” – Dean Lewis

Dean Lewis, up-and-coming singer-songwriter and Australian chart-topper, who I initially confused with Dennis Lloyd, who recorded one of the worst songs I’ve heard on this show a few weeks or months back, has finally landed his first song in the UK top 40, and it’s quite fittingly, “alright”. Dean Lewis’ voice is actually pretty endearing, and the Ed Sheeran-ish brand of folk pop is much more effective when it’s slow and indie-infused like this. Sure, Lewis may appear somewhat whiny in the lyrics and overall performance, but there’s enough genuine charisma and strength here for me to forgive that, with the choir of Dean Lewis backing him up well enough. It’s not fantastic by any means, but for a short little simplistic track, it gets a pass. Not much to say about this one, and it’s not going to be one I go back to, but I hope this goes somewhere because I’m personally interested in how Lewis will follow this up.

#22 – “Thunderclouds” – LSD

This is the first top 40 entry for the group “LSD”, however this is the umpteenth time the artists involved have made the list, as LSD stands for Labrinth, Sia and Diplo. Labrinth is an R&B singer who I personally loved in his heyday in the early 2010s, but he seems to have faded away, despite some great hits like “Express Yourself” and “Let the Sun Shine”, which I still come back to today. Sia is more hit-and-miss for me, but I’ve never been amazed or appalled by any of her stuff, excluding maybe her Christmas album, which for the sake of shortening this review, I will not go any further into. Diplo is the artist I’m most familiar with here, mostly because he makes so much fun dance music under groups like Major Lazer and Jack U, as well as venturing into more alternative territory on his latest EP California, where he’s somehow made Lil Xan listenable. “Wish” featuring Trippie Redd and “Look Back” featuring D.R.A.M. are strong contenders for my favourite songs of the year so far, and that’s not to forget about his work with countless other people from No Doubt and Snoop Dogg to Lil Pump and G-Dragon to M.I.A. and even Die Antwoord. Diplo has a habit of making artists sound so much better than they actually are in their solo work, there’s something magic about him, I swear. So, what happens when a British R&B singer and rapper of fluctuating popularity, an eccentric Australian electropop singer-songwriter and an eclectic American EDM DJ come together to form a supergroup and make a song for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 promotional campaign?

Retro 50’s/60’s soul infused with elements of funky doo-wop, apparently. Don’t worry, I’m not necessarily complaining – the bass guitar groove is tight as hell, Sia’s as-usual intelligible vocals ride well on the Summery shimmer of the intro, especially with those surf rock guitars, and the powerful vocals from Labrinth in that strong hook, which is intertwined with choppy vocal snippets from Sia. Labrinth’s verse is somehow worse, however, due to the incredible lack of chemistry as they both trade lines as a faulty build-up, and that problem remains true for the rest of the song. No matter how much I love the horns and how it sounds like two (or three) worlds combining to make something so much more interesting and different than what they’ve made before, the chemistry is not there, Sia and Labrinth are even somewhat sloppy throughout, especially when they’re against some pretty rough vocal mixing. Speaking of, the horns should not be that back into the mix, they feel wasted... much like the talent on this song which could be summed up in an absolute mess of good musical ideas that start to mesh together and just fall apart and collapse before the abrupt ending. I feel bad for saying this since I like the artists involved, but I’m not excited for the album yet if this group keeps on making songs that just don’t work as well as they want them to be. It’s a decent listen and they shouldn’t go back to the drawing board conceptually if they go for this sound, but it really needs some polishing, guys.

So, what’s the next song? Oh... Oh, no.

EMINEM

#9 – “Fall” – Eminem featuring Justin Vernon

Let’s get through this as quickly as I can, because I can’t be talking about Eminem for too long here, so I’ll just give you some info on the track and then go straight into it, sparing no punches. You got it? Okay.

“Fall” is the tenth track on the album, and is being pushed as the lead single with a recently-released video. It features uncredited vocals from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who soon distanced himself from the lyrics of the song, saying he wasn’t a big fan of the message. It was produced by Eminem himself with Mike WiLL Made-It... and it’s awful. Let’s ignore the lyrics for a second and just talk about the cookie-cutter trap beat with a fast yet pretty uneventful synth melody. I like Vernon’s autotuned falsetto hook quite a lot, actually, and Eminem’s flow is pretty great throughout the verses, as he says, his rapid Slim Shady flow is back... and so is his sense of humour, for better or for worse. I appreciate that Marshall Mathers plays a character and he is a charismatic performer, but, man, these disses just feel unnecessary. I’m not a fan of DJ Akademiks, Joe Budden, Charlemagne or any of the hip-hop reporting crowd for that matter, but criticising a trash album you admit is terrible is not something to take personally, especially when you have admitted you don’t like the record either, so why should you defend yourself against critics that you think are reasonable in not liking your album? He doesn’t go in depth to why, he just kind of ignores them and says the hate is because of “Walk on Water”... which it isn’t, it’s probably one of the songs people actually tolerated on that trainwreck. He also starts dissing the mumble-rappers, and yes, of course, I’m quick to defend them, but they are not mocking JAY-Z... ever. I have never seen a trap-rapper try and be JAY-Z. In fact, JAY-Z imitates Migos more than Migos imitates JAY-Z. If you meant mumble-rappers mock classic hip-hop, why JAY-Z? It’s typically legends like 2Pac who are seen as being disrespected, while JAY-Z is fitting into the mainstream rap crowd pretty nicely decades into his career, and making music with modern artists like Frank Ocean, Drake and even Quavo and Offset of the Migos. There’s some speculation that this line is instead about J. Cole and Lil Pump’s beef, but, yeah, I doubt that even Eminem would think that the “beef” is anything but petty and silly publicity. He threatens to kill Joe Budden, whilst criticising his domestic abuse charges... I’d argue Eminem isn’t exactly one to talk on things like this, but, hey, I’m probably not either, but I am one to talk on how Eminem, hiding in character as Slim Shady, throws petty shots at Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, to the point of calling Tyler, a pretty openly bisexual man, the f-word... you know what it is, I’m not going to say it (oh, and he wants to have sexual intercourse with the Pitchfork writers using a corkscrew for some reason). This is all because of criticism of his album – now, Slim Shady, naturally, would feel this way, right? But Slim Shady wasn’t on Revival, and he made it a point to be as personal on that album as he could, so when people criticised it, it’s blatant that the shots he throws are only using Slim Shady as an excuse for his immature, ignorant and loudly homophobic (and on other tracks during the album, borderline misogynistic) behaviour that he portrays here. He took the criticism to his work personally, and it’s obvious, no matter how much he tries to hide it. We can see your face through the veil, Marshall, and that face is of a legend falling from grace... unless he already has, which is probably the answer to all of this. However, Eminem is still a big of a name to get away with bull like this and get it to chart in the top 10 of the UK, and get to perform at Reading Festival, while Tyler’s still banned from Britain entirely. Oh, and critiquing the Grammys for being leeches to the biggest artists... like you, who has won 15 of the worthless awards. Nice one, you pathetic douche. Oh, and inspiring Hopsin is not anything to be proud of, my guy.

Now, there are many things about newer Eminem that just generally annoy me all the time, like his overall attitude and choppy staccato flow paired with the nasal voice he puts on, but he can still make banging hip-hop tracks when he wants to. He just needs someone fresh to light a fire up in him and let him explode. Who better to do that than the feature on the next track?

#6 – “Lucky You” – Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas

On Kamikaze, there are Tokyo Ghoul samples, Tay Keith giving Em a lazy beat that is literally “Look Alive” pitched down, a bloody hilarious outro track, skits about pulling up to Joe Budden’s house, interpolations of “Fack”, two interesting and funny collaborations with Jessie Reyez, an apology track to D12, a misogynistic rant and... an unironically great song. That song is the third track, produced by Boi-1da, “Lucky You”, featuring Joyner Lucas on his first ever UK Top 40 chart entry.

Now this song bangs hard. The beat is made up out of a maddening bell chiming incessantly that provide a minimalistic bass for Joyner Lucas to yell his freaking guts out, before transitioning to a rapid flow with on-point flexing, charismatic barking ad-libs like Lucas is on his DMX and a lot of catchy and memorable quotables... but somehow Marshall is even better, where he admits he took an L on his last album (rather hypocritical considering the content of the album) and gives out a lot of criticisms torwards trap-rap that even I believe, whilst reasoning with the Lils by saying it’s just not his taste and that he needs that diss so he can reload and aim back like he used to do, and Goddamn, he proves it, with one of his best verses from this decade and maybe ever, right before handing it back to Joyner Lucas for a brief repetition of the catchy hook. This is fantastic, and proves that Eminem still has it and he SHOULD be making more of this. However...

#4 – “The Ringer” – Eminem

This is the opening track of the album, produced by Illa and Ronny J, and I’ve already ranted in way too much length than I planned to on “Fall” and praised the hell out of “Lucky You”, so can I let the criticism take the backseat here and just make fun of this piece of hot garbage?

It starts with a plane crash and it’s getting intense. Eminem, in his unbearably nasal voice, may I add, is saying he wants to just “punch the world in its f***ing face”. He’s getting heated up. What’s he gonna say? What fire bars is he going to spit? Well, he’s gonna... “rape the alphabet”. This dude just said he’s going to molest the alphabet... I’m glad I’m not taking this seriously, and I don’t think he exactly wants us to, but he does try and make points he actually believes in like how Lil Pump and Lil Xan supposedly imitate Lil Wayne, even though they have barely anything in common stylistically other than the vague description of “rappers with Lil in their name who have tattoos and make brag-rap”. Lil Wayne wasn’t even the first guy to do that, and I’d argue Lil Pump is more energetic than Wayne has ever been or will again, and Lil Xan, although I hate the dude to death, has more of a lethargic, trippy style that borders on ambient. Although Xanny and Wayne do both have the questionable sex-related puns in check at seemingly all times. Eminem also talks about how if he mentions these rappers, they’re winning and he’s losing, so why even bother?

He then complains about the bad reviews – this isn’t Slim Shady either – before asking if I get his own joke, discusses how he should “eat” a pill and how supposedly the old Eminem was killed, although this side of Eminem is incredibly prevalent on Kamikaze. He also mentions his bad habits, like, flicking his scrotum like a light switch, supposedly similarly to Mike Pence, complains about how trap-rappers always take YOUR girl (okay, maybe that’s something I can agree with) and disses NF (again, I can agree with NF being worthless). The “chorus”-like bar is just a stream of consciousness-type lyric to the flow of “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump, which rattles off a few notable names without much added context or reasoning.

So finger-bang, chicken wang, MGK, Igg’ Azae’ / Lil Pump, Lil Xan, imitate Lil Wayne

He does know Iggy Azalea isn’t relevant at all anymore, right? Is he that out of touch? Oh, and all you other rappers are “goners” because you’re not conscious and lyrical like J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and... Big Sean? Do you want to play odd one out with me, Marshall?

“Maybe if the vocals were autotuned on Revival, people would have bought it,” he claims, seemingly oblivious to the fact that that was one of the problems to begin with, oh, and finger-banging again:

So finger-bang, Pootie-Tang, Burger King, Gucci gang / Dookie-dang, Charlemagne gonna hate anyway

There’s more, like when he specifies he DOES mean “eating a penis” when he says critics should get a mouthful of flesh, but I’m done for the day on Eminem. I’ve written nearly 2,000 words on this trash-heap so let’s just conclude before I go insane.

Conclusion

This is already way too long and they should be obvious, so here it goes: Worst of the Week and Dishonourable Mention both go to Eminem. WOTW is shared with Justin Vernon for “Fall” and Dishonourable Mention is for “The Ringer”. Best of the Week obviously goes to Eminem and Joyner Lucas for “Lucky You”, with Honourable Mention, I guess, going to Dean Lewis for “Be Alright”. Next week, hopefully we’ll get some Mac Miller? I don’t know, but what I do know is the new schedule which I want to make clear. REVIEWING THE CHARTS will alternate sporadically between Sundays and Wednesdays, but there will be a monthly show called BLAST TO THE PAST, which instead of just covering an old chart, will cover a lot of older pop music, and will basically be a fun time for me to do whatever I want, honestly. There’ll be more down the pipeline but stay tuned for that either this week or next week, where I rank all of Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams’ collaborations that ever charted on the Hot 100. See you then.

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