#It is such a great song and the instrumental is an important part of it so I'm disappointed that I couldn't find a backing track

[yourhighness6]

What is your favorite Zutara headcanon?

I hope you have an amazing day! ^.^

I'm so sorry this has been sitting in my inbox forever! I haven't had a chance to answer asks and I kind of forgot about it, so I'm going to give an extra long answer to make up for it lol. I have a few that are tied for first and second, so bear with me.

Firstly, I absolutely love the idea of Zuko helping out Katara with the chores after he joined the gaang. It just makes sense that he would try to help her out, and that he would feel guilty and try to do extra work. Of course, it takes Katara awhile to actually appreciate his help, but after TSR they actually manage to have fun together while they're doing dishes and laundry together, and she can't imagine it any other way.

This one is kind of cheesy, but I love the idea of them both being musically inclined, but in different ways. Zuko is obviously great at the tsungi horn, but he's an absolutely awful singer, and Katara can't play an instrument to save her life, but she has the voice of an angel. They like practicing songs with each other to let off steam, and even after the war whenever Katara finds herself in the Fire Nation or Zuko in the water tribe, they still get together to make a bit of music. They're also both wonderful dancers, Zuko from growing up learning dances in the FN court, and Katara because it's a big part of her culture, and she also just thinks it's fun. Zuko never really liked to dance, because it reminded him of being boxed in at court, but Katara shows him some different steps and he actually enjoys himself for once. In an AU where they end up together, their kids grow up combining the dances of both their cultures and creating new trends in both the FN and the SWT.

This one isn't really Zutara-centric, but Toph teases the HELL out of them. She literally goes around making the snarkiest comments and she will not stop until they are both blushing like tomatoes.

In an AU where they get together, they are the second in the gaang to get married, after Suki and Sokka but before Aang and Teo (I said what I said). Their wedding is obviously a huge event, and Sokka and Aang are the groomsmen while Toph and Suki are the bridesmaids, obviously. Katara is super into wedding planning and picking out her dress. Uncle Iroh helps her with the plans and buys fireworks and organizes the guest list and Zuko rebels against the both of them at every turn because he doesn't really want a huge, ostentatious wedding. He eventually realizes that this is way more important to Katara than it is to him, though, so he stops trying to get them to tone things down and only helps her with the planning when asked, to give her all the creative freedom her heart desires. In canon (where they don't get together) I like to think that Zuko would be Katara's 'man of honor' at her wedding with Aang. Partially because of pining and angst, but mostly because they want to be there for each other and see each other happy, even if they aren't going to be the ones spending their lives together.

Zuko would be the first one to realize his feelings for Katara, but he'd be in denial for so long that by the time Katara realizes her feelings back, they're at about the same place when it comes to their relationship. She's the first one to say "I love you" and even though it takes him a little time to say it back, it's only because he's scared to be so vulnerable with someone at first. She gives him time, and his love confession ends up being simultaneously the most awkward and the most romantic thing in the world. Zuko is the one to propose and Katara says yes without question.

They end up having two kids, twin girls named Kya and Ursa after their mothers. Kya, the nonbender, is set to inherit the throne, and Ursa, the waterbender, has a special gift for healing. Zuko only wanted one kid because he was afraid of messing them up, but he ends up being a wonderful father. Katara is a great mother as well, of course, and she loves to teach Ursa waterbending while Zuko helps her incorporate firebending moves into her fighting style. Kya feels a little left out of these family training sessions at first, but Zuko teaches her how to use the dao swords, her Aunt Mai teaches her how to throw knives, and her Aunt Ty Lee teaches her chi blocking, so she's just as deadly as the rest of her family.

Katara's first project after becoming firelady is to help spearhead pollution reform and create industrial regulations that help the FN become more environmentally friendly. She eventually travels back to the village in "the Painted Lady" with her daughters to show them the value of respecting nature.

This one also isn't very zutara-centric, but I don't think Katara and Azula would ever really reconcile. Although she becomes good friends with both Mai and Ty Lee (who are dating, obviously), she can never forgive Azula for some of the most traumatic events of her life. Zuko and Azula do eventually have a healthy relationship after Azula realizes the error of her ways, but she decides to move away from the palace of her own accord. There are too many bad memories there.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my headcanons! These are the only ones I can think of right now but I probably have more somewhere in my brain.

[cult-of-a-buttercup]

Hey. Have you ever wondered what each boss fight OST could mean for each bishop? No? Well too bad!!! This is all about that!!!!! (Links to the songs are on the names :] )

Leshy’s theme

Leshy’s boss fight is usually the first one you go through- though you can defeat whatever boss you want first, he would be the most common option since Darkwood is the first zone you unlock.

His theme is very simple when compared to the others? The whole song feels very magical, in a similar way like a fantasy world- it reminds me of medieval bards probably because of the string instruments. And the whole magic thing is blame of the chorus that shit goes hard

The lack of complexity of Leshy’s song could show that this is a bit of a first- he hasn’t fought much in his eldritch form before, so he does as best he knows with little thought. Him being the “first” boss also makes him a somewhat easier opponent, so it only adds on to this. Also the ending of the song really makes it seem like something surprising has happened- again because of the chorus. Very probably because. You know. First bishop who EVER got killed. Bit of a shocker. Things are going to change from now on you feel me.

Heket’s theme

Heket’s theme goes HARD. It’s probably my favorite one

The the first few seconds of the intro SCREAM destruction. This girl is there to demolish you and to make sure the One who Waits stays chained FOREVER. It’s very fast paced and it keeps going fast for a while before a chorus kicks in and holy SHIT I don’t know why but the melody it follows just. Makes me think of sorrow. Of how sad all of this prophecy really is and how this has affected Heket for CENTURIES now.

AAAND this is BACKED UP by dialog!!! If you go to Anura without killing Leshy she says this:

“The Bishops… my family. Have they not suffered enough? Have I not suffered enough?”

“We fought, pathetic vessel. We bled. We grieved. And yet the Red Crown wants more. No more.”

HELLO??? LIKE SHE’S SO SAD AND IT SHOOOWSSS IN HER FUCKING OST i love this game:;;:; the fact that she remarks that they GRIEVED the loss of her brother too- this poor girl has to every reason to never miss or think about her brother but how can she?? He was one of her older brothers, one of her mentors. Of course she misses him and probably still hurts because of his betrayal- both emotionally and literally because of her injuries. But you think she’s going to let her “feelings” get in the way???? NO. She’s going to kill you. That’ll make her feel better (eternal denial)

Kallamar’s theme

The build up of Kallamar’s theme genuinely just reminds me of royalty and. Mermaids. This squid is out here to show just how GOOD he is at killing lambs. KING of lamb slaughter you could say. LORD of murder. The chorus it has and the instruments really make it look like he’s a force to be reckoned with and that his fight will be filled with power!! With the grace only a king and a god could have!!! But even so it still has a few parts near the middle where it like slows down and shows maaybe a bit of insecurity. Knowing Kallamar wanted to avoid this fight at all costs it wouldn’t surprise me that his confidence in fight comes and goes in flashes, much like the parts with flutes and singing after the “greatness” introduction. My poor man is having a crisis out here someone help him

Shamura’s theme

Something that really catches my attention is that unlike the rest of the boss themes, this song has no initial build up or intro. It’s pretty straightforward. And honestly??? (WARNING: SHAMURA PROPAGANDA) it just shows how important they are. They need no introduction, they’re the bishop of war and knowledge! The one and only, Shamura!!! You already know who it is, they don’t have to make it clear with an introduction. It’s either that or a reflection of how used they are to war and combat, so they don’t make it as much of a big deal as their siblings. OR since they already knew it was going to happen, it simply isn’t big news and they’ve been waiting for this to happen for too long to care.

It’s also really quick paced and goes very well with their boss fight, considering how aggressive it is compared to Leshy’s or Heket’s. Even so, like the others it has a part in the middle where it slows down a little and has a smaaaall little chorus in the back before building back up to a quicker pace. Could be that they’re analyzing what’s going on or that their injuries are acting up again so they need a breather- it also gives it this slightly sorrowful feeling to it AUGH.

The ending of the song is also different, like Leshy’s. Though the ending of Shamura’s theme really make it sound like something big happened- not because it has never been seen before but because its over. There’s no more bishops, the Old Faith is fucking gone. If you beat them last, that is JWRBIFDNB

Narinder’s theme + The One who Waits’ theme

Hooooly shit these two songs go hard. Also two of my favorites.

The introduction makes it SO clear that something has unleashed like you don’t have to be playing to know something BIG is happening. This one has only a voice and the bass- it makes it feel very majestic and divine in a way I can’t really explain, if you get it you get it. Honestly I have no comments. It’s mystical, it shows that you are fighting a GOD and that is IT.

The fact that it’s two separate songs also makes me think a lot about how Narinder was part of the Old Faith, but The One who Waits is NOT. Basically when comparing osts Narinder’s theme sounds a lot more like what we’ve seen with the other bishops while toww is a LOT more aggressive and just overall heavy handed?? It makes me think that like he’s DONE playing around.

Other things I noticed:

All mini-boss themes are similar to a small sample of their respective bishop

Other locations like Sozo’s cult or Midas’ cave also have similarities to the bishop’s themes or rather their areas

Baal’s theme is longer than Aym’s. Could mean many things, like Baal is older or that his fight takes a bit longer. Most people know Aym is the weakest link since he falls coughing after some attacks he makes, so it only makes sense

Narinder’s theme is more similar to Aym’s and The One who Waits’ is more similar to Baal’s

Shamura’s theme is the longest between all bishops with 2:35 minutes

WOW this took a minute but yeah. I hope everyone likes it!

I’d love to see what all of you think!! Maybe you think I’m absolutely wrong or want to add on- either way I will read everything with them big old eyes ❤️

[french-vanilla-in-the-clouds]

𝐅𝐢𝐱𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 𝐗 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Sherlock and Y/N have always teased each other relentlessly, claiming one was fixated on the other. One day while on a case, they realize that their banter holds a ring of truth. Fluff!!!

𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲: Anonymous

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"Sherlock, its my day off. Explain to me what I'm doing at Barts." Lestrade checked his watch and sighed. "I've already missed the game's first half! This had better be good."

Sherlock sat hunched over his microscope. "It's important," he said, eyeing his work. "It's about your bank robbery, actually. There were palm prints left behind that can be traced back to the suspects."

Lestrade perked up. "You've got a match, then? That's great! I'll send out the cavalry."

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock scoffed. "The results are still processing. We'll know in a few hours."

"I don't understand. Why am I here, then?"

Sherlock peered up innocently. "You told me to keep you updated."

"Bloody hell, you should have texted me!" Lestrade cried, throwing his hands up in the air. "I had to take a cab straight from the other end of the city! Now you're telling me to wait here, twiddling my thumbs while you work?"

Sherlock blinked up at the detective inspector. "My apologies," he said, turning back to his work table.

Lestrade's hands were itching to wring Sherlock's neck when Y/N walked through the lab doors. Her shoes clicked against the linoleum flooring; she was clearly in a rush. "I'm here!" she called, nearly crashing into a rack of instruments.

"About time," Sherlock sing-songed.

Lestrade stared after her curiously. "I thought you'd sit this one out. Didn't seem like Sherlock here needed any help. He even let John off his leash today. I figured I was the only one he suckered into coming in."

"I called, she came," Sherlock cut in. "Perks of having an ardent fan. She's infatuated with me, you know."

Y/N raised a brow, amused. "I know you're desperate for my attention, Sherlock, but let's take it down a notch, alright?" She turned to Lestrade and shrugged. "He called, I came."

Sherlock grinned.

Lestrade glanced at the two of them, unimpressed. Since he'd know the pair, they had always maintained the running joke that one was fixated with the other. Though it had started off as friendly banter, everyone was convinced that there were hidden affections beneath the snark of their words.

"I'm glad you're here at any rate," Lestrade said. "I've got the media breathing down my neck because of these blasted robberies. Maybe you can help him speed things up." He glared at Sherlock on the last bit.

Y/N nodded. "I can try, but I'm not sure if there's much I can do. You know that Holmes is the expert in these matters. He'll figure it out soon enough."

Sherlock smirked. "How very confident you are in my abilities. Though I would advise caution on your part." He lowered his voice to a teasing whisper. "Your obsession is showing."

Y/N feigned exhaustion. "Just as delusional as ever," she sighed. "Now, are you going to sit there grinning at me like a lovesick schoolboy or are you going to solve the case?"

"Right then," he chuckled.

Lestrade darted his eyes between the pair, taken aback for a moment by their unabashed flirting. He rubbed a hand over his temples, annoyed that he had missed the football match for this.

"It's in for a penny, in for a pound with you lot isn't it?" He sighed, glancing at his watch.

"Oh, do lighten up, Inspector," Sherlock said cheerily. "Miss Y/N is simply enraptured by my intellectual prowess. We can't hold that against her."

"Don't you start!" she laughed. "Everybody knows that you're the one who's hopelessly in love with me. You might as well admit to it!"

Sherlock leaned back in his seat. He quirked a brow and studied Y/N. His eyes glinted playfully. "Very well then," he said with confidence. "I'm in love with you."

The room was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the buzzing of the industrial lighting up above. Sherlock folded his hands together casually, awaiting Y/N's response.

"Well?" He asked, amused. "Has the cat got your tongue?"

Y/N narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You weren't supposed to say that."

"Say what?"

"That you love me."

"Why not?"

"Because you don't mean it."

Sherlock tilted his head to the side. "Don't I?"

"Oh for crying out loud!" Lestrade laughed. "You two idiots obviously fancy each other! Can we fast-forward the mock surprise and get on to better things?"

Y/N turned to Sherlock, grinning. "Is the detective inspector right?" she asked. "Do you really fancy me?"

Sherlock winked. "Against my better judgment, I can assure you."

She stepped towards his work table and pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. "I knew you would be the first to admit it. Sherlock Holmes, you're positively fixated on me, aren't you?"

He shrugged. "Guilty as charged. Now, what would you say to lunch? Granted, Bart's cafeteria food is mediocre at best, but I'm sure you'll be beset with thoughts of me anyway."

"You might be onto something there. Lead the way, Holmes."

Though nothing much had changed between them, the recognition of something already there lightened their steps to the door. Lestrade watched as the pair left the lab without so much as a goodbye, their eyes locked only on each other.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Lestrade smiled. "That's how it is around here."

He relaxed against the counter and settled in for a long wait. He checked his watch; the game had ended. Lestrade let out a contented breath.

He didn't mind at all.

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Hey! Try reading Painted Faces!

Thanks to the anon who requested this! Sorry about the long wait!!!! 💖🧁

If you’d like to be tagged in any future Sherlock fics, just tell me in the comments! (and if you’d rather not be tagged in ALL Sherlock fics, please specify; EX: Reader x Sherlock, Reader x John Watson...)

Requests are open!

tagging: @spencerrxids  @i-beg-your-pardon-laufeyson ​ @lucywrites02   @danzalladaggers @mrs-holmes  @twisted-monster @starryeddie @high-functioning-lokipath @the-chaotic-cow @turkisherlockian  @kabubsmagga @aephereal ​ @andthevillainshallrises ​ @baby-bloos ​ @cookiemumster1 ​​ @eternal-silvertongued-prince ​ @bogginsreadings ​ @lumosouls @waiting-for-cas-to-save-me

[pandazenie27]

my top 5 car seat headrest songs (as of now):

1: We Can’t Afford (Your Depression Anymore)

-everything about this song i just love a lot. the instrumentals are just so good. it sort of puts into words some things i feel and i love how he says “You’ve got a lot to live for” because throughout the song he uses terms like “we” and “our” and it sort of implies that he views this person more worthy of living than he is and i feel like it’s a great detail. the instrumental break at the end makes me go feral and crazy and then when he says “i don’t know how to make you happy” it just makes me feel something in my chest idk i love this song a lot

2: Fill In The Blank

-there’s a reason why this song is so popular and that because it goes so fucking hard i really like how it shows how people act towards people with depression. i’ve been asked “why?” when i try to explain my feelings and i just can’t think of any real reason that would make sense to the people i’m talking to. it’s just really difficult to exist and this song kind of puts it into words how i’ve been feeling and also just the overlapping vocals on the last chorus go so hard i love when songs do that

3: Cute Thing

-I like both versions of cute thing and i genuinely can’t figure out which one i like better so they’re both up here because i like them for different reasons. I like how smooth the face to face version sounds and i like how crispy crunchy the mirror to mirror version sounds. i like the instrumental break in the face to face version a lot more because there’s something about when the music stops for a second to let the singing happen that just makes me feel something inside. my favorite part of the mirror to mirror version is the little “woof woof!” after he says “i will be your rock dog” because it just makes me really happy. also this song got me back into tmbg so that’s also a plus

4: Please, Mr. Pilot

-please mr pilot is one of those songs that just kills me. the music is great and it’s more peppy (?) than some of their other songs but the lyrics are just bone-shattering life-changing head-banging-against-the-wall good to me. “why should i bare my soul to strangers when i never bared my soul to you?” like come on man i’m like foaming at the mouth whenever i listen to this song. also just a general thing about listening to songs from disjecta membra is that i just like going out of the way to pull up youtube to listen to a song i like because it feels like i’m visiting my long-distance lover

5: Something Soon

-Specifically talking about the one from teens of style because that one just feels nicer to me for some reason (i like the one from mbikmb too but unlike with cute thing this version i just like a bit more) There’s something about the lyrics to this song that just sort of make sense to me. “i want to break something important” that weird self-destructive impulse has hit me so many times and it just makes sense. also my fingers are frozen too dude i feel you it’s cold out.

Honorable Mentions (songs that i love a lot that didn’t make it into the current top 5):

-Literally just anything else from twin fantasy

-drunk drivers/killer whales

-i hate living

-it’s only sex

-kimochi warui

-hey space cadet

-destroyed by hippie powers

-i want you to know that i’m awake/i hope you’re asleep

-there’s more but i’m tired rn

[anothersarcasticdolphin]

A refinement of my thoughts on a second Aemond 5+1 series:

So as much as I want to write Daemon's bastard daughter Daenys killing Aemond, I'm going to bump those two ideas from the series. They may get written as separate one-shots, but I want to keep the series as a whole consistent and not have a random OC showing up and then disappearing.

Also I kind of want to try and do each chapter across the series in a different POV.

1. Aemond's eye gets infected after Driftmark and he dies. 'Mournful song' I think this would be a one-shot from Alicent's POV. Which on the one hand I find very intimidating - because it would have to be centered around her worry and her gradual mix of denial and panic, where she is almost lying to herself.

2. Training accident with Ser Crispy (morningstars are dangerous) Title TBD. Or it might just be 'Morning(star).' I think this would be a two shot - with Ser Crispy and Aegon each narrating their very different accounts what would basically be the same events. I also think Alicent's POV would be great here, but I want her POV for the first story and I think Aegon could be very interesting as well.

3. Daemon pulls a Laertes during sparing practice. Title TBD. This would also probably be a two shot. Daemon and Rhaenyra would be the two POV characters, and this would Daemon in all his wrathful bastardly glory. He's going to be in love with Rhaenyra. But he's not going to be a good person.

4. Rhaenys uses blood magic to make Aemond kill himself [she's less theatrical than Daemon though] so Rhaena can have Vhagar 'Stolen (back)' This would be a one shot with Rhaenys as the POV character. And I think poor Vhagar may end up being rather instrumental in it all (in more ways than as just motivation), but that's by no means set in stone.

5. The Blacks show up after they find out what's happened to Luke and make what Dany did to KL look like a light breeze. 'Ashen wings.' This would probably be four chapters, and I want to model them after the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Baela as the Conquorer, Jace as War, [TBD as Famine], and Rhaena as Death. Jace is the most wrathful one, Baela vengeful but not quite as much as Jace, and Rhaena with a more detached perspective because she would be almost an outside POV as she wouldn't be in the actual attack on KL (at least at first). Also I want to get the line 'The best defense is a good offence' from Daemon in some form at some point.

So for Famine - Joffrey feels too young. I'm almost tempted to have Corlys be Famine given House Velaryon's control over trade in the Dragonstone/Driftmark/King's Landing area. Also Rhaena could be Famine and then I would have Helaena as Death. But I'm slightly terrified to try and write Helaena's POV.

+1. Aemond hates Aegon's guts for the pig incident and runs off to the Free Cities instead of doing his part for Team Green. 'The tree remembers.' This would be a one shot from Aemond's POV. Helaena is very an important character here. This one may end up being an au where Aegon didn't show up to his own wedding so Aemond married Helaena in his place - if so she and their kids are coming with Aemond.

-------

Ideas that are being relegated to independent one shots:

Aemond sides with Rhaenyra out of pure spite cause he hates Aegon's guts. This would be kind of cracky.

One of Daemon's less savory 'friends' gets Aemond while he is searching for Aegon. This would be an aftermath fic where the Blacks are on Dragonstone having been presented with the sapphire and are trying to figure out what to do.

OC [Daemon's bastard] kills him over Storm's End. 'A fell voice in the air.' We never got to see how scary Daenys could be in Four Dragons. This would probably be looking at three chapters - Daenys, Aemond, Daemon?. Also Storm's End is likely to be harmed in the making of this fic.

Daemon [+/- OC?] flies around burning stuff and gets the drop on Aemond. 'Hunter (Hunted)' The other candidate for the line 'the best defense is a good offense.'

Any thoughts?

[taminoarticles]

— Tamino for Fucking Young!, #21 EVOLUTION / December 2022 (x)

The evolution of the music industry is always in perpetual motion and social platforms are having more impact in addition to streaming. In 2021, one of the world's bestselling singers, Adele revealed the real reason for refusing to make music for TikTok. She explained that if labels are pushing artists to make music for 14-year-olds, who will do the music for her peers? The way we consume music now is based on algorithms and trends but yes, what about being more organic and independent from social applications and platforms? This is a topic we shared and discussed with Belgian-Egyptian musician Tamino in this piece.

THE NEXT DIMENSION OF TAMINO

BY IVICA MAMEDY

Production   Fashion and Art Moroccan Association (F.A.M.A.) Photographer   Moz ERO

TAMINO-AMIR MOHARAM FOUAD known mononymously as TAMINO is the grandson of Egyptian singer and movie star MUHARRAM FOUAD and rose to fame in 2018 with his debut album “AMIR”. If at the beginning the press and fans were comparing him to JEFF BUCKLEY, quickly he pulled away these comparisons as the way he defended his music was unique. On stage, Tamino is hypnotizing and has the power to transport you to another dimension.

After a two-year social media hiatus, TAMINO came back in April 2022 with some new music and released his second record "SAHAR" this September. Once again, this album is a masterpiece and hauntingly beautiful. Before defending it on stage, we met him in Paris where we talked about how his process of making music changed during the worldwide lockdown in 2020 and his approach to using social platforms with parsimony.

THIS ISSUE IS ABOUT EVOLUTION AND HOW DID YOUR FIRST RECORD "AMIR" CHANGE YOU HUMANLY AND AS AN ARTIST DURING THIS WORLDWIDE LOCKDOWN IN 2020?

I feel like my life changed drastically in a short amount of time. I've been on tour for a very long time and I was just focused on that. Seems I gain maturity quickly. When I got back home during the pandemic, I realized how I neglected many things in my daily life and how I was more isolated on tour than during the lockdown. I took the time to see my friends and meet new people. I was evolving as a human being, not as an artist. This made me feel more comfortable writing new songs and creating was an easy and quick process.

IF THE PROCESS WAS QUICK WITH THIS SECOND ALBUM, HAS THE WAY YOU MAKE MUSIC CHANGED?

The process was still pretty similar but being alone with an instrument to find out how to create new sounds was important to me. It's about taking the proper time to create the most authentic and melodic sound.

DID THIS LOCKDOWN HELP YOU TO BE MORE OPEN AND EXPLORE MUSIC WITH NEW PEOPLE AND COLLABORATORS?

I worked with the same bunch of producers, and I also created myself as a producer on this album because I learned a lot about recording and the process to develop demos for example. I was actively part of the production which created some big inspirations in the studio. I have known the double bass player for a long time as he was living behind my counter. We were hanging out together but it was the first time we teamed up to make music. We developed the concept of a dark room for music. We were going into a room and trying to figure out which instruments we'll use to create something organic. It was a great time for exploration.

THE MAIN CONVERSION SINCE YOUR FIRST RECORD IN 2018 IS THAT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY DEPENDS A LOT MORE ON SOCIAL PLATFORMS TO BE SUCCESSFUL. I KNOW YOU ARE VERY DISCREET ON THESE PLATFORMS BUT DID YOUR LABEL RECOMMEND YOU TO BE MORE PRESENT ON TIKTOK FOR EXAMPLE?

For sure they suggested that to me as they do with other artists. I have a TikTok account but my fans know that the only account I'm taking care of is Instagram. My management helps me to update all the other social platforms so it gives me more time to enjoy Instagram in a good way. Two years ago, I deleted Instagram from my phone to avoid being distracted because enjoying pure moments is important to me. Take time to be bored and sometimes it's when you're bored that creativity comes. Now I'm back on Instagram to promote my new project and at the same time, I'm happy to discover beautiful inspirations and imagery on this app.

IT IS PART OF THE JOB OF A MUSICIAN I GUESS NOW?

Yes, but it has to be genuine….if I can give advice to younger artists who struggle on social platforms is the genuine way you communicate with your community.

THIS TWO-YEAR SOCIAL MEDIA HIATUS HELPS YOU TO CREATE THIS BEAUTIFUL NEW ALBUM. IT'S YOUR WAY TO UNVEIL YOUR INTIMATE SIDE?

It was a beautiful moment making this album. It's about maturity and those moments in the studio making these songs was a hundred percent pure. It can't explain how it was such a meaningful moment when we gave birth to "Sahar".

ANY SONG ON THIS ALBUM THAT YOU CHERISH THE MOST?

Oh man, it is so complicated to choose as they are all my babies. It depends, as my favorite song now will not be the same tomorrow. I need to start playing them to compare. The main difference with the first album was that I was already playing them live before they got released.

HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOUR ALBUM IS NOT EVEN OUT AND YOUR SHOWS ARE ALREADY SOLD OUT? ARE YOU MORE CONFIDENT KNOWING YOUR FANS ARE STILL HERE FOR YOU?

It’s amazing and I’m so grateful for this to happen. I mean, there are no words to express how it is a pure recognition for an artist. We have to look at laying bigger venues so people have more change to come. I like playing in small theaters as well as in a stadium. Both can feel intimate as well as people sharing the same energy.

YOUR MUSIC VIDEOS LOOK VERY CINEMATOGRAPHIC. THERE’S ANY MOVIE WHOSE AESTHETIC REPRESENTS YOU THE MOST?

I’m a movie freak and my brother is very into aesthetic images. If I need to name a movie, I will say one of my favorite movies, The Lord of the Rings.

[padfootagain]

Something Good (VIII)

Chapter 8: Denial

Hi everyone! Here is a new chapter for my Ben Barnes series! I hope you all like it, tell me what you think about it!

Things are about to get serious ehehehehhehehe!!! (Also, it features the biggest lie ever written in a fanfiction, let me tell you, the title of this chapter is very appropriate…)

****

Pairing: Ben Barnes x Reader

Warnings: none! Slow burn, professor AU.

Summary: Coming out of a divorce and trying to get used to being a single mom, while teaching your classes at University, you thought your life could not get more complicated than it already is. But when you are asked to take care of the theatre club with the colleague that you really can’t get along with, you realize that everything can still get ten times more complicated in your life. And when you start actually liking Professor Barnes, the troubles only grow exponentially…

Word Count: 2993

Masterlist for the series - Ben Barnes's Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Maybe, just maybe… this idea of yours with musicals was a little bit more complicated than you thought it would be.

As you stared at the long list of questions you and the students had written on the blackboard, you kind of wondered how you could manage all this.

By your side, Ben was getting a little nervous as well, although he remained calmer than you were. Maybe it was because he wasn’t the one who had had this idea of musicals in the first place, and so he didn’t feel as responsible as you did. Or maybe he was used to asking himself all these questions after working on the club for several years.

No matter why, Ben was staring at the blackboard, rolling a pencil between his fingers, thinking hard.

“I think the most important issue we need to tackle is the music, though,” David said, sipping on a coffee.

“I reckon there’s a choir and a band in the school, right?” you asked, thinking hard. “Perhaps they could help?”

Ben nodded.

“We can ask them. If any of you have friends who would like to join, that could be great…”

“But this… all of this would work for the performance, and some repetitions along the year, but I can’t imagine that we could gather everyone on a weekly basis. And anyway… there are weeks during which we’ll have to work on the staging, on the acting… we can’t ask people to come for two full hours if we only need their help for ten minutes,” you argued. “We need musicians with us, part of the group.”

“Does any of you play an instrument?” Giselle asked the group.

Nathaniel raised his hand.

“I play the guitar.”

“And I play the clarinet,” added Betty, one of the new students.

A couple others played the guitar.

“What about you, Y/N?” David asked, but you shook your head.

“I don’t play any instrument. I can sing, that’s pretty much it. Ben?”

Your colleague looked up at you again, as he had seemed lost in thought for a couple of minutes.

“I play the drums and the piano, some guitar too. I can play during our repetitions.”

You grinned at him.

“Awesome!”

“We should try singing, and decide which roles we want to play,” Giselle proposed.

“Before that, shouldn’t we choose the songs?” David asked.

“Well, I reckon we should keep most of the songs of the musical, but… the whole project was based on the idea to use popular songs and to integrate them in a story. We could add our own, for sure,” Ben proposed, and all were enthusiastic.

“We must keep El Tango de Roxanne though,” you argued. “I am using my authority to save this one.”

“And what an authority, huh?” Ben teased you, making everyone laugh.

“Clearly, you’ve never seen me ask my daughter to clean her room,” you fought back.

“I bet she doesn’t do it.”

“She doesn’t, you’re right.”

You heaved a dramatic sigh, while your colleague let out an earnest laugh.

It was nice. The whole session with the club was nice, and… you hated to admit it but… spending this time with Ben was nice too. Very nice, indeed…

“Let’s make a list,” Ben said, grabbing his notebook and pushing his glasses a little higher on his nose.

He did every time he started writing something, you had noticed that… you found it… endearing, for some reason…

You hurried to push the thought away, and cleared your throat instead.

“Elephant Love Medley stays,” decided Ben. “I’m using my authority on this one. El Tango de Roxanne too…”

“Come What May,” added John, one of your new recruits, who seemed very shy, his voice barely audible at all.

Ben added a few songs to the list, but there was some room for new ones. You spent some time thinking about it.

“Hey, didn’t you want to play The Sound of Music?” Nathaniel said, pointing at you. “I remember there are references and stuff in the movie, but we haven’t kept the song. Maybe we could add a song from that.”

“Which one?” asked Ben.

But Nathaniel shrugged.

You took a look at the list. You didn’t have many highly-romantic songs. You had only kept Come What May and Elephant Love Medley… but you reckoned that another romantic scene could work…

“Something romantic?” you asked.

“Why not?”

“Or maybe that one where she likes stuff!” Roberta proposed, struggling to remember the title of the song.

“Favourite Things?” Ben offered, and the girl squealed in approval.

“Yes! That’s it! That’s a fun song!”

You shrugged, a few people nodded.

“You were thinking about something romantic?” Ben asked, turning to you. “We could add a romantic scene. Some of the most intimate scenes will be difficult to stage, we don’t have the same set or anything of the kind, we’re much more limited on stage compared to cinema. We could replace some of these scenes with one of our own, around a new song. What did you have in mind?”

He was staring at you, gaze intense and unwavering. You liked that about him, the fact that whenever he listened to someone, it was with his full attention. You felt like your opinion mattered. You couldn’t help but draw a comparison with your ex-husband. It was a nice change…

You thought about it for a second, before answering, crossing your arms before your chest and leaning against the table behind you.

“We could do a romantic scene… quite similar to Something Good. They could dance, get closer, and kind of confess this way. That’s romantic.”

“This scene is so cute…” Roberta nodded, a dreamy smile on her face.

Ben couldn’t refrain a chuckle at her reaction, and he pondered the question for a moment. But he ended up nodding, writing the title down.

“That’s a good idea, it could work.”

The alarm on your phone rang. It had been two hours already, it was time to call it a day.

“Alright,” Ben said, closing his notebook and offering the group a smile. “We’ll appoint the roles next time. We’ll try some singing, we should all prepare for the same one, let’s say… El Tango de Roxanne, as it’s apparently Y/N’s favourite…”

“Yes!” you cheered, making everyone chuckle.

“And remember that we’ll only see each other in November now! Because next week, no repetition.”

“Really? Why?” Giselle asked, disappointed.

“Y/N and I do have a job outside of this club, you know?” Ben answered, amused. “We’ll be off to London to work on our research. But then again, this classroom is still booked for us, you can gather here and work on the play if you want. As long as you don’t break anything…”

He turned his gaze to Nathaniel, who raised his hands as if innocent, the glimmering black polish on his nails catching the neon light.

“It happened once… and it wasn’t even really my fault.”

“Oh… I’m really curious to hear about this one!” you chimed.

“Let’s say that Nathaniel is not allowed to go anywhere near stage lights anymore…”

“Woops?” the boy said, making everyone laugh.

“Alright, all of you need to go to class,” you admonished, standing straighter again. “And we have to go back to our regular jobs, so, off you go!”

The students left, chatting excitedly and already making plans to gather the coming week even if their teachers would be away. You erased the blackboard while Ben was waiting for you to walk back to your offices. He seemed hesitant and you weren’t sure why. He was blushing, even. It was kind of… endearing…

You really had to stop your brain from making this kind of thoughts…

“Have you eaten before coming here?” Ben asked as you turned back towards him.

“No, I had classes this morning. I’m starving to be honest. I’ll eat something before our meeting, okay?”

“I haven’t eaten either. Would you like to join me?”

You were quite surprised by the offer, but you realised that it wasn’t an unwelcomed one.

“Okay, sure. I’ve brought something to eat.”

“I did too. Cafeteria?”

“Sure.”

You walked out of the classroom together, shy smiles on your lips, and both of you a little confused, a little hesitant. Still, when Ben looked at you, you seemed content, and it made him happy, for some reason…

Jasmine and Miles could barely believe their eyes.

You and Ben were sitting together, at a table, in the cafeteria, and… you seemed to be actually eating lunch together.

You were clearly chatting, and instead of shouting at each other or anything of the kind you just… laughed.

They exchanged a wide-eyed look.

“Since when do these two get along?” Miles asked, confusion painted all over his features. “I’m leaving for a couple of weeks, and all of a sudden everything changes around here?”

“Don’t look at me, I have no idea! Y/N hasn’t told me anything.”

“And Ben hasn’t told me anything either…”

“What happened to them?”

“It is a good thing though, if these two can finally get along.”

“Should we… leave them be, then?”

Miles pondered the question, still hiding with Jasmine in the corridor, right before the cafeteria. He peered inside once more.

“We should… but I’m too curious.”

“Me too… I bet your husband is going to be asking for details, anyway.”

“Oh, yes, George will love this!”

Miles walked inside the room with an excited grin, Jasmine on his heels.

Ben welcomed his colleagues with a bright smile, happy to see Miles again.

“So… what do we have here?” Jasmine teased, sitting down next to you and stealing some of your bread.

“One researcher who’s supposed to be working, and a retired man who’s supposed to be enjoying his husband?” you proposed, making Ben chuckle.

Miles looked at his younger friend with wide eyes and a raised eyebrow.

“Many things have changed since the last time I came,” he said, ignoring your sarcasm.

“What do you mean?” Ben asked, although he was perfectly aware of what Miles meant.

“None of you is frowning, looking desperate, or shouting… You almost look civilized!” Jasmine answered, and this time you swatted her hand away when she tried to get more of your food.

“We are civilized.”

“Together?”

You and Ben both rolled your eyes, but you didn’t fail to notice the way Ben was blushing. Colour spreading across his nose, his cheeks, and all the way up to the tips of his ears. You found it adorable…

“We had a bad start,” Ben conceded. “But we’re… okay now, right?”

You nodded, taking a bite of your salad.

“Real colleagues. Professional.”

“Good! That’s a lot of progress already for the two of you.”

You kept on chatting together for a while, until both your and Ben’s plates were empty. You were to have a meeting to prepare your stay in London, but you both agreed to take a twenty-minutes break before that. You would meet up in Ben’s office to go back to work.

Miles didn’t lose a second, as soon as he was alone with his younger friend in his office, he sat down and bombarded him with questions.

“Ben, I want to know everything that has happened between you and Y/N in the past few weeks! Every detail! Fire away!”

Ben laughed at his friend’s antics, taking a seat as well.

“Nothing interesting happened, I can assure you,” answered Ben. “We simply… spent more time together, and… buried the hatchet. That’s all.”

“You couldn’t stand each other at the beginning of the year, and now you’re having lunch together! And nothing happened?”

“No! I mean… I don’t know. We didn’t get along at the beginning, it was a bit hard but then we had to work together and… we’ve found that we…”

“That you?” Miles encouraged him eagerly.

“That we… are not so dissimilar after all.”

Ben let his gaze get lost over Miles shoulder, staring at nothing while his thoughts drifted back towards your shared moments through the last few weeks.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, she is… insufferable, sometimes. She is… disorganised most of the time, and always making silly jokes, and she is clumsy as hell, although… that’s kind of… adorable, to be honest…”

A dreamy smile appeared on his features, before he would shake himself, and look at his friend again.

“But nothing has happened, really. We’ve simply become professional around one another.”

But Miles was staring at his young friend with a wicked grin.

“What?” Ben frowned. “Do I have some food on my face?”

“You like her.”

Ben rolled his eyes.

“She’s competent. More than I thought she would be. And she’s great with the kids at the club, which is all that truly matters.”

“No, Ben. You like her.”

“What?!”

“You like her!”

Ben scoffed, crossing his arms before his chest, suddenly defensive and looking at his former colleague as if he had gone mad.

“Absolutely not! Are you crazy?”

“You do seem… infatuated.”

“Infatuated? Me? With Y/N? Retirement really doesn’t suit you. Are you alright?”

“Ben… you’ve literally zoned out as you were talking about her with the most idiotic smile on your lips – no offence. And you’ve just said that she was -and I quote- ‘adorable’.”

“I did not… that was not what I meant…”

“So you don’t think that she’s adorable?”

“Well… no! I mean… she’s very clumsy and that’s… quite… cute…”

Ben heaved a frustrated sigh.

“You were blushing at lunch,” Miles went on.

“I did not!”

“You did.”

“Only because I felt embarrassed. Because of you. Not her. I do not blush because of Y/N.”

“Don’t you think she’s an attractive woman?”

Ben rolled his eyes.

“I am not blind, Miles. Even you can’t deny that she’s quite… pretty. Beautiful, even…”

He cleared his throat.

“Anyone with two functioning eyes would notice that, it doesn’t mean I’m attracted to her.”

“You’re not?”

“Don’t you think she’s a beautiful woman?”

“I do believe she is beautiful. Because as you said, I have two functioning eyes. But as a gay man, and a happily married one, I do not feel the need to stare at her and to blush every time she looks my way.”

“I do not do that!”

“Yes, you do. You did throughout the entire lunch.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“So you think she’s adorable, you think she’s cute, you think she’s beautiful…”

“Miles…” Ben glared at him.

“But you’re not interested?”

“No, I’m not.”

Miles nodded, clearly unconvinced.

“You know what professionals call that?”

“What kind of professionals? Matchmakers?”

“Denial,” Miles answered his own question, ignoring Ben’s sarcasm. “That’s pure denial we have here, Ben.”

“Absolutely not. I am happy on my own. I don’t want to have a relationship. I don’t want to be infatuated with anyone. I don’t want to think about Y/N this way. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear.”

“Good.”

But Miles shook his head, heaving a sigh.

This boy, really…

“Jasmine!”

You were sitting in her office, staring at her with wide eyes and a shock painted all over your features that almost looked like outrage.

“Of course, I don’t fancy him!”

“Why not? He’s super hot…”

“He…”

You took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down. Because this couldn’t be happening.

A few weeks before you were tempted by actually cutting Ben’s throat, how could Jasmine think for a mere second that now you fancied him!?

Outrageous. Absolutely ridiculous.

“I do not fancy Ben Barnes.”

“You do, though.”

“I do not! I barely know him at all! I’ve just started actually getting along with him… what… three weeks ago? Maybe even less!”

“Do you not find him attractive?”

You let out a frustrated grunt.

“Of course, I find him attractive, have you looked at the guy?! He is gorgeous. Yes, I do find him attractive. Doesn’t mean that I am actually attracted to him! And you’re forgetting how annoying he is! Like he is always so… organised, and he plans everything out, and he… always pushes his glasses up before writing something down and that’s… okay that one is kind of cute, actually, but… he blushes all the time. And that’s quite adorable. But he’s also very… He was very mean to me at the beginning! He isn’t anymore, that’s true. And he’s great with the kids at the club. He’s actually a lot of fun… But no! No! He is insufferable with his idiotic humour and his bright laughter and… argh!”

You threw your hands in the air, Jasmine still staring at you, sipping on her coffee.

“Wow… you’re so far gone,” Jasmine commented.

“I. Do. Not. Fancy. Ben. Barnes.”

“You’re infatuated.”

“Absolutely not! Besides… my life is a mess. And I have a daughter, and an ex-husband who drives me crazy and… no, no, no! I don’t want a relationship, or a fling, or anything. I am very happy and content being single. No, thank you!”

“You’re in denial. I’m surprised you’ve managed to convince yourself for so long…”

“Jas!”

“Alright, alright… as you wish.”

You checked your watch, and stood up.

“I have to go my meeting with Ben now.”

“Try not to snog him too hard.”

“One more word…”

“Alright! Alright!”

You strode outside the room, passing before Miles as he was heading towards Jasmine’s office.

When he entered, he had a raised eyebrow.

“What’s wrong with this one?” he asked, pointing at the corridor where you had just disappeared, a murderous look on your face.

“She’s in denial. Want to know what I’ve just learnt?” Jasmine asked the retired man, overexcited.

“Oh, you will never believe what I’ve just learnt!” said Miles, sitting down in the chair you had occupied a moment before.

They spilled the tea at the same time, excited grins on their faces.

“He likes her!”

“She likes him!”

Their shouts and laughter could be heard all the way down the corridor.

**********************************

Taglist: @reg-arcturus-black @idek-what-to-put

[svtdarlingbby]

Seventeen's reaction to finding out their s/o plays piano 

Anon asked: Hello! Can I request a Seventeen reaction after finding out their s/o knows how to play piano? I hope your day goes well <3

Seungcheol:

it was your anniversary so Seungcheol wanted to celebrate by surprising you with a weekend long trip

he made sure to book the fanciest hotel during your stay

once you both were able to check in you saw a beautiful grand piano in the middle of the spacious lobby

however you both were ready to check into your hotel room and get ready for the day he planned

once you two were dressed in your fancier clothes and heading out of the hotel, you made sure to tell him that you wanted to check something out before leaving the building

Seungcheol had no clue what it was lol but he went with it

he was kinda amused at how you quickened your pace toward the piano

that amusement was turned into awe as you began to play beautifully

honestly you playing the piano made you somehow even more attractive

nobody was really there in that side of the lobby at that time so your performance for him felt really intimate

once you were done playing he kisses your forehead

"You're so talented, I love you"

Jeonghan:

you and Jeonghan were finally able to purchase your new home!

soon you found yourselves dealing with the difficult part: moving

the boxes seemed endless but thankfully some of the members stopped by to help

just as Jeonghan made his way outside, he saw you pushing out a piano from the moving truck

"When did you get this?" he asked as he made his way over to you

"This is my old piano from my parent's house!" you said as you kept pushing the large instrument toward the house

"That's cool. Are you planning on learning how to play?" he asked as he started to pull on the other side

"Learn? Yoon Jeonghan, watch and see," you smirked as you pulled the cover off the piano and skillfully played a bit of your favorite song with ease, not even looking at the black and white keys

his eyes widened and a smile crept on his face

"Wow Y/N, that was great! Look's like I'm the one who's gonna have to learn to play from you!"

Joshua:

you and Joshua were just having a chill day in the music studio

he was playing his guitar while you were working on something on your laptop

Joshua's guitar with his occasional hums and singing was perfect background noise to keep you focused on your tasks

once you were done with that, Joshua spoke up

"Y/N, do you think something is missing?" he asked

"What do you mean Josh?" you asked in confusion

"I don't know, something just seems off about my guitar skills. Do I sound okay?" he asked looking for an honest opinion

of course his guitar skills were amazing, especially since he's been playing it for so long!

but you kind of wanted to mess with him after eyeing a piano in the corner

"Yes Joshua, your music is missing something very, very important" you said as you tried to hide your smile

"What!? Like what?" his eyes widened

you made your way to the piano and sat down

"It's missing me," you smirked and began to play his song beautifully

Joshua was just kind of shocked at first seeing your hidden talent but smiled as he began to strum his guitar to your melody

you did make a great duo and Joshua was glad to have an s/o who played an instrument too!

Jun:

we all know jun can play piano

what we didn't know was that you inspired him to utilize his piano skills in his performance

one day he was rehearsing the song and you happened to be in the studio

you low-key got bored and gravitated toward the piano and played a harmonious tune

Jun stopped singing and his jaw kind of dropped lol

"Y/N! Since when did you play the piano???"

would go on and on about how good you sound

he kind of wanted to show off so he started to play alongside you and wow you guys are an amazing duo

seeing you inspired him to utilize the piano in his upcoming performance and with your help he was able to master the song

his performance was dedicated to you that night <3

Hoshi:

Soonyoung invited you to hang out for the day in the HYBE building

after eating some snacks with him in the dance studio you excused yourself to go to the restroom

Soonyoung told you to meet him in one of the break rooms where he was going to move his stuff to

just as you made your way back from the restroom you noticed an empty music room

you kinda felt rebellious and snuck in admiring the instruments

once you saw the piano you became enthralled since it's been a while since you've played

playing a few notes here and there made you remember the joy you felt playing

some time definitely passed by, how much? you didn't know

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you Y/N!" exclaimed Soonyoung as he walked in on you playing the piano

you kind of jumped at the sudden noise and felt kinda embarrassed

"I'm so sorry Soonyoung! I got carried away playing I just couldn't resist!" you apologized

"You're fine! I thought you got lost! Also, you can play the piano?" he wondered

"Yeah! I haven't played in a while and I might be a bit rusty but-"

"THAT'S SO COOL! Can you play Cheers?" he asked all giddy

"Um, sure! I can try to match the notes" you said as you tried your best to play the piano part in Cheers

the way you made his whole face light up

Soonyoung thinks you're the most talented piano player ever

Wonwoo:

today Wonwoo and you were going to spend the day at a music museum!

both of you are really interested in the arts so you were both really looking forward to going

seeing the vintage instruments up close and hearing their sounds was so interesting

once the tour was over, you were able to go into the interactive section

something about being surrounded by so many instruments made you really feel like playing the piano

you felt so happy as you saw a piano in the interactive section you just scurried over leaving Wonwoo

"Y/N! Wait for me!" laughed Wonwoo as he caught up to you

"Look Wonwoo! This piano is so cool!" you exclaimed, eyes sparkling

"It's neat" he said as he randomly played some keys

"Watch this," you said before playing your favorite song effortlessly

his eyes widened but he was so impressed!

"Since when did you learn to play piano?"

you explained to him that it was one of your favorite hobbies

as you walked around the rest of the interactive section you noticed Wonwoo hopping around the walking piano on the ground

his long legs somehow made his random playing sound more consistent lol

"Do I sound good, Y/N?" he laughed

Woozi:

since you've been dating for a while he finally invites you to the studio

as soon as you walked in you immediately went to his keyboard (yeah ik it's not really a piano but for the sake of the reaction let's go with it lol)

usually Jihoon would've said something if it was one of his members who wanted to mess around with his equipment but he was in awe with you

with ease you played a beautiful melody seemingly as if it was a second language

"Y/N that was beautiful! You never told me you played!"

he's so impressed aww

and proud to have a musically inclined s/o

definitely invites you to work with him on Seventeen's music (which somehow gets even more better with your help if that was possible!)

DK:

today was the day you finally invited Seokmin over to your house!

he was really impressed by your aesthetic

after baking some brownies together, you decided to chill in your room while they cooled down

"Whoaaa this is your iconic room from the FaceTime calls," he says checking out your room

"Does it look better in person?" you asked

"I imagined it to be dirtier" he joked earning a pillow to the face from you

you both laughed at your mini pillow fight until he noticed something

"Whoa, I didn't see this in the background of our calls" he said gesturing toward a small piano on the farther corner of your room

"Oh that, yeah I play a little," you admitted

"Can I hear you play?" he asked with puppy eyes

you kind of felt embarrassed to play around others but since Seokmin insisted with those adorable puppy eyes how could you not?

"Don't judge if I'm bad" you said half-laughing

instead, you played a fun upbeat tune effortlessly

after you were done, you turned around and Seokmin had the dreamiest smile on his face

"You're so talented! That was amazing!" he said lightly pinching your cheek making your cheeks warm with embarrassment at his praise

Mingyu:

being all cooped up inside was making you bored so of course you bothered Mingyu about it

he suggested going to the park for a stroll to get some fresh air

seeing all the greenery was very calming as the two of your held hands and admired nature

after a while, you two decided to take a break and found the bench area

just as Mingyu sat down, you spotted something new

it had been a while since you'd been to the park, so you were not expecting a public piano to be situated by the benches

"Hold on," you said getting up and making your way to the instrument

you began to play a harmonious tune feeling truly at peace

Mingyu made his way over with an expression of awe and pride

he felt himself smile more when he realized you were playing a Seventeen song

as you finished, you felt his stare and he had the cutest cheesiest smile on his face

"You don't know how much I love you right now"

Minghao:

today Minghao was gonna meet you at your university so you could hang out between classes

you asked him to meet you at the music building since you had one of your classes there

he texted you that he was gonna be a little late since he missed the bus so you decided to wander around the music building

seeing a fancy piano close to the entrance was tempting

the building wasn't that busy either so you might as well play the piano a little until he gets here

you must have gotten pretty focused playing because you don't even notice Minghao's texts

He wondered why you hadn't responded yet but nonetheless entered the building a lo and behold he saw a beautiful sight

you're sitting there gracefully playing the piano

he didn't want to interrupt you so he stayed a bit behind and watched with a proud smile on his face

after the song ended he decided to sneak up on you

"BOO!" he exclaimed as he held your shoulders

"OH MY GOD MINGHAO!" you jumped

"So you paid more attention to the piano than me? You should be glad I'm impressed with your skills!" he said laughing and hugging you.

Seungkwan:

Seungkwan texted you and told him he was able to get off of practice early today

you told him you were still at work but he was welcome to stop by

now you never were really specific about your job to Seungkwan, all that he knew was that you were a teacher of some sort

he made his way into your workplace and the front desk person told him what room you were in

he felt himself smile at the student's crafts hung up in the hallways

as he made his way toward the room, he heard beautiful piano music playing as he slowed his steps

"Now you try!" he heard you say before he heard some more shaky tunes follow

Seungkwan peaked into the room and saw you instructing one of your elementary aged students

you were so patient with them and when you played was music to his ears

this student was truly lucky

he felt his heart warm at the sight and he was so impressed and proud of you

he didn't want to intrude so he waited until the student's lesson was over

"You didn't tell me I was dating the most talented and sweetest piano instructor" he said smiling as he hugged you

Vernon:

you and Vernon finally got a day off so you guys decided to walk around town and shop

as he held your hand, you guys approached a cute music store which happened to have a piano underneath its shaded porch

"Wait Vernon, give me a minute," you said as you approached the piano

as soon as you started to play an upbeat melody on the piano, a warm smile crept onto his face

he started to record you in fact!

since that street was relatively busy, it was no surprise that a small crowd made its way to listen to your skillful playing

as if on cue, Vernon took off his hat and people began to tip you!

all the while as he recorded

he made sure to tell everyone that the skillful piano player was his s/o

he was so proud that day haha he might've even bragged to the members about this event

Chan:

the day Chan found out you played piano was the day he actually felt drained/unmotivated to dance (shock!)

you happened to accompany him to the studio but he just wasn't feeling it

"Idk Y/N, maybe I'm burnt out or something but this music isn't it for me," he said as he turned off the radio

"I've got an idea!" you said as you spotted the lonesome piano in the corner

you played your favorite song, one that you were passionate about the most

"Okay this is some good stuff" he said before freestyling to your song

once the song was over he had the cheesiest grin on his face

"Y/N you need to play for me more often!" he said putting an arm around you

[herrscherofmagic]

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that an Eden expy would be perfect for HSR.

Beauty... What is your definition of beauty? Did you have it? Did the old me have it?

TL;DR: Eden's a HI3rd character with themes/motifs around music, beauty, elegance, and so on. I think it would be cool to see an Eden expy in Honkai: Star Rail :)

Slightly longer TL;DR: Eden is a character whose story revolves around the meaning of beauty in an ugly world, a world in which terrible things happen to good people, in which the greatest and bravest heroes of humanity fail to save the day. In spite of this, even as the last cities of Earth crumbled to dust, Eden still held steadfast on her belief, and she had faith that even though her era is now fading away, the new era of humanity would "script their own fate and sing their own songs."

So I've seen a fair bit of discussion about expys on the HSR subreddit from time to time, and I figured I'd have a go at this with my own post discussing a pre-existing Hoyoverse character I'd like to see in HSR someday!

This post is mostly aimed at an HSR audience so I've written it in a way that should be understandable even without any prior knowledge of HI3rd, but fellow HI3rd peeps might enjoy it too :)

The thought of this came to me when I was playing HI3rd earlier, because when I was looking at Eden's signature weapon, I was thinking "wow, I forgot how beautiful that was" and then it hit me- one of Eden's core themes as a character is Beauty, making her a perfect candidate to be a future Pathstrider of the Path of Beauty! Whether part of the Knights of Beauty or part of a different faction or even walking this path on her own.

There's going to be some light spoilers for HI3rd's story, but nothing that spoils major story beats. Eden is a character from the Previous Era, meaning most of her story takes place in the form of archives and records of the past. This post is pretty much all backstory, and I won't discuss any important "secrets of the past" meaning any big plot twists should remain unspoiled.

So if you're ambivalent or unconcerned about HI3rd spoilers, I'd say it should be okay to proceed, but if you want to play it safe then you should probably return to this post later. All of this is lore from the Elysian Realm, so if you're already familiar with that then there won't be any spoilers at all :)

That being said, this post does contain some pretty heavy content. Nothing particularly graphic or violent, but there is discussion of death and trauma so please keep this in mind!

Some quick context, to start with:

HI3rd's story takes place on Earth, and in this setting there have been multiple "past eras". Over the course of a civilization's development, powerful apocalyptic beings called "Herrschers" appear and wreck havoc upon the world. When the final Herrscher, the Herrscher of Finality*, descends upon the Earth it removes all trace of the current existing civilization... or whatever remains of it. Over the course of 50,000 years a new civilization develops in its place until someday Finality returns once more and the samsara repeats.

Eden is a character belonging to the Previous Era (PE), which is the civilization immediately preceding the Current Era (CE), which is the present-day setting of HI3rd.

*disclaimer: this Finality is not related to the Path of Finality. It's a matter of translation, since the original text uses different characters.

Eden was living a pretty great life- she was a superstar and she was filthy rich, with global tours and widespread fame. In fact, several of the other major characters of the Previous Era (such as Kevin and Su) were fans of her music! Singing, playing instruments, she could do it all. Naturally, she was a fervent supporter of the arts.

Despite this, Eden was still living a "normal" life- a life in which she was blissfully unaware of the looming threat of Honkai. She became painfully aware of it when disaster struck during a concert of hers in Sydney (the PE version of it, of course). During this concert but elsewhere in the city, the 7th Herrscher awoke: the Herrscher of Fire. Almost immediately the entire city was engulfed in raging fires. According to some sources, even the entire continent of Australia was destroyed, but this may have been retconned so take it with a grain of salt.

Eden was (un)fortunate enough to survive this disaster, being saved by one of the former Fire MOTH soldiers that was under the leadership of the person that became the Herrscher of Fire. Though Eden survived and still retained her public image and wealth, there was no returning to her past life. She ended up learning about the organization Fire MOTH, humanity's leading force fighting against the threat of Honkai. While she kept her usual public image, she would also use her wealth to help support MOTH.

The past is no more, but I can still remember this moment. This is what I can do right now.

Over time Eden grew to become a more active member of MOTH, until someday even she would end becoming a soldier herself. She witnessed the toll of war as fewer and fewer soldiers returned from battle and as the survivors became increasingly worn and weary. Though many people knew of her music and appreciated it, as the war went on Eden realized even her music had its limits to how much it could help people. Because of this, Eden chose to volunteer for a program that would give her the strength to fight alongside the rest of MOTH.

One of MOTH's many programs to fight Honkai was the MANTIS project: augmenting humans with the DNA of Honkai Beasts, granting them tremendous power. If they survived the Meta-Morph surgery. Eden underwent this program and survived, placing her as part of an elite force with the strength to fight the Herrschers head-on.

Plus she got a sick pair of guns! so that's pretty neat ^.^

Unfortunately, we know how this story ends. We call it the Previous Era precisely because it ended. Even humanity's greatest heroes couldn't stop the crushing power of Finality.

Eden would not live to see the next era of humanity.

With this summarized backstory of Eden in mind, I'd like to share a few archive entries from HI3rd, featuring Eden. I was originally going to try and summarize and discuss these lore entries myself, but I think it'd be best to keep my thoughts to a minimum and provide the full text instead, so anyone reading this can think about it for themselves and come to their own conclusions instead of taking my word as law.

First, we have one of the records discussing the events of the awakening of the 7th Herrscher. Do note that I snipped out a portion of this archive to shorten it and reduce spoilers, so it's not the complete version found in-game.

Another part of Eden's backstory I want to mention is the way Eden interacted with another major member of Fire MOTH, Dr. Mobius.

Mobius is a pretty complicated character, because while she seems to be a straightforward "mad scientist" type of character, there's a lot of nuance to her behavior and attitude. It's difficult to sum it up, but in this case I'll focus on how other people perceive her: very negatively.

Dr. Mobius' work was groundbreaking for genetics and biology, and her projects (including the MANTIS project as well as early versions of Project Stigma) were crucial in fighting Honkai. However, she was incredibly intimidating and her experiments were... questionable, to say the least. Cold and calculating, not someone to inflict needless cruelty but also someone who doesn't let silly little things such as "ethics" get in the way of progress.

Interestingly, Eden is probably one of the few people that was capable of interacting with Dr. Mobius in a positive way. Many people found it difficult to work under the supervision of Dr. Mobius and most would go out of their way to avoid her, but it seems that Eden was not one of them. This scene in particular is a good example of this:

At this point I think Eden's theme of Beauty is quite evident, and I could probably cut the post short here. But there's one final part of Eden's story I'd like to share, and since it's a scene involving Mobius it builds on the previous entry quite neatly. Since I'm going to end the post with this scene, I'll give my final thoughts first!

I don't really think it's worth worrying too much about expys and whatnot, because ultimately the important thing is whether a given character fits the story, not whether they look like a past character. If we get a "HSR Kiana" or an "HSR Kiana", what matters is the way they fit into this setting. The setting of Aeons and Paths, of a diverse set of factions vying for power and influence across the universe, and how the Nameless will cross paths with this character.

But I wanted to make this post anyways because I feel like Eden's story is greatly underappreciated, and since it has such a neat connection with the Path of Beauty.

Eden's theme of "Beauty" is not just about Eden being a beautiful person, nor is about her beautiful music. To me, it's her understanding of humanity and the way that the arts allow us to connect with each other. It's her ability to reach out and connect with a person as cold and calculating as Mobius. It's just as Eden says, "something that makes people happy, guides the way, and sparks hope."

Just something to keep in mind when reading this final archive entry. I've also re-attached the same image from the start of the post, since I think it takes on a much more powerful meaning with this scene in mind.

For those who're curious, the first & last image of the post are a still shot from the credits of the HI3rd animation "Because of You", which is a very beautiful but also spoiler-filled animated short

[candypalace]

Translation: Gekirock Magazine Dec 2022 (Kai, Uruha)

the GazettE: the band's potential in a flawless expression. 20th anniversary best-of album drop.

Time flies, and in the course of 20 years, the GazettE has gone through a lot of changes. Their new release, 20TH ANNIVERSARY BEST ALBUM HETERODOXY -DIVIDED CONCEPTS-, is a “best-of” album categorized by three concepts: "SINGLES", "ABYSS" and "LUCY". The band is also taking the opportunity to confront their past albums during [the GazettE LIVE TOUR2022-MASS/PHASE 02 "The Unknown"], which will continue until December 21st. Here, we will ask a few questions to Uruha and Kai, the guitarist and drummer of the GazettE, about the circumstances behind revisiting and bringing the band’s past together.

ー the GazettE is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary in the midst of the Japan tour MASS / PHASE 02, where in addition to the songs from the latest album MASS (2021 release), past songs are also performed at various venues. Uruha-san, Kai-san, how do you feel about performing at all those shows so far?

KAI: Rather than saying that the reason why the contents of this tour are a close look into our past is because this year is our 20th anniversary, it’d say it’s because MASS is our 10th album, and we’ve been playing shows in different places to combine it with our past works. It’s also because we have not done a tour with a concept like this before, to tell the truth, and it started with us thinking: “Well, this will be interesting!”. Since some of the songs from past albums will be performed live for the first time in forever, it’s also true that the performance aspect was more difficult than I had expected (laughs). However, when we actually tried it, the results were pretty good! We found the differences in the set lists each time very interesting and enjoyed every single live so far.

URUHA: Each album naturally has a different “color”, so when we combine our newest album with songs from our older albums in one show, it’s very important for us to highlight these different “colors”. That being said, the number of albums we’ve released so far is quite big. Realistically, it would be difficult to play every single song in our discography, so we generally play about five songs for each concept. And yet, by playing those five songs at each live show, we’ve been able to create an atmosphere and space on the tour that we haven’t had before. I think there’s a great synergy between the songs on MASS and the songs from each of our past albums.

ー By the way, why did you decide that you will be choosing exactly 5 songs for each live performance?

KAI: When we were discussing this with the members, someone suggested that we exclude the songs that we already had on MASS / PHASE 01. And we also thought we should play songs that express the essence of each album more vibrantly than others.

URUHA: In terms of the melody, we also decided to avoid choosing only those songs where singing is emphasized over the instrumental part, and we tried to balance each block of the set list.

ー In the midst of all this, HETERODOXY will be released to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary, and as you can tell from the title, it is a voluminous three-piece product. It seems that “3 CONCEPTS” means that the songs are categorized as “SINGLES”, “ABYSS”, and “LUCY” and are divided into 3 discs. How did you come up with such a compilation that condenses 20 years of the band in this best-of album?

KAI: I think the fact that best-of albums naturally start with singles is definitely not unusual. But in our case, this alone would not exactly strike home. Doesn’t “best” for the GazettE mean showing all our colors in various forms? With that in mind, we decided to divide the songs into three separate discs: "SINGLES", "ABYSS" and "LUCY". "ABYSS" and "LUCY" in particular have a very familiar ring to them and give you a taste of our two extremes.

URUHA: Right, because for the GazettE, "ABYSS" and "LUCY" mean the duality that has been our definite part since forever.

ー Looking back, in 2011, there was a FC-only 2-day live "LIVE TOUR 2011 TWO CONCEPT NIGHTS ABYSS/LUCY ~Two different faces, decadence and instinct, two polar nights~" and in 2017, Halloween shows called "HALLOWEEN NIGHT 17 THE DARK HORROR SHOW SPOOKY BOX 2 ABYSS-LUCY". So, probably the fact that the keywords "ABYSS" and "LUCY" express stillness and movement is already well known to the GazettE’s fans.

URUHA: In terms of sound differences, generally "ABYSS" is centered on the dark worldview that the GazettE creates, while "LUCY" is more aggressive. Both sides are the essential components of the GazettE, and we wanted to convey that in our best-of album.

ー So HETERODOXY is a flawless selection of songs that combines the catchiness and pop sensibility of the singles with the darkness and intensity at the heart of the GazettE.

URUHA: Yes, exactly (laughs). 

KAI: I guess you could say that it is as "flawless" as it can get (laughs).

"If I didn’t have a strong mentality, it wouldn’t be surprising if I shattered over and over again"

ー The hardest thing must have been choosing entries for "ABYSS" and "LUCY".

URUHA: We had an online meeting with the members about that. We put the songs on a spreadsheet and discussed it like “ahh, right, mmm, maybe this”. I think it felt close to how we decide on a live set list.

KAI: At that time, when we listened to some songs again, we thought, “Is it really so that an intense song = a “LUCY” song?”. Even for “ABYSS”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that if a song is a ballad it’ll be included there. For some of them, there were specific comments such as, “Isn't it too beautiful a song to be included in "ABYSS"?". So the entries for this best-of album were selected not only by their melody, but also by considering the deeper meaning and characteristics of each song.

ー It seems that this best-of album project also involves remastering, so considering that different ages of production had to be put into a single album according to its concept, was there anything that you had to order the band to do?

URUHA: What we mainly focused on was the length of time. This time we were not looking for any particular change in sound quality, and we only made some adjustments to the sound level when all the songs were laid out on each disc, based on our current sensibilities. We didn’t consciously change the songs just because they’re old.

KAI: This time probably all the members were thinking in the same way, and I didn’t really have to say anything. We simply adjusted the acoustic pressure so that no piece feels out of place when you listen to the disc.

ー So when you listened to HETERODOXY after the remastering, did you notice anything that made you realize that you have grown or changed?

URUHA: Huh, did I... When we’re playing songs from the past on the current tour, I feel that how I’m producing the sound is different between now and the past, so there’s no doubt that the quality in all aspects is now better than it was. Of course, that was the best we could do back then, but I can feel the change.

KAI: When I listen to it, I also feel “Oh, this kind of phrase was very characteristic of me at that time,” or “Oh, so this is the kind of sound I used to make at that time”. In the end, I have always aimed to surpass my past self, and when I look back on my work, I can clearly see that trajectory in the sound.

URUHA: It depends on the song, but I feel that the guitars used to be more clunky in the past (laughs). As time goes by, I definitely feel that the band is becoming more harmonious in terms of sound!

KAI: Really, in our early days, we didn’t even do any pre-production before recording. Back then, I often didn't know what the other members were going to play when we were recording the drums (laughs). I think the biggest change was that from a certain point on, I learned how to properly grasp the composer's intentions while also understanding what everyone else was doing and coming up with my own sound.

URUHA: Even though we have our own ideas about what we want to do, the GazettE’s current style is to produce sound while complexly looking at the whole picture from the listener’s perspective of how cohesive we are as a band. I think over the past 20 years the GazettE has gradually learned that sometimes it’s important to cut out unnecessary things.

ー To put it simply, even just comparing DIM (2009 release), which had a particularly dense sound, and your latest release, MASS, you can tell that the sound is very different, right?

URUHA: If we go further back to NIL (2006 release) or STACKED RUBBISH (2007 release), in retrospect it feels that the combination between guitars is “hard to see”. Solos and other interactions are fine, but I feel that there were unexpectedly many small places on the underside where we conflicted.

ー Can I now ask Kai-san, as the drummer of the GazettE, what is your greatest weapon at the moment? 

KAI: It’s difficult to explain in words, but first and foremost, it’s the fact that I’m in a position to create a sense of dynamics in the band's sound. I think this is the role I was meant to take on. Our basic style right now is that the melody, lyrics, and the so-called emotional parts of a song are left to other parts of the band, and I’m in the background supporting them and bringing out the dynamics.

ー Uruha-san, same question for you. What is your greatest weapon as a guitarist of the GazettE?

URUHA: It’s satisfying that the more I pursue the way I use physical equipment, the playing method and technique, the more interesting they become and the more my skill grows, but I feel like it’s not the most important thing here. What I personally want to polish is my sensitivity, and I think it would be ideal if I could use that as a weapon.

ー So it seems that the members have been diligently working on themselves over the past 20 years. If there was anything you have been able to "obtain" in these 20 years, what is it? I am sure the list of those things is long, but I would like you to focus on just one.

URUHA: A strong mentality, I think. It’s something I’ve been able to obtain only because I’ve been in a band for 20 years. If I didn’t have it, it wouldn’t be surprising if I shattered over and over again (laughs). There were a lot of times when I refused to give up.

KAI: To be honest, I’m glad that we became a band where the members are able to discuss things properly with each other. If we didn’t, I think we would have disbanded by now. Discussing solutions to problems is one thing, but in our case, even when something generally bad happens, the five of us complain to each other (laughs). So I think our strength lies in being able to share and confront things together.

ー Were there times when you sublimed the frustration by turning it into a song?

KAI: There definitely were. That's what I call having a strong emotional strength (laughs).

URUHA: In a way, that’s because we are a rock band. Like, if something pisses you off, you turn it into sound. I think that has always been in the foundation of the GazettE.

ー Ah, the fact that HETERODOXY is now being released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the GazettE makes me deeply emotional.

KAI: When you listen to our best songs, I think you can cover the GazettE's past and present at a glance.

URUHA: This is without a doubt a package that will show different people what kind of band the GazettE has come to be over the past 20 years.

ー I can understand that! Finally, please tell us about the GazettE's vision for the year 2023 and the future.

KAI: With the release of our 10th album, MASS, and the band’s 20th anniversary, we have reached a lot of milestones recently. Even though there have been some irregularities because of corona, I think that from 2023 on there won’t be any more special topics in various aspects. For the GazettE, 2023 is the year when we’ll return to our usual business, and our fans may be wondering, “What are you going to do after the 20th anniversary?”. I think we’re entering a period where we need to show our fundamental strength as a band. We want to continue our activities so that everyone can feel what the GazettE is all about, cherish what we’ve been protecting, and challenge ourselves with new things.

URUHA: I think that the process of revisiting past songs live and releasing the best-of album in honor of our 20th anniversary gave us a good impulse for the coming year and beyond. When we faced our past again, we were able to reconfirm and gain a deeper understanding of who we as the GazettE are, and now we are well-prepared to create something new from this point on. Looking forward to moving on to the next project!

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER Named MTV’s Global PUSH Artist for April 2023: Exclusive

The Billboard 200 chart-topping boy band is bringing exclusive interviews, performances and photos as part of the partnership.

Last year, MTV leaned into uplifting the world’s next big K-pop act when it named SEVENTEEN the first Korean-pop artist for its MTV PUSH program. The opportunity led the HYBE and PLEDIS Entertainment boy band to a nomination for best new artist at the 2022 VMAs and to win their first MTV Europe Music Award.

Today, Billboard can exclusively reveal TOMORROW X TOGETHER is MTV’s next featured Global PUSH Artist for the month of April. As part of the partnership, the quintet will speak in an interview with the channel about musical influences, advice for new artists and memories throughout their careers. Plus, TXT also shot a photoshoot and delivered exclusive performances of new songs “Sugar Rush Ride” and “Devil by the Window,” both taken from the group’s No. 1 Billboard 200album The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION.

As the latest PUSH artists to join alums like SZA, Lauv, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Khalid, Doja Cat and more, TOMORROW X TOGETHER shared their advice for musicians looking to get their big break.

“Consistency is important,” TAEHYUN advised. “Even if you end up doing something unrelated to music, having the ability to play an instrument is a great gift to yourself. So, I really want to encourage being consistent with instruments.”

Added HUENINGKAI, “If you have a go at it and are consistent, you’ll find yourself growing a lot. With diligence, I really believe you can achieve your dreams.”

Meanwhile, BEOMGYU and YEONJUN shared the musicians that comforted and helped them grow.

“I listened to a lot of ABBA when I was young through my dad,” BEOMGYU said. “And I listen to them a lot when I need comfort or am alone.” At the same time, YEONJUN shared that he “used to listen to ‘Eternal Sunshine’ by Jhené Aiko a lot during my trainee days. Those days weren’t so easy, and this song was a great help to me then.”

Look out for more from MTV x TXT throughout April. Then in May, TOMORROW X TOGETHER returns stateside for their biggest U.S. concerts as part of their Act: Sweet Mirage world tour before the HYBE and BIGHIT MUSIC boy band headlining Lollapalooza 2023 in Chicago this August.

Get your first look at a few more shots from TOMORROW X TOGETHER’S MTV PUSH campaign below as well as their performance and interviews:

[fob4ever]

pete and patrick on zane lowe 18.1.23

patrick: “there’s so many things that have to line up for a band to make a record at this point, let alone a good one.. when i told my parents 22 years ago i was gonna take a semester off to see what the band thing did… that was it.”

pete: “i’m pitching a reality show where he goes back to school. immediately after this. the semester is over!”

they talk about the first tour and how it went sideways but zane goes “but you shouldve known, right?”

pete: “i always knew- when patrick sang the first time i was like, “this is very special” and if we could craft something around this it will be very special. to me its like watching -and i can say this because im not patrick obviously- a great basketball player in highschool, like you know it’s there- you just gotta build it around him.”

zane asks if pete knew at the time how instrumental he’d be with writing the lyrics for fob. pete says no. zane compliments pete on the lyrics for the new single :-)

zane talks about their dynamic and how we’ve seen it before in duos like elton and bernie: “its rare but when you get it right theres something magical about it.”

patrick: “it’s really blind luck to find that person, to find somebody you write with like that, when you do its amazing because- like i said, the whole point for me was that i wanted to write songs. i like composing music. im not one of those people that keeps a journal and has all of these deep thoughts that i want to share with the world. i have to make music. and when pete sends me words, it’s like christmas morning. i open ‘em up and i dont even write, im just reading ‘em and it writes itself.”

pete talks about how because of covid and because of his family and how they all got tighter during it, new fob has to be something important and with purpose because he doesnt want to leave his family. it cant just be a random show here and there. it couldnt be that anymore.

pete: “you wanna do it for the reason you originally loved. […] life is short and long.” he also talks about how some things you just do every day because youre used to it and how it becomes part of you and how its good to be able to step back and assess yourself and ask “why”

patrick: “it’s funny thinking about the why. people would ask me about folie, and its a very love it or hate it record, and why its different… and i wanted to get back to this feeling we had when we were making [folie] which was like, “i don’t know how much longer this will last.” when we did that record, the “emo” thing had this zeitgeist explosion moment and we got swept up in it, but i dont know if we’re gonna be pop stars tomorrow. so this is the last time i can gurantee someone’s gonna front the bill for the orchestra, y’know? so there was an urgency of wanting to get your idea on tape because who knows? growing up in chicago, most of the bands i knew who had the major label record- maybe had a hit and they maybe kinda fell off. thats what i was used to so i expected that, so i was like “this might be the last record i ever make”.

[judeiscariot]

I recently started listening to CSH and famous prophets (stars) is one of my favorites out of everything I’ve heard so far. I’ve seen you mention it on here a couple times and I’d love to hear more about your interpretation of it! Only if you feel like it of course lol but I’m not great at lyric analysis stuff and I’m super interested

hi yes i’d love to talk about it!!! i’ve been wanting to do a line by line of this song for forever so thanks for asking <3 (fair warning though this is gonna be really long)

this song is sort of the last 'event' on the twin fantasy timeline, even though it's more of a summary. it's the culmination of everything that this story has been building up to. it's a breakdown in every sense of the word. like many songs in twin fantasy and will's body of work at large, it has an insanely ambitious structure that's hard to even nail down. it's made up of around six parts but it's basically impossible to even separate into choruses/verses/bridge, etc, so i'm just gonna go section by section:

much like the first track on the album, this song starts off with a really simple, isolated bassline before will's voice comes in softly. the first thing the speaker does is apologize to the idealized future versions of himself and his partner who he had become attached to. he had all these wonderful visions of what their life together might look like, but he's finally realizing that none of that is ever gonna happen, and things are quickly coming to an end. the 'ripping of the tape' could refer to an audio tape, a reference to how the original version of this album was a lot rougher in terms of sound quality, and will has said before that he prefers the smoother, more professional sound of face to face as opposed to the lo-fi of mirror to mirror. the tape could also be what's metaphorically holding the relationship together, and it's finally failing. the speaker knows the relationship is falling apart, but the realization doesn't make it any less painful. in the final line, he shifts the blame to the subject, in a coy and resigned sort of way.

the bruises represent the speaker and his partner - painful, brought on through trauma, lesions that the speaker carries around physically on his body. 'kicking the back of the seat in' probably refers to the fact that most of the vocals for will's early projects, including twin fantasy (mtm) were recorded in the backseat of his car, hence the band name. the speaker has sort of embodied the role of 'emotional punching bag' throughout the story (you can text me when punching mattresses gets old), and the bruises, or the pain the speaker was caused through the relationship, were something he wore with pride as though they represented the burdens he was willing to shoulder for love of his partner. but the bruises are fading now, healing, steering the speaker towards the metaphorical 'healing journey' he will embark on after being set free from the expectations and needs of this person. the vocals up until this point are soft, almost spoken-word, but here we crash into a jarringly intense instrumental that totally shifts the tone.

this part is buried beneath the instrumentals, almost inaudible, but it's so important. i see this as the speaker encouraging his past self, who this album is sort of dedicated to, not to spend too much time lamenting over the end of the relationship, because everything is gonna turn out alright even though it feels like the end of the world. even still, the speaker knows his past self wouldn't listen to this advice if he could hear it.

an experience like the one conveyed through this album is very much confined to teenagers/adolescents. it's essential that the speaker and his partner are fumbling young people with underdeveloped brains. there are certain emotions and ways in which we see the world as teenagers that inevitably dampen when we become adults. even if the speaker and his partner, now grown, were to touch each other like they used to, they wouldn't be able to access the emotions that were conjured by their teenage brains. the speaker and his partner are no longer in contact, sure, but they've lost access to one another in more ways than one. the speaker likes to think that he remembers what it was like to be with his partner physically, but he gives just about the vaguest and most generic description of a human body that he possibly could, literally trailing off at the end like he can't name anything beyond a few body parts. he doesn't actually remember specifics about this person at all.

the speaker questions whether the deterioration of the relationship was his fault, if he could have done something different, been better, saved it somehow. at the same time, he's realizing that he couldn't have, and wondering if this whole thing, that he dedicated all this time and stress and agony and love and joy to, was a complete waste of time, simply because it was destined to fail. throughout this verse, the speaker is coming to terms with the end of the relationship while simultaneously resisting it. it's pretty clear that there have been a good few 'breakup scares' at this point, and the speaker isn't sure if this is the real, true, final end. is this how life is going to be from now on? waking life feels like a bad dream, and he's walking around wondering if this person is, or ever was, his, if they're truly gone. 'the great silence' is the enormous canyon that opens between two people who have just ended a relationship as intense and intimate as this. they go from indescribable closeness to functioning like complete strangers, and it would give anyone whiplash, but especially a teenager who had never felt truly loved or understood before this person. this relationship has been so unsteady that even once significant time has passed since the end, he still sometimes wakes up with the hope that he might roll over and see his former partner next to him.

will refers to himself as both 'nervous' and 'a wreck' multiple times in this album, and in several other places throughout his discography. it's kind of a recurring motif. this may also be a callback to 'the bell jar,' one of the first tracks will ever released, before he was even making music as car seat headrest. as far as 'naming names' goes, this is probably a reference to the fact that he did in fact call cate wurtz by name in famous prophets (minds) in the mtm version of the album. cate wurtz is a comic artist and the author of the lamezone series, and she may or may not be the subject of twin fantasy. i find theories about the real life person who might be the inspiration for this album largely irrelevant and uninteresting, nevermind unimportant to my personal interpretation of the album, so i'm not gonna linger on that aspect of it. the last line is probably a reference to this song's counterpart. famous prophets (minds) ends with a spoken word recitation of 1 kings 19:11 - 12. the actual final lines of the verse are as follows: "But the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." in the song, the final line is changed to "And after the fire, a sound of sheer silence." right before will says 'silence,' the music cuts out completely.

by this point in the song, it seems like the narrator has fully accepted that the relationship has come and gone whether he likes it or not. this person has faded into and subsequently out of his life, as people often do. there's nothing more to be said, it's all over, there's no getting around this.

now we slide into the seminal refrain of this song. even though in the previous verse, it seemed like he had fully accepted the end, now he's crying and screaming and begging to go back. the end of a relationship like this is obviously going to cause some extreme inner turmoil and it's not gonna be a smooth transition for the people involved. the vocals here are kind of agonizing - it gets more and more intense until he's more or less howling. even after the final repetition, he goes on yelling and crying under the instrumentals. what is the speaker even begging to go back to? when the relationship was new and full of promise? before the two of them ever met in the first place? if he could go back, would the speaker do things differently, or does he just want to live out the events of the relationship again exactly as they happened, so he can cling to the fleeting moments of joy and hope that were there, even though he knows how things are going to end? at the end of all this, he asks his former self again not to spend too much time on it, which is somewhat ironic. once he's done yelling, the instrumentals quiet down almost entirely to just the bassline that was present at the beginning, with the occasional guitar note.

the speaker didn't want his partner to develop too high an opinion of him. even though this whole album is literally about his ridiculously high opinion of this person, he's anxious at the idea of his partner thinking of him the same way. he doesn't want to disappoint him. the speaker also asks his partner not to joke about his own death - this is the only person he's ever felt truly loved or understood by, and the speaker desperately doesn't want to lose him.

the speaker urges his partner to keep it together. because he cares about him deeply, yes, but also because he's not sure if he'll be able to give his partner the support he'd need if he truly lost it. the 'art' he mentions is likely a reference to the art of cate wurtz, but like i mentioned above i'm not interested in diving too deep into that whole deal.

now we're back to the seminal refrain of twin fantasy itself. the whole 'beach' theme is a frequently recurring motif in will's work as far back as the numbered albums. the 'grave' is the place the speaker is trying to lay his feelings for this person to rest, and the ocean is...everything. life, the universe, any given day-to-day experience that might bring up feelings of this person again. no matter what the speaker does, this situation affected him so deeply that his feelings will keep resurfacing over and over again long after the relationship has reached its conclusion.

the refrain continues in the background as the instrumentals build in intensity and will starts to shout over himself. when an artist’s work begins to gain recognition, whichever piece it was that initially drew the attention of large crowds of people may become their 'holy grail,' so to speak. if a particular song gets a singer famous, or a particular painting gets a painter famous, they might lean on the themes and techniques they used when creating that particular piece in an attempt to create another piece which draws similar attention. this leads them to 'descend into cliché' and create work with less creative integrity. the grave symbolism continues, and now at the emotional climax of the album, the speaker says he might ‘fill it in,’ signifying that he has reached some sort of emotional resolution. he is hammering in the nail to ensure that the coffin remains shut tightly, so he can finally move on with his life and walk away from these emotions which have consumed him. 'i could give you what you deserve' may be a reference to the oft repeated line ‘art gets what it wants and art gets what it deserves,’ which pops up throughout will's work. the speaker comments on the fact that he could continue to make music about this relationship, that he could ‘watch the hammer swerve,’ as he attempts to metaphorically nail the coffin shut, i.e. watch himself fail in his attempts to move on from the emotions he has drowned so many times in.

the mirror symbolism is a direct reference to the original version of this album, with the 'mirror' symbolizing the relationship between the speaker and his partner. i've talked about the 'mirror to mirror' vs 'face to face' images before, but i'll summarize it again here: the first image is one of two mirrors facing each other, creating an endless tunnel of reflection between two people who can only see themselves in the other. the face to face image is one of two people regarding each other, recognizing the other while existing as separate bodies. the mirror breaking is the transition between mirror to mirror and face to face. the fantasy is shattered, and will is now at a very different place in his life than when the original version of this album was written. he's decidedly beyond his adolescence, and he no longer sees his partner as a mirror. he wouldn't trade anything for this absolutely necessary change in perspective. 'blackstar' is probably either a reference to the david bowie album of the same name, or the radiohead song of the same name. 'painstar' is explicitly a reference to cate wurtz's work. basically, it's a concept from the lamezine comics of a star/entity which only comes around once every thousand years or so. when you touch it, you feel unfathomable pain, but only for a split second. i see the concept used as a metaphor for the pain of the relationship - was it worth the agony the speaker is currently in for the joy he once had? the vocals here once again grow increasingly intense as the speaker begs...someone, for something.

as the vocals descend in intensity, will mutters this, which is probably a reference to the bit in high to death that includes an audio sample from the movie adaptation of ray bradbury's 'all summer in a day.' it's a science fiction story which takes place on a planet where the sun can only be seen once every nine years. the main character, a girl named margot, is originally from earth, and remembers what the sun looked and felt like. the other children don't believe her, and lock her in a closet before the day the sun is supposed to show itself. when the sun does appear, the other children forget about her, and she remains locked in the closet. the sample included in the song is her calling "william! let me out! william! william! let me out, william!" margot is a stand-in for the speaker's partner, who is begging will by name to release him from the fantasy will has him trapped in. now the roles are reversed and the speaker is begging his partner to let him inside the locked closet. despite all the speaker’s efforts, the two of them still somehow end up on opposite sides of the door. will wants his partner to let him in, so that they may at least be in the dark together. 

the instrumentals quiet down once again so that will is singing over a simple piano tune. this verse replaces the lyrics in the original version of famous prophets which called cate wurtz by name. in the original version, these lyrics were buried, whereas these are at the forefront, accompanied by almost no instrumentals. it's impossible for the listener to miss these. in the first ‘descend into cliché’ verse will mentioned that he could 'sing another song' as a sort of coping mechanism or way of dealing with the end of this relationship, so the 'music forsaking you' could refer to the speaker's coping mechanisms not being enough to comfort him in the aftermath of the relationship. rolling the stone over the grave is the same deal as will 'hammering in the nail' in an attempt to seal off his feelings about the relationship. this also evokes some biblical imagery, with how the entrance to the tomb of jesus was blocked with a huge stone. on the other hand, he could stare his feelings in the face, confront them head on and learn to cope. 'when the levee breaks' is probably a reference to the led zeppelin song 'if the levee breaks.' it seems like will is referencing several well-known musicians while thinking of his own 'prophecy' for his music career. this could be a reach, but the stone line might also be a reference to the rolling stones if we're going with this interpretation. the final line might refer to the fact that, even though these bands were and are incredible famous, the music industry is a cyclical entity and all famous bands will eventually fade out of the spotlight.

that 'what happened to you' might be a reference to leonard cohen's 'death of a ladies man.' will is a big leonard cohen fan and references to his work pop up fairly often. but other than that this verse fades into a soft instrumental where the fractured pieces of what will eventually be the spoken word outro start to fade in:

these are snippets from 1 corinthians 13, and reesa mallen is the actress who played margot in all summer in a day. this is a direct quote from the verse, but will shifts the order of the lines around to depart from the original meaning. the intended message of this verse is basically that love is the key to everything, and that one cannot access great and miraculous things in the absence of love. this arrangement of the lines sort of suggests the opposite - that love enters your life and wrecks you on its way out, that no matter what sort of effort you put out, when love goes it will leave you with nothing. i'll talk a little more about the use of this verse when we get to the end.

this is the true ultimate climax of the song, and of the story as a whole. it's a fractured, distorted sample of my boy, the first song on the album. i can't even describe how crazy this actually sounds you gotta just listen to it. i've talked about this before but my boy is a pretty hopeful and optimistic way to open this album, and throughout the story all that optimism and hope has pretty much been crushed. to me, this part is where the speaker has a breakthrough of sorts and truly, truly understands that it's over, even though his feelings for this person will keep resurfacing, the relationship is crumbling in his hands and soon there will be nothing left at all. the only line from my boy that's not present here is 'we won't be alone,' so do with that what you will. this section is just so insane, the instrumentals and the desperation and rawness of the vocals, there's one or two moments in here where will's voice blends completely with a guitar note, it's incredible. one of the things i love most about twin fantasy is how it manages to take this experience that would generally be regarded as frivolous, unimportant, childish, naive, etc, and successfully convey how deadly deadly serious it feels in the moment. like when we break it down to its bare essentials this album is about an online relationship between two teenagers in 2009. yet it somehow adequately conveys the absolute utter and complete long lasting devastation a relationship like this can feel in a hormone-addled teenage brain. the emotions of teenagers and adolescents are very often brushed off as overdramatic and kinda made fun of in media in general, but just because adolescent emotions are affected by teenage hormones or whatever doesn't make them any less real. in fact i think being a teenager often makes interpersonal relationship experiences similar to this all the more visceral and painful. this part of the song is where that really comes through for me and i find it so incredibly cathartic. the sheer grandiosity of the instrumentals ties it all together, and the horn arrangement in particular is amazing. will uses horns a fair amount in his work and it's always beautiful, but something about this instance specifically just shakes me to my core, man. it's like he's wailing in agony with all the choirs of heaven behind him.

now the instrumentals quiet down and an unfractured recitation of 1 corinthians 13 fades in. this verse perfectly sums up everything this story is about, and the whole idea behind remaking the album in the first place. the speaker and protagonist of the album is an adult now, and he's had years to process these events by this point. he no longer views them through that addled adolescent lens, but he remembers what it felt like to be shaken to his core by this situation. even still, he now sees the relationship for exactly what it is. he no longer sees others as a reflection of himself. he's able to regard the person who he underwent all this agony for as a separate, independent being and understand that his perception of them was false. no matter one's age, it's often borderline impossible to grasp the full significance of important life events as they're happening. only with time and reflection can we truly come to understand and process how events have affected us and how we are changed in their aftermath. the speaker in mtm is clouded by raw emotion, and therefore only capable of knowing 'in part.' the speaker in ftf is more mature, has garnered more life experience, and evidently spent many painful hours working through these events. therefore, he now 'knows fully,' and with the ability to know fully comes the ability to be fully known, to be truly loved and understood as he never could while operating under the delusions fueling this relationship. the instrumentals drop off entirely for the final line, which is a slight alteration from the actual bible quote. the original is as follows: 'And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.' this change allows for ambiguity as to which of the three remain within the speaker. the change could also refer to the two versions of the album which now exist, or it could refer to the speaker and the subject as people.

so that's famous prophets (stars). it's an absolutely incredible song and if you've never heard it you really really should. you can only really get the full affect if you listen to the whole album straight through, but i know not everybody feels like doing that lmao, same as many people don't feel like listening to a 17 minute song in the first place. but i think this song is best heard in your room, in the dark, at night, played over a speaker, while you're maybe just a little too high. can't recommend enough.

[glade-constellation]

Have you seen the Christmas Musical video yet?

Yes, I did! I’m actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

I would say that if you have two hours to spend or just need to background noise, turn it on! The story and moral are easy to follow and the music is actually really well put together. If you’re a TSBS fan, it’s definitely a good watch.

Spoilers warning for those who plan on watching it, I’m leaving my review under the cut!

While Sun and Moon were in the thumbnail, they only really show up for background parts during the opening and closing. Sun and Earth get to sing a few lines which is nice, but that’s about as much as we get from TSAMS and their side of TSBS. A little disappointing, but expected since this was posted on Roxy and Gregory’s channel. (I have hope that TSAMS might do something similar, but I doubt it. If they do a musical episode, it will probably be a short one as a filler episode. Like some sort of magic forces everyone to sing.)

While I don’t watch any of the other shows outside of TSAMS, LAES, and MGAFS, I do vaguely know of stuff happening on the other channels and found the story easy to follow. While the musical mainly focuses on Gregory and Roxanne, there were a good amount of other characters and cameos. Roxy’s dead brother (I think that’s who he is) even gets his own song where he basically tells Roxanne that he’s okay and she doesn’t need to worry about him. There were a couple of different storylines going on, but they all kind of vaguely tied together and were all wrapped up in the end. I liked that they all had the theme of “family is important”, no matter if they were actually family, friends, or other loved ones.

I actually wasn’t expecting the near ending to get as sad as it did. I know absolutely nothing about TSBS Afton family, but I was genuinely sad for Gregory when he broke down crying when he thought Even and Elizabeth “died”. A big part of this episode was about family and being with family for Christmas, and while they weren’t his family they were still really close friends from what I can tell. It would have been a low blow to Gregory if his friends died right before the Pizzaplex’s big Christmas party.

It wasn’t just the story that was good either. The music was actually super great to listen to. Like, I would listen to them again if they were on Spotify kind of good. The lyrics were well put together, the background instruments were nice and fit the tone of the song, nothing was ever really too loud or too quiet. And most of the singing was really well done! The one Roxy’s dad sings is funny and it was nice seeing the Afton siblings all singing together, but I think my favorite song was Cassie’s when she was lamenting her father’s death. They were all pretty Christmas-themed, to be expected, but they were also pretty easy to remove from TSBS setting and go “hey I can kind of relate to these lyrics”. Good music requires some sort of connecting to the listener, and I think these songs had that.

For a VRChat FNAF YouTube roleplay, this was put together really well.

[anchorandrope]

I NEED YOUR SIBWAWC ANALYSIS IM BEGGING 😭😭😭

hi love,

okay, i wasn't planning to do this because i don't do analysis anymore (mainly because i suck at it) but since it wasn't the only ask i got, i'm going to try. obviously this is my interpretation, it doesn't mean that it's the only one etc etc.

Disclaimer: i took out the parts that are repeated. i will also add definitions of "obvious" things (so that non-native english speakers can better understand).

Context

first, before analysing the song, let's see what Louis had to say about it.

Written in the same few days as the last two songs. Dave [Gibson] turned up with this picture on his phone of the title ‘She is beauty we are world class’ it was written in the toilet mirror of a train. Felt like a weird place for such a poetic sentiment (Louis via twitter, Wednesday 16 November 2022)

Louis tweeted about all the songs on FITF on 16 November 2022 because there was a listening party for the album. If you check the order of the tweets you will see that he tweeted the songs in this order: [his top 3], high in california, the greatest, waoyf (x), btm (x), ftm, chicago, all this time, out of my system, headline (x), saturdays (x) (x) (x), silver tongues (x), sibwawc, common people (x), holding onto heartache, ttwlg. the same order as the album, only in the tweets he didn't talk about angels fly. so, we can deduce that sibwawc was written together with saturdays and silver tongues. these 3 songs were written by David Sneddon, Joseph Cross, Louis and Theo Hutchcraft and produced by Joseph himself.

On this song, She is Beauty We Are World Class, it’s a thought-provoking title I don’t, you know, I’ve got I’m not certain what it means to me I’ve got an idea but it’s one of those phrases that I think is open to interpretation. Now Dave Sneddon, who I wrote this with. Joe Cross and Theo as well, really mad story he got the train down to the to the writing camp and on the toilet… in the toilet on the train written on the mirror was “she is beauty” and then he got a picture of it and then below it in a slightly different colored pen so we can’t work out from the same person someone, looks like someone had finished it off and put “we are world class”. He just kind of came with his picture, he was like this is an interesting title and that’s where this song kind of came from and I kind of like that someone else wrote it. We don’t really necessarily know what it meant to them; we know what it means to us. That was that was an interesting moment I think this is where we said, “let’s really try and go all in on the dance-ier sound of things” because I kind of allude to it on like All This Time but like it’s not quite as like trancey as this is. Almost has that kind of DMA’s lift with it with the instrumental that comes in on the post chorus. This for whatever reason this is, like it’s my best mate’s favorite tune I do really like this song but I think, it’s another one of those songs it’s important for the record to give a different flavor yeah. (Louis via youtube - Tuesday 13 December 2022).

what we learn from this is that 1) the title DOES mean something to Louis, 2) his #bestmate loves the song *pretends to be shocked*, 3) he believes the song is important to the album in a lyrical and musical aspect 4) links the song to All This Time for its musical part (he said it on twitter too, he said att and sibwawc are tracey - we love this pair of sisters 😌).

I’ve always loved All This Time. Just feel like a feel good tune from the off. James had a great vision for this song, it also helps ‘she is beauty’ not sick out on its own @LlSTENlNG_PARTY (Louis via twitter, Wednesday 16 November 2022)

Title

For reference: beauty is a noun that means an attractive quality that gives pleasure to those who experience it or think about it, or a person who has this attractive quality (cambridge dictionary).

we know that louis believes that the title is divided into “she is beauty” on the one hand and “we are world class” on the other. here we have two subjects “she” and “we”. it's interesting, because if we want to talk about the beauty of a person who uses the “she” pronoun, it would be “she is beautiful” but, in this case, we are saying that “she” is THE beauty herself. then there is a “we” (2 or more people) who are not up to her standard or level of beauty. so, if “she” is the beauty herself and “we” are not at her standard, that means that “we” is not up to the beauty standard. that could be one interpretation, another could be that “she is beauty” is being used as an idiomatic expression where it's synonymous with “she is beautiful” and the “we” is the rest of the world. a phrase of love, contemplation and admiration. only a person truly blinded by love could claim that there is, in effect, one person who is above the beauty of the rest of the world. we can also think that “she” and “we” are replacing something. i mean that Louis uses the pronoun “she” to refer to a thing or person and the pronoun “we” to refer to things or people.

Verse 1

Conversation is currency

“currency” can be the money that is used in a particular country at a particular time or the state of being commonly known or accepted, or of being used in many places – according to the cambridge dictionary. so it could be “conversation is money” or “conversation is diffusion”. both cases make sense. Louis is a person who sometimes - literally - gets paid to talk. also, being a big-name international artist, it makes a lot of sense that he also says it in the form of “sometimes i have to talk to people who just want money”. and, of course, the conversation is diffusion, of what? information, facts, anecdotes, opinions, preferences, literally everything. in this interpretation, there is something that spreads as people speak out. i think Louis could be alluding to both meanings, but, personally, i think it speaks more to the fact that there is something that is spreading.

Shapes become a language

relating to the interpretations of the first sentence, if we keep talking about money, the shapes could respect numbers or mathematical symbols. if we talk about diffusion, we could say that there are shapes that are being related to each other and that take on meaning.

Square eyes and sunglasses

we could say that square eyes is an idiomatic expression used to refer to when a person consumes a lot of media, especially tv. (source: cambridge dictionary). sunglasses cover the eyes, so we could say that this person, who consumes a lot of media, wants to hide it. If we continue talking about money, we can say that there is someone who consumes or is inside the media who wants to hide and if we talk about diffusion, we can say that there is a group of people who receive a lot of information and that is why they decide not to take it all, either because they like it or because they cannot.

Finding faces in the trees

this clearly alludes to pareidolia. if we continue with the interpretation of money, we can say that there is someone who thinks they are finding their way out but clearly they are not. if we talk about diffusion, we can think that there are one or more people who see things that are not real.

Fabricated fairytales

this is a breaking point for me because up to this point the money interpretation (as i call it hehe) made sense but for me this lyric breaks with that. in the money interpretation, i imagined that Louis was talking about his situation with people who are higher up than him in terms of power. Louis could have been saying that there are people in the media who are trying to hide and escape of a situation (which we don't know, but we can intuit that it has to do with him, obviously), but this lyric makes me believe that he's not talking about people with more power, but with less. if the song is from Louis’ point of view, that means that louis SEES and IS AWARE of lies that are spread. it is hyper-ultra-super-mega cool that he said FAIRYTALES !!!! fairytales have a purpose and that is ✨pleasing young people✨ as know as ✨ Louis’ target audience✨

so far Louis is telling us that there are fabricated fairytales that are being diffusing to generate money, and that the square eyes consume them and on that basis hide what they don't want to see, and then find things where there aren't any. gotcha.

Bring a new world to life

discarding the money interpretation, we can say that this lyric means that someone or something is able to change the situation and bring a new world into reality.

Sit down, sit down in the space and time

this lyric is very abstract and complex to me. for me it speaks of a protest in a specific space and time where Louis is not going to leave until he is heard.

Chorus

She is beauty

and here comes the question… who the hell is “she”? she is the lies, dear. lies are beautiful, who are we going to fool? if most people would rather believe things they know deep down are false and deny reality than accept it. (note that it's not “they” it's “she” so it's a particular lie).

And we are world class (woah-oh-oh)

okay, but who the hell is “we”? the world, sweetheart. the whole world (generalising) prefers to live in lies.

Forever

this is something that has always been repeated (its a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy baby).

We'll let the feeling last

the world is going to let that feeling last as long as it can, until the lie is unsustainable.

Verse 2

Escape the inevitable

as i said, lies are a ticking time bomb as they all, sooner or later, come to light. so people will always try to escape the “bomb” but it's impossible.

Fade into light

here he talks about how dark lies can be as they fade into the light (truth).

Soak up the empathy

here Louis is asking one or more people to fucking empathise with him. to put themselves in his fucking shoes or imagine what he is going through.

'Cause I'm with you tonight

it doesn't matter if you fell for the lie, i'm with you

Are we one, or are we two?

do we think the same or do we think differently?

Are we me, or are we you?

are we looking at the situation from my point of view or from yours?

Has it been all this before?

Ii you have already seen this happen, why do you still not realise it?

Do you see what I see?

do you understand now?

Bridge

Surrounded by lights (X6)

Surrounded, surrounded

Surrounded, surrounded by-

this means two things to me: 1) he is surrounded by the truth because it's his fucking life and 2) Louis is always surrounded by cameras, tv studio lights, radios, interviews, etc. but more importantly, he's surrounded by our lights because the moment he sees the most lights is at the shows, thousands of phones with their torches on him.

special mention to Louis who put rainbow lights HIMSELF in his show during sibwawc since otb is not in the setlist (which is when he was literally surrounded by rainbow lights thanks to the fan project of the fans).

To conclude

the song talks, in MY opinion about closeting and its relationship with the general public and the fans. i'm not saying that Louis dedicated a song to antis saying that they fell for the lie because they are shit, no. i'm saying that the media induces these lies in our society and that the target audiences of the lie buy into them because they are innocent.

if you have finished reading this, i thank you for your time and hope you found my attempt at explanation helpful. i would like to read other analyses so if you have personal interpretations or know of other posts: send me an ask <3