#I’d say that with my fuzzy waking memory I lost the plot but I’m pretty sure there was more than one to begin with

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Last night I had a dream that I only vaguely remember where someone tried to switch hualian and beefleaf but kept failing because too much of Hua Cheng’s character was him being whipped and they didn’t know how to deal with that. I was entirely useless but did find their approach to making Xie Lian gender-fluid interesting (i don’t remember what they did when doing that).

I was basically just sitting there with a sprite I got from a movie theater that was closing (dream right before this one) and being entirely useless as help (but I was entertained)

[sanm]

Let it Snow

Part of the SFW Bangtan Network Christmas Collab: Cold Hands Warm Hearts! 

Length: 2,807 words

Prompts: 

"You’re cute when you’re freezing.” 

“Why is it so damn cold?” 

“Come out in the snow with me!”

Disclaimer: I do not know BTS personally nor do I believe they are actually as I portray them. I am simply using them as characters in a plot of my own. 

To say that you were a bit of a grump when you were cold is an understatement. It’s one of the reasons you hate winter so much. Once you get cold, it's almost impossible to get warm again. That's why you prefer to spend your winters inside, snuggled up in a blanket and fuzzy socks, and drinking a cup of tea while reading a well-loved novel. Unfortunately, your boyfriend, Park Jimin, loved everything to do with winter - Christmas trees, gingerbread cookies, and the dreaded white dandruff from the sky: snow.

It's not that you necessarily hate snow. It is pretty to look at. But it brings with it the horrible, awful memories of your childhood. With this in mind, the morning of Christmas Eve dawned cold and very, very white. With a groan of exasperation, you pulled your covers back over your head in an attempt to drown out the brighter-than-normal morning light. Your reprieve was short-lived, however, as your boyfriend bounded into the bedroom and ripped the covers off your head. "___, wake up! It's snowing!" "I know, I can see the light reflection," you mumbled into your pillow. "Come on, come out in the snow with me!" Rolling over onto your side, you cracked an eye open to give Jimin the most annoyed look you could muster at 9:00 a.m. "Jimin, we've been dating three years. Surely you know by now that I don't really do snow." Jimin, who was hovering over by your closet at this point looking for a sweater for you to wear, turned to face you. "But, ___, it's almost Christmas..." "Yes?" "Don't you want to make me happy for Christmas?" His lower lip jutted out into a pout, and his eyes widened so that he looked a bit like a kicked puppy dog. Sitting up and running a hand through your messy bed-head, you sighed. "Jimin, of course I want to make you happy, but I just, well, I just can't really do snow. It brings back bad memories." Abandoning his search for a sweater, Jimin crossed to sit at the foot of the bed. "What bad memories?" You dropped your gaze to your hands, watching them twist the blanket over and over. "Just, things that I don't want to remember, ok?" Jimin gave you a long look then stood up. He turned on his heel and walked out into the main area of your shared apartment without a word. “Jimin? Babe? You ok?” You called for him when he didn’t return after a few minutes. Waiting a minute more, you really started to get worried. Throwing back the covers, you swung your legs over the side of the bed and shoved your feet into your slippers. You grabbed the comforter off the bed and wrapped yourself in it before venturing out in search of your boyfriend. The bathroom door stood open, so you knew it was vacant. You shuffled out into the open living room and kitchen, both void of your currently blonde haired boyfriend. "Jimin?" You tried calling again. You turned back towards your shared bedroom, thinking to check the hall bathroom more thoroughly, however, the sound of the balcony door sliding open distracted you. Before you could fully turn, something wet and cold and about the size of your fist had landed smack in the middle of your back. You shrieked and dropped the comforter, only to have another, slightly smaller ball hit your back. "PARK JIMIN STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" At this point, you were near tears, and you dropped to the ground to hug your knees. "Babe?" Jimin's dulcet tone rang out. “BABE!” Jimin dropped his other two frozen projectiles and hurried over to your side. Your breath was coming in short pants, black dots dancing across your vision, and you could barely feel Jimin’s warm hands shaking your shoulders. It wasn’t until he sandwiched your face between his heated hands and forced you to make eye contact that you began to come back to your body. "Babe, what happened, are you ok?" Jimin queried, still concerned about how dilated your pupils were. "Panic attack," you gasped out. "Panic attack? Over what?" "The snow, Jimin, the snow." "Why are you afraid of it?" "I'm not afraid of it, it's just, help me up, this isn't a conversation I want to have sitting in the hallway." Your sweet, caring boyfriend needed no further encouragement to scoop you up into his arms, comforter and all, and deposit you on the couch in the living room. He bustled into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and began to make you a cup of tea, sensing you needed something warm to calm your nerves for the talk ahead. You observed his movements in silence, noticing how the man who had once abhorred tea and had never drunk a cup in his life now brewed you a perfect cup of loose-leaf tea, and added two packets of sugar, just how you liked it. If that wasn't love, you weren't sure what was. He brought you the steaming mug, and you gratefully accepted it, warming your hands on the smooth ceramic surface. "Babe, we need to talk about this." You nodded once, and staring into the swirling eddies of your tea, you took a deep breath and began your story. "When I was younger, about seven, we had the first snow of the year the week before Christmas. I was so excited, I wanted to go out and play, even though it was getting dark and close to my bedtime. I knew my parents wouldn't let me go out that night, so I waited until they put me to bed, and then I snuck out.

It was magical, I made a snowman, snow angels, had a snowball fight with a tree -" Jimin snickered "hey, don't laugh, I was alone and creative. But, after an hour or so, I was cold and wet and wanted to go inside. I went back to the door that I had left cracked open only to find that it was firmly shut and I was locked out.

I pounded on the door, but my parent's room was at the opposite end of the house on the second floor and they were asleep and couldn't hear me. I tried yelling, throwing pebbles at their windows, everything, but no one came to the door. By this point, I was freezing and there was nothing I could really do about it. I walked around the house until I found the vent where the heat from the clothes dryer let out, and I huddled around it for the night. I remember it was just after sunrise when the dryer stopped and I lost my heat source.

I tried once again to wake up my parents, pounding on the door until my hands bled, but still no answer. I remember being so so cold, and so sleepy. I was just starting to drift off to sleep when my dad opened the door to go outside and get the newspaper and found me on the doorstep. He panicked, woke up my mom, took me to the hospital, and apparently I was like this close -" you gestured, placing your thumb and index finger a mere centimeter apart - "from getting frostbite and hypothermia. The doctors said if I had been out there another hour I could have died. So, yeah, that's why I don't like snow anymore." You finished your monologue with a shrug of your shoulders, your mug of tea long since abandoned for you to twist your hands in the comforter as you spoke. Jimin was silent for a moment. Then to your surprise, he pulled you into a bone-crushing hug. You tried to bring your arms up to hug him back, but he pulled you even closer. "I'm so sorry, ___. If I'd have known, I never would have -" "Jimin," you soothed, "it's ok, you didn't know." "No, but __, I should have just listened to you, it was wrong of me to push this. Because of me being stupid, you almost got hurt." To your consternation, you felt your hair dampen ever so slightly as Jimin sniffled, his tears showing you more than his words just how concerned he really was. "Babe, don't cry..." "Sorry, I can't help it...." You gently pulled yourself out of his arms, only for your heart to break at the look on his face. His nose was red, his cheeks puffy and tearstained, and his eyes bloodshot. softening your gaze, you cupped the back of his head and pulled him down to your breast, gently stroking your head as you hummed. "I'm here now Jimin, and that's all that really matters." "You're right," he mumbled into your chest. ----- The next few hours passed in relative silence, and you hated it. Jimin seemed to be going out of his way to avoid you, and you couldn't figure out a way to stop it. The normally cheerful boy that you fell in love with was nowhere to be seen. To say you were worried was an understatement. You stumbled across your boyfriend a few hours after The Incident, as you had come to think of it, gently plunking away at his keyboard in the corner of the living room, a melancholic melody drifting from the speakers. Deciding to surprise him, you quietly crept up behind him before flinging your arms over his shoulders and kissing his cheek. Normally, Jimin would giggle cutely and tug your arms closer around himself. He claimed that your hugs were an epicurean cure-all for everything from writer's block to the common cold. So it was highly unusual that he merely stiffened in your embrace before gently unwinding your arms from around himself. He turned to face you, gave you a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and then stood to move past you and go into the bedroom. You froze, rooted in place, unable to believe what had just happened. Jimin never turned down one of your hugs. Ever. Tears began to well up in your eyes as you thought of the implications of what had just happened. Maybe what had happened early today was too much. Maybe you were too broken for Jimin. If you were being honest with yourself, you weren’t really sure why he liked you in the first place. You were perfectly average in almost every way that you could think of. To think that someone like Jimin, from BTS, would like you in the first place was laughable. If the two of you hadn’t run into each other in a coffee shop three years ago and you hadn’t doused him with your scalding hot cup of tea, there never would have been any reason for the two of you to interact.

Your musings were interrupted when Jimin reemerged from the bedroom, dressed in a coat, scarf, mask, sunglasses, and hat. “You going out babe?” You questioned, proud that your voice barely shook. “Yeah, Yoongi needed me to come do a quick vocal guide track. I swear he never stops recording, even the day before Christmas.” The line fell easily from his lips, carelessly. Jimin laced up his brown Timberlands, grabbed his keys from the dish by the door, and waved at you over his shoulder before stepping out of your shared apartment. “I should be back in time for dinner!” He called over his shoulder as he pulled the door shut behind him. It closed with a firm snap, and you felt the first tear make its way down the curve of your cheek. You allowed yourself to collapse on the couch and sobbed into a nearby pillow, cocooning yourself in the duvet from earlier. The blanket still carried Jimin’s scent, a combination of fresh pine and sandalwood and something that was distinctly Jimin. The smell made you cry all the harder. You allowed yourself to mope for almost an hour, thoughts whirling through your head as you contemplated where you had gone wrong and what you could do to fix your relationship. Finally, you grew frustrated at your self-pity, realizing that inaction was not helping you in any way. What you needed was a way to apologize to jimin and make up for all the trouble you had caused this morning. But what would make him feel better? You knew he blamed himself for your panic attack from earlier, but it wasn’t his fault. You blamed yourself because you should have told him earlier about the traumatic experience you had had when you were younger but somehow the time never was quite right. The worst part of the entire ordeal was that Jimin absolutely loved the snow. It was one of the guaranteed things that could make him happy. However, he was usually on tour when it was snowing. He’d video chat you, and you could see his eyes crinkle with excitement, his voice would rise in pitch, and he’d let out an airy laugh every few minutes as his friends and bandmates Jungkook and Taehyung would inevitably come to drag him out to play. With a start, you realized that you loved the happiness that Jimin felt and expressed enough that you were willing to try and overcome your fear. With that resolve burning in your heart, you marched back to the bedroom, changed into a sweater, coat, jeans, and boots, and then went over to the balcony. You let out a long exhale and then stepped out into the cold. “Why is it so damn cold,” you muttered to yourself as your breath immediately formed icy crystals in the air. However, the cold wasn’t the real reason you were here. No, the reason you were here was the fluffy white stuff that was accumulating ever higher on the balcony railing. “Here goes nothing,” you said, and like ripping off a band-aid you plunged your hands into the snow in front of you. Instantly you felt the clawing panic begin to consume you as your breath began to come in short pants, but you grit your teeth and forced the panic back as much as you could by thinking of Jimin’s radiant face when he put the star on top of the tree this year. After a minute, you pulled your hands back out from the snow, idly noticing how red they were, but pleased that you hadn’t had a panic attack. You repeated the process a few more times, each iteration becoming easier and easier. Your balcony overlooked the parking lot, so an hour later you were able to see Jimin’s car pull up. Excited to surprise him, you pressed yourself against the wall of the balcony, hoping to hide until he was upstairs and in the building.

----- Jimin was holding several bags and had difficulty opening the door to your shared apartment. “Babe? I’m home!” He called. However, your normally cheerful voice was not there to greet him. “Babe?” He called again as he dropped the bags on the living room coffee table. Growing concerned, he turned to go back towards the bedroom when he heard the balcony door open. Relieved, he turned to face you. “Babe, what were you doing out-“ his words were cut off by a snowball to the face. Jimin froze, his only movement his eyelids blinking in disbelief. Peals of laughter rang out from where you stood at the look on his face. “Sorry babe,” you spluttered “but look, I managed to get over my fear!” “What?” Jimin asked as he lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe the melted snow off his face, “I spent most of the time while you were gone getting over my fear through exposure therapy. It worked!” “But, why?” “Well,” you started, “the snow makes you so happy so I want to make you happy too.” Letting out a breathy laugh, Jimin smiled. “Babe, you make me happy, with or without snow.” “I know, but you were so upset earlier... I just didn’t want to cause you to feel like that ever again.” “Well, unless your hiding any other childhood traumas, I think we’re ok,” he said with a smile. “Nope, we’re good,” you chimed in. “Good, now get inside, I brought home your favorite for dinner as an apology for earlier,” Jimin ordered. Happy to comply, you walked inside and shut the balcony door, shivering at the temperature change from cold to warm. “You know,” Jimin started lazily from where he had perched on the couch, “you’re cute when you’re freezing.” You threw a pillow at him as you settled down to dinner, the two of you warm under the glow of the lights from the Christmas tree and neither of you afraid of the softly falling snow outside of the window.

[theseventhhex]

Trevor de Brauw Interview

Trevor de Brauw

Chicago-based guitarist Trevor Shelley de Brauw (Pelican, RLYR) has announced the release of his first solo album – a collection of power-ambient compositions – entitled ‘Uptown’. Trevor Shelley de Brauw’s 20 year musical career has manifested as an exploration of the vast sonic possibilities of the guitar. ‘Uptown’ marks a departure from the riff-oriented song writing of Pelican, taking a plaintive approach that unravels the meditative depth of washed-out riffs, deconstructed drones, and carefully controlled feedback. The record is a stream of consciousness sustained for too long, an aural pendulum swinging between poles of murky distress and cathartic resolve that takes shape somewhere in the hazy valleys between rock, ambient and experimental music… We talk to Trevor about improvisation parenthood and being vegan…

TSH: Like previous works, was your approach to a lot of the material on your solo record very intuitive and not thinking in terms of intent?

Trevor: Definitely. Most of the songs would start by recording either kernels of ideas or improvisations and then I would go back and listen to what I had and think about how best to flesh the ideas out. Ultimately most of the performances on the record are improvised - just laying stuff down and then adding layers until things took on their own shape. When I started this album it was intended as a continuation of my Histoire project, in which improvised performance was something of an ideological guideline because the finished pieces were intended to act as a sonic journal; a specific moment in time captured in sound. This particular album deviated from that, particularly with regards to editing and even some moments where things are a little more thought out and composed, but I would say the earlier Histoire experiences informed the creation of this album.

TSH: Knowing you spent years refining compositions for ‘Uptown’, which factors would you say were most challenging?

Trevor: The biggest obstacle was carving out the free time to work on it; I am typically in three or four bands at a time and for the last 8 years I’ve been balancing those with a full time career/desk job, so most nooks and crannies in my schedule are full. There was also a certain lack of inertia that set in after the first couple of years - there were a couple of times that I thought the record was done and then I’d listen to all the material and realise that I didn’t have a set of pieces that would flow as an album, which got a bit demoralising.

TSH: Also, given the songs were birthed at vastly different times and places, do you feel this had some sort of varied effect on the end result?

Trevor: In some ways I suppose it must have. Insofar as one goes through tremendous personal changes over a long period of time, there are pieces on the album that were recorded by very different versions of myself. But one of the things that took so long was trying to amass a body of work that would flow as a cohesive album, so while the mentality and the approaches might vary from track-to-track, my hope is that those differences are not too obvious. I went through quite a few drafts of the album where the flow felt interrupted or stilted because there were too many jarring transitions or pieces that felt like they drifted off the path. I think these six pieces work together, perhaps, because the thread that ties them together is some sort of distillation of the constants in my persona.

TSH: With this body of work you, do you feel you were able to soundtrack certain sensations?

Trevor: It’s hard to say when you view them in retrospect. Because of the nature of their composition, the recordings evoke very specific moments and feelings, but I’m not sure if my memories of those emotions and sensations is through a veil of interpretation. They each act as a manifestation of the time in which they were created, but the specific sensations of those moments may be lost in the sands of time.

TSH: How would you assess the way you decided to incorporate the guitar throughout?

Trevor: Each piece was different. Some of them started on guitar, others started on electric piano or organ. With each of the recordings it was a matter of trying to figure out what sonic space needed to be filled, like grasping for puzzle pieces without having a guide to what the finished image was supposed to look like. Guitar ended up on most of the tracks because it’s the instrument I feel most comfortable playing, but in cases where it was not the primary instrument I made a point of trying to figure out whether it was even needed before going for it.

TSH: What’s the basic foundation for a track like ‘Turn Up For What’?

Trevor: That one started with the electric piano part. I love the sound of an electric piano drenched in reverb, so really it was just a matter of setting up that sound first and then seeing what ideas jumped out of my head. Once I had that initial piano track done I listened back and could hear saturated guitars in my head, so I dialled in a sound and improvised the two guitar tracks on top. The second one was intended to simply double the first, so I had to try and remember exactly what I played on the first pass - I came pretty close but the deviations from the original worked so I kept whatever “mistakes” ended up in there.

TSH: What aims did you outline whilst fleshing out ‘Distinct Frequency’?

Trevor: That one was a little more sonically adventurous. It was recorded around 10 years ago at this point, so the details of the recording are a little fuzzy in my memory. I think first I recorded the radio noise with a mic that was set up two rooms away. Then I started layering from there with electric piano and trombone (which I remember looping and then manipulating). I think the darkness and anxiety of the piece helps balance out some of the euphoria of some of the other pieces. It was recorded during the year that my wife and I lived in a farmhouse in rural North Carolina. We were never really accepted by the locals while we lived there and our time there felt a bit fraught and anxious. I think ‘Distinct Frequency’ is a pretty accurate sonic summary of some of the feelings of that time.

TSH: Was it gratifying to operate in your own lane with this record?

Trevor: Recording solo material tends to be less gratifying than playing with other musicians. There’s hurdles of communication when it comes to playing with others that can be challenging, but the rewards are far more immediate and palpable. Crafting these solo pieces is a pretty long process of trial and error, second guessing, labouring over details. And because of the experimental nature of the compositional process it often happens that all the time spent poring over stuff is in vain because the finished work is a failure. That said, there are elements of the process that are very gratifying - times when I was able to conceive of an idea and then execute it properly, the moment I was able to hold the finished record in my hand, and definitely most every time I play live as a solo act since the act of standing alone in front of people making this stuff is pretty daunting, so when it lands properly it feels extremely cathartic.

TSH: Is your former cat walking through the room in the background of one of the songs the only feature on this record?

Trevor: Yes, dearly departed Kitty Shelley de Brauw was my only guest. Uninvited, at that, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

TSH: Have you heard any compelling movie soundtracks in recent times?

Trevor: Several. I really, really dug the Room 237 soundtrack; it was a very cool reimagining of established tropes. It seemed really fitting that the soundtrack was an homage to a certain style when the film itself is about taking a deep dive into critical analysis, like they were both different ends to a similar goal. I also love the Beyond the Black Rainbow soundtrack. It definitely stands on its own, but it also just completely made the movie what it is.

TSH: What makes you feel not very nostalgic as a person?

Trevor: I think that’s probably something I said before I was a parent. I think it would be really difficult not to be nostalgic as a parent. You live with someone you love more than anything in the world and they change so rapidly that they’re practically a different person every few weeks. It makes you feel really precious about every single moment because it becomes crystal clear how fleeting everything in this life is. And once that epiphany takes hold it puts every experience in life into perspective… Before I was a parent I was always looking forward and didn’t really pause to reflect too much. I don’t think either approach is right or wrong, but I am very happy for everything parenthood has brought me, including the sense of nostalgia and reflection.

TSH: What do you admire mostly about Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming?

Trevor: What’s so riveting about Liebezeit is how he crafts these virtuosic intricate drum patterns but then renders them hypnotic by repeating them endlessly. I love just getting lost inside his seemingly effortless loops.

TSH: Also, your verdict on the latest Mount Eerie album…

Trevor: I love Mount Eerie. It is a very difficult album to listen to; it is a raw expression of unfathomable emotional pain, without any pretence about trying to romanticise or poeticise it. There’s not really anything like it.

TSH: Talk us through what lead to the following tweet ‘Daylight savings aka a plot to drive parents of young children insane.’…

Trevor: I think it was in reference to the most recent time change and the challenge of getting a four year old to wake up on time for school on time the next day. Adults tend to be a bit more resilient when it comes to sleep deprivation.

TSH: How long have you been a vegan?

Trevor: I’ve been vegan for 23 of my 39 years. At this point I’m so different from the person I was before I became vegan that it’s hard to conceive what role my diet could have played in that.

TSH: Finally, what are your intentions with your solo career as you look ahead?

Trevor: I’m most of the way through another album. Or that’s what I think now and eight years from now I’ll feel dumb for having said that. But with any luck I’ll wrap that up sooner than later and get it out at some point in the not too distant future. I definitely want to keep playing solo shows, including shows outside of Chicago if I can find a way of doing that.

Trevor de Brauw - “They Keep Bowing”

Uptown