#also made me realize i need to expand my music library

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

favorite band/artist?

Sheesh. Complicated one.

You see, my music tastes are, to put it mildly, rather varied. I think it showed in my music recommendation post and the post that further explored one of those artists, but to further illustrate, my library includes:

Earth, Wind & Fire

New Kids On The Block's Jordan Knight's first solo single

Dubstep band Hadouken!’s Lana Del Rey cover

A mashup of Wham! and a fishing anime

A Japanese bilingual melodic punk rock band's two songs about bowling

80s remixes of Justin Bieber songs

A Japanese "punk ska and melodic hardcore band"'s cover of Scatman’s World

A 140+ song Beatles remix collection, featuring such gems as "Octopus's 3D Garden", "I Saw Her Yankin' There" and "Help!" (suspicious)

A eurobeat female duo of rotating Italian and British members’ Abracadabra-sampling track about falling in love with a banana

A remix of Azumanga Daioh’s Sata Andagi scene I retrieved from a porn site reupload

Moldovan folk punk band and folk musician duo’s collab about celebrating the reopening of a railroad

The soundtrack of Pictionary for the NES

A mashup of AVICII, Rick Astley and Chumbawumba

An 80s pop Linkin Park remix

Black Sabbath covers by The Cardigans (of Lovefool fame)

JT's solo debut

A Flock Of Seagulls (of I Ran (So Far Away) fame)

One (1) DJ Khaled song

A 2011 My Little Pony-themed song by then commentary youtuber

(And I beg each and every one of the people who read this list and thought "Okay that one cannot possibly be good" to hop in my askbox and allow me to prove them wrong.)

But let's go through bands and artists I've not posted about before.

Two Door Cinema Club Just out of statistics. I can prove I played I Can Talk over a hundred times and I can tell you any number under two hundred is underselling it. There is genuinely some problem with my brain that that intro slots into perfectly.

Oh also all the rest of their first album this comes from is this great too, and if you ask me what a perfect album sounds like I will tell you it's not that far off their second album.

OK Go Now, I like the music. Actually, I'd left my two guitars alone for years until an easy OK Go song made me think "Oh, maybe I can play this" and realize that rather than -as I had prior- just play the music I'd been taught I could actually teach myself to play the music I was listening to, which snowballed into playing more OK Go songs and then it expanded and now I have a ukulele, a bass, a third guitar I need to merge with that bass (it's complicated), a fourth "guitar" (it's complicated) on the way, a Casio calculator/synth (it's complicated), a melodica, a launchpad and a kazoo. Whoops. But really, all you need to be sold on OK Go is see two of their videos. One to find out what they're like (and you're already good on that front because you have visited the internet ever and have thus seen Here It Goes Again aka "The Treadmill Video" aka what when posted to YouTube upon its CEO begging them became the biggest video of all time) and another to find out that no the first one was not a one-off fluke. I am serious, go click that link, it takes you to a playlist of their videos and each one is crazier than the last. I mean they played a song with a car. A song. That has a guitar solo. With a car. Have you seen the name of this channel.

Ah, right, the name of this channel. I guess I have to say a thing about that car now. Uhhh this video was sponsored by Chevrolet to promote the Aveo which, despite being badged as a Chevrolet, like many of the more Europe-oriented Chevrolets was made by the automotive branch of Daewoo, brand General Motors picked up after the Daewoo conglomerate (then the second largest in South-Korea which may as well be called Samsungland) went bankrupt in '99 over almost $90B modern dollars in debt. Its founder Kim Woo-chong (because Lord knows the "woo" in Daewoo did not stand for "woo what a great car") earned a ten year sentence, but I feel they focused too much on the wrong guy. The REAL criminal is whoever penned Daewoo cars.

A good person doesn't do this on purpose.

Owl City I have too few of his songs, but I absolutely love how comically upbeat he is. He is so precious. If c: walked this Earth. I mean "Golf and alcohol don't mix and that's why I don't drink and drive / Because, good grief, I'd knock out my teeth and have to kiss my smile goodbye". Protect this man at all costs. Also one time I saw the Fireflies video after what must have been a good decade and you know when you feel near crying? I adored that song when I was a kid and I was right.

Liquido European one-hit wonders - and not even "people know them just for one song", not even "people don't know them and just know the song"; I found you can tell people the name of their hit and they won't know what you're talking about. But hum the riff and infallibly, invariably any single person in my country (and, in my limited experience, the rest of Europe) will go "Ooooooh, that one". And to be fair, those guys did stumble on one of the most memorable riffs in modern history.

Not saying this is a hidden gem of a band, I am sure some bigger music nerd would stamp a big fat "SEEN BEFORE" on all their stuff, beyond some enjoyable splashes of "I wonder how much of this is them leaning into it" cheese (yes, even more than that video) - but I've still got their whole discography including all the B-sides, because to me, so what? It's good music and I'll treat it like it. What's the point of praising "groundbreaking", "genre defining" works and then glossing over those inhabiting the ground they broke and making the genres they defined? When I eat bread I don't complain that it doesn't innovate or set itself apart from the rest of the genre, so as long as my music doesn't bore me why should those be problems there? I feel like people have a problem in general separating their enjoyment of a work from its artistic merit. I'm digressing.

The Beatles If you ask me "What's your favorite number of pant legs?" I'm not going to answer five because two would be cliché.

And now we get to the final answer, the real answer, in such a league of its own it deserves to be separated from the rest via a Read More.

I lied, this is under a Read More because it's an entire fucking dissertation. Your fault for asking.

Caparezza I've spent well over a decade of my life mulling over his lyrics to the point me and my ex-flatmate played this game where she told me a random word and I'd try to find it in his lyrics (e.g. the first word of your ask, "favorite", was used in the second verse of the sixteenth track of his sixth album, yes I am neurodivergent why do you ask), and still it happens that as I am going through my everyday life I happen to accrue some information and slam my forehead going "Oh my God THAT'S what he meant there". His songs are more layered, more deep, more thoughtful, more cutting, more witty, more clever than most prose you see around and still he manages to play with his words and rhymes with incredible dexterity.

Take his last record, Exuvia - actually, take the previous record Exuvia picks up from, Prisoner 709:

Its name not only introduces the theme of imprisonment, but also of dilemmas and juxtapositions, since the prisoner's number, 709, stands for the dilemma about the number of the record: it's the 7th in his discography as Caparezza, but the 9th if one also counts the two shit records he made under his previous name Mikimix (we don't talk about those). Its tracklist, indeed, while being as typical for him incredibly varied in topics (from religions to his affinity with Ludwig II of Bavaria to "I'm not [x], BUT-" types) is arranged as chapters of a journey through an imprisonment (The Crime, The Punishment, The Weight, The Psychologist, The Letter, The Visit, The Yard Time, The Torture, The Revolt, The Guard, The Infirmary, The Window, The Evasion, The Hiding) and associated to dilemmas - for instance, as the record is about his feeling imprisoned in his body and in his role, the first song -and first chapter, The Crime- is indeed Prosopagnosia (i.e. face blindness), a track about him no longer recognizing himself in the artistic reputation he built himself, with the dilemma being between "Michele", his name, and "Caparezza", his rap name. Oh, and if you also want a taste of the impressive wordplay, well, count the letters of those two names. Yep. Every single one of the 16 tracks is a dilemma is between a 7 letter word and a 9 letter word. Because of course it is.

So now, let's get to the last record, Exuvia.

Nah, the pop-up edition's cover fucks way harder.

That's more like it.

Exuvia is the exoskeletal remains left behind by ecdysozoans after ecdysis, i.e. when creatures like insects and crustaceans develop a new exoskeleton and crawl out of their old one, as this record starts from his escaping from the anguish compounded through all his previous records and through a deep analysis of his past, his self, his surroundings, his fate, condensing it all and moving on to a new self, a new birth, a new shell. (Understand how I feel when people say the greatest rapper of all time is one whose greatest record is called "Damn" because the songs made him go "Damn" and whose biggest song is "Biggie Smalls' Juicy but this time about me".)

Well, in the second track of it, about running away from the dire situation of hatred, decay and persecution described in the first track, he says, and I paraphrase,

I give it all up, I'm dying, I retreat - Caporetto plus Waterloo Dripping and smelling like my head was in a station's toilet- oh.

introducing the desperation and hopelessness of military defeats and immediately following it up with an image whose comedic nature makes a contrast so stark as to surprise even him while still, being a reference to the military's hazing and bullying, latching back to the line before. While the prose I represent it with is deliberately poor, the concept behind the words is brilliant enough that it would be a good line if it didn't rhyme at all. And yet the original lines rhyme for twenty syllables. TWENTY.

Thing is, you can be as clever as you want, but the underlying music, you know, it can't be clever, it can just be good or bad. One would think. And yet the music is not just good but full of clever, witty samples and ideas that don't just reinforce the track's mood but tie the instrumental inextricably into the lyrics' themes, like Larsen (the track about his tinnitus, which he calls by audio feedback's technical name of Larsen effect) using high-pitched synths and emphasizing cymbals, Prisoner 709's title track being 79bpm (I wager 709bpm was a bit non-doable), House Credibility's instrumental featuring intercom buzz and cowbells reminiscent of cookware, or, well, everything in Exuvia's second single. See, that song is about the choice he faces between the story of Beethoven, who despite all his challenges kept devoting himself to music until the day he died, or that of Mark Hollis, lead of Talk Talk, who despite all the fame peaced out to focus on his private life - and the entire instrumental is devoted to that concept: the verses' reference Für Elise, the chorus Such A Shame, and the bridge I Believe In You; and when you tun into the background choirs you find they are rhythmically repeating "I don't know".

You start to get a clue why there's three years between his records.

So if his songs are so fucking good, why is he not famous? Well, he is! Except for his first album which no one really noticed (fairly so in my opinion - while I like a few songs I feel he really got going in his second one), the following records did really well for someone with such dense content: his third record has been certified gold! And all the others platinum. Some twice. Never since the first one did a record of his peak under 5 in the charts, and he's got 8 gold singles, 3 platinums and a double platinum. And don't get me started on the shows.

(That's me in the background!) Hell, he's even been on the cover of Billboard! So why've you never heard of him? Well, see the word next to Billboard.

Yep. The man, Michele Salvemini, is an Italian born and raised and, like any proper Italian, doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so pretty much all the English you'll hear in his music are the handful of English features, like Michael Franti, DMC (!) and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley, with which he made a song about Italy's emigration crisis.

Emigration that is also internal, from the underdeveloped, falling aparty and criminality-run south of Italy to where all the industries are, the richer and we-pretend-it's-not-criminality-run north. And since he's from Apulia, Italy's heel (his rap name in fact means "curly head" in Apulian dialect), he's made a song about its woes too, featuring the music of the tarantella, Apulia's traditional dance. (I don't know why y'all add an A in front. It's fucking "Puglia", y'all.) Here's an imperfect translation with a couple of helpful explainers to the asterisked terms over in the video's description.

It depresses me every time I think about it that all the English speakers I know will never be able to fully appreciate his lyrical brilliance. But oh well. At least y'all can appreciate the music... so fuck it, have that song whose music I yapped about so much. You'll hear the choirs in the background say "non so" (I don't know)... and a bunch more Italian words (translated here for those on desktop who want to follow along).

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Monday, 21 November 2022:

Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of The World’s Music Various Artists (Dust-to-Digital) (released November 2022)

Dust-to-Digital began operation in 2003 releasing a magnificent six disc box set of old-timey gospel music titled Goodbye, Babylon.  To this day it remains one of my very favorite boxed sets.  Dust-to-Digital began as an old-timey label but they rapidly expanded by releasing world music that no one else was releasing.  One of my favorites from the label was their 2007 release Melodii Tuvi: Throat Songs And Folk Tunes From Tuva a beautifully weird album. 

There was a point in time I would buy anything the label released.  It was when they began releasing old timey made in the 1980s that I decided I didn’t need to be a Dust-to-digital completist.  Old Timey to this fan is music from the 1920s and 30s.  Anything released when I was out of college is nowhere near old-timey to my ears.

 The label describes this box as such: “This collection highlights music that is often invisible in today’s world — the incredible world of global recordings that aren’t jazz, blues, country, rock ‘n roll, R&B, or “classical.””  And I’ll let the label explain what this set encompasses: “Featuring music and musical styles from six continents and 89 different countries and regions, recorded between 1907-1967.”  That’s a wide range of music.  I am extremely excited for this box and look forward to overindulging in it. 

Dust-to-Digital does superb work and their packaging is second to none.  Above you see the top of the box and the bottom of the box.  The photo below shows you what to expect when you open the box

That is the front of the hardback book you see first in this set when you lift the lid of the box.  Then when you remove the book you will find the CDs as indicated below. 

When you remove the CDs you will discover that the bottom of the box looks just like it did when you first opened the box. 

One thing that surprised me is just how large this box is.  Dust-to-Digital’s first box set (after Goodbye, Babylon) was Fonotone Records: Frederick, Maryland (1956-1969) and it came in a cigar box.  Many of the label’s boxed sets also came in a cigar sized box but they were often amazingly ornate and quite uncommonly unique.  Here is a photo of this new box when compared to their standard cigar box size.  I have the wonderful box Music Of Morocco (From The Library Of Congress) sitting on top of Excavated Shellac to give you an indication as to how much larger this set is. 

They certainly make their boxes a gorgeous thing.  Look at the strip that runs all along the entirety of Excavated Shellac in the photo below revealing a man running while holding a record.

As long as you can see that hype sticker on the bottom of the box, let me show you a close up of it and what it says.

Here is a look at all four discs.  They all come in wallet cards, so I will show you the front of them followed by the back of each card.  The third photo reveals what each disc looks like.  My apologies for the lack of focus on the text side of these photos.  It was getting dark and I’m struggling with trying to get this camera to focus.  I realize that makes little sense, because heaven forbid you make a camera focus.  In that first photo, each of those stickers on the front of the wallet card are indeed actual stickers (or probably just glued on cut-outs, but nevertheless you can feel that they have been applied to the front of those cards.

Now, let me show you what the book looks like inside.  I have two photos of random sample pages.  That’s another Dust-to-Digital excels at: making great books that notate everything a listener/ collector wants to know about the songs that are compiled.

That “thank you” that you see affixed to bubble wrap in that first photo of the booklet opened up is affixed to the front of your bubble wrap so that when you open the shipping packaging the very first thing you see are the words, “Thank You.”  I like that touch of friendliness and I think Dust-to-Digital is easily one of the classiest labels around today. 

When you tear off the shrink wrap and remove that hype sticker on the bottom of the box, this is what you will find underneath.

[heartbreakhotelcalifornia]

I was tagged by @feather-canyons to spell out my URL with song titles! Thank you so much for tagging me and for sharing some absolute bops! Also, I’m sorry my URL is so long. ✨🌙🤠

Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley

Evil Woman - Spooky Tooth

A Little Less Conversation - Elvis Presley 

Ring Your Bell - The Band 

Toad - Cream

Born Under a Bad Sign - Albert King 

Roll With It - Steve Winwood

Evil Woman - Electric Light Orchestra 

Angie - The Rolling Stones

Key to Love - John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers 

Hotel California - Eagles 

Operator - Jim Croce

Tenderness on the Block - Warren Zevon

End of the Line - The Traveling Wilburys 

Loves Me Like a Rock - Paul Simon

Cradle Rock - Rory Gallagher 

All My Love - Led Zeppelin

Lean Woman Blues - T. Rex

I’m Free - The Who

Fire Lake - Bob Seger

Ophelia - The Band

Rollin’ and Tumblin’ - Cream

Never Been to Spain - Three Dog Night

In The Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett

Ain’t Too Proud to Beg - The Temptations 

I tag @wolvesarehome @lovely-menza and @touchmereprise if any of y’all would like to do it! Also I'm sorry if you already did it and I tagged you again!! ⚘✨🌿

[everybodyscupoftea]

chemistry

isaac lahey x reader

isaac needs help in chemistry and you need help in english - the beginning

this is for isaac anon and the few people that wanted this. i’m just dabbling here, so let me know if you guys want more! (i did quite a bit of Research for this and i have ideas)

also let me know, i left it vague, but if i expand i’m probably going to add in scott, stiles, allison, and lydia. would you guys like to keep it supernatural or do full au where they’re just normal college students?

You noticed the boy in your Intro to Academic Writing course, but you didn’t really focus on him, mostly due to freshman year stress, until he sat down next to you in General Chemistry. Stepping into the classroom you’d felt at ease, science was your jam, but the really cute boy put you back on edge. You felt hyperaware of him, his scent, kind of cinnamon-y, fall-esque.

He tapped his fingers on his notebook, and you couldn’t help but notice he wrote in green pen. You glanced every so often to see him doodling in the corner of the page instead of taking notes on the intro lesson on the scientific method that your professor was doing.

The boy rested his chin on his hand and his fingers went from tapping on the notebook to his jaw and you shook your head, trying to focus back on the professor who was talking about your lab groups.

“The people at your table are in your group. Lab is on Wednesday nights, I won’t be the instructor, you’ll have a TA, but you can email me or come to my office hours if you have any questions about what’s going on. I’ll see you all on Thursday.”

You started to pack your stuff and the boy turned to you with a crooked grin, “I’m Isaac.”

Shaking his hand, you introduced yourself and he stood, waiting for you to finish packing your stuff. You zipped your booksack, “You’re in my English class, right?” you asked, faking as if you didn’t notice him as soon as you stepped into the door.

He nodded, “Yeah, with Dr. Terranova.”

“He seems,” you trailed off, looking for the right word, “interesting.”

Isaac grinned, “You mean overwhelmingly picky for an English 101 professor?”

“That’s a great way to put it,” you told him, laughing.

The two of you walked out the door and down the hall together. Isaac shifted his booksack on his shoulders a little and asked, “Do you have any more classes today?”

“Calculus,” you told him and he grimaced.

“Fuck that.”

“You?”

He nodded, “Spanish.”

Unfortunately for you, the buildings were on opposite ends of campus, so you paused just outside the door to the chemistry building. Isaac paused too and smiled, “See you tomorrow night?”

“See you tomorrow, Isaac.”

-

Your lab group was made up of two boys and two girls. Isaac, Andrew, Abigail, and you. Out of the group, you were the only STEM major, and the only one who actually liked chemistry. Isaac patted your shoulder, “Well, that officially makes you team captain then.”

“Thank god,” Abigail added, “I’m an advertising major, my brain noped out of the sciences years ago.”

The other guy, Andrew, said, “I took Chem 2 in high school and didn’t pass the AP exam, chemistry and I have beef.”

You snorted and said, “Cool, well, I’ll try and lead us to the promised land.” They seemed to like that.

-

Your group was really smart, everyone was picking up the labs really easily and you were thrilled, especially when the teacher stood in front of the class after the first test review. She clapped her hands once, “Okay, the lab group with the highest combined test average gets five bonus points added to their test scores. This is me trying to get you guys familiar with study groups, especially if you’re going to be in STEM, which I know some of you are. Study groups got me through school.”

Unfortunately, everyone in your lab group already had stuff going on, so you couldn’t study with them. Fortunately, the test was on intro stuff like the scientific method, conversions, and balancing equations, and your group hadn’t had any issues in any of the lab work, so you weren’t worried.

But when you got the test back, you realized, maybe you should’ve been. Isaac got his handed back first and actually laughed when he looked at the grade. Before you could ask, the professor set yours down on the desk and you started flipping through it, frowning at the little points you’d had taken off for careless mistakes.

“Fuck,” you muttered, “should’ve gotten at least a 97.”

“Wow, can’t believe you fucked it up for the whole group,” Isaac sarcastically responded, nudging you with his elbow, before sliding his test on top of yours. He nudged you again, “As you can see, I’m carrying the team,” and he motioned toward the D written in bright red at the top of his paper.

Your mouth dropped open and you picked the test up, flipping through to see what he’d missed. Eyebrows furrowed, you looked over at him, “You should tell her you accidentally skipped the back page.”

“Oh, it wasn’t an accident, I just didn’t know how to do it.”

“Well,” you stuttered, “it was the same stuff we did in the last lab activity.”

Isaac nodded, “Yes it is, and I didn’t understand it then either.”

“I thought,” you paused, mind racing, “I thought we all did?”

He grinned at you, “Some of us aren’t science brains, my friend.”

“What are you?” you asked as the class started to pack up.

With a soft smile, he threw his booksack over his shoulder, “I’m a literature major.”

-

You didn’t mean to think about it as much as you did, but when 2 a.m. rolled around and you were at your most impulsive you couldn’t stop yourself from sending out a text.

Hey, do you maybe want to meet up and study sometime?

After hitting send you could’ve slammed your head into a wall. You locked your phone and put your head in your hands, “God damnit.” And then your phone dinged.

I’d love that, love to have a STEM genius in my corner.

Your cheeks heated as you read it and your mind raced with your heart. It was beating harder and part of you couldn’t even believe he’d said yes. Taking a breath to steady yourself, you responded.

Idk about genius but I’m not half bad at chem

He responded, even faster than the first time and you grinned, unable to stop it from overtaking your face.

I may not know much about the scientific method or whatever, but all evidence suggests otherwise, genius

-

The next test wasn’t for a few weeks, but Isaac wanted to start studying earlier. He suggested meeting at a coffee shop called The Beanery. Coffee shops weren’t really your jam, you liked the silence of the fourth floor of the library. Go early, get a table, put in head phones, and go to work. But, you were open to try Isaac’s suggestion.

It was brightly lit when you walked in, and he was already there, at a table in the corner, laptop out. Books were spread across the tabletop, and he already had two empty mugs on the table in front of him, leg bouncing as he aimlessly chewed on a pen.

Shaking yourself out of staring, you walked to the counter to order. Isaac smiled up at you when you made it to the table with your coffee.

“Welcome,” he told you, moving some of his books out of the way. Sitting up straighter, Isaac glanced around, “What do you think about this place?”

“It’s nice, definitely a change of pace from my norm.”

“Where’s that then?”

“Library, fourth floor.”

“Quiet up there, huh?”

“Yeah, but I listen to some music for background.”

“I like coffee shops,” Isaac said, closing his laptop, “the vibes are nice and my clothes always smell like coffee afterward which is a fun bonus.”

At his comment, you looked down at his clothes. You were a little surprised to see that he was dressed just like during the week: jeans, a nicer t-shirt, and a cardigan. You’d wondered, deep down, if he dressed nicer for class, but it didn’t seem the case. Isaac cleared his throat and your eyes snapped to his face, ears burning when you saw him staring at you in amusement.

Coughing quietly, you reached for your booksack, “So, chemistry. Do you understand what we’ve been going over?”

“I know they’re called Bohr models but I don’t know anything else about them.”

“Right, so,” you paused a minute, trying to figure out where to start, “it’s a way to draw an atom and it’s kind of like a planet.”

Isaac leaned forward through your explanation, resting most of his weight on his elbows, and tapped the green pen against his lower lip. Every so often he’d ask a question, shift a little and write something down in his notebook by whatever he’d scribbled in class. His questions were shockingly insightful, and you eagerly answered them all.

By the time you’d gotten through the basics of thermodynamics, he’d added a whole page of notes, and you could tell he was starting to lose interest. Shutting your notebook, you told him, earnestly, “I hope this helped a little.”

“I promise,” he looked you straight in the eye, “it makes sense. This all looked like a foreign language before we met up.”

“Good,” you nodded, “this is my jam.”

“Keep on spreading it,” he joked and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well,” you admitted, “you may not be good at chem but you’d kick my ass into next week in English.”

“How’s your paper going?” Isaac asked, leaning back and crossing his arms, looking genuinely interested.

“It’s…going.”

He snorted, “That doesn’t sound promising.”

“Yeah neither does my thesis.”

“Do you have your laptop?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me have a look,” he suggested.

Pulling up the word doc, you passed your laptop over, staring down at your hands, twiddling your thumbs, a little nervously, as he read through your rough draft.

“What did Dr. Terranova have to say in your conference?” he asked, pushing your laptop away.

You sighed, “He was less than complimentary.”

Isaac laughed, “It’s not that bad, but it could use some polishing. I can help of course.”

Relief washed over you and you felt a weight off your shoulders, “That would be incredible actually.”

“There, now we’re even. You tutor me in chemistry and I’ll make sure you pass English, starting with this rough, and emphasis on rough, draft.”

Reaching across the table, you shoved at his hand, “Be gentle.”

“I’m going to get another chai,” he said, standing to stretch a bit, “and you pick out what sentence exactly you think is your thesis. We’ll start there.”

Biting your lip to conceal a grin, you nodded, waking your laptop back up.

[katemarley]

fanfiction: fugue in a minor

Fandom: Hetalia Pairing: SpAus (Austria/Spain) Characters: Austria, Spain, Belgium, Augsburg, Swabia, Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire, Saxony Rating: E

Summary: 23 October 1520. Spain and Austria get married. The Imperial Estates and their guests while away the evening with music and courtly dances, celebrating both the union and Charles V’s crowning as “elected Roman emperor” in Aachen Cathedral. But what is expected of the newlyweds? And what is in for them on their wedding night?

This story has been written for Hetabang 2020. It’s a collaboration project with @aph--lietuva who was my Beta and who created wonderful art for this story that you can find on her tumblr. With her permission, I also inserted her art into this tumblr post. It’s been a pleasure working with you! ❤︎

Also available on AO3 (see the link in my profile).

---

This story also is the sequel to “Prelude in A Minor” that you can also find on AO3 and that I have been talking about, but not written, for almost four years, oops... xD Both stories can be read independently from each other.

Preliminary notes: Augusta – Augsburg: brown hair, green eyes, elegant low bun Hilde/Hildegard – Swabia (Reichskreis/Imperial Circle, Reichsritterschaft/Imperial Knighthood): blond locks, green eyes, some resemblance to Switzerland and Liechtenstein Léa – Burgundy: our canon Belgium before she came to be called Belgium

---

“Roderich!”

Austria turned slowly. He was wearing a cumbersome ceremonial robe that was far heavier than his usual formal attire. It had been made especially for today in order to dress him in the latest fashion and he didn’t want to rip any fabric by accident—and definitely not before the wedding.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Burgundy, not sounding sorry at all as she pried him from the clutches of a dozen courtiers. He didn’t mind—courtly talk was stressful because it contained a dozen pitfalls, and Léa was a straightforward woman. Also, in a moment like this, he’d much rather be with someone comforting and familiar rather than navigate the sea of faces and names of humans he had probably only met once but was to remember regardless. Usually, he had no problem with that; he was actually very skilled at the diplomatic game. But right now, his head was too full of other thoughts.

“I need some moments alone with my consort, my partner.” Burgundy gave off an air of sovereignty as she spoke to her court who all accepted without question that this was business for the immortals to tend to. Roderich sighed in relief and let her steal him away into their bedroom.

She was fussing at his outfit, straightening it and picking imaginary lint off the velvet before making him sit down on a chair in front of the dresser. She took a brush and took off his black beret to run it softly through his hair, obviously just to have something to do while they talked.

“Liefsteling, I think we should have a little chat before you and Antonio exchange rings.”

“Didn’t we talk about all I need to know already?” Austria frowned. He was unable to keep in all his pent-up frustration and around her, he wasn’t too scrupulous to show it. “You and Charles want to strengthen the unity of the empire, so I am to marry Spain. I understand that. I don’t like it and you know I don’t like Charles, but I can see your point that marriage is a useful device to strengthen the empire.” He huffed indignantly. Sometimes, it was annoying to be “a sensible lad”, as Charles had once dubbed him, but he knew too well how these things worked to waste his time on rebelling. She let him pour it all out with a patient smile.

Finally, he quieted down and added more demurely: “I just wish it wasn’t me, and I wish I didn’t have to marry another male personification. It seems … indecent.”

“I know, dear. It’s a bit … unorthodox.” Burgundy touched his arm and squeezed it in an attempt to comfort him. A smile played on her lips that already showed her intent to lighten Roderich’s mood. “Well, listen to you complaining! You get to marry Europe’s newcomer, a surprise uncovered from Al Andalus. A shiny, new, mysterious knight, a devout catholic, and dare I say … a fair countenance. I’m sure many of the ladies here envy you. But it seemed more important to strengthen relations between two important parts of the empire that are further away from each other, rather than between him and me.” She sighed wistfully, but a bit theatrically.

“Burgundy, if you talk like that I’d swear you want to wed him!” He feigned indignance. “I wish you were the one to marry him,” he added glumly. “And the ladies can have him, for all I care.”

“Now! To think you’d give me away that easily. I’d want my husband to be jealous and fight for me!” She then stopped the theatrics and, with a soft smile, put her arm around him, just like an older sister would do. “I am a little jealous to give you away … I’m going to miss our library talks.” Roderich’s smile softened and he touched her hand.

“There is another thing I must discuss…” She seemed to hesitate. “Remember our wedding night and what we left unfulfilled?” 

“Ah.” Austria tensed. “So this is what we’re talking about.”

“It is indeed.” Burgundy paused. “We didn’t complete our union that night and while we did later, it did affect us. Charles and I believe it is vital to strengthen the union of Spain and Austria as much as possible, and for that…” Her arm around Austria tensed. He could feel the topic was uncomfortable for her.

“And for that, the marriage needs to be consummated,” Austria said flatly. “That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, Léa.”

“Yes, but it’s not the only thing we discussed…”

Roderich now felt his cheeks redden “What? The insolence!” He sighed. “That imprudent man was actually discussing the technicalities of a coupling between two men with you? ”

“He only wants to ensure that the strength of the union…”

“Don’t defend him!” Austria snapped. Léa flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a quieter tone. “It’s just that he has no idea how things actually work at my place. I don’t like how little interest he takes, and now he focuses on the anatomy of the personification rather than on the resources of the land…” He sighed. The duality of beings like them further complicated everything.

Spain and him were “mere manifestations of the political body shaping them”, Charles had told him not long ago. Manifestations of the body politic—not men. That meant the laws of the Church regarding marriages between humans didn’t apply to them. Archbishop Hermann of Cologne had agreed and had added that the biblical example for a country was to be the heavenly Jerusalem, which further expands itself to gain as much territory as possible and to help the spread of Christianity all over the world. To strengthen their holy empire like this was to behave exactly as the Bible dedicated. 

“The fact that we’re human personifications really is convenient to the likes of him: Whether they consider us human or not ultimately depends on what’s more convenient to them. Two men couldn’t marry, but the human-shaped, but not human, personifications of Spain and Austria can. It doesn’t matter to him that our anatomy is exactly the same as that of two male human beings.”

“I know. I agree with you, I’ve seen kings and bishops use scripture as a justification rather than as a guide many times. As a woman, I have often felt what it was like to be an exception to the rule”, said Burgundy firmly, reminding him of her own position. “However, there’s another message those cowards have made me the messenger of” She stopped brushing his hair, seemingly looking for the right words.

“Yes?” Austria waited. He had no intention to help her with this.

“The king and bishop believe that because this is already infringing on normal matrimony, everything else should mimic a normal marriage as closely as possible.” She interrupted herself, She looked at Austria as if she was hoping that he would understand it. He did but he was going to have her say it. 

“Well, you know. Have the position of the wife be taken by the—by the—more gallant one of the two.” Even her silver tongue couldn’t phrase this more delicately.

Austria was speechless. Charles—this morally rigid, exceedingly religious person—not only insisted two men marry for political reasons, as an unpleasant but ultimately bearable formality. No, he had also insisted these two men actually consummate their marriage and had elaborate thoughts on the mechanics of it. Austria was seriously tempted to rush off, grab Charles by the ruff and give him a piece of his mind. Including the rhetorical question what he thought their private parts looked like.

Burgundy saw the face he was making and spat out the rest. “And only the accepted position, all else is fornication. So you’re to lay on your back.” She let out a small whimper and looked faint. Austria realized that he shouldn’t direct his anger at her. She had always been his friend.

“Cowards, the both of them. In treating you as a country, they are indeed forgetting you’re a lady. Your nature is far too delicate for such crass messages.” He stood up and took her hands gently. He didn’t want to fight with her.

She embraced him, held him for a moment and then stepped back.

“I have something for you.” She opened a chest with a key from her belt and produced a box. “Open it, I’d like for you to wear it today.” Roderich did so and found an ornate golden chain with the Golden Fleece in it.

“Your order…” Roderich smiled at her. 

“When you united with me, you obtained the right to be a part of the Order of the Golden Fleece. When you’re out there, I’m with you.” Roderich felt a tightness around his chest as he recognised the curls on top of the ram shaping the letter B for Burgundy. 

He wasn’t in this alone.

She placed the chain around his neck with an air of ceremony and made sure it lay evenly over his shoulders. She smiled at him and kissed his forehead, after which she traced the sign of the cross on it with her finger. After the tender gesture, she rather forcefully put the beret back on his head and chuckled. “There, you’re ready!”   

Oh, he wasn’t ready. Far from it, but it was happening now.

---

The procession departed from the house he shared with Burgundy in Aachen. Usually, the bride was led to the house of her new husband, but Spain did not have a house there. Out of convenience, they were using the cathedral, which had already been prepared for the coronation of Charles V, and the city hall for the festivities after that. In the procession, all the nuptial gifts Austria had received were carried along and displayed. Some of them were made of strange, exotic-looking gold brought from the new world that gleamed ostentatiously in the afternoon sun. Roderich could feel the presence of Spain through everything surrounding him. Even the new coat had been paid for by him.

The marriage itself was overwhelming in terms of pompously clad courtiers and country personifications, but rather underwhelming in terms of anything else. Roderich’s feelings were a mixture of nervousness because so many people watched him and carefully veiled anger at being one of the two pawns in Charles’s and Burgundy’s political plans.

The truly annoying thing was that he saw the logic behind their actions. He just didn’t like how they affected him.

They were met by the second procession coming from the opposite direction with Spain at its centre. Roderich sought out his eyes, but he was still mostly obscured by the crowd. Both processions reached the cathedral and filled the front part of the space. The nave and choir were reserved for mass, after all, and weddings were worldly affairs. So, leaving the late Gothic choir unoccupied, everyone gathered in the octagonal Palatine Chapel at the very front of the church, leaving the centre open for the couple and the priest.

Roderich’s eyes had to adjust to the relative darkness of the church in contrast with the bright afternoon outside. Two young boys were made to hold long torches over Spain’s and his head and above them, a plethora of little candles were lit in the giant octagonal candelabra. For a moment, he was captivated by the little lights and a realisation dawned upon him: The small structures on the chandelier represented gates. It was a direct depiction of Heavenly Jerusalem. The architecture mimicked the octagonal shape of the chandelier and thus that of Jerusalem as well. The words of the archbishop about the biblical duties of a country echoed through his head. He realized that his duty was literally hanging over his head.

As his gaze war already turned upwards, he saw that the upper gallery was filling with people as well, all of them waiting while a small shadow was passing in front of them. The figure walking around the upper gallery barely reached over the coiled cast-iron balustrades when he finally halted and stepped into the light. The Holy Roman Empire wore the Imperial Regalia and made a gesture of blessing. He was their witness, as it was his empire they were fortifying. The ancient child climbed onto the bare marble throne that had once belonged to their forefather in order to oversee the wedding. Roderich would have laughed at the image of Karl der Kleine playing at being Karl der Große, had he not felt a chill run down his spine at the image of Karl on his throne. Among everyone here, he was the one that belonged there. His spirit had been there when these walls had been built and through his presence, through his breath, the spirit of history slowly filled the space.

When the priest asked them to say their vows, Austria obliged, speaking flatly and without emotion. Spain’s intonation was much livelier, but from what little he had learned about the other country in the past months, that was the way they were: One who usually remained calm unless you crossed him one too many times; and another who seemed to be ever vigorous.

The priest produced a small dish on which Spain put a piece of gold, a piece of silver and a ring. 

Roderich extended his hand meekly for Antonio to put on the ring, but then noticed something. The ring was of a German type. He wondered if this was Spain being thoughtful or him purchasing one at the last minute. Spain held up the ring and clicked it open to be two separate rings. To Roderich’s surprise, they were gimmel rings …

Spain explained in a hushed voice: “Because we are both men, I felt I couldn’t just put a ring on you. We should both wear one. I liked these because of what they say.” He was referring to the words around the band, which he read out in horribly accented German: was Gott zusammen fueget soll der Mensch nicht schneiden. They were a purplish ruby and an emerald. Antonio carefully put the half with the emerald on Roderich’s left ring finger and then handed him the ruby to do the same. This was thoughtful of Antonio—had he come up with this himself or was this the council of Karl advising him? Austria was very aware of the new weight around his finger and his resolve to remain cold started to waver.

When the priest asked them to kiss, Austria’s first impulse was to do it as unemotionally as he had made his vows. Then his eyes caught the pleading look in Spain’s, and his resolve faltered.

Spain was a pawn as well. He didn’t deserve Austria’s coldness. If anyone, it was Charles who deserved coldness.

They settled for a chaste but tender kiss. There was relief in Spain’s eyes when they separated, and Austria was glad his softer side had got the best of him.

They didn’t deserve to be pawns.

They were in this together.

They were then taken to the altar to kneel and be blessed. Austria stole a glance to Spain halfway who had his eyes shut tightly and was fervently praying. Thoughts were drowning out Roderich’s own prayers as well as the words of the priest. Worries about everything—about whether God could really approve of their union, about how his life was going to change after this, even about the impending consummation. They all seemed to lump together in an all-encompassing buzzing noise in his head.

He barely registered the “Amen”.

Then they were hoisted back on their feet and, with much loud music and cheering, led out of the church for another procession to the city hall that had been readied for further festivities. For a moment, Roderich stood there like a deer facing a hunter. Then, almost as if it was the most natural thing ever, Spain took his hand and pulled him into the cacophony of the crowd, but the act did make Austria’s thoughts quieten down.

Remember, Austria thought to himself.

They were in this together.

---

“Austria.”

Austria turned to the speaker. He had recognised her voice instantly.

Augsburg bowed, albeit not very low. She was an imperial city, much smaller than him in terms of her land and yet so much wealthier.

“Augsburg.” Austria bowed on his part, anxious not to incline his head lower than she had. He could at least keep up appearances, if nothing else.

It was her who took his hand for the basse danse—almost imperceptible, but the transgression was there. She swept her eyes over the people that had gathered inside Aachen’s town hall: Most of them were members of the high nobility and imperial estates who wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to show themselves for Charles’s crowning and the establishment of the Austro-Spanish union alike. There were guests from other kingdoms, too, moving in the slow and elegant sequence of steps so characteristic for this dance. Not all of those people had come to Austria and Spain’s wedding ceremony itself.

It makes them uncomfortable, Austria thought. But who was he to complain? It made him uncomfortable, too.

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Augsburg said with the attitude of a self-satisfied host. “Don’t you think the banquet was quite decent, too?”

Hand movements, steps, hand movements—they all came naturally to Austria. He didn’t need to think with his brain when he danced. His feet had memorised the steps, going through the motions without his conscious thought.

“One could almost think it was your marriage,” Austria replied in the politest tone he could muster.

Stop it, Aunt Augusta, this isn’t your marriage.

Augsburg understood him very well. She pulled them aside before they were to change partners, giving him her piece of mind. Someone like Augusta didn’t even need to raise her eyebrow. One look was enough.

“Oh, I much prefer to be the merchant who pays for all of this,” she said bluntly. “I pay; you do my bidding. That’s how things work these days, dearie. It’s the same for your Charles and my Jakob Fugger.”

He’s not my Charles. Austria bit down on his lips. It would have been unwise to wear his heart on his sleeve in front of her. You never knew what she might do with a delicate piece of information such as this. How she might profit from it. For this seemed to be what the world of merchants was all about: Profit; personal gain.

“You’ve become cold,” he said eventually. The irony wasn’t lost on him: Augsburg seemed cold because she focused on monetary gain; Charles seemed cold because he focused on political gain; and Austria acted cold because he did what needed to be done.

Still, marrying someone he barely knew felt daunting. So did the uncertainty of  how other people thought about his marriage: Did they perceive it the way Charles had presented it to everyone—as a political union only? Were they secretly disgusted because both personifications who had exchanged vows inhabited male human bodies? Did they expect them to consummate their marriage?

“I’m not cold, dearie,” Augsburg interrupted his train of thoughts. Her voice was warmer and darker now; a tone he remembered from his childhood. “I’m only trying to achieve the best for my people, as we all do—or should be doing, at the very least.”

That was undoubtedly true. It was the truth at the very core of all country personifications: You are the land—or, in Augsburg’s case, the city. Do what is best for the land and those who call it their home.

You could go against that, but not for very long. It drove you insane. There had been examples of that, too…

Swabia had told him to be the land, time and time again. When she had vanished, everybody had thought her dead. Then she had returned, telling everyone she would always be there as long as there was one soul who remembered her name and called themselves Swabian. Histrionics, they had thought, and yet…

Perhaps there was some grain of truth in it. Perhaps the key was to believe in it yourself.

“You look far too serious, darling,” Augsburg said into his thoughts. “Cheer up, it’s your wedding day!” She patted his cheek in an almost motherly gesture. “It’s all new to you now, but you’ll get used to being his husband.”

“Will I?” he said flatly. His anger was still there, bubbling under the surface. “Will I ever?”

She ignored his despondent answer and studied Spain from across the room before leaning in with a conspiratory grin. “So, what do you think: Is he or isn’t he?”

Austria was confused. “Is he what?”

She answered as if she was discussing the latest court scandal. “Moorish, of course! He spent so much time under Muslim occupation. Perhaps he obtained some Moorish blood or strange habits! Hmm, his skin is pale, but his curls are dark! If he’d grow a beard, he’d look the part.”

She had achieved her aim. Roderich had been fighting the Ottoman Turks at his eastern border for a while now, and he was thoroughly scandalized.

“I sure hope you’re joking!”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter, as long as he has no more Muslim tendencies. Take a piece of advice from someone who’s been around for one and a half millennia,” she told him, glancing meaningfully at Spain’s back once she had spotted him among the dancers. “You could have had it worse. At least he’s handsome.”

“He plays the vihuela.” Austria hadn’t even intended to give her this piece of information; it had simply slipped out.

“Does he?” Now Augsburg did raise an eyebrow. “That’s even better. I may know less than you about arranged marriages between rulers unless we’re only talking about ceremonies, but I believe it’s always useful to have some common ground.” She glanced at Spain again. “And like I said, he’s nicely shaped.” Her hands made curving motions, forming two semicircles.

“What?” Austria looked at her in puzzlement.

It took a few seconds until the penny dropped.

“Augusta!” Austria hissed, blushing furiously. “How very indecent!”

“You’re the one who’s going to see it without all those layers of clothing,” Augsburg deadpanned. “Most likely, in any case.” She shrugged. “Unless Charles told you not to make inquiries in that direction. But if I were you, I’d still try to squeeze it, no matter what Charles says. I feel tempted to do it even now.”

“Please don’t!” Austria felt very hot all of a sudden. Until now, he had pushed thoughts about the technical side of consummating a marriage out of his mind. Trust Augusta not to let me get away with it. Augsburg’s words planted mental images in his head that he really didn’t want to think about just now.

“Hmm...” Augsburg threw a calculating glance in Spain’s general direction. “No, I won’t squeeze it. But tempted I am.”

They joined the basse danse again. At some point, Spain gave a little yelp, looking around himself in puzzlement. Austria was entirely unsurprised to spot Augusta quite close to him, looking just as surprised about the sound as anyone else.

Austria sighed.

She was a good actor, he had to give her that.

---

“Roderich!”

Third time’s the charm, Roderich thought, turning toward the person who had uttered his name in a mixture between a hiss and a rough whisper.

Swabia took him by the arm—not a very comfortable experience from an old warrior with an iron grip. Austria winced.

“Sorry,” Swabia said casually, not sounding sorry at all. Austria inwardly rolled his eyes. Why was half his family like this?

She dragged him in a corner suitably far away from spying eyes and ears. Only then she released her grip. Austria rubbed his protesting upper arm.

“Listen to me, boy,” she said urgently. Her voice was dark, almost masculine. When Austria had been little, he had thought she was a man, and she had done nothing to discourage that notion. Then the Duchy of Swabia had been no more, and for all people knew, she had vanished from the face of the Earth. It was only when she had reappeared a few decades ago, from Heaven knew where, that she had been open about being a woman.

“What is it, Hilde?” He couldn’t help it; he sounded unnerved.

“I do realise that everyone wants you to do or be something for them today,” Swabia said gruffly, “but that is precisely the reason why we need to talk. What do you know about bedding ceremonies?”

“Oh no,” Austria groaned. “They wouldn’t, would they.” His tone was too flat to count as a question. They would, he knew that. Or at least certain people would.

“I discouraged them from actually witnessing the consummation,” Swabia said in the tone of the long-suffering. “But Burgundy will guide Spain and I will guide you to your chamber.”

Austria smacked his head against the nearest wall. He did it with caution, so as not to accidentally hurt himself, but the message was clear. As soon as he leaned back, Swabia patted his back not very gently. He suspected it would take several minutes until it recovered from this onslaught.

“We’re going to leave as soon as we’ve finished escorting you,” she reassured him. “I, for my part, have no intention whatsoever to watch the actual consummation, whether it actually takes place or not.” Her voice sounded affronted at the mere suggestion, one clear indication, Austria thought, that someone had indeed suggested she stay and watch.

“But others might have fewer qualms,” Austria said. Swabia had always appreciated straightforwardness, a no-bullshit attitude and, last but not least, people who thought for themselves. That was one thing that hadn’t changed between before and after.

“Precisely,” she said darkly. “Don’t look at him, but you know who I mean.”

Bavaria, thought Austria. Out loud, he said: “He has always been a bully.”

“He has been a bully towards you from the very moment Redbeard and I decided to make you a duchy independent from him,” Swabia specified. “Which, even though it is all water under the bridge now, it is a major reason why I feel responsible to protect you from him in a moment when you will be vulnerable.”

Austria’s heart softened. Thinking back, she had always had an impressive ability to put herself in other people’s shoes—oh well, nothing special there; think like the enemy was one of the first things Bavaria himself had taught him. But Swabia had always had a motherly streak towards him, Austria—and that made all the difference, even though he hadn’t realised it when he was little.

“In any case,” Swabia swiftly returned to the matters at hand, “Bavaria will probably try to sneak up on you. If you don’t want that—and I’m sure you don’t—I urgently advise you not to start anything until he has made the attempt. I don’t know, sing some merry songs instead. Play a nice board game with your husband, for all I care. But see to it that there will be nothing for Bavaria to see. Alright?”

“Alright,” said Austria, “but how can I be sure that he won’t come back for another attempt?”

“I will see to that,” Swabia said gloomily. Austria had to pull himself together so as not to take an involuntary step back. She could be menacing when she set her mind to it.

An old warrior, they said. Better with the sword than with the head. But that wasn’t true; Austria knew it wasn’t. In order to be as good with the sword as her, you had to be a quick thinker, too. The difference was that she was no schemer at all—nothing like Augusta. But she was no schemer because she had an aversion to scheming, not because she was fundamentally unable to think in such a way.

“Thank you.” He gave her a genuine smile. She smiled back, in her own firm and earnest way, insofar as you could smile earnestly. 

“You will remain in the corridor?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, I will keep my distance.”

“I did not worry. In fact, I’m glad it will be you who stays there.”

---

As the festivities progressed, Swabia came over once again—this time for everyone to be seen—took Austria gently by the hand—the hand, not the arm—and guided him away. He did not see Burgundy approach Spain, but they arrived in front of Spain and his chamber at the same time.

“Have fun, boys!” Burgundy said with a cat-like smile before she left them alone.

Swabia exchanged a meaningful glance with Austria. Then she nodded at them both and went away. Her footsteps echoed in the corridor—still a soldier’s steps despite the elegant dress she was wearing.

“Who is she?” whispered Spain in Italian as soon as the footsteps had died away.

“Swabia.” My guardian angel, he thought. And she is still here.

“The one who—” Spain craned his neck as if he could catch another glimpse of her that way.

“Who what?” Austria pretended not to know what Spain was asking about.

“Who spent her time in that mountain—you know, the same that Emperor Frederick II went to?”

“The Kyffhäuser, you mean,” Austria said.

 “And said she had returned because it was a time of need for her children?” Spain continued, still craning his neck to see what was not to be seen anymore.

Oh dear, my husband is naïve. Roderich sighed.

“For all I know, Frederick II died in Castel Fiorentino in 1250,” he said drily. “For all I know, she has never been gone. Probably kept her head down because her children wanted so many different things. But as soon as aforesaid children think it best to unite, she’s there again, as head of their league. Head of the Swabian Circle now, too.”

“I hear grudging respect,” said Spain.

“At some point when I was little, I used to look up to her,” Austria explained. “She was the leading power of the empire back then. I wanted to be like her. Wanted to earn the empire’s crown.”

“So you did.”

“So I did,” Austria repeated sourly. “And look what good it is doing me. I’m nothing but a pawn in a game too big for me to play. She has never been a pawn.”

“Oh no,” Spain said earnestly. “She has always been a knight.” He paused. “So are you. And so am I.”

There was a small silence before Spain opened the door.

“Shall we go in?”

The room was pleasant and warm. Roderich noticed he’d been gifted a marriage chest. He had no time to look at it, though. Instead, he was looking for the right words to say.   

For the first time after their wedding ceremony, Austria looked directly into his husband’s eyes. Play a nice board game with your husband, for all I care.

Then, to his dismay, Spain stepped closer to him and leaned in, inclining his head for a kiss.

“No! Wait.” Roderich’s voice came out more shrill than he had intended. He stepped back and tried to compose himself.

“May I challenge you to a game of chess?”

Shock and hurt manifested in Spain’s eyes. Austria could read him like an open book.

Oh. So this is important to you, Austria thought. Who would have thought.

“But…” Spain whimpered.

“I do not intend to eschew my marital duties,” Austria reassured him in his most formal tone. “I do, however, intend to postpone them for some more minutes or, as it may be, hours.”

Spain looked at him in confusion.

“You will see why.”

Spain thought about that.

“Chess it is, then,” he decided in the end.

They had barely lit all the candles in the room, taken off their shoes and laid out the chessboard in the middle of their four-poster when a long-haired blonde barged into their chamber.

“Austria!” he barked.

“You know, Saxony, there is such a thing as a door,” Austria said gently, placing his first pawn to e4 on the board. “The concept might seem novel to you, but it is for knocking.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” The blond man’s blue eyes bored into Austria’s purple ones. “I’m here to warn you! Your brother wants to be an asshole once again and spy on you…”

“Spy on me playing chess with my husband?” Austria asked sweetly.

Saxony visibly deflated.

“I should have expected you to know.”

“No harm done. But, Saxony—” Austria paused.

“Yes?”

“Next time you intend to warn someone of potential bedding ceremonies, do knock before you barge in. You might, you know … cause the exact thing you aim to prevent.”

“Sorry, Austria.” Saxony hung his head.

“Chin up,” Austria said jovially. “Like I said, no harm done.”

There was silence after Saxony had trudged out of the room.

“So this is why you suggested a game of chess,” Spain said eventually, moving one of his own pawns to e5.

“Exactly.” In a split-second decision, Austria moved a second pawn to f4. Spain whistled.

“Classic! Did you read Francesch Vicent’s book on chess?”

Austria gave him his best enigmatic smile.

---

They hadn’t played for long when the door clicked open one more time, and Augsburg put her head inside.

“Chess?” she asked in disapproval. “How boring!”

“It is a very interesting game!” insisted Spain.

Augsburg pouted.

“Your butt is far more interesting to me, young man. One should have thought seeing it was included in the price I paid for this wedding, but this seems not to be so. Good evening, gentlemen.”

With that, her head vanished, and the door clicked shut. Spain stared after her, open-mouthed.

“What was that?”

“The question is: Who was that, dear Antonio,” said Austria patiently. “The answer is: Meet Aunt Augusta, the moneybag who pays for everything you have seen so far, except for the fixed interior of this building. Then again, you have already met her or, rather, met her thumb and forefinger when she pinched your behind earlier this evening.”

“That was her?” Spain stared at the door.

“I’m afraid so.”

With that, Austria returned his focus to the game.

---

“Do you really think this is appropriate—”

Everyone was surprised when they first heard the child’s voice that sounded so very old. Austria’s first thought now was bafflement.

“Let me down!” the voice clamoured. “Let me down this instant! I don’t want—”

Then their camber door was kicked open with a bang, revealing Bavaria with a struggling Holy Roman Empire in one of his arms.

Something within Austria’s mind clicked. He stalked towards Bavaria in his stockings, putting his hands on his hips.

“What do you even think you’re doing?” he hissed. White-hot anger coursed through his veins.

“Roderich!” Bavaria said in what he had clearly attempted to be a jovial tone. It slipped. “We just…”

“We?” hissed Austria. “We?” His voice rose. “You dragged little Karl here against his will and you have the nerve to suggest he was in any way involved in the idea of seeing his guardian in a compromising situation?” Austria was still growing and only wore socks, but somehow, he managed to tower over Bavaria regardless.

“Erm…” Bavaria did one sensible thing and put Holy Rome to the ground. Austria grabbed him by the collar, still seething with anger.

“Roderich?” the young, old voice said calmly. “Theodor?”

Both countries looked at him.

“I think we should all calm down now, and then Theodor and I will return to the festivities. Is that not a good idea, Theodor?”

“Yes,” Bavaria said glumly. Then Holy Rome took his hand and guided him away.  Austria closed the door after them—with deliberate care. Antagonising Karl was never a good idea. It made you seem childish.

“Alright.” Austria let out a long sigh. “After this, I think they will leave us alone at last.”

Then he saw the look in Spain’s eyes. There was a flicker of reverence in them as well as a distinct spark of—interest? Austria’s stomach did a tiny flip.

“So…” Spain was brushing his hand alongside the nape of his neck; a clear, if somewhat clumsy, sign of nervousness.

“So.” Austria was nervous, too. He tried not to show it; tied to muster the stoic bravery he always associated with Swabia.

“I rather think there will be no more disturbances now, and … I think we both know what is expected of us.” Damn. He was sure Swabia’s voice would not have been quavering.

“Have you ever done this before? I mean, with…” He didn’t know how to continue the sentence. With another man? But were they men? They weren’t human beings; that he was sure of. But their bodies were built like those of two male human beings, and the fact that the church itself had made it official today that human law did not apply to them… To him, it seemed like cheating. It appeared that kings and popes would always decide what they were on the basis of what was most convenient to them.

He looked on the chessboard. Were they pawns in this game of kings?

Spain followed his gaze. He picked up the chessboard from the bed and placed it carefully on the floor.

“You’re thinking too much.” Even Spain’s voice was gentle.

“I always do.” Austria looked away, on the cushions of the large four-poster. So, he thought once more. This was when…

“Will you let me guide you?” Spain said in the same quiet voice he had used before. “Because I actually have done this before.”

“You?” Austria’s head whipped up. He stared at Spain incredulously. “I thought…” He didn’t know how to continue. “Religion…”

For a split second, Spain appeared to be flustered but then answered with an aloofness that seemed almost like he was overcompensating:

“I know what the authorities say on the matter, and in the beginning, I was confused, too. But … it’s not really all that different, you know.” He shrugged. “I’m not a theologian, so I might miss a few points, but if the bishop approves of it, I can’t find fault with it either. Especially when it’s about our kind, who don’t have children the human way anyway.”

“Hm.” Austria thought. “That seems to be the main point, doesn’t it?”

Spain didn’t reply. Austria didn’t know if Spain really thought what he suspected—what he would have thought in Spain’s stead, in any case: Think like that if it makes you feel better about it.

He would try to, anyway.

“What do I need to do?”

“Stop looking like you’re going to face down an enemy, for starters.” Spain smiled as he was inching closer to him.

“I’m trying to.” Austria relaxed his features. Perhaps thinking How would Swabia handle this? wasn’t a good approach in every situation.

“First of all, I’m going to kiss you,” Spain declared. There was an edge to his voice Austria couldn’t quite place. “Then … just follow my lead. And push me away if you want me to stop, okay?”

Austria nodded.

Then a gentle, calloused hand cupped his chin and warm, slightly chapped lips captured his lower lip.

This really was no different to being with a woman, Austria thought involuntarily. At least so far.

He opened his mouth to let Spain in when his tongue demanded it. Spain was a good kisser, at the least; Austria had to give him that. He made an involuntary, small sound at the back of his throat and could feel Spain smile against his lips before he started to kiss Austria’s cheek.

“That is a fine coat you’re wearing but it’s in my way.” Spain deftly pushed the fur-lined  coat down Austria’s shoulders and let it fall to the floor with a heavy thud. He kissed down Austria’s neck where the wide necked undershirt left him ample room for kisses. While kissing he got at the laces and points that held Austria’s doublet closed down his side and carefully started undoing them. 

Austria’s hands were much more clumsy as he tried to open Spain’s belt that held his sayo gathered at the waist. It was an action dangerously close to the codpiece that peeked from between Spain’s skirts. The kissing had made him light-headed; he refused to accept thinking of himself as aroused yet.

Spain was progressing rapidly and now moved to the laces that tied his doublet to his hoses, it wouldn’t be long or he’d be in his shirt. Austria believed it his duty to do the same, but it was hard to think with Spain’s lips and hair touching his skin, and he had to get Spain to remove his coat and say first before he could get at any laces himself…

Spain sat back and laughed.

“We should have changed into our nightshirts before we started this, shouldn’t we?”

“Probably,” Austria said breathlessly. His mouth twitched upwards, too. “I always underestimate the time it takes to change out of ceremonial clothing.”

Spain flashed back a grin.

“Especially when you’re dead tired after some tedious reception, isn’t it?” He chucked off his own heavy coat and then pulled off the sayo over his head, leaving him in just his jubón and very short breeches and stockings, a state of undress that was already quite scandalous. Austria watched him before he realised that now would be a good time to start unfastening what Spain hadn’t unfastened yet. He took off his doublet and was left in just his undershirt and his breeches.

There was just one problem: The moment he untied the codpiece that was closing his breeches, Spain would see that… Well, that the kissing hadn’t quite left Austria unaffected. And wasn’t that too early…

Meanwhile, Spain had loosened his jubón from the shorts and undid just as many laces as needed to hastily pull it off. He accidentally pulled his linen undershirt along and got a bit stuck. With a little determination he had freed himself and stretched, his upper body was now completely bare. Austria stared. Where he was soft and a little skinny, Spain’s body was covered in hard planes of muscle. He suddenly felt self-conscious about his own body.

Then, Spain pulled loose his garter bands and loosened his codpiece and pushed down everything he wore on the lower half of his body. It was tight so he had to work it down a bit before being able to pull it off. The man was stark naked now. Without conscious thought, Austria’s eyes were drawn to his half-hard cock.

“But you didn’t even…” Austria had no idea how he wanted to finish this sentence.

“It’s basically been like this since we entered the bedroom,” Spain admitted frankly. “But it got a little harder when you put your brother in his place.”

“But … why?” That probably ranked pretty high on a list of most stupid questions ever uttered, Austria realised, so he clarified: “I mean … it’s not as if we had much of a choice…”

“Simple,” Spain said. “You look good. You’re graceful when you dance, among other things. I knew kissing you would feel good, too, and it does.”

“You’re the one who looks good.” Austria knew he was simply stating a fact. “I, on the other hand…” He pulled his wide linen shirt, over his head, leaving himself shirtless. He was trying not to think too much about how he looked.

Then he caught Spain’s stare.

He blinked.

“You know the saying,” murmured Spain, walking over to Austria’s side of the bed. “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” He raked his eyes over Austria’s, as Austria thought himself, rather scrawny chest. Spain’s broad, warm hands followed, and that did feel good…

Then Spain had managed to untie Austria’s knee breeches. He pulled them down.

“Oh.” Spain stared at Austria’s cock—a rather unbecoming thing, Austria thought; pale with some angry red at the tip.

“And here I was actually worried your body might not react, no matter what I do.”

Was that before or after you kissed me breathless? Austria wanted to quip, but then Spain was on his knees and—alright, that was something he had experienced before too, but Spain had swallowed him whole, and…

He cried out and swore in German, in words he would otherwise have denied he even knew. So much for keeping this to ‘the approved position’ Burgundy had demanded of him this was definitely fornication. He liked that idea, yes there were so many things he had to comply with about this marriage. But there were parts of it that no one could control except for the two of them, no matter how much others might want to.

Spain pushed him on the bed, getting rid of Austria’s breeches and socks while he was at it, never stopping with his mouth…

Rational thought escaped Austria, and that was probably just as fine because he wasn’t keen on evaluating the sounds he made anyway.

Then one of Spain’s hands held down his hips. Cold air hit his cock as Spain sat on his knees, raking his eyes over Austria while he was stroking himself.

Austria stared. He hadn’t felt so aroused in a long time.

“Want to touch me?” Spain asked. Austria nodded. He ran his hands over the muscles on Spain’s chest before he let one hand dip down into Spain’s soft flank. His other hand wrapped around Spain’s cock.

It was a new sensation to hold a cock that wasn’t his own, but Austria knew how he liked to be touched … if he twisted his hand just like this … Spain’s hips bucked under his hands.

“Okay, okay, you’re making me come!” Spain pushed his hand off. “Not yet.”

Oh yes… So far, it had been easy. But that had just been Spain’s way of making the whole thing more bearable, hadn’t it?

Austria rolled on his stomach. Better get it over with…

Broad hands started to knead his … backside, for want of a more becoming term. He felt a puff of air between his cheeks, and then…

He didn’t know if he had bucked or flinched. In any case, he hadn’t been prepared for Spain’s tongue … there.

At first, the sensations were just confusing. Then Spain’s tongue started to work him for real, darting in and out and caressing his inner walls. He started to pant again.

“Hmm…” Spain hummed against his arse. Austria’s hips bucked out of their own volition. “And I didn’t even need to tell you to relax.” The puffs of air against his hole made him buck his hips again. 

“That’s good,” Spain continued. “I’m going to work you open now,” he explained. “That might get a bit uncomfortable. You need to tell me if it gets too much, alright?”

“Yes,” said Austria. It was hard to think through his arousal, but he had understood. On the other hand, he had no intention whatsoever to tell Spain that anything was too much. Grit your teeth…

Spain leaned away from him, taking something from his clothes. Austria looked after him.

“Olive oil,” Spain explained as he opened the jar. “The very best.”

Then Spain started, using his tongue and an oil-coated finger to stretch Austria from the inside… It didn’t feel good, but it was also not the horrible feeling Austria had expected: A mixture of pleasure—yes, it was still there—and the uncomfortable sensation of being stretched in a place that hadn’t been made for stretching all that much. Austria’s hips still bucked when Spain inserted two oily fingers and his tongue, moving them in and out, but his moans were now half pain, half pleasure.

“I think you’re ready,” Spain said eventually.

Am I? thought Austria. He wasn’t ready at all; not mentally, at the least.

Something warm and spongy that had also been coated in oil nudged his arse, and then he had to bite his lips hard not to cry out in pain because that was definitely bigger than…

“Oh, shit,” Spain swore. A number of Spanish expletives followed as he rolled them both to the side, arms flailing. At least it distracted Austria from the unpleasant feeling.

“What…?” he started to ask.

“Damn. Sorry. I almost lost control… Did I hurt you?”

“Not much,” Austria said, more or less truthfully. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“I’d better … hold my legs still. Can you, uh, move against me?”

Austria understood immediately. He tugged one of Spain’s arms across his chest.

“Alright. Hold me.”

Spain did, muscles quivering from the effort not to move while Austria pushed his ass against him again and again, panting in the effort of moving.

“This doesn’t work,” he concluded. “On your back.”

Spain did as he was told. Austria took the jar from Spain’s hand, rubbing more oil on his dick and between his ass cheeks. Then he sat on him, face to his legs because Spain really didn’t need to see the grimace he pulled. He gave himself no time to think about the fact that suddenly it seemed to be him, not Spain, who controlled the situation. Instead, he used his weight to push Spain’s dick inside of him in slow thrusts that strained his leg muscles

When he was almost inside, Spain’s hips jerked upward, knocking the wind out of Austria’s lungs.

“You can turn me around now,” Austria panted as soon as he was sure his voice wouldn’t come out an octave too high. Spain did so, trying to hold his dick inside of Austria as it was. It wasn’t really possible because Austria could feel every little movement, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation at all.

In the end, they were on their sides again, Spain’s arm once again slung across Austria’s chest.

“You’re so tight,” Spain panted. “Too tight. Can you try to relax?”

Austria did his best. He thought about Spain’s hands on him; the moment he had touched Spain; Spain’s lips around him… That had felt good.

“Better,” Spain grunted. He rocked his hips, keeping Austria in place with his arm.

It actually was better. The stretch was still unpleasant, but the oil did its job quite nicely now, and the pace Spain set suited Austria well: Not too fast, but not too slow either; not too hard and not too soft. He felt his cock that had become softer in the past minutes harden once again.

Then Spain’s hand brushed down Austria’s chest, gripped his cock, and—oh, that was more like it.

Spain’s mouth started to pepper kisses on his neck. Austria understood what he wanted, turning his head until Spain could kiss him. The kiss was open-mouthed and clumsy. Spain moaned into it as his hips moved harder and faster. At last, Austria’s hips started to jerk out of their own volition, torn between the thrusts from behind, the hand around his cock and the tongue in his mouth.

Suddenly, Spain brushed something inside of him that sent a shock of arousal through him. He cried out. Spain’s hand that had only held his cock before twisted up and down. Before Austria had registered what was happening, sticky wetness hit his stomach. Then Spain brushed the same spot as before, and another spurt of come followed the first.

Spain pumped Austria’s cock in a frenzy while his hips jerked up fast and erratically. Spots started to dance before Austria’s eyes. Then Spain’s hips stilled, and Austria felt hot fluid inside of him.

So this was penetrative sex between men, Austria thought with the part of his brain that never seemed to shut off. He pumped air between his lungs in long gasps until the spots in front of his eyes vanished.

The next things he registered were how sensitive the skin on his thighs felt—again, something that was not entirely new—and that he felt unable to move his legs even an inch.

“Austria?” Spain asked in a small voice.

“Hmm?” He couldn’t bring himself to say more.

“Are you … I mean, did I hurt you?” Spain sounded worried.

You mean, when didn’t you hurt me, a malicious part of Austria wanted to quip. He reined it in and settled for the truth.

“It stung when you spread me and it did hurt in the beginning,” he admitted. “But I don’t mind that you were chasing your own release at the end, which is what I think you are referring to.”

“I’m sorry.” Spain sounded sincere. “It gets easier if you do it more often.” There was an unspoken question in that statement, but Austria chose to ignore it for the time being. He had done his duty—the marriage had been consummated—but he didn’t know yet what he wanted for the future.

“Still,” Spain said. Austria felt the bed dip as he stood. He heard him move, but couldn’t bring himself to lift his head. “It was your first time. I should have been gentler.” Spain’s upper body entered Austria’s field of vision, holding a wet piece of cloth. “Allow me to clean you up, too?”

“Please.” Austria realised his own switch back to a formal tone. It seemed to have an effect on Spain: The way he cleaned him up was meticulous and efficient. Austria noted he had warmed the piece of cloth with his body—an act of care he appreciated.

“Tell me,” Austria asked, “if we hadn’t been ordered to consummate our marriage properly, would you have done all you did tonight?”

“No,” Spain answered at once. “I wanted you to enjoy it. I’d probably have stroked us off together, and that’s it. And you can keep caressing each other while you do that…” His voice trailed off. “Look, I think you’re clever and brave and beautiful, and I want to touch you. I’d want it if we weren’t married. But I’m worried I thwarted my own chances before I had any because we were doing what others expected of us.”

“Don’t be cross with me, but I believe I’m unable to think about that just now.” Austria only realised how true this was as he said it: He was exhausted; his legs felt like jelly; and he needed a good night’s sleep anyway after the dances, the chess match and Swabia’s and his own valiant efforts to thwart all spectators.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he hurried to say as he saw the disappointment on Spain’s face. “If I say I need to think about it, I don’t mean no. I mean that I need to think about it, but I’m about to fall asleep. So … come to bed with me?”

Spain nodded. Then he doused the candles and went to bed, putting the blankets over them both as well as he could. Austria made a point of taking Spain’s hand.

It had been a long day, and he really needed to think. He also needed his legs to work again, but he assumed that problem would have solved itself by tomorrow.

[schrijverr]

I Wrote My Own Deliverance

Chapter 7 out of 10

Alexander Hamilton is reborn as Alex Hambleton. He is desperate not to make the same mistakes twice, but it seems he is stuck in the narrative, unable to get out. Familiar faces pop up all around him as he attempts to keep his previous life a secret and write himself out of the story.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: blackmail, bc Reynolds, though not for cheating bv I made Alex a decent person lmao. Tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was looking forward to the debate team. Arguing with his classmates was fun of course, but none of them could really match his wits and he hoped that the debate team would bring a challenge.

Luckily, or unluckily, he was not disappointed. There was another kid, tall Afro-American, introduce himself as Tom Jamesson that was on his team.

They shared opinions about the state of the economy, but their solutions were so different that it had soon turned into a screaming match to each other, while the others just witnessed their verbal tennis match with a horrified fascination.

It was only three meetings later that Alex realized he was looking at the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson.

Tom, as he was known now, had quoted the Declaration of Independence at him like Jefferson had done in the past. Alex didn’t know if it was that or the cadence of the speaker that forced him to make the connection, but when he did, he had to force himself to not react.

He had not yet figured out if Jefferson had made the connection to him or if the other did not remember himself, but he didn’t really want to find out.

Somehow he had taken a liking to Tom. In this world they shared more opinions, though their approaches were still on the opposite sides of the spectrum, and he was a fun debating partner when the future of Alexs career and the country didn’t depend on the debates.

Tom was better than Jefferson and Alex wasn’t about the ruin the sort of friendship they had built up. So, he kept his mouth shut and tried to avoid using obvious Hamilton-esque phrasings as much as possible, even if it was difficult and he slipped up more often then not. It was hard not to fall back in old routines.

It was easier to keep suspicions of his back in his classes. Aaron was the only one going into law as well and he wasn’t about to create a stir between them, afraid of having Alex remember the duel that had gotten him killed.

As far as he knew the others had only taken the Revolution course last year for History credit, but Laurens was going to do medicine, while Herc was becoming a tailor again, though more fashion-y, and Laf was doing something with international relations. He had also gathered that Tom was doing architecture.

So, he was quite surprised to come face to face with Angie, or Angelica, in an economics class. She had sat down next to him and raised brow as she pointedly said: “You never showed up again after the party, not even with your friends.”

He looked at her like a deer in headlights as he answered: “Well, uh, we’re not really friends anymore, but are they doing alright?”

“I suppose, they are sad about you leaving, so care to explain why I have three heartbroken men that I have to listen to?” she asked.

“They were acting all weird about someone I don’t even know.” he told her the best lie he could come up with on the fly and a story she could confirm with Peggy, god was he glad for Peggy right now.

Angie wasn’t entirely convinced, so he added: “They all knew each other from another life and apparently also a guy named Alex, it was weird that they looked at me expecting someone else. I just needed to get away from it and then it was awkward. Besides, you punched me.”

That didn’t satisfy her completely, but enough for her to let it go and focus on the lecture. Leaving Alex a stressed mess as he prayed for himself to survive this course.

In hindsight it was a bit of an overreaction, but Alex was never known for being anything other then dramatic, so he let it slide.

It seemed Angie was still as sharp witted as always and she was a great study partner. It also seemed she had taken his words to heart, or maybe she just didn’t trust him to fuck over Eliza again, because she didn’t force him to socialize with anyone he’d known.

Instead they debated economic plans and compared notes. He would show up tired with two coffees and she’d force him to eat something in the morning classes.

They had a system that worked.

Not that it surprised Alex much, they had always been close. The musical had interpreted their friendship as romantic, but that had never been the case, they just clicked. And if there had been anything between them, that was now gone as she excitedly told him about her girlfriend.

It was good to have a friend like Angie.

She wasn’t afraid to call him out on his bullshit and after the years apart with her in London, she also wasn’t the most likely to recognize him, especially with how he adjusted his behavior in econ classes.

Alex still had a lot of opinions and the whole class knew, but he would wither when Angie send him a look during his tirades and leave it be.

Though, if later a smash dunk on said wrong person showed up in the school paper that Alex wrote for, or an essay about that weeks topic under his name, well, then that was his own business.

Life was actually going well for a change, which was why it should not have come as a surprise when it fell apart again.

He was working in the library when a guy came up to him. Alex thought he was a year above him, though he did not know his name. At first he pretended he hadn’t seen the other coming and tried to focus on his reading.

“Hello, Alex Hambleton, right?” it didn’t work, “I’m James, James Richardson.”

Should the name have send alarm bells ringing? Probably. But Alex was tired and hungry, so blissfully unaware he replied: “Yes, that’s me. Can I help you with something?”

“That depends on how badly you want a secret to be kept.” James told him.

The blood seemed to freeze in Alexs veins as he tried to remember where he had met this James character before and how the other could know who he had been. He was almost certain he had never seen the other and, as far as he was aware, he hadn’t been careless.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Alex said, trying to play it cool, hoping his many years in politics had helped his poker face.

“Really?” James replied, as he nonchalantly leaned on the table, “I wonder what the board will think when they find out you’ve fucked yourself into the accelerated courses. Was Washburns dick as good as the girls theorize?”

“What?” Alex chocked out, this was not what he expected.

“Don’t play dumb with me.” James said, “Every Sunday you go out, you go to Washburns home and I’ve checked and apparently his wife is away on a case. He’s all alone and you just happen to visit each week.”

Mama M had been on a long case for her top client, who had sadly moved to the other side of the country, but none of them had thought to stop the Sunday Dinners, while she was away. And Alex was certain Washington had written that letter based off his skill, not his past.

He knew this, because he had asked him about thirty-two thousand times and read the letter himself about twice as many. And on top of that he had also gotten letters from his other professors, just in case.

James had nothing, just the fact that Alex had gone over to the Washingtons while Mama M was away, and that was pretty damning if you didn’t have the whole story.

“Not only that,” apparently James was taking his silence as guilt, “but I have also heard someone say that they’ve seen you with Washburn in his vacation home in Virginia over the break, while his wife was having tea. And before that, you got a hug, not very subtle, I have to say.”

He got out his phone and showed Alex two pictures. The first was of the hug by the car, the other of him leaning against Washington while he typed, Mama M cleverly cut out and the next one of them in the garden under the fig tree with lemonade laughing. They looked comfortable, and it was really up for debate how they related to each other based off the pictures alone.

“Those prove nothing and what you are saying isn’t true.” Alex argued.

“I think the board would disagree.” James replied.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Alex said, “You’ve got nothing and I did nothing, now leave me alone.”

“I will.” the dramatic pause was unnecessary in Alex opinion, “For a price.”

“Do I look like I have money to pay you hush money for something I didn’t do?” Alex couldn't have stopped the eyeroll if he’d tried.

“Maybe you don’t, but Washburn does.” James said, “Heard his wife was rich. Wouldn’t that be something, your precious Washburn paying hush money for an affair with his wife’s money. You just had to get laid, didn’t you.”

“If you want him to pay, why are you threatening me?” Alex asked.

“Because his little boy-toy will be more convincing then me. Maybe you’ll get on your knees to beg him to pay me, keep you in the little program you love so much. Maybe you’ll even cry.” at this point it was just sadistic.

“Neither me nor Washburn is going to pay you, fuck off.” Alex was pretty done with this.

“Well, then I hope neither of you are interested in a future career.” James said, “Hope you have a great excuse ready, or my money. I want 20.000 dollars on this bank account by tomorrow, you have till 8 AM.”

He slid over a piece of paper to Alex with the number of his bank account, before sauntering off like he hadn’t just blackmailed Alex in public.

Alex pinched his nose and tried to think. At this point he regretted not expanding his friend circle, because he could really use the support right now. There was already an idea forming in Alex’s mind, but he couldn't do it without permission of Washington.

Cursing he packed his bags, it seemed Sunday Dinner would be early.

Mama M tried to convince him to threaten James back with a lawsuit after he had explained the whole thing, but Alex just sighed: “He’s not going to budge, if we do that he’ll just think he’s right and push even more.”

“And we can take legal action against him.” Mama M argued.

“But the damage will already be done and we’re too late.” Alex countered, looking guilty at their slumped shoulders, “I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”

“And why would you say that, son?” Washington asked.

“I knew it was a bad idea to get acquainted with people I’d known in my past life, but I gave in and now I’m dragging you down with me.” Alex explained, “I saw it coming, but I still let the comfort blind me. So, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for that, dear.” Mama M said, gathering him up in a hug, “We’re just as guilty if you reason like that.”

“But-”

“No, no buts, Alexander.” Mama M told him, “We all made out own decisions and we have to face the music. We’ll make it through, don’t worry.”

“So, is that a yes?” Alex asked, unable to say anything else to that.

Mama M shared a look with Washington, who sighed, then nodded. She turned back to him and said: “Yes. We can still take legal action after that, if the issue doesn’t get resolved.”

They gave him some food and a lift back to campus, where Alex opened his laptop.

He had so much work to do and he needed to do it fast, he needed to be quicker than James, needed to save both himself and Washington, the only person he had ever willingly followed.

When he was done, the light was shining through the window and there was apprehension in his whole body.

He decided to text Angie, hoping she would understand. She’d always understood.

To Queen Angie [6:15]: Remember that punch?

To Queen Angie [6:15]: I might need a new one and I deserve it

To Queen Angie [6:16]: But pls be here for me this time

Alex clicked post and prayed for the best as he crawled under his covers to hide from the world, for once grateful for the quiet and glad Aaron wasn’t home. This was it, the moment of truth.

From Queen Angie [7:52]: Alex?

From Queen Angie [7:53]: Alex??

From Queen Angie [7:53]: Alexander?????

From Queen Angie [7:53]: God fucking dammit you asshole

That morning Columbia University woke up to a breaking news story.

[thelibraryofhell]

Pretentious and Cringy: RoseBlood

For our very first condemnation to this library, we are given RoseBlood by A.G. Howard. Follow the read more for a full count of its sins and stupidity. Warning: it gets long.

This doesn’t count as a sin but great Satan the damn description is way too long! This was likely not the author’s choice though which is why it gets a pass.

This YA novel from New York Times bestselling author A. G. Howard marks the beginning of a new era for fans of the Splintered series. Rune Germain moves to a boarding school outside of Paris, only to discover that at this opera-house-turned-music-conservatory, phantoms really do exist. RoseBlood is a Phantom of the Opera–inspired retelling in which Rune’s biggest talent—her voice—is also her biggest curse. Fans of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the Splintered series will find themselves captivated by this pulse-pounding spin on a classic tale. Rune, whose voice has been compared to that of an angel, has a mysterious affliction linked to her talent that leaves her sick and drained at the end of every performance. Convinced creative direction will cure her, her mother ships her off to a French boarding school for the arts, rumored to have a haunted past. Shortly after arriving at RoseBlood conservatory, Rune starts to believe something otherworldly is indeed afoot. The mystery boy she’s seen frequenting the graveyard beside the opera house doesn’t have any classes at the school, and vanishes almost as quickly as he appears. When Rune begins to develop a secret friendship with the elusive Thorn, who dresses in clothing straight out of the 19th century, she realizes that in his presence she feels cured. Thorn may be falling for Rune, but the phantom haunting RoseBlood wants her for a very specific and dangerous purpose. As their love continues to grow, Thorn is faced with an impossible choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or save her and face the wrath of the phantom, the only father he’s ever known.

That first paragraph would have sufficed for description and given the reader some mystery. The second could have stayed but it’s on thin ice. And we don’t have ice in hell. 

To summarize the story: Rune Germain is a 16-17 year old girl from Pleasant, Texas who is, in her own words “possessed by music”. Thanks to a rich aunt and some nepotism, she gets the chance to go to RoseBlood, a conservatory in Paris that is a refurbished opera house that, according to Rune’s online research, is the place where Gaston Leroux’s Phantom Of The Opera story really took place. Upon arrival, Rune is immediately overtaken by music and makes an enemy in Katrina Nilsson by interrupting Kat’s audition for Renata in the school’s opera. She also makes friends with a few other students who really have no bearing on either the plot or Rune’s adventures. She eventually finds her Love Interest Thorn - real name Etalon, stalking her as she goes about her day to day life, and immediately falls in love with him because they are Twin Flame and Destined by Destiny. It is soon enough revealed that Rune, Thornalon, and Erik are all psychic vampires that must feed off humans to survive. It is also soon revealed that Rune and Thornalon are Christina Nilsson’s soul reincarnated and split and that Rune “has Christine’s voice”. It also turns out that Christina and Erik got married and tried to have a child who was born premature and died. Erik was driven mad(der) by the child’s death and somehow, in the 1900′s, managed to build a contraption that kept the baby “alive” until he could track down Christine’s soul and reunite the pieces and transfer it to the baby... Needless to say, he failed, Rune and Thornalon live happily ever after, and Rune suffers no consequences from any of her terrible actions through the whole novel.

Sin count time!

Sin 1: The school name! RoseBlood.  What does it have to do with anything? There are bleeding roses later in the story but why would a school name itself RoseBlood? This choice is never explained. It has no French basis, no connection to the opera-house turned school, and no connection to Gaston Leroux’s original Phantom Of The Opera.

Sin 2: Overwrought descriptions right out of the gate.

At home, I have a poster on my wall of a rose that’s bleeding. Its petals are white, and red liquid oozes from its heart, thick and glistening warm. 

Mom looks out her window where the wet trees have thickened to multicolored knots, like an afghan gilded with glitter.

I trace the window now curtained by mud, imagining the glass cracking and bursting; imagining myself sprouting wings to fly away through the opening—back to America and my two friends who were tolerant of my strange quirks.

These are all from chapter one. It only gets worse as you go.

Sin 3: Racism. Main character Rune Germain regularly describes herself as a “gypsy”. According to her, on her father’s side, she’s a g*psy. Moving through this review, I will be censoring the word. I’m a demon of hell, not a piece of shit. Rune never says Roma or Romani in the entire book. There’s no references to Romani culture, nothing about the problems Romani people face in the modern day, nothing. Rune is also as white as a piece of paper. You can see it on the cover

And in how she describes herself.

People say we could pass for sisters. We share her ivory complexion, the tiny freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, the wide green eyes inside a framework of thick lashes, and her hair—black as a raven’s wings.

If you look up pictures of Romani people, you see that they’re far from ivory skinned. 

It’s not only Rune. Her Aunt Charlotte does it too. The “Phantom” does it. And Roma culture is treated very poorly throughout the novel. Rune several times refers to her “g*psy blood” as “cursed” or “terrible”. One example:

Nausea sweeps through me at the thought. After our encounter, I realized why I was enchanted by the spider’s feeding rituals, that there was something in my g*psy blood—something tainted and wrong.

In this modern day and age, can’t humans stop demonizing and stereotyping an entire culture? Or using “half-g*psy” lineage to make characters “exotic” or “mystic”? No? Fine, I’ll see you down here eventually. 

Sin 4: The Love Interest’s backstory..... TRIGGER WARNING FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION OF RAPE, CHILD TRAFFICKING, AND REFERENCED CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Rune’s Love Interest is named Etalon. His mother was sexually assaulted by a psychic vampire who is apparently from Canada - I have no idea why Howard felt the need to include that - and it ruined her life to the point where she was forced to turn to prostitution to feed herself and Etalon. A man kept trying to “buy” Etalon from her because he was beautiful. She kept refusing, and eventually, she was murdered. Etalon was quickly snatched up into child trafficking where, at one point, he was forced to drink lye water to damage his vocal cords because he wouldn’t stop singing. He eventually escaped when Erik found him and took him in, renaming him Thorn. 

Love Interests with tragic backstories are a staple of the YA genre. It makes them mysterious and interesting. It often drives the main character’s interest in the aloof and unusual bad boy. Quite often, these backstories involve dead or missing parents, being turned into a vampire or werewolf, or some combination of all of these things. It’s very rare that it gets so real. Child trafficking is a very real and prevalent issue in the world and it needs attention brought to it. But not like this. Using it as a character’s backstory is something that takes a level of skill Howard simply does not have. It needs to be written with respect to victims who might read it and not just be used to give characters a compelling but otherwise unused backstory. Thornalon never displays any indicators that the time spent in this situation traumatized him. There’s no signs of PTSD or other mental health issues that might arise from what he went through. There’s also no signs that Howard donated any money from book sales to charities like Child Fund, Save The Children, or ECPAT-USA. This is a very serious topic that NEEDS more attention brought to it and Howard glossed over it like it was nothing. 

Sin 5: Underutilized setting.  Rune comes from Pleasant, Texas and moves to Paris, France. But there’s no sense of wonder from her. She never talks about how beautiful the city is or learning French. Supposedly, the school only admits American students.

“How many foreign boarding schools offer admittance only to American kids? This is a rare opportunity . . . a taste of French culture in a setting that feels like home.”

Oooor the author couldn’t be bothered to deal with French translations or expanding the student body to include a diversity? There’s no French culture anywhere in this book. Any time Rune goes into Paris, it’s skipped over. There’s nothing about it that says Paris. It could have been set in New Jersey and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. 

Sin 6: Each chapter begins with a quote from a different author and work. Including, weirdly enough, Karl Marx... Beginning a chapter with a quote is fine, but it should be consistent. Picking a single work or author to use helps to reader see a consistency in the theme of the book. Since this is a Phantom of The Opera based story, it would make sense to use quotes from the book. Instead, the author uses a different work for each chapter, and it’s honestly just annoying. 

Sin 7: All promise, no pay off. This book has a promise of action and mystery. It’s got a fabulous premise and a setting that could be beautifully used if in the hands of the right author. But it misses the mark on good characters, action, and keeping a consistent pace. 

Punishments: For being tone-deaf and generally bad at writing, author A.G. Howard is condemned to have the dead tree in her backyard become home to her state’s buzzard population. For being a terrible protagonist, Rune Germain is condemned to find a mistake in the middle of her knitting projects just as she is about to finish them. For the terrible Phantom Iteration known as Erik, we condemn his instruments to always be just slightly out tune. And Thorn/Etalon... we order you to get a lot of therapy and a service dog. 

So let it be recorded. Today’s story time is concluded. 

[ladyhistorypod]

Episode 15: Boss B!tches

Sources:

Elleanor Eldridge

Smithsonian Library Blog

Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge (Smithsonian Libraries)

Women Extra and Ordinary: Elleanor Eldridge

Documenting the American South

Rhode Island Historical Society

Stages of Freedom

Further Learning: Stages of Freedom on Zora Neale Hurston

Madam CJ Walker

National Women’s History Museum

Philanthropy Round Table

Guinness Book of World Records

History Channel

Preserving Black History

Mary Ellen Pleasant

New York Times

CNBC

Black Past

Black Economics

Biography

Attributions: Katy Kirby, Live a-humble, Cash Register, San Francisco bound

Click below for a transcript of the episode!

Archival Audio: I can make my own living just as well as he can make his. He ought to be glad I'm working. Just because he can't stand competition he wants me to quit. My work isn't important enough. I'm only a woman but he, the man, is boss. He'd like me to be a slave to the house. Look at this mess.

Haley: Starting a business now is increasingly just slowly getting harder and harder because…  and I'm doing this because I want to start an Etsy, because money and graduating in a pandemic sucks. Like Etsy has ridiculous fee prices.

Lexi: Yes.

Haley: Like just uploading a picture is like twenty cents and I realize this for like all these other accounts there are just so many different fees. But then when I was talking to like my dad and the older generation family members, they’re like “start a business, have an idea, and like create something” and I’m like do you guys not understand how difficult that is? Like I don’t–

Lexi: Well you need money to make ideas.

Alana: Yeah.

Lexi: I have plenty of business-worthy ideas and I always like sit at the dinner table and joke that someone should give me like X. amount of dollars because I've researched how much my new idea is going to cost but no one ever takes me seriously and they're like “what is this your thirty fifth business idea this year” but like… compostable dog toys? Fantastic idea.

Haley: Oh, I love that idea.

Lexi: All it would take me is a grand to get that off the ground so if anyone wants to invest. But guess what? I don't have a grand.

Haley: Well I’m using my savings account for this.

Lexi: Oof.

Haley: I have invested like a grand or so and I’ve taken way longer– I've been thinking about this like for the whole pandemic like since May. And with moving that was kind of like a shit show obviously like school comes first, but I'm at the point where now I'm just like making stuff and I have to do another order for shipping like candle materials? It's a hundred dollars for shipping. Yeah. I like making stuff. I’m a crafty bitch.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to the Lady History; the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. In the Zoom meeting today as always is Lexi. Lexi, which of your business ideas do you think is the most sustainable?

Lexi: My most sustainable business idea is to 3d print dog toys out of corn. That if the dog buries them in the yard or destroys them and you need to get rid of them, they are compostable. Because one of the biggest struggles about being a pet owner is that, at least for my bird a lot of the toys are very made of natural materials and so I don't feel bad throwing out the broken pieces, but dog toys are made of not good stuff.

Alana: And it's the other constant in my life, Haley. Haley, what would you do with a million dollars?

Haley: I would have a dog. Dogs don't cost a million dollars, but like…

Lexi: You could spoil a dog.

Haley: Yeah.

Alana: And I'm Alana and I can't eat the rich because pig isn't kosher.

Lexi: In terms of women starting businesses, I was thinking if Lady History doesn't work out, if we never make real money our business plan can be–

Alana: How dare you, we have made six dollars.

Lexi: Okay. But like, if we need real money and all museums stop existing because of the rona we can open a bake shop called Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots’ Bakery.

Haley: I love it. I'm down. You know that's like always been my dream is to have a bakery but part of the bakery… 

Lexi: I believe there's a place near me I think you would really like. You probably couldn't eat anything there– well maybe you could eat like the savory stuff. But it's called Sweet Memories and the first floor is a tiny little restaurant that serves soup and gourmet grilled cheese and has baked goods but the upstairs is a little craft store where they sell locally made, handmade stuff and that is kind of how I envision Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots’ Bakery.

Haley: So that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be a chef growing up and I would, that's how I like bake all my cookies and everything, all egg substitutes. I just hate it when people try to make like restaurants so freakin elaborate, like where they have– and I'm not talking diners, diners are perfection like the gross greasy diner? Give that to me.

Lexi: Mm. That’s the good stuff

Haley: I don't want to go to a cafe where like the list of crap you can get is longer than like my shoe size… I have small feet. Okay fine, I have very small feet so like let me rephrase that.

Lexi: Longer than Robert’s shoe size.

Alana, laughing: Ayyyyy.

Haley: Ayyyy.

Lexi: That was a dick joke. I’m sorry.

Haley: Longer than my wand. My bakery has to have a good menu that's like very limited. So again, soups. I love soups and sandwiches, like you have your grilled cheese–

Lexi: I mean it’s literally gourmet grilled cheese and like three kinds of soups.

Haley: Like you always have like the tomato, you always have broccoli cheddar, and you always have chili and like one seasonal.

Lexi: I had a pumpkin wild mushroom seasonal soup that was to die for.

Haley: Amazing, that sounds so great. And then for the bakery stuff, it's stuff that like you can eat right there– like a croissant would be excellent. Cookies would be excellent, but also just like you could special order like a pie or cake.

Lexi: Yes!

Haley: And then one part of it is like a library type situation. Not necessarily bookstore, but just like all my books. I have over two hundred books of course I could spare a few books. So you could sit there, read, do a chit chat.

Alana: It's like those books at Gelman that are like you can't take them out but you can read them there. On reserve or whatever it’s called.

Haley: Yes. And then lastly, have stuff like packaged because like hostess gifts. I am the queen of bringing a hostess gift. There have been moments where I forgot it and that's why I've made up with it of just being really elaborate. So if like you need a serving dish for the cookies you're going to buy from my place? Of course I have some ivory porcelain cooking dish– like serving dishes. You want like a Haley inspired Dutch oven? you damn Skippy you're gonna have it in three colors.

Lexi: So I guess the final verdict is Sprinklebear McPuss-n-Boots Bake Shop will be an egg-free, small menu, gift shop, library, eatery experience.

Haley: Absolutely.

Lexi: For my business woman I am covering yet another lady from the Women Extra and Ordinary project that I did with the Smithsonian Libraries. I feel like this is going to get real old real fast, how many of these women I'm covering, but you know what I already did the research. So today I'm gonna talk about Elleanor Eldridge, who lived in Rhode Island and was born approximately in March 1785. Her father, Robin Eldridge, was a formerly enslaved person who fought in the American Revolution in exchange for his freedom. Her mother, Hannah Prophet, was a Native American who died when Elleanor was ten years old. Elleanor was one of nine siblings. After her mother's death, an aunt suggested Elleanor never get married, and Elleanor began working as a servant. While working, Elleanor became skilled in weaving, spinning, paper and soap making, wallpapering, cheesemaking and dairy working. And to keep her living costs down, she exchanged housework for boarding so that she wouldn't have to pay rent. And through her skills and smart planning, she was able to expand her money making ventures, performing various tasks to earn money. Elleanor was naturally gifted as a businesswoman, and when she succeeded in saving up a large sum of money she began investing in property, which is a pretty good business move. She was also able to take out a mortgage to further her investments. And this was an extremely unique position for a woman of color living in Rhode Island at the time that she lived. So she took advantage of her own savvy and did something really unique and awesome. She built a home on the property she bought with a space that she could rent out. So like think modern duplex but this is the early 1800s and your landlord living next door is a badass businesswoman. So I wouldn't mind her as my landlord. But Elleanor's aunt was right to advise Elleanor to never get married because at the time women could not own property in their own name if they were married. So married women could only hold property in shared ownership with their husbands or after their husband's death, so Elleanor was smart to not get married because it would have meant that her husband would control the property that she had acquired through their own hard work, so by staying single she kept her business interests in her own name which is really good. When Elleanor fell ill in her forties, she went to stay with her family to recover from her sickness. And after becoming well, she had to travel to assist another ill relative who was suffering from cholera. And because many people in her hometown thought she was gone for a really long time, they believed that she died, and a disagreement surrounding the loan that she taken out– the mortgage– led to Elleanor having her property holdings wrongfully taken from her. And she decided to take legal action in 1837. She became the first Black woman in America to plead her case in court and despite overwhelming evidence–

Alana: I look pretty good for a dead bitch.

Lexi: Despite overwhelming evidence, including three male witnesses, a corrupt sheriff testified against her and his testimony was enough for the judge to rule against her. And after spending years working and growing her business, Elleanor lost everything. But Elleanor did not give up. A strong-willed woman, she pursued a settlement out of court which allowed her to repurchase her property, but she was still short on funds to pay the fee that she needed to pay to recover the property. So she had a big brain plan, like the big brain businesswoman she was, to help her cause. Elleanor, who was illiterate, enlisted the help of a ghostwriter; abolitionist Frances Harriet Whipple Green, and Green transcribed Elleanor's life story into a memoir, and the sales of the memoir helped Elleanor repurchase her lost property. And you can read the book by accessing a digital scan on the Smithsonian library website if you are so inclined to read it. The terminology is a little dated and it's a little hard to read if you speak modern English, but if you're curious for a firsthand account… Because even though it was physically written by Francis, it was told by Elleanor, so it's a really unique story. And the book is in the public domain but if you're so inclined that you're just like this is really cool you can actually purchase a physical copy and have it if you would like to. Elleanor’s memoirs include this quote which I really think sums up her whole situation quite well so I'm just going to read it in her words– “No MAN would have been treated so; and if A WHITE WOMAN had been the subject of such wrongs, the whole town—nay, the whole country, would have been indignant; and the actors would have been held up to the contempt they deserve! Newspaper editors would have copied, and commented on it, till every spirit of honor, of justice and of chivalry, would have been roused.” So I think that says a lot about the situation that she was in and how she felt about it and how precarious the whole thing was the fact that if it had happened to a guy, or even to a white woman, it would have not gone down the same way it did. So at the time of her death, Elleanor had recovered most of what she lost and regained most of her property and money, and her story is regarded by scholars today as an important unique account of the story of a Black woman in early America pursuing her own career. In a time when many Black stories were lost, Elleanor's was saved and today she can continue to tell her story through her book. When not close for COVID-19, the Rhode Island Historical Society has a walking tour. It’s about Elleanor and other Black Rhode Islanders from early America, so it stops at a couple locations in the city to share their stories. And the Historical Society also presents a one woman reenactment of Elleanor's trial called “No Man Ever Would Have Been Treated So: The Trials of Elleanor Eldridge” which can be booked as an educational event for groups and clubs. It's pretty cool. And the actress who does it seems really cool so Google it. One of the links actually in the tumblr sources that I am sharing is a video where the actress talks about her experience and a couple other things related to womanhood, so if you're curious about that kind of stuff go watch it.

Alana: I hate that you’ve now done two Rhode Island ladies, and I've been to Rhode Island and telling me about all these cool things to do in Rhode Island and I didn't do any of them because I was like eleven and–

Lexi: You'll go to Rhode Island again.

Alana: Lady History field trip to go see that play.

Lexi: Hey, maybe she could do the play and then we could do a live episode about other famous Rhode Island ladies.

Haley: That would be fantastic.

Alana: Manifest it. Say it on the pod, make it happen.

Lexi: Live show at the Rhode Island Historical Society about Rhode Island ladies.

[Archival Audio of a hymnal]

Haley: My fabulous gal today is Madam CJ Walker, or, by Guinness Book of World Records, the first female self made millionaire in America. And before we get to that point, this history book starts at her childhood. Born on a plantation in Delta, Louisiana, Sarah Breedlove was one of six children to Owen and Minerva Anderson Breedlove. I love the name Minerva. Owen and Minerva Anderson Breedlove, “former slaves-turned sharecroppers.” And that was a quote, and I don’t like that that’s how it’s phrased. Like “former slaves-turned sharecroppers” is exactly what happened, my problem is like in the sentence I kept reading it it's like “oh but they’re sharecroppers now” not like–

Lexi: It's like still bad. 

Haley: Yeah it's still bad and this is because–

Alana: It's not even bad to less bad, it's bad the different bad.

Haley: Yeah. It hits differently. And this is all post Civil War. I even put in my notes like this quote is weird. Unfortunately, her parents died when she was seven and Madam CJ moved in with her sister who worked in the cotton fields. And at age fourteen she married Moses McWilliams, and this is partly to get away from her abusive brother in law.Because already we're off to a rocky start if like your footnote is to get away from an abusive person. Maybe there was love. I couldn't find much about Moses. Again, life was just not on Madam CJ’s side, and her husband died in 1887. And she had to raise their two year old daughter Leila, known as A’Leila. She moved to St Louis with the hope of a better life and not just like living in poverty getting out of that poverty situation because… like yeah absolutely. She wanted– and she was very adamant on making a better life for herself and her daughter and knowing that she could do it as a woman, not just like having that widow title slapped on her. Because we know– even now still, if you’re a widow that's kind of like your identity, your personality. It's like “oh… your partner died.” And kind of the same with men like raising children and that's not what we want. So in St Louis, her four brothers were barbers and she worked both as a laundress and a cook. She also joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church where she met Black men and women who were both educated and successful. And this is kind of like an inspirational moment for her. This was a pivotal moment that she, in my research, just kept going back to. She went through a bit more of a life struggle with a failed marriage and just more financial ups and downs which would make anyone physically and mentally strained. However, in 1904, she began using African American businesswoman Annie Turbo Malone’s “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower” because she was starting to see like scalp problems where… concluded into like hair loss, and I’ll explain more of that because I had to do some more research myself. She also joined Malone's team of Black women sales agents, and this is where she starts to become one of those successful independent people she'd previously admired. And I believe this is around the time Leila actually went to like university, so that was a big yay. I also would like to pause, like I said, to do some research about hair care products because all hair is different. And these products especially that Madam CJ later invents were for Black women who lost their hair to scalp disorders or most likely a form of alopecia, like relatively common and Madam CJ had it too. That is not to say that hair loss just comes in scalp disorders, like I get hair loss when I use certain rubber bands because I have really thick coily hair that will break off at the end. Apparently my hair type is prone to like stress falling out. After some time in the business field, and I believe this was just like about a year, she moved to Denver where she married quote “ad man” Charles Joseph Walker. Hence the new name of Madam CJ Walker. and this is important in the business sense of her life because she started out with a dollar twenty five, and yes this was way way back ago, but in the sense of building like a business that was launching her career to be a self made millionaire that's a little bit of dough. And she was able to launch “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower” which her husband, the ad man, helped advertise and getting like mail order business started because remember, we did not have the lovely internet. So that was a huge chunk of the business to get like revenue, get the word out there and such. And she knew that there was a market here, because one she was in that market and she just previously worked in that market so she could easily tap into it. And as a Black woman, she knew how to essentially not only market, but just be like “here's how you use it.” So unfortunately this marriage ended in a divorce, and she later moved to Indianapolis. And in 1910, she built a factory for her company, now named Walker Manufacturing Company. And this transformation made it possible for her to become an advocate for Black women especially in the economic independence realm, with Walker Manufacturing Company she could branch out and do a lot more. And she opened up a training program called the Walker System, and basically this huge network of licensed sales agents blossomed. And this led back into her core ideals of giving back and being very generous because she believed that she had generous opportunities given to her, so now she needed to give back. And she remembered what it was like to be that person on the poverty line being inspired by these wealthy, educated, successful people. She ended up employing forty thousand Black women and men in the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean. I couldn't find out if this was specifically one part of her business or like the whole network or other endeavors because she also had a cosmetics branch called the National Negro Cosmetics Manufactuers Association that she also started. Regardless, forty thousand people worked many different spans of land is a lot. And her worth in all senses of the word just kept growing and growing. Financially, in the last year of her life she reached that one million dollar mark with her sales exceeding five hundred thousand dollars and some reports saying that at her death, the value of her remaining estate was more like six hundred thousand, which is about eight million today. Just like, what Alana asked, what would I do with a million and maybe a house… like now thinking of it. Because one of her things she spent her money on was a mansion named Villa Lewaro which was a five point five acre plot in Irvington, New York. And I think I might have to do like a drive by field trip. I know where Irvington, New York is and by looking up the street name when I was like googling all this, I think I know exactly where it is. This was also for Madam CJ to be closer to her daughter at this point. And at the end of this like all, happy and sad, Madam CJ continued her avid philanthropy until her death from kidney failure by bequeathing two thirds of her net profits to charities and thousands of dollars to different schools and individuals. There is a Netflix special that’s out. I have not watched it yet. I thought it was still in production. Lexi was the kind beautiful soul to send me an email. Lexi, have you watched it and can you give us a review?

Lexi: I watched it. Since I didn't dive as deep into research on her as you did, I'm not sure how accurate it is because there were you know little stories you didn't cover… Because this is like it's not just one movie it's like a multi part series, so I guess my curiosity maybe after you watch it you can tell us how accurate it was. But from an entertainment standpoint it was really good.

Haley: This is going to be like once I'm done with like writing my thesis and everything–

Lexi: Treat yo self.

Haley: –and be like this is amazing.

Lexi: Yeah, it was like… In terms of entertainment value it was a really amazing woman focused story which I appreciate.

Haley: I've seen the previews, I knew it was coming out and I really thought I was still in production or was like postponed because La Rona. Those looked fabulous.

[Archival Audio of a song about San Francisco]

Alana: So I initially found out about my lady from Drunk History, which is classic me. It’s one of my favorite shows. I have said on this podcast before that I was devastated when it was canceled. I'm still devastated. I don't think I'll ever be over that loss in my life. But then in researching this lady I found out that very little of the Drunk History story is accurate and so that broke my heart. And I'm glad I followed up with some research and wasn't just like using Drunk History as a source because I don't think that's a good idea. Okay, so, Mary Ellen Pleasant was born no one really knows when so I can't tell you her star sign, but in 1814ish. One of my sources said August 19, 1814, which would make her a Leo and I definitely can see her as a fire sign. She wrote three autobiographies, and every single one gives a different birth date and even year. And also no one even really knows where she was born it's possible she was born free in Philadelphia or into slavery in Georgia, who knows? Only Mary Ellen, and she's dead. She spent her early life in Nantucket, Massachusetts where she was indentured to a family of abolitionists. Insert lady doing equations meme. The… I… What? I don't understand how abolitionists owned slaves. Like Alexander Hamilton owned slaves. What's his name? His lover? I haven’t watched Hamilton in so long.

Lexi: Oh, John Laurens.

Alana: Also owned slaves.

Lexi: Yes. But they were like “slavery bad, but we own slaves.”

Alana: I forgot where I was. Oh, I was at my insert lady doing equations meme because abolitionists who own people make me confused. Eventually she was married to a man named James Henry Smith who was either white or biracial or mixed race. And he was an abolitionist as well but also a plantation owner. That's one of those things that I am a big ole question mark. So the two of them as a couple gave a lot of money to the abolitionist movement because they had a lot of money from owning a plantation that I think meant they also owned people, which I am so confused. But James Smith died in the early 1840s and left her a lot of money, some of which she invested and some of which she kept giving away to the cause. The cause of abolition. She got remarried to John Pleasant and they moved to San Francisco to avoid slavers, so formerly a local lady for Haley, even though she doesn’t live in San Francisco anymore. I'm not sure what happened to him. He is never mentioned again besides she moved with him to San Francisco. Mary Ellen became business partners with a man named Thomas Bell. It's possible they were romantically involved but Mary Ellen like found a wife for him, so I don't think so. But anyway they amassed thirty million dollars.

Haley: Throuple?

Alana: Throuple, maybe, I don’t know. Together they amassed thirty million dollars in back then money which is almost a billion dollars today. In the 1890 census, she listed her profession as capitalist which is like so on the nose and I love it. She owned laundries and restaurants and dairies and all these other things. She even owned a Wells Fargo. And she hired Black people, especially Black people who had escaped slavery, to work in them, which gave them opportunities that they probably wouldn't have had otherwise. And this is where she gets the nickname– she starts to get the nickname the Mother of Civil Rights in California. She was a light skinned Black woman, so she could have been white passing, and she did until a census taken after she had gotten kind of successful and amassed all this wealth, she wrote in that she was Black instead of white. She also, furthering her title of Mother of Civil Rights in California, she sued a cable car company for not allowing Black people on at all, setting the stage for Rosa Parks to be even allowed on the bus in the first place to refuse to give up her seat. She won several other lawsuits regarding racial discrimination in the 1860s and 70s and she starts getting notorious among white people. Obviously, because powerful Black women make white people uncomfortable. That’s just a fact. And so many people started calling her Mammy Pleasant which she hated so much because they were like using it derogatorily. Apparently a pastor in Sacramento wrote her a letter addressed to Mammy Pleasant asking for something and she wrote back to him on the same piece of paper because she didn't want to waste her own on him. Big Dick Energy.

Haley: That’s a power move. That’s a power move right there. That’s like saying “best regards” on an email.

Alana: Yeah. Jumping back in time a little bit, in 1859 the abolitionist John Brown led a raid on Harpers Ferry. This is a pretty famous event, he got caught and he was hanged and they found a note in his pocket that basically said here's what I gave you thirty thousand dollars to do– regards to the raid– and it signed, but there's a case of mistaken identity, so no one actually knows who did it. Except, on her deathbed, Mary Ellen confessed to it being her. She pulled the whole “tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me.” And her gravestone reads “friend of John Brown” because she was. After Thomas Bell died, his widow sued Mary Ellen and she lost almost everything. So there was some falling out there that's something happened. It's also possible she studied voodoo like the actual voodoo like the Haitian voodoo, not like the garbage touristy shit, from Marie Laveau herself, who I’m hoping maybe we’ll cover at some point. I think Marie Laveau was really cool. But that's one of those things that like she said and can't really be corroborated even against Mary Ellen’s own stories. I think it's possible that that's just like something she said to scare the white people even further. There's a park in San Francisco named after her. Haley did you ever go?

Haley: I feel like I do, in the sense I know the plot of land, or like general area. Is it in Golden Gate? Because Golden Gate Park has like a bunch of little pockets.

Alana: No, it's on the corner– it's on the corners of some streets. Anyway there's a park in San Francisco and she haunts it and she has been known to–

Haley: I wish I’d known that. I really… I would have gone.

Alana: I know. Yeah, she throws eucalyptus nuts at people, supposedly. I think that’s cool. That’s what I would do. And she used her position to make a better life for herself and better the lives of others and used her capabilities… And she had… She was such a smart woman, and so capable, and so manipulative but in a good way. She knew what people were thinking and could use that to her advantage, and not just to her own advantage, to the advantage of the people in her community who she really helped. And the best quote from her is “I'd rather be a corpse than a coward” and that's what makes me think she is a fire sign.

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on ladyhistorypod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review, or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra you can find her on Twitter and Instagram at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History, we’re diving into some misconceptions. Retelling the stories that should have been told the first time.

[heyyyharry]

My Girl Series: Chapter 7 - Birthday Blues

…in which Harry tries to make it up to Y/N for all the birthdays he has missed.

Series description: Y/N falls in love with the older boy next door who doesn’t feel the same, years later they meet again at a funeral.

AU: actor!harry, older!harry, younger!y/n; (4-year age gap)

Chapter 6: This Time - Y/N needs a wedding date, and this time Harry’s not giving up.

wattpad link

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After Harry had left Holmes Chapel, every spark of joy in Y/N's life slowly died out with the part of him inside of her. The day she turned fifteen was also the first time she'd spent a birthday alone. Celine was abroad for a three-month exchange program. Her grandma, who lived in Brighton had just passed away, so both of her parents had to go there for the funeral. Since she refused to come along, they left her home with her mother's younger sister, aunt Lynn, who was only twenty-two at the time and didn't even bother to remember her name.

"Sweet baby, do not tell your parents that I invite some friends over, okay? Your mum is gonna be so mad," the young woman said, holding Y/N by the shoulders and the teenage girl could only pay attention to the sound of her aunt chewing bubble gum. For some reasons, Lynn always had something in her mouth. If she wasn't chewing gum, she had to make sure her mouth was kept busy by eating something, or someone. Y/N had met her three times before but each time she was snogging a different guy. Sadly she was the only option for a 'babysitter', just because Y/N's parents didn't believe their fifteen-year-old daughter was capable of staying home alone.

"But today is—"

"Shit!" The woman exclaimed, holding her head. "You're right! It's Friday night, I should throw a party. Play with your dolls, baby. Your aunt has adult stuff to take care of."

"My dolls?" Y/N muttered under her breath as the bedroom door was slammed shut in front of her eyes. Putting on her favorite song and turning off all the lights, she lied down, staring at the spinning fan above her head.

All the kids her age probably spent their fifteenth getting drunk and making out with their crushes, or losing their virginity without their parents knowing. But there she was, locked in her room while her aunt was having all the fun she was supposed to have. For the first time in her life, she found herself alone. She'd always been a loner, yet she had never actually felt it until that night. She stayed utter still in silence, holding Thumper close to her chest. The stuffed animal could probably hear every sound of her heart cracking open. Her mother wasn't there to tell her what a woman she'd become, nor was Harry to sing her the birthday song. It was just her, alone in the dark, with a purple bunny that still smelt just like him.

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Celine always said that working in the library was the worst decision Y/N had ever made, because there was no job more boring than organizing dusty old books. But the thing was, Y/N loved her boring job. She mainly got paid for sorting and shelving books according to their categorization, which wasn't really hard work, not to mention that Ms. Florence, the librarian, was really easy-going. Y/N got to spend most of her time in the fiction section, avoiding her responsibilities to read and write as much as she wanted. Besides, she really liked her co-worker, whose name was Alice.

Alice was a year younger than Y/N. She liked to talk and Y/N liked to listen, so they were pretty compatible. Finding a drinking buddy in university was easy, Y/N had plenty of them; the hard part was finding a buddy you could trust. So even though Alice wasn't what Y/N would consider a close friend, she could be someone to count on.

"Why is it that every time I see you, you're reading something?"

Alice's voice pulled Y/N's attention away from the novel on her lap, as she looked up and found the tiny brunette smiling at her. Y/N leaned back against the bookshelf, crossing her legs so there was room on the floor for Alice to sit down as well.

"I have a surprise for you, big sis!" Alice said, making Y/N roll her eyes and chuckle.

"You've found another porn book, haven't ya?"

"No! An actual surprise!" The younger girl giggled, then finally showed Y/N what she'd been hiding behind her back. "Ta-da! Two tickets to see Heathers!"

"Heathers The Musical?" Y/N dropped her jaw when the other girl nodded. "I love Heathers!"

"I bet you do! You seem like someone who enjoys dark comedy with tragic endings."

Alice's comment made her laugh, but she couldn't say it wasn't true. Her life itself was already a dark comedy.

"Are you giving me these for free?" She asked, pointing to the tickets and Alice's lips curved into a smile as she nodded fast in response.

"I bought these to go with a friend next week, but we're both gonna be busy that night. So just consider this as my temporary birthday gift to you. I'll buy you something else tomorrow."

"How do you know today's my birthday?" Y/N's eyes went round as her mouth fell open, yet the grin on the other girl's face only expanded.

"I was cleaning Ms. Florence's desk this morning when I found your CV. I didn't have time to actually get you something so—"

"Alice..."

"I know you hate birthdays, but please accept these tickets or else I'll die!"

Y/N rolled her eyes, chuckling a bit at how dramatic that sounded, but eventually, she accepted the birthday gift from her co-worker, and thanked the girl for being so thoughtful. "By the way, there's really no need to get me something else," she said, making Alice snort.

"Don't be silly! You're getting a proper birthday gift from me." Alice barely stood up when she flopped onto the floor again. "Oh, and one more thing! Do you wanna go out tonight? I know this pub that's—"

"No, thanks. I've got a lot of work to do tonight."

"But it's your birthday!"

Y/N gave the girl a shrug, lifting a corner of her mouth as she replied, "I never celebrate it."

"Boo, you suck!" Like a child, Alice blew up her cheeks, eyebrows knitted together. "But if you change your mind, ring me up, big sis!"

Y/N tried to contain her laughter as she watched Alice hop away and almost fall head first when she tripped over a stool. It was only when her clumsy co-worker had gone out of sight that Y/N finally checked her watch and realized her shift was just over. She rose from the floor to place the book back on the shelf, then put the tickets into her bag before heading out. Usually, she would always be the last person to leave, but since it was her birthday, she still wanted to do something special for herself, even if it was something as simple as going home before Ms. Florence.

Instead of taking the bus, that day Y/N decided to walk home. For the first time in two years living in that city, the girl finally paid attention to what was going on around her; it was also the first time she had realized how boring London had always been. The grey color of concrete dominated the entire city; it was hard to spot a hint of green anywhere, unlike Holmes Chapel, her home.

Y/N missed that place so much, now more than ever.

She missed the meadows behind her house at springtime, when all the wildflowers added vibrant colors to the fading green. She missed the tall pine trees surrounding a field full of white poppies. She used to run across that field, imagining herself in the opening scene of The Sound of Music, and she could still hear Harry's voice calling out "Bambi, wait for me!" as he tried to catch up with her.

He was the green that she missed the most.

The sound of her ringtone cut right through that thought, causing the vivid images before her eyes to fade back to monochrome. His name showed up on the screen, as if he knew she had been thinking about him.

"Hello?" She answered, standing close to the wall on her right so she wouldn't get in the way of the other pedestrians.

"Are you on the way home?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, I'm just a few blocks away. Why?"

"I'm coming over."

She snorted, pursing her dry lips. "I'm busy tonight, remember? Birthday dinner with Isaac?" That lie was as smooth as melting butter coming from her mouth, yet her insides were heating up and her hands started to shake. She was glad he couldn't see the way she shut her eyes and pressed her lips into a firm line after lying to him.

"I'll see you in five."

"Wait, I said—" Y/N began, yet couldn't finish. Harry had already hung up on her.

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The sun was sinking fast now, turning the sky to grey tinged with purple and pink. Harry was already waiting by his car outside the building when Y/N returned, standing with his back facing the ruby-red skyline. With golden-rays casting down upon him, Y/N thought Harry glowed even brighter than the sun itself. But of course, he didn't have to know.

"Happy birthday." His voice was husky and deep as he handed her a white poppy. "Just like the ones back home," he said, and the reluctance from her expression made him feel the need to add, "I didn't buy it. I stole it from a flower shop on the way here."

Y/N didn't know if that was true, but his slop-sided grin made her doubt every single one of his words.

"Headline: Harry Styles stole a flower for a mystery girl!" She said, swiping her hand across the air like she was presenting the idea to him, which only made the beam on his face grow twice as big as he pointed to his car. "Get in, kid," he told her. "Before what you said become reality."

"Where are we going?" She asked in hesitation.

"To your birthday party."

"My birthday party?! But I'm—"

"I'm sure we've got a lot of time before Isaac returns from Italy to take you to dinner."

That one sentence got Y/N tongue-tied. The girl couldn't make a single sound, instead, she was gawking at him like a fool. What did she expect though? He would find out sooner or later because he was still friends with Isaac. So all she could do at that moment was try to come up with an explanation, in case he asked her to tell him why she'd lied. However, he didn't ask her anything. Harry flashed a smile as he walked back to his car and told her to come along. But Y/N refused. She couldn't just follow him blindly without knowing exactly where they were going.

"You're not taking me to a fancy restaurant, are you?"

"Bambi, the last thing I want is for the paps to eat you alive." Harry chuckled and opened the car door for the girl. "Don't worry, kid. It's just gonna be the two of us."

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The loud music and laughter from downstairs made it almost impossible for Y/N to even hear the voice inside her head. The birthday blues made it hard for her to stay awake, yet she couldn't sleep either, and there was no way she could talk her aunt into ending the party. Lynn was probably drunk off her ass right now, so Y/N knew the only place for her to be alone with her depressing thoughts was the treehouse. She hadn't gone back there since the night she last saw Harry, but she guessed it had become such a big part of her that she couldn't stay away no matter how much she'd tried.

Still in her pajamas, the fifteen-year-old climbed the rope ladder to get to her childhood spot. The floor was still wet from the rain yesterday, so she leaned against the doorway and stood there to ponder on her own. However, it didn't take her more than three minutes to burst into tears.

Y/N hated crying, it was physically and emotionally painful to cry, and when it was over, what was left was just...nothing. Emptiness. Nevertheless, crying was how Y/N understood herself best. When she cried, she knew who she was. And she had always thought, just like a heartbreak, though crying left her feeling empty when it was over, she would still sigh in relief, because, at least, she knew it was the end.

"Y/N!"

When she heard that voice, the girl stepped closer to the edge of the treehouse and looked down at her neighbor's garden, where she found Harry's big sister with one hand behind her back and the other waving in the air. Y/N quickly wiped away the remaining tears on her cheeks, feeling thankful because if Gemma had come earlier, she might have already seen Y/N bawling her eyes out.

"Gemma! When did you get back?"

"Just a couple days ago. I'm home for two weeks to work on my thesis." The other Styles chuckled. "Glad I found you out here, I was just about to come over."

"To see me?" Y/N lifted both eyebrows, pointing to herself and receiving a nod from her neighbor.

"Yeah, come down here. I have something for you."

The teenage girl hesitated a bit because she couldn't figure out why Gemma wanted to see her and had something for her. Even though she used to hang out with Harry, she was never that close to his older sister. But she climbed down anyway, curious to know what Gemma had behind her back.

"Happy birthday," said the 23-year-old as she handed Y/N the birthday gift she'd been hiding that whole time.

A snow globe.

It didn't have a snowman and a Christmas tree like the ones you normally found in souvenir shops. The one Gemma gave her had colorful glitter inside instead of fake snow; and it was a miniature London, with tiny versions of Big Ben, the London Eye, and the Tower Bridge.

But all Y/N could see, was a person.

"You remember my birthday?" The younger girl asked quietly as she received the gift from her lovely neighbor, who was smiling from ear to ear.

"Of course," Gemma said. "I came to your birthday party every year. But I guess you don't like them anymore, huh?"

"Yeah..." Y/N faked a laugh, hoping her awkward eye-roll didn't give away the fact that she was just lonely.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat but I must get back to work now."

"Sure. Thanks for the nice gift," said Y/N. "Where did you get it by the way?"

"Bought it when I was in London last week."

Y/N didn't say anything else and just watched the older girl walk back to her house. Of course, she wanted to ask Gemma about Harry, but it was so sad to even think about him right now. His sister remembered her birthday and even got her a present, yet she hadn't heard a single word from him since the day he left. He was supposed to be her friend, or was it just another thing she had fooled herself into believing?

Holding the little London between her palms, she thought that maybe it was time to let go of the London inside her heart.

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"Don't peek!"

"I'm not peeking!"

Y/N giggled, holding the hand that was covering her eyes as Harry carefully led her up the stairs, giving her directions so she wouldn't trip and cause them both to fall over. She extended her arms once they had reached the top, feeling the cold metal surface in front of them. The creaking sound caused her to flinch, so Harry quickly reassured the girl that it was just him opening the door. She could feel his other hand reaching around her waist to pull the handle, and a cold breeze blew right through her thin shirt. Y/N immediately took a step backward and bumped into Harry's firm chest. She felt the pressure of his fingertips on her hip as he gently pushed her forward, for the third time that night, telling her to trust him.

"If I didn't trust you I wouldn't have walked up all these floors with my eyes closed." She giggled, and his soft laughter sent shivers down her spine.

"Sit," he ordered, holding the girl by the arms to guide her into a chair; and when she was finally seated, Harry leaned in so his lips were close to her ear as he whispered, "open your eyes."

Y/N did what she was told.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

The girl had begun to envision her surroundings ever since the cool air hit her skin for the first time as she stepped out, yet what she saw was far from her imagination.

They were sitting on a rooftop of a tall building somewhere in London. From her spot, Y/N could see the entire city spread below, tiny vehicles rushing along tangled roads. The city lights looked like stars dropping to the Earth, making her feel as if they were being squeezed between two galaxies. There were no words magical enough to describe what she was seeing, so Y/N didn't say anything, and just took in a deep breath to let it go with the biggest smile on her face.

It was windy on the roof, so Harry took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. They sat side by side on two wooden chairs, staring at the city and the sky above, completely mesmerized by such beauty, which had completely changed Y/N's opinion about London. Maybe from a different and higher view, it wasn't plain and dull after all.

"Almost like Holmes Chapel, huh?" She heard him speak and turned to look at him. Harry was gazing up with a beam on his face as he pointed to the sky, and told her the names of the stars he knew, not aware that she wasn't really listening. She was too busy looking at him, and thinking, maybe somewhere underneath that man was still the little boy she used to know.

"Oh, I forgot!" He suddenly flinched and turned to pick up the box at his feet. "I made this for you. But...the rest of the batch...already ended up in the trash bin."

He opened the box and revealed one single cupcake with a candle on top. It didn't look terrible, still, it wasn't a very pretty cupcake either. But if that was the best out of the whole batch, Y/N couldn't help but snort as she tried to imagine what the other ones looked like.

"Hey, don't laugh at me! At least I tried!"

"Okay, okay." Y/N bit her lip to hold back a smile. She didn't know why it was so endearing that he'd exerted himself to make her one cupcake. Even if he'd got it from a store instead, she would still be overjoyed.

"Can I eat it now?" She asked, but he quickly shook his head no.

"You have to make a wish first."

Y/N giggled, eyes bored into Harry as he looked around to find something else. "Shit!" His jaw went slack. "The lighter! I forgot the lighter."

"Relax, lemme check," Y/N mumbled, reaching inside the inner pocket of his coat to search for the object, and she felt something like a little triangle box, assuming it was the lighter. But when she took it out, both of them froze as they saw what it really was.

A pack of cigarettes.

Y/N's mouth fell open, she was speechless, and so was he. "Harry..." Her voice was quiet when she looked at him. "Do you smoke?"

"No." He shook his head fast. "N-Not anymore."

"Really?"

"Why would I lie?" A blush crept up his face as he made eye-contact with her. "If I still smoked, I would have a lighter with me, right?"

That sounded like a good enough reason for her to believe him. Moreover, he didn't smell like someone who smoked, and she'd never seen him with a cigarette between his fingers before. So apparently he was telling the truth. Y/N inhaled deeply as she nodded, squeezing his hand for more assurance.

"Smoking could kill you. So don't...don't go back to it..." The way she could barely maintain eye contact while saying that to him made his heart flutter somehow. He took her other hand, linking their fingers together as he asked, "are you worried about me?"

"Of course I am," she said without pause. "I can't bear the thought of losing you."

The corners of her mouth turned down and her whole face contorted so he knew she was serious when she said those words. After all this time, he still mattered to her; and knowing that was like getting a heavy weight lifted off his chest.

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Harry sank into his chair, holding the mini calendar above his face. "It's already April," he mumbled to himself, but his roommate Isaac assumed Harry was talking to him, so he replied, "yeah, almost time for finals."

It wasn't finals that came to Harry's mind when he thought about April, it was a birthday actually. He rarely remembered birthdays, and sometimes he forgot his own; but for some reasons, he always remembered hers. He hadn't spoken to Y/N since the night he left, and he could never forget the way she looked at him when she asked him to kiss her. It was awkward, yet it was sad. She truly cared about him, and he could never repay the same kind of feelings because she was too young. So he didn't know how to talk to her again after everything she'd confessed. The last thing he wanted was to lead her on and lull her into believing that one day he might feel the same. He knew he could never like her back the way she wanted him to.

However, it would be a lie to say he didn't miss her. He missed her a lot. How could he forget about his little Bambi? She was the only girl he'd spent the best years of his childhood protecting and looking after. She was something more than just the girl next door, and he kept the image on her face on the treehouse that night in his memory as he left Holmes Chapel with no intention of coming back. Every time he thought about her, a part of him wanted to pay her a visit, but he was glad he didn't change his mind. But now her birthday was coming close, and he knew she wanted him to be there with her. He wanted to be there with her. But he couldn't.

"Isaac," Harry broke the silence in the dorm room, turning his head to look at his best friend who was lying on the bed. "What should I give a fifteen-year-old girl for her birthday?"

The sudden question made Isaac lift an eyebrow. "I thought you only had a big sister?"

"Uhm...it's actually for my...my...cousin."

"Well, I'm bad at this stuff. Why don't you ask Niall?"

Harry rolled his eyes and scoffed. "He would just give me crazy ideas."

"Then ask the birthday girl herself." Isaac shrugged, sticking out his bottom lip. "I mean, try to be subtle and find out what she likes without giving away the fact that you don't know what to get her."

If only it was that easy. Harry shook his head and put the calendar back down. He used to be the one who knew about her more than anyone else, probably only second to her mother, he should be able to know what she liked, but right now he didn't. He knew nothing about her anymore. It was only then that he started to feel bad for all the time he didn't spend with her. But had he not kept his distance, their goodbye would've been much harder.

So he tried to think, swirling the pencil in his hand for a couple seconds. And finally, an idea came to his mind. Maybe there could be a way for him to come back to her after all.

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For the rest of the night, Harry and Y/N sat in their chairs, eating pizza for dinner while discussing irrelevant topics like the existence of aliens, strange kinds of flowers, as well as their favorite movies, songs, and books. Soon both grew tired so they fell back to silence. He was staring at the city, and she was taking in the sight of him.

"Are you mad that I lied to you?" Her sudden question made him turn around with an eyebrow raised. "You know, about Isaac."

"I'm not mad at you, kid. But I'd like to know what happened..." Harry couldn't say he had heard most of the story from Niall because he wanted Y/N to tell him herself, if she trusted him enough, and of course, he didn't expect her to. But somehow she did. She ended up telling him everything.

"I didn't want Isaac to turn down the job offer for a relationship that would probably never work." She sighed with her chin on her knuckles, hooded eyes staring blankly ahead. "I liked him a lot. And I thought to myself that if he asked me to be his girlfriend, I would say yes immediately. But when it happened, I got scared. I couldn't let him in because I was afraid that if he knew too much about me, he wouldn't like me anymore. I guess I'm just not ready to fall in love again, and I don't want him to wait for me to be ready. My first and only relationship didn't end very well. So I didn't have the heart to let the same thing happen to us." Holding her breath, she said, "He's too good for me anyway. I'm better off alone."

"Nobody is better off alone," Harry spoke at last, a line appeared between his brows. "Everyone needs someone."

"Not me." She shrugged, and the look in her eyes broke his heart in a million pieces. "I'm sorry I had to lie to you...I didn't want you to do anything for my birthday. I've troubled you enough already."

"But you're not troubling me, love. I did all of this because I wanted to. I...I care about you."

She couldn't remember the last time she heard him say those words, or if he'd ever said them at all. So to hear them now made her feel happy and sad at the same time. If there was one thing that she'd learned from their 'relationship' it would be, Harry's words weren't always credible.

"How did you find this place though?" She changed the subject, putting on a smile to lighten up the mood, which had gotten a bit blue since Isaac was mentioned. She could see it from the look on his face that he was also glad she'd brought up something else.

"Niall's uncle owns this building. They're doing some reconstructing so it's closed for a couple months. It might be the only place we could be together without people bothering us."

"Thank you." Y/N took in a long breath as she smiled. "I've never seen London so beautiful."

"Agreed." Harry nodded fast. In this bad lighting, his dimples seemed even deeper than they actually were. "But my favorite is the winter time. The city looks best when it's covered in snow."

Those last words made Y/N's head turn as her eyes went round.

"It was you, wasn't it?" she cried out, causing the man to jump in shock. He was meant to ask, but she didn't even let him have his chance. "The snow globe! You asked Gemma to give it to me, did you?!"

"Ouch!" He yelped when she smacked him hard on the arm. The girl didn't look very sorry when he rubbed the sore spot and his brows drew together in utter perplexity.

"Why did you ask her to lie for you?! I was so sad, I thought you didn't remember my birthday!"

"I thought it was for the best if you forgot about me, after..."

There was a pause, a gap for her to fill in.

"Our first kiss...I know," she mumbled at last.

It was weird to talk about it now, since both of them had been pretending like the kiss she'd stolen from him when she was fourteen had never happened. After all, she was fourteen at the time, he couldn't blame her for acting so impulsive. But recently he'd been thinking about it and wondering if her feelings back then had been all true.

Her eyes darted as she whispered under her breath, but still loud enough for him to hear, "why didn't you send me anything on my birthday next year or the ones after that?"

"I...I wanted to...I almost did." He swallowed hard while fidgeting in his seat. "But Gemma said you were seeing this boy, so I thought I should stay away from your life and let you forget about me for good. Then time passed and I actually didn't think a lot about you, until..."

She nodded without waiting for him to finish, her lashes fluttered as sadness overtook her face. After a moment of thinking, she asked, "if you could turn back time, would you come back to see me?"

"Yes," he answered. "Without a second thought."

Y/N had seen Harry in a lot of different situations, yet she'd never seen him like that, all flustered and ill at ease. She loved the way the rings on his fingers sparkled as he was nervously toying with the hem of his shirt. She loved it when even under the dim lights surrounding them, she could see a blush creep up his face. She knew better, that it was never good when she felt so drawn to him, yet she couldn't stop, so she released a slight laugh, which got his attention.

"Why are you laughing?" He asked.

Shaking her head with the grin still remained, she said, "nothing."

.

.

.

As he walked with her five floors up to her flat, Harry struggled to find something to say so the silence carried on until they reached her front door. He couldn't explain why he was at a loss for words every time he stood in front of her. He knew her well, he'd grown up with this girl. But deep down inside he knew it wasn't like that, not anymore. He knew his heart had more to say about her than it should, and the way it began to race whenever she was around had him frustrated most of the times.

He watched her unlock her front door and turn to say goodbye. But just when she was about to leave, he stopped her by taking her hand. It wasn't the first time they'd held hands, still, he let hers go after about two seconds like it was hot coal burning his skin. Maybe it was, maybe she was, yet he couldn't stay away because he enjoyed the burn. With round Bambi eyes, she stared at him, slightly puzzled by his strange behaviors. Harry asked her to wait. He searched in his pants pocket, finally pulling out a silver locket necklace.

"Your birthday present."

"Harry—"

He shushed her right away, telling her to turn around as he took a step closer to put the chain around her neck. His fingers brushed against her collarbone only once, but it was enough for both of them to flinch at the contact. Y/N gently touched the heart-shaped locket now lying on her chest, then opened it to find a tiny photo of her mother.

"So you could always keep her by your heart," he whispered, his voice was low and hot against her ear.

Slowly, Y/N turned around, but Harry didn't pull away so they were just one step away from pressing against each other. She meant to just thank him and go inside her flat, but as she parted her lip, not a single sound managed to escape. Her cheeks turned pink, her bottom lip was quivering as she batted her lashes. She had never looked into his eyes for that long, and the look he was giving her made her pupils dilated. It was the same look she'd seen him give that blonde haired girl on the treehouse when he was seventeen. He had never looked at Y/N that way before, and now he did. If only she could read his mind, she would know he was also trying to do the same.

Harry knew it was wrong, but he couldn't resist. The last time he had the same feeling, he wasn't thinking straight so he went for it by instinct. Now he knew exactly what was happening, and still, he didn't stop it. He leaned in a little closer, their foreheads touching. He expected her to pull away or even slap him for making that bold move, yet she stayed exactly where she was, chest heaving with anticipation. Her scent was flooding his senses, and the second he finally found the courage to place his hands on her hips, it was she who decided the next move.

Her lips brushed against his. Not innocently, but hot and passionately, he wanted to pull away before he lost control, but like a magnet, she drew him in more and now he was stuck. "Harry," she whispered slowly, making his heart flutter as he clasped his hands on either side of her face.

That kiss wasn't like the first or the second, this time it was an open-mouthed, almost sexual kiss. He pushed her against the door, loving the way her body melted into his as their lips fitted perfectly like they were made for each other. She held his hair and he held her so tight as if he was afraid it wasn't real, and she would disappear the moment he loosened his grip. They broke away after what seemed like ages, and from the look in her eyes, he could tell she expected him to run, just like he had before.

But he didn't. Even if he wanted to, he knew his trembling feet wouldn't let him. She stood with her back against the door, him with one hand on her hip, the other fisted to rest beside her head. He inhaled sharply and she was still trying to steady her breathing. It took almost five seconds for either to open their eyes and look at the other person.

"Goodnight," she mumbled, reaching behind for the doorknob and the next thing he knew, she had fled inside and shut the door right in front of his face. Harry was left standing in the hallway like an idiot, not knowing what to do next. He lifted a fist, about to knock because there were still many things that he wanted to say to her, an apology was one of which. But he thought again and decided that he should probably go.

Harry left the building, stepping out on the street with his head still on the cloud as he kept touching his lips, trying not to smile so big or else people would think he was insane. But maybe he was, because he was too happy to act differently. He got into his car and sat there with both hands on the steering wheel, head tossed back, smiling contently. His whole face was red, but he didn't really mind. He was soaked in the scent of her perfume, and all he could think about was how he could possibly fall asleep with every trace of her lingering on his body.

His phone lit up in the dark, notifying a new text from Bambi which got him to sit up straight at once. His heart could've exploded when he read the first line, if the next one hadn't come on in less than a second.

⌲ Bambi: That kiss was a mistake.

⌲ Bambi: You're gonna have to earn it next time.

⌲ Next time? :)

⌲ Bambi: Don't be smug about it!

⌲ I'm not! But wait, on the scale from 1-10, how great was tonight? (minus the kiss)

⌲ Bambi: 7/10 (including the kiss)

⌲ Heeeeeey!

Sitting at her working desk, chin resting on her palm, Y/N cracked a smile. The birthday surprise, as well as the kiss they'd shared in the hallway,  were definitely 11/10. But she couldn't give it to him that easily. She placed her phone down, leaving his latest message on read as she touched the chain around her neck once again.

The London snow globe was still sitting on her desk, and she hadn't touched it in so long that it was a bit dusty now. She kept it there so it could remind her of the terrible birthday she should already forget, but she didn't want to. It was a way of telling herself that sometimes the people you loved would leave you behind, and that was just a cruel fact of life that one should just accept and carry on. But now that she knew it wasn't all true, the way she felt about the snow globe had also changed.

Quickly, she typed down 'Thank you for the locket' and sent it to him, then while waiting for him to reply, she sent another text right after.

⌲ I have two tickets to see Heathers The Musical

⌲ H: Yes.

⌲ I haven't even asked?

⌲ H: Whatever you're gonna ask, it's a yes.

⌲ Have you even watched Heathers?

⌲ H: There's always Google! Send me the date and time, my assistant will get back to you shortly.

⌲ Haha funny.

Y/N rolled her eyes and giggled as she snapped a quick shot of the tickets Alice had given her and sent it to him.

⌲ H: Wednesday night! I'm free!

⌲ You sure there's not another award show that night? I'm gonna kill you if you skip another one for me.

⌲ H: Nah I'm not supposed to attend any event next week. If you don't believe me, google it!

⌲ Oh God.

⌲ H: Say that instead of my name 'next time'.

Y/N's face turned scarlet when she read that line. She sucked in her bottom lip, face-palming herself with her eyes shut and wishing she hadn't moaned his name into the kiss. That couldn't have been more embarrassing. She typed down a few words, trying to come up with a reply that would save herself from the humiliation, yet she kept typing and deleting for three times or so. Then came two new messages from him.

⌲ H: It's late. Go to sleep Bambi. Good night.

⌲ H: Once again, happy birthday! :)

The twenty-year-old smiled to herself as she sent him back a goodnight text. Y/N knew she should get to bed now if she wanted to wake up early for a class in the morning. But she also knew it would take forever for her to fall asleep. This time, fortunately, it wasn't gonna be the birthday blues that kept her up all night.

[highkingfen]

I think you're a beautiful person, and I hope things get better for you. How about we talk about some positive parts of the show! I love how many different personalities there are, there's no "copy and paste" among the characters. I love how everyone is so complex and unique. In last night's episode, I loved how Margo was given permission to have feelings other than anger. I love how Fen is allowed to be kind and soft, and is a strong character. What are your favourite parts?

Thanks, 

IRL had been hitting me down with a frying pan lately and getting up is hard. Im working out really hard on being better and I wished it didn't show on Tumblr but there is a time where you need to think and take care of yourself first. 

There is a lot of things i love about the show and I will do a list of it, I hope other add to it and we remember why this show is important and matter, despite its flaws. 

How women are not a plot devise for male characters

How even background character have multidimensional 

How they show disability with Margo’s eye and the dean blindness (though I wish we’d see Gretchen more)

The costume goes from found at H&M to hand made craftmanship by Magali Guidasci

The many bts and interaction the cast and writers have with their fans, they are not distant and its rare, lets remember this is a blessing

How no character is perfect, they have deep visceral flaws, they make mistake, they do dumb shit, and we still love them. 

The legendary quotes they gave us

How being a nerd and accepted is part of the show but not the main focus; Q is a nerd but so much more and the show isn't about how to fit in like a nerd but how to fit in and stay yourself. 

Hale amazing performance as the monster to a point I don’t see him as Eliot anymore. Which is creepy and crazy. 

Julia’s arc blooming into ‘’ People heals’’ and how important it is for many who had her fate or worse

Mental health representation! From depression to anxiety, to ptsd, to dependence, to anger management to actual meltdown of grief

The empowerment of women by women. It is amazing to see them helping each other and not just walking on one another 

How one emotion is portrait differently. (Per example how Q and Margo grieve Eliot is completely different)

BUNNIES

Kady was supposed to die and they love Jade so much they re-wrote the end of episode one

Summer refused to wear make up in her desert episode because Margo isn't that vain. 

The small things an actor decide to do that end up being a character important choice (I.e Jason shaking his hand when he’s Q but not Beast!Q)

The fact that Julia still struggles with the idea of being a goddess or a mortal and try her best to make a choice and don’t know what to do. If this isn’t a big mood for any important decision a millennial struggle with, I don’t know what is. 

Its filmed in Canada, which YAY my country

The sheer amount of Fanfiction there is and how omg they are so good y’all are good writers

The cast and crew understanding how much the show means for us and trying to give us a space to talk and even sharing bts with us!

Im sorry but Fish Josh? Yes

Musical episode. Fuck I love them. 

Margo realizing that she can still be a tough woman and be in love is important because the narrative in media is that either you are a bitch and alone or sweet and surrounded by people that use you. Women never wins. 

The fandom growing love for Fen warms my heart as I was the only one defending her for almost a year once. 

How we can ship everyone with everyone and no one is mad. You ship penny x josh? Why not! There is 39 other timeline one might have that!

Or, you ship a character with two people... OT3 BABY

It went from Harry Potter with drug and alcohol to Millenial try to fight gods and inner demons 

There are no fight books against the show, people take them as a separate piece of art and SCREAM when they both collide in amazingness (Aka the desert episode, Q yelling at a plant, the seven key, Abigail)  

Lev being supportive of the creator exploring and expanding the worlds! I adore the library, Fillorian lore, what is magic outside of Brakebills

Seeing the character being a young adult and growing int being adult

Also what I love about the show is the fandom

You guys not only helped me out of my depression (though it has a relapse for the past week) but you encourage me to be me. 

You supported my crazy idea of starting the Neitherlands library with @noe-gg as a place for pieces of information about the show and we are proud of this blog

You backed my crazy plan of a dnd book and the Kickstarter is over 500% financed, which blows my mind and will help me be able to take of work and sit down and write to give you better stuff

I wrote nearly 300k fanfic in a second language and instead of being mean to my mistake, you helped me, offered your advice and helped me grew as a writer

I was with a group of friend in High School that was super good at drawing so I wasn't allowed to try even if I wasn't that good. You supported me even when my first doodles are shaky and still makes me want to be better by your comments

There is no artist battle, we all help and support each other!

I fucking learn photoshop cause I wanted to gif the show and people came and help me be better

The gatekeeping is about being kind and open and not a shipping war or character war. 

Physical Kids podcast is a must listen and truly amazing work by fans for fans

Hey the podcast I made too are not half bad 

COSPLAYERS. YES. KEEP GOING. 

People out of the US without Syfy helping each other to watch the show live.

There is no popular blog vs the others. (Not that I know of)

Blogs encouraging other blogs to create. YES. 

We are all broken, but broken together. This fandom is my Brakebills, my physical kids cottage. One of the rare place I felt I belong for the first time

[solecize]

REPLY 2009 ⠀ ⠀⠀.⠀⠀.⠀⠀.⠀(OR: 2009, YEAR OF US) — 002.

now playing: club no. 1 by super junior

summary: ten years ago, we found ourselves at a turning point in pop culture as the decade began to close. this was the year that brought the world obama, the death of michael jackson, and the highest grossing film of all time, avatar. however, in south korea, something big was brewing as well and it started off with infectious lyrics, colourful costumes, and sensational dance moves: kpop. the korean wave that started to build several years ago begins to find its footing in the international limelight in 2009. this was the golden era of kpop. this was the time of sorry, sorry. the debut of quite possibly the most different and groundbreaking girl group in korean entertainment, 2NE1. the rise of shinee, one of the most consistent boy bands of this era and beyond. the throne of bigbang would remain steady with their ventures into japan. and of course. . . snsd's gee that would solidify their place as the nation’s girl group and overtake their male counterparts. nothing can touch this legendary age.meanwhile, in the very city that milled and churned out these stars, eight teenagers were also coming to a certain close in 2009. youth was suddenly running out like grains of a darkened hourglass, as everything and everyone brought tension into their lives. where was the next step on their path? high school is nothing more than a cruel halfway point between childhood and adulthood, but this group of friends made the most out of it. after all, this is the youngest that they'll ever be. this age is the time where hopes rise higher than ever, where love burns the most passionately, and the desire for freedom expands the furthest. in 2009, we follow these teenagers' stories to the background music of the opening chapters of kpop's greatest legacies.but, ten years later at their high school reunion, where do we find them.”

or: highschool!got7, dancecrew!got7, coming of age, school reunion angst, reader x ?

APRIL 2006 (3)

Slick, strawberry ice cream never tasted so fulfilling until that day’s relentless sun. Though it was only spring time, it must have been at least twenty degrees outside and when the air conditioning system broke in our classroom, I was left an absolute mess. The workload of being a first year high school student was made into an unfortunate underestimation and the weather only caused more stress to my body.

“Yours looks good, I should’ve just gotten the same thing as you,” Youngjae frowned, as he looked at his own vanilla scoops. He leaned in to take a taste of my cone, but I merely interrupted with a noise of disapproval.

“Nuh uh. Nice try, Choi Youngjae, this happens every single time.” I turned my back so that he couldn’t take any and hummed.

All it took to convince him to skip his after school vocal lessons was a distressed IM, claiming that I had an emergency. Sure, it was probably wrong to use my loyal best friend just to have a companion to get ice cream, but he’d done the same thing on several occasions. I’d missed so much time at Hagwon because of him. Great minds think alike and Youngjae wasn’t even mad when I met up with him outside of his school with a carefree attitude, clearly not having any emergencies to worry about.

“I should’ve known,” he said upon seeing my figure approach him at the front of my school.

“Oh, shut up.” I frowned and punched his shoulder in what was supposed to be a playful way, but he nevertheless yelped at the contact. “I never get to see you anyway with you stupid training anyway. Live a little and spend the afternoon with your best friend!” At that, Youngjae grinned and he couldn’t say no. Next thing we knew and we ended up at our favourite ice cream shop.

We continued walking along the sidewalk a busy street in the Guro district of the city. It was only five o’clock and people were rushing to get home to their families; cars flying by, people trying to beat the rush onto the subway lines, bicycle lanes filled up. It was busy as ever, as Seoul as ever. There weren’t that many people our age around, as most first year high school students like ourselves should be at after school lessons.

“Do you ever wonder what will be like when we’re like them?” Youngjae was eying some older college kids inside a random cafe that we were walking by, as I tried to keep my long hair out of the ice cream.

Two of them appeared to be a couple, while several other kids surrounded them at the same table. They were laughing, listening to music, and flipping through American magazines and I could feel jealousy running through my veins. Their parents weren’t frantically calling them when they were late by a minute or two returning from tutoring or yelling at them to grow up. They were grown.

I replied, “I wonder what we’ll be like when we’re like them.” Pointing at a pair of people trying to hail a taxi, a man and woman dressed in business casual attire, it seemed like they were making their way back to home. I wanted nothing more than to grow up and relish in unknown liberation.

Youngjae followed my gaze and thought about it for a moment. “You’ll be whatever it is what you want to be—” I rolled my eyes at that. It wasn’t a secret that I wasn’t exactly sure of what I wanted in a career, lacking passion for any field or hobby. My parents wanted Jinyoung and I to pursue lavish medical careers, but he was the only one with the endurance and intellectual capabilities to do so.

“—And you will be a successful singer.”

A light tint of pink spread across Youngjae’s cheeks, ever so bashful regarding his ambitions. However, there was no doubt that he was eventually going to be a star one day. I’d never seen such comparable talent to him.

I continued on, “Maybe we don’t have to wait so long! Didn’t you say that your company is looking to debut a new group next year?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he dismissed my statement, “it’s not a guarantee, though. And what if they don’t even pick me to be apart of the group?”

“You’ve been under their management since the seventh grade! They’d be crazy to cut you.” I was still able to recall the day of Youngjae’s first audition to the company, where I’d accompanied him on the weekend instead of studying at home with Jinyoung. Nerves were never one to affect Youngjae, but on that day, he couldn’t stop shaking no matter what he did. It was only when he was finally called that he was able to take a deep breathe. He got the acceptance call the following few weeks after. I’d march right down to the company office myself, they wouldn’t dare take away my gifted best friend for four years just to cut him out of their boy group.

Youngjae shrugged, then looked back to where we were observing the two adults. They were gone. “By our thirties, we’ll be happy for sure and that’s all I care about. Maybe you’ll finally grow out of Super Junior—hey, don’t give me that look!”

I quickly rid of the bitter expression on my face and laughed. Tugging his arm, I told Youngjae that we should go to an arcade instead of watch strangers like some creeps. I thought, maybe this part of being a teenager isn’t so bad. For now, I was willing to embrace this and so was he.

PRESENT DAY (4)

“Remember that time that Bambam knocked over an entire shelf?”

Letting his name slip past my lips felt so foreign, it seemed like forever since talking about my old friend. It wasn’t like recalling a one time anecdote, but a piece of life. Jinyoung emulated the odd sensation, not hiding the way he paused his walking for a split second at the sound of Bambam’s name. Then, after getting over the initial feeling, he burst out into laughter.

Shoulders shaking with each chuckle, Jinyoung replied, “My god, that was fucking hilarious. It was after we found out that we qualified for the NDCCs, right?”

“And Mr. Lee gave him a weeks’ detention for it!” I nodded vigorously. There was no way that my mind could forget that day, especially not the priceless looks of excitement on the boys' faces. The memory was fresh in my mind, as if it had occurred the afternoon prior.

The two of us were the lone people in that empty hallway after choosing to explore the second floor. Jinyoung claimed that he wanted to find his first year homeroom for old times sake. He’d walked straight past the library, probably because of all the last minute studying that he used to do in there that continued to haunt him, but I took a quick glance inside. The interiors were darkened, but I could make out the familiar layout of the room for the most part. I hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time in there unless I had to during my years, so Bambam was the first thought to come to mind.

“Hey, our old lockers are somewhere here!” My brother exclaimed, having made his way into another corridor.

I didn’t need to follow his voice, remembering exactly where the lockers were. It wasn’t quite Jinyoung’s locker, but he often used Jaebum’s instead of his own, as it was situated on the undesirable basement floor. Mine was just two away from their shared space and by the end of high school, the three of us claimed the entire block as our own.

Passing by the iconic music room, I found Jinyoung kneeling in front of a block of lockers. I had to stop myself from entering, as I figured that it would be best to do it later when he was here. Watching Jinyoung peered into each one, probably trying to jog his memory, it was odd to realize just how old we’d become. Spending countless of days in this hallway for three years, yet my brother couldn’t even remember which locker was Jaebum’s.

“Oh! This one’s mine!” I giggled, spotting the locker immediately, even from the distance I was at. Stepping forward, I pointed to the one that was three away from mine. “This is the one you’re looking for.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “How did you figure that out?”

Smirking, I gestured to the corner, where faint lettering was carved into the metal. There was no way I was going to leave Haerin without a trace, so as I ran my thumb over the imprint ‘SJ,’ I was more than pleased to see that it lasted for ten years. I nearly forgot that I did this, but it was probably one of the best decisions I made before graduating.

“What—holy shit.” Jinyoung looked at the ‘SJ’ carving and was silent for a moment, blank stare. Then, he burst out into hysterical laughter, to which I made a face at. “And you were even playing, what was it? Club No.1! You played it on the way here. Some things never change, huh?”

He was right. Some things never do change and I was content with that, knowing I still had a bit of that high schooler in me. It didn’t matter if it was Super Junior or that childlike innocence, or even my first loves that blossomed in these hallowed halls. The years pass, just as my branches grow rapidly, but returning to my roots reminded me of how much I longed for those days once again.

MARCH 2009 (5)

Lee Donghae's angelic voice continued to ring in my ears the whole train and bus ride home from the fan meeting. It was like a broken song stuck on replay on my MP3 and there was not a single thing I could do about it—not that I wanted to. I'd felt as though I was on cloud nine the entire time I was there, despite the fact that their thirteen members were just little dots from the seat I was in. Minyoung swore up and down that Siwon stared right at her for the majority of the event and we argued about it for the entire commute home, just before she got off at the bus stop ten minutes before I did.

Skipping school was practically unheard of, but it was a risk I was willing to take for Super Junior.

"I'll see you tomorrow at school!" she waved at me happily, as she strolled out of the bus with ease. I could never imagine having such nonchalance in my step after missing a full day of class to see an idol group, not with my hardass parents. However, Minyoung mentioned that her mother didn't care, too busy drinking her life away.

Unfortunately for myself, things were different. I paid Jinyoung almost my entire part time salary for him to do his imitation of our father's voice and call in sick for me with the school. Nobody seemed to suspect a thing when the two of us "left" for classes in the morning, as I wore my uniform and carried my backpack. In reality, I had to make a beeline for Minyoung's house, where I would change into some more fashionable clothing and eventually, the two of us left for the noon fan meeting. We made time for us to be able to hope on the bus back home. Needless to say, everything went smoothly, at least up to this point. Sneaking out was fine, but sneaking back in? A different story and certainly the nadir of the day.

It felt obligatory to repeat examples of excuses out loud over and over again as I made my way home.  "Sorry I'm late! I had a few questions to ask about my physics test. . .no, no, that sounds too forced . ."

Any car that passed by me on the street that even had the slightest of semblance to my mother's or any patrol vehicle that belonged to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency granted a near heart attack. However, nothing came of these scares, so I continued walking along the sidewalk towards my house. There were some crazy things that teenagers did for their idols.

The only way to about successfully sneaking back in was the secret path. It led to behind the house from a convenience store that Jinyoung and I used to play in when we were kids. Looking back, we were absolutely insane. It was the scariest alleyway that I could conjure in my imagination, for it barely fit two bodies and allowed very little light to seep through. If it wasn't in broad daylight, I wouldn't be crossing this way at all. At the very least, it wasn't long after squeezing through that I could barely make out the house in the distance.

However, as soon as I stepped out of the alleyway, a large figure came out from the sides.

"Shit!"

Enduring the wind was knocked straight out of my chest, the other figure didn’t even seemed fazed at the sudden collision of bodies. I stumbled back a few steps, sputtering as I did so. There was a light chuckle and when I looked up, I saw Jaebum’s cheeky smile.

“And where do you think you’re coming from?” he raised an eyebrow at me and my heart stopped. I obviously did not think this far; Jinyoung’s friends were usually hanging around the house. I didn’t think that any of them would cause trouble, but then there was Jaebum, who would gladly give a side comment to my parents about my truancy just to see the look on my face.

I tried to play it off, pulling the best casual shrug that I was capable of. “School. I had to stay after school to ask Mr. Go some questions.”

“Last time I checked, you weren’t in class, especially without uniform on." Jaebum raised his eyebrows and reached out, touching my hair. "And you actually brushed your hair? You definitely went somewhere else."

There was no way. There was no way in hell that today was going to be one of the only days in the year when Im Jaebum, notorious class skipper, decided not to keep up with his hooky playing ways. However, looking at his semi pristine school uniform—I wasn’t going to count the buttons that he so cheekily left open on his dress shirt—I groaned. He had gone to class, which I didn’t count on.

Jaebum continued, "How come you haven't cut your hair? I think you'd look good with short hair." Giving unsolicited styling advice was his way of calling me boring.

“You. . .I can’t believe you actually showed up.” Last year, rumours flew around that Jaebum missed almost two weeks worth of classes in a row. In hindsight, saying two weeks doesn’t sound like lot to non Korean students, but there was no such shirking culture in any school in the country and especially not one as competitive as Haerin. Even the lazy students at least showed up and took a nap in the back of the classroom as opposed to outright not attending.

The said male grinned. “New year, new me.” Jaebum glanced at me, probably trying to figure out what exactly it was that I was up to. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Okay, fine. I skipped.” There was no reason for me to not admit it, Jaebum was going to force it out of me either way.

“Why?

“SuperJuniorfanmeeting,” I mumbled, my string of words sounding more like a singular, incoherent mess.

Jaebum just chuckled at me, getting a real kick out of the situation. It wasn’t like I was the goody-two-shoes type, but I’d always used to berate him for shirking his school work. I didn’t actually care, but it was more on the basis that I figured that he and Jinyoung didn’t have to hang out and be so damn loud in the living room if they would just see each other at school.

“Say that one more time, please.”

Setting my jaw, the glare I sent his way could’ve killed. “Super Junior fan meeting.”

At that, he only let out a loud scoff. “You skipped for Super Junior? Are you for real?” His chiding was nothing new to me.

There was one time when Jaebum tried sneaking into our house late at night to hang out with Jinyoung, as if they were a fucking couple. Who the hell does that that? Unfortunately, my brother’s room did not have a window and the two politely asked me if Jaebum could go through my window, then sneak through. I said no. That was supposed to be that, but the twat ended up knocking at my bedroom window at two in the morning anyway.

If it weren’t for the fact that I was up late on Facebook, I would have probably strangled Jaebum. I had no choice but to let him in, though, and the first thing that he did was make fun of the amount of Super Junior merchandise that I had in my room. Posters, stacks of albums, stickers, mugs, you name it. That was how I discovered Jaebum’s hatred for idol groups and how he discovered his favourite thing to use in order to vex.

“I don’t want to hear it, asshat.” Grumbling, I tried to move past him, but he stayed put.

Jaebum said, “Nope. I’m not going anywhere.”

It was almost time for my mother to return home for work and I couldn’t believe that he was choosing to play around now out of all the time he had in the world. He folded his arms across his chest, as if waiting for me to do something. The light shone on his medium brown hair and illuminated his playful expression.

“I need to get home!”

“And I need to get to the studio, but your dumbass brother decided to take his time flirting with Ms. Jung after school, so now I have to wait for him.”

I rolled my eyes, how very Jinyoung of him to do. Despite being senior class treasurer and all around boy next door, I knew my brother well and he wouldn’t be related to me if he didn’t have his sly side. He used his role on student council and high rank in academics to stay behind to talk with teachers, often to schmooze or just to flirt like he did with Ms. Jung.

“Gross. Just go to the studio by yourself, then,” I replied.

Jaebum chuckled. “No, because I’m a good friend who waits for his friends, especially when the said friend is getting details on beautiful Ahyeon." 

I had to snort at that. "You boys are disgusting. Just get going so I can." Hearing him talk about the Geometry teacher like that made me want to throw up without hesitation. High school boys, especially overly horny ones like Jaebum, always did in the hallways after any one of Ms. Jung's classes. She was young, pretty, and everyone raved about how she looked like some actress from Boys Over Flowers.

He was still in front of me. There seemed to be something we wanted to say, judging by the confusion playing in his eyes, but nothing came out. Tapping my foot, I raised my wrist to my line of sight and saw that I didn't have much time left.

"You should audition for the crew," Jaebum suddenly blurted out, though his tone stayed as nonchalant as ever.

That took me by surprise and for that, I looked at him like he was crazy. "Me? Yeah, right. Now stop wasting my time and—"

"—Jinyoung said you dance, you can't dance for us?" he cut me off. I was sure that he was joking, but judging by the sternness and what seemed like shame for asking me, I realized that Jaebum was indeed serious about his suggestion.

Obviously somebody had brought myself up as a suggestion for the crew member replacement. I wouldn’t know why Jinyoung would even do that, he was fully aware that I would repudiate such an idea. I couldn’t even imagine myself having to hang out with the boys or stand on a stage.

"Yeah, in middle school. Not anymore, I don't like dancing."  

If there was one thing that could wound Jaebum, it was speaking ill of dance. He cringed at my words, face scrunching up. I didn't have any passions in the way that he and my brother had dance, so I couldn't understand. The sentence allowed made him want to get out of my way, side stepping.

He said, "Well, if you change your mind, we're in the studio on Friday. Jinyoung and Mark have said good things about you, so I thought that it wouldn't hurt to ask, but I guess I was wrong."

I shrugged and was on my way, thankful that he managed to give up on me. Picking up a speed walk, I dashed towards the back door of my house and made sure that the interiors were empty before doing so. As I closed the door, I couldn't help but look over at Jaebum and I saw that he was still in that spot. It was embarrassing that not only Jinyoung told the crew about me, but Mark as well. Thinking about it made my face go hot and with that, I shut it and hurried to change before after school tutoring. 

[aurora-borealis514]

Ciao Italia!

Simiso Airport

11:00 am

The three finally arrived to the Simiso Airport just after 11 in the morning, Luckily none of their luggage was lost in the flight so it was easy to grab there things and go. At the bottom of the escalator stood a driver holding a sign. He was an extremely short gentleman and he wore a caddy’s hat. His pants were just a little too short which showed his bright white socks. He had a mustache that curved at both ends and word a pair of thin rimmed glassed.

“That must be for us!” Nadia said nudging Judith to get her attention after noticing the man.

Judith looked over. “Oh very good, I don’t think I would have been able to see him!” She laughed as they made their way over to the man.

Without saying a word Judith just handed him the bags making him drop his sign. 

“You must be Judith.” He said with a soft, raspy voice and giving her a dim smile. 

Taking her bags he turned around and headed outside towards the limo. The three followed the man outside. Placing their bags down next to the vehicle he opened the trunk.

“Oh Italy!”  Judith said clasping her hands together and looking around at the beauty. “The city for love and romance.” She smiled going off into la la land.

“Love you say?” Carter replied with a smirk and crossing his arms. 

“Is that a new word you just learned?” Nadia asked laughing

Judith laughed as well. “Carter probably has never been in love.” 

“Oh excuse me I have many times actually.” he joked.

“Many times?!” Nadia laughed.

“Oh dear.” Judith replied holding her hand up to her chest. “Was one of those many times with your mother?”

The two girls burst out into laughter.

“Listen, I love my mom but no.” He rolled his eyes.

“Oh Carter, I didn't mean to offend you.” Judith giggled.

“Yeah, We didn’t realize how sensitive you actually are.” Nadia chuckled.

“What is this, did you two become best friends on the flight or something?” Carter responded scrunching his brow. 

“Not at all.” Nadia laughed even harder.

“I would have to be drunk 24/7 to be friends with her.” Judith laughed snorting in the process.

Carter stood there in silence for a moment as he watches the driver struggle to put one of her larger bags into the trunk.

“So where is this place?” he asked.

“um, it’s only about an hour away, so we should have plenty of time to explore.” Judith reassured.

“Well I got plenty of sleep on the flight, so I am ready!” Nadia responded.

“I wonder if they have a freezer bunny gelato place?” Nadia thought out loud.

“We are in Italy and all you can think about is food?!” Judith replied.

“We’ll I mean, I could totally go for something to eat right about now.” Carter said trying to diffuse the start of a silly argument.

“We’ll we need to get to the room before we even think about anything else.” Judith replied scrunching her forehead.

“Alright, I’m sorry Judith I just want to have a good vacation.” Nadia sighed holding out her hand in defeat.

“Well, It looks like the driver is just about finished loading up your bags.” Carter said.

Looking over Judith smiled. “Good, they all fit.”

Slamming the trunk shut the man walked around to the other side of the limo and opened the door. Waving them in the three entered and he closed the door behind them. The three lifted up their glasses of champagne.

“Cheers to a great weekend.” Judith toasted.

The three clinked their glasses together and the limo slowly pulled away from the airport. 

1 Hour Later.

Welcome to Simalia. 

POPULATION: 1,250

A small town that was set right in the center of an even smaller city. (A town and a city, strange huh?) Anyway, It was so small that it wasn’t even shown on a map. So to Judith this was the perfect spot to get away from it all. Plus there was plenty to do all right in the city so they wouldn't have to worry much about the paparazzi. 

The town was originally founded by an Italian Sim explorer who stumbled upon a small town which seemed to be struggling. Bringing his ideas and medicine into their lives, The community began to expand, but unfortunately the population did not, so to try and bring more people in he then built this city around the town with all sorts of different places to eat, and tours on mopeds which you could rent and take out on your own. Yet all while building this “empire” he tried to keep the essence of what once stood there as a small town; as a reminder of the troubles they had faced before hand. It was beautiful and full of history. Inside the large clock tower was a library filled with Simalian literature and books upon books of the history of the town. 

“Isn't this place beautiful!” Judith said with excitement. “The people the scenery! Everything is just perfect!”

“I just hope we can find our room in this place.” Carter responded nervously looking up at the large flight of stairs.

“Oh don’t worry. I’m sure it will be super easy.” Judith smiled taking in a big breathe of this fresh air.

“Oh yay! A Freezer bunny!” Nadia screeched jumping up into the air. 

“They also have a pizzeria that plays live music every night!” Carter exclaimed.

“Ahh well I am sorry to ruin your good mood, but from the looks of it our room is around the top floor of those stairs.”  Judith sighed pointing at a sign that had arrows with numbers on them.

“So you are going to carry our bags up the stairs then right?” Nadia asked looking over at Carter.

“See, now I knew this wasn’t going to be an actual vacation for me after all.” He joked.

“Oh now don’t be silly, I am sure there is another way to get up there besides those stairs.” Judith said.

“I don't know Judith, this place doesn't seem like they would throw an elevator inside.” Carter answered looking around.

Placing her hands on her hips. “Well this sucks.” Nadia stated.

“Now don’t worry, we will just have to think about this for a moment.” Judith interrupted.

“Well, you also could have packed lighter.” Carter said jokily. 

Judith shot him a dirty look.

“Where is that short little man?” Judith asked holding her hands over her eyes to shade the sun.

“He was just a driver Judith...” Carter began to say.

“Well isn’t that just a shame.” she replied.

Carter sighed heavily.

“Listen, I am on vacation too, So that means, we can all carry our own bags up those stairs.” He said. 

“Come on Carter please?” Judith begged giving him the puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah, I am so jet lagged from the flight.” Nadia replied walking over to the bench and sitting down.

“Please?” Judith asked batting her eyelashes.

Groaning. “Fine.” he growled. “I will meet you at the top.”

Reaching down he grabbed the two biggest bags first and headed towards the stairs.

“Thank you Carter!” Nadia shouted after him.

“Yes, Absolutely thank you Carter!” Judith smiled as she walked over to the bench to sit as well.

Turning back to look over his shoulder he could see the two girls chatting away and looking around at everything the city had to offer. 

“I’ll meet you two at the top.” He waved back.

They ignored him and continued to map out their weekend.

“Lazy Bitches.” He scoffed under his breath  and then proceeded up the steep and narrow steps.

(Sorry it took me so long to put up another chapter, I was having super lag issues and I had to fix it. So now It’s now 4 am, you guys got a new read and I’m off to bed. Goodnight! xoxo)

[jewishaxelwalker]

On the Radio

When his dad died, Owen moved from Gotham to Keystone. It's been an adjustment. 

(also available on AO3)

It took Owen longer than he thought it would to remember that he was, in fact, no longer living on the east coast.

Keystone and Gotham both had a gritty quality to them, but while Gotham had the kind of grit that made a person afraid to walk around alone at night, Keystone’s was more of an all-American, grease under your fingernails kind of grit. The inhabitants of Keystone were also much friendlier than Gothamites, though it, sadly, didn’t mean that they were less on their guard when it came to crime. A solid six decades of dealing with supervillains would desensitize any city. It got colder earlier too, chilly winds forcing their way up his coat sleeves as soon as late September. But the biggest change he had to get used to?

All the goddamn country music.

They were in heavy traffic, something else Gotham didn’t really have, on the way back from picking up dinner for everyone, and Owen was fiddling around with the radio in Axel’s car.

“Yo Axel, you got three country stations on your presets.”

Axel talked and dressed like a punk, when he was around people he wanted to intimidate. His car was tricked out, both literally and metaphorically, within an inch of its life. And yet, three of the six preset music stations on his stereo still clicked over to country music when pressed.

Axel’s mouth pressed into a confused line. “So? Those are the good three. You think I’m gonna have 102.2 or 807SPURS on there?”

“The uh. The good three?” Axel rolled his eyes, but sort of fondly. As if he was just remembering that Owen was from a whole other side of the continent.

“Yeah. There are twelve stations that play country, those are the good three. 999 has all the older stuff that grandmas like, y’know, from the 40s and 50s, 101.5 has a more southern rock vibe to it, and 105.9 plays newer stuff, from the 90s and up.”

Without replying, Owen went and checked the other presets. Two were pop stations, one was a hip hop station. But three were still... “Do you keep ‘em because of Len or something?” Now Axel seemed like he was getting annoyed.

“No? Is it really that hard to believe that I like country music?”

“Well, I mean, you look like,” Owen gestured to him best he was able, arms still full of takeout from their food run, and Axel snorted.

“Owen, if we’re officially using stereotypes against each other, what exit did you live off of?” Oh, that wasn’t cool. You generally weren’t supposed to bring up that Gotham was technically in New Jersey. “People around here listen to country a lot. I grew up listening to country. I mean, I expanded my taste pretty early, but still. And if you don’t wanna listen to the radio...” He held up an AUX cable. Owen grabbed for it gratefully, before he realized he’d forgotten his phone.

“Hey, gimme your phone.” Axel twitched in surprise, hand flying to his pocket protectively. “Ax, come on. Nothing good is on the radio and we still have at least a half hour in this traffic, gimme your phone.”

There were a few beats of silence, punctuated by a horn in the distance.

“Okay...but you need to promise you’re not gonna make fun of me.” Surprisingly, Axel actually sounded a bit self-conscious. Cute. Owen sighed.

“Just gimme the phone.” Traffic crawled as he scrolled through Axel’s music library, nose wrinkling. He didn’t recognize most of these artists! Oh that explained it, he was in the Last Played section. Maybe if he went in alphabetical order...

“Dude, you like ABBA?!”

“Get out of my car!”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#5yrsago David Byrne's "How Music Works" updated and in paperback

Back in 2012, I reviewed How Music Works, David Byrne's best book to date, an absolutely vital text explaining not only the biology, politics and aesthetics of music (and all art, really), but also the important policy and techology questions raised by music in the Internet age. Few books have had more influence on the way I think that this one.

So I was delighted this morning to learn that Byrne and his publisher, McSweeney's, had released an updated paperback edition, with a revised text that takes account of the technological changes in the year since its initial publication. I can't wait to read it. Click through the jump below to read my review of the hardcover.

Former Talking Heads frontman and all-round happy mutant David Byrne has written several good books, but his latest, How Music Works, is unquestionably the best of the very good bunch, possibly the book he was born to write. I could made good case for calling this How Art Works or even How Everything Works.

Though there is plenty of autobiographical material How Music Works that will delight avid fans (like me) -- inside dope on the creative, commercial and personal pressures that led to each of Byrne's projects -- this isn't merely the story of how Byrne made it, or what he does to turn out such great and varied art. Rather, this is an insightful, thorough, and convincing account of the way that creativity, culture, biology and economics interact to prefigure, constrain and uplift art. It's a compelling story about the way that art comes out of technology, and as such, it's widely applicable beyond music.

Byrne lived through an important transition in the music industry: having gotten his start in the analog recording world, he skilfully managed a transition to an artist in the digital era (though not always a digital artist). As such, he has real gut-feel for the things that technology gives to artists and the things that technology takes away. He's like the kids who got their Apple ][+s in 1979, and keenly remember the time before computers were available to kids at all, the time when they were the exclusive domain of obsessive geeks, and the point at which they became widely exciting, and finally, ubiquitous -- a breadth of experience that offers visceral perspective.

There were so many times in this book when I felt like Byrne's observations extended beyond music and dance and into other forms of digital creativity. For example, when Byrne recounted his first experiments with cellular automata exercise for dance choreography, from his collaboration with Noemie Lafrance:

1. Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight-count phrase (in dance, a phrase is a short series of moves that can be repeated).

2. When you find a phrase you like, loop (repeat) it.

3. When you see someone else with a stronger phrase, copy it.

4. When everyone is doing the same phrase, the exercise is over.

It was like watching evolution on fast-forward, or an emergent lifeform coming into being. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere.  At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. Then one could see that folks had chosen their phrases, and almost immediately one could see a pocket of dancers who had all adopted the same phrase. The copying had already begun, albeit in just one area. This pocket of copying began to expand, to go viral, while yet another one now emerged on the other side of the room. One clump grew faster than the other, and within four minutes the whole room was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison. Unbelievable! It only took four minutes for this evolutionary process to kick in, and for the "strongest" (unfortunate word, maybe) to dominate.

I remembered the first time I programmed an evolutionary algorithm and watched its complexity emerging from simple rules, and the catch in my throat as I realized that I was watching something like life being built up from simple, inert rules.

The book is shot through with historical examples and arguments about the nature of music, from Plato up to contemporary neuroscience, and here, too, many of the discussions are microcosms for contemporary technical/philosophical debates. There's a passage about how music is felt and experienced that contains the phrase, "music isn't merely absorbed above the neck," which is spookily similar to the debates about replicating human consciousness in computers, and the idea that our identity doesn't reside exclusively above the brainstem.

The same is true of Byrne's account of how music has not "progressed" from a "primitive" state -- rather, it adapted itself to different technological realities. Big cathedrals demand music that accommodates a lot of reverb; village campfire music has completely different needs. Reading this, I was excited by the parallels to discussions of whether we live in an era of technological "progress" or merely technological "change" -- is there a pinnacle we're climbing, or simply a bunch of stuff followed by a bunch of other stuff? Our overwhelming narrative of progress feels like hubris to me, at least a lot of the time. Some things are "better" (more energy efficient, more space-efficient, faster, more effective), but there are plenty of things that are held up as "better" that, to me, are simply different. Often very good, but in no way a higher rung on some notional ladder toward perfection.

When Byrne's history comes to the rise of popular recorded music, he describes a familiar dilemma: recording artists were asked to produce music that could work when performed live and when listened to in the listener's private playback environment -- not so different from the problems faced by games developers today who struggle to make games that will work on a wide variety of screens. In a later section, he describes the solution that was arrived at in the 1970s, a solution that reminds me a lot of the current world of content management systems like WordPress and Blogger, which attempt to separate "meaning" from "form" for text, storing them separately and combining them with little code-libraries called "decorators":

[Deconstruct and isolate] sums up the philosophy of a lot of music recording back in the late seventies. The goal was to get as pristine a sound as possible... Studios were often padded with sound-absorbent materials so that there was almost no reverberation. The sonic character of the space was sucked out, because it wasn't considered to be part of the music. Without this ambiance, it was explained, the sound would be more malleable after the recording had been made. Dead, characterless sound was held up as the ideal, and often still is. In this philosophy, the naturally occurring echo and reverb that normally added a little warmth to performances would be removed and then added back in when the recording was being mixed...

Recording a performance with a band and singer all playing together at the same time in the same room was by this time becoming a rarity. An incredible array of options opened up as a result, but some organic interplay between the musicians disappeared, and the sound of music changed. Some musicians who played well in live situations couldn't adapt to the fashion for each player to be isolated. They couldn't hear their bandmates and, as a result, often didn't play very well.

Changing the technology used in art changes the art, for good and ill. Blog-writing has a lot going for it -- spontaneity, velocity, vernacular informality, but often lacks the reflective distance that longer-form works bring. Byrne has similar observations about music and software:

What you hear [in contemporary music] is the shift in music structure that computer-aided composition has encouraged. Though software is promoted as being an unbiased toold that helps us do anything we want, all software has inherent biases that make working one way easier than another. With the Microsoft presentation software PowerPoint, for example, you have to simplify your presentations so much that the subtle nuances in the subject being discussed often get edited out. These nuances are not forbidden, they're not blocked, but including them tends to make for a less successful presentation. Likewise, that which is easy to bullet-point and simply visualize works better. That doesn't mean it actually is better; it means working is certain ways is simply easier than working in others...

An obvious example is quantizing. Since the mid-nineties, most popular music recorded on computers has had tempos and rhythms that have been quantized. That means that the tempo never varies, not even a little bit, the the rhythmic parts tend toward metronomic perfection. In the past, the tempo of recordings  would always vary slightly, imperceptibly speeding up or maybe slowing down a little, or a drum fill might hesitate in order to signal the beginning of a new section. You'd feel a slight push and pull, a tug and then a release, as ensembles of whatever type responded to one another and lurched, ever so slightly, ahead of and behind an imaginary metronomic beat. No more. Now almost all pop recordings are played to a strict tempo, which makes these compositions fit more easily into the confines of editing and recording software. An eight-bar section recorded on a "grid" of this type is exactly twice as long as a four-bar section, and every eight-bar section is always exactly the same length. This makes for a nice visual array on the computer screen, and facilitates easy editing, arranging, and repairing as well. Music has come to accommodate software, and I have to admit a lot has been gained as a result.

Byrne is well aware of the parallels between music technology and other kinds of technology. No history of the recording business would be complete without a note about the format wars fought between Edison and his competitors like RCA, who made incompatible, anti-competitive playback formats. Byrne explicitly links this to modern format-wars, citing MS Office, Kindles, iPads and Pro Tools. (His final word on the format wars rings true for other media as well: "Throughout the history of recorded music, we have tended to value convenience over quality every time. Edison cylinders didn't really sound as good as live performers, but you could carry them around and play them whenever you wanted.")

Likewise, debates over technological change (pooh-poohing the "triviality" of social media or the ephemeral character of blogs) are played out in Byrne's history of music panics, which start in ancient Greece, and play out in situations like the disco wars, which prefigured the modern fight over sampling:

The most threatening thing to rockers in the era of disco was that the music was gay, black and "manufactured" on machines, made out of bits of other peoples' recordings.

Like mixtapes. I'd argue that other than race and sex, [the fact that disco was "manufactured" on machines, made out of bits of other peoples' recordings] was the most threatening aspect. To rock purists, this new music messed with the idea of authorship. If music was now accepted as a kind of property, then this hodgepodge version that disregarded ownership and seemed to belong to and originate with so many people (and machines) called into question a whole social and economic framework.

But as Byrne reminds us, new technology can liberate new art forms. Digital formats and distribution have given us music that is only a few bars long, and compositions that are intended to play for 1,000 years. The MP3 shows us that 3.5 minutes isn't an "ideal" length for a song (merely the ideal length for a song that's meant to be sold on a 45RPM single), just as YouTube showed us that there are plenty of video stories that want to be two minutes long, rather than shoehorned into 22 minute sitcoms, 48 minute dramas, or 90 minute feature films.

And Byrne's own journey has led him to be skeptical of the all-rights-reserved model, from rules over photography and video in his shows:

The thing we were supposed to be fighting against was actually something we should be encouraging. They were getting the word out, and it wasn't costing me anything. I began to announce at the beginning of the shows that photography was welcome, but I suggested to please only post shots and videos where we look good.

To a very good account of the power relationships reflected in ascribing authorship (and ownership, and copyright) to melody, but not to rhythms and grooves and textures, though these are just as important to the music's aesthetic effect.

Byrne doesn't focus exclusively on recording, distribution and playback technology. He is also a keen theorist of the musical implications of architecture, and presents a case-study of the legendary CBGB's and its layout, showing how these led to its center in the 1970s New York music scene that gave us the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, and many other varied acts. Here, Byrne channels Jane Jacobs in a section that is nothing short of brilliant in its analysis of how small changes (sometimes on the scale of inches) make all the difference to the kind of art that takes place in a building.

There's a long section on the mechanics of the recording business as it stands today, with some speculation about where its headed, and included in this is a fabulous and weird section on some of Byrne's own creative process. Here he describes how he collaborated with Brian Eno on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today:

The unwritten rule in remote collaborations is, for me, "Leave the other person's stuff alone as much as you possibly can." You work with what you're given, and don't try to imagine it as something other than what it is. Accepting that half the creative decision-making has already been done has the effect of bypassing a lot of endless branching -- not to mention waffling and worrying.

And here's a mind-bending look into his lyrics-writing method:

...I begin by improvising a melody over the music. I do this by singing nonsense syllables, but with weirdly inappropriate passion, given that I'm not saying anything. Once I have a wordless melody and a vocal arrangement my my collaborators (if there are any) and I like, I'll begin to transcribe that gibberish as if it were real words.

I'll listen carefully to the meaningless vowels and consonants on the recording, and I'll try to understand what that guy (me), emoting so forcefully by inscrutably, is actually saying. It's like a forensic exercise. I'll follow the sound of the nonsense syllables as closely as possible. If a melodic phrase of gibberish ends on a high ooh sound, then I'll transcribe that, and in selecting the actual words, I'll try to try to choose one that ends in that syllable, or as close to it as I can get. So the transcription process often ends up with a page of real words, still fairly random, that sounds just like the gibberish.

I do that because the difference between an ooh and an aah, and a "b" and a "th" sound is, I assume, integral to the emotion that the story wants to express. I want to stay true to that unconscious, inarticulate intention. Admittedly, that content has no narrative, or might make no literal sense yet, but it's in there -- I can hear it. I can feel it. My job at this stage is to find words that acknowledge and adhere to the sonic and emotional qualities rather than to ignore and possibly destroy them.

Part of what makes words work in a song is how they sound to the ear and feel on the tongue. If they feel right physiologically, if the tongue of the singer and the mirror neurons of the listener resonate with the delicious appropriateness of the words coming out, then that will inevitably trump literal sense, although literal sense doesn't hurt.

Naturally, this leads into a great discussion of the neuroscience of music itself -- why our brains like certain sounds and rhythms.

How Music Works gave me insight into parts of my life as diverse as my email style to how I write fiction to how I parent my daughter (it was a relief to read Byrne's discussion of how parenting changed him as an artist). I've been a David Byrne fan since I was 13 and I got a copy of Stop Making Sense. He's never disappointed me, but with How Music Works, Byrne has blown through my expectations, producing a book that I'll be thinking of and referring to for years to come.

How Music Works

https://boingboing.net/2013/09/27/david-byrnes-how-music-wor.html

[yuniesan]

Girl Meets Season 6 - Episode Ten

Synopsis: The Journey from High School and into College will test everything Riley knew about her life, her friendships and her love. What life lessons will she learn in her first year of college?  

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

A/N: Sometimes I wonder if I should write an alternate universe College Fic where they all meet in college instead of them meeting in middle school/grade school.

Episode Ten – Girl Meets Radio Days

There was a call for radio DJ’s at school, Riley had heard that they wanted fresh voices for the school’s radio station. She didn’t want to do it but she thought of the three most perfect people of it, and she wanted to see if they could have fun together while entertaining the rest of the school. Taking the flyer, she skipped towards her room thinking of how to bring it up with the three troublemakers. She loved them, honestly, she did, but sometimes when Charlie, Zay, and Sam got together it felt like they were joking about one thing or plotting something else.

She sat in her room thinking of a way to broach the subject when she saw them next, while working on her homework. The semester was almost over and she had papers to hand in and test to study for, so she wasn’t sure it was a good idea to bring this up with the trio, because they were in the same place, but since the flyer specified that they would start in the spring if they were accepted then it should have been alright.

With her mind wandering she hadn’t heard the door open, she hadn’t known anything had happened until Lucas put his arms around her making her jump, and sending her heart into a frenzy.

“Lucas,” she squealed out as he kissed her cheek. “Give me a heart attack why don’t you.”

Her heart was hammering in her chest, “Sorry I thought you heard me come in, usually you’re trying to finish a paragraph before you turn around,” he said as she tried to control her own heart. “Sorry for scaring you.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said as she turned the chair towards where he stood. “My mind was somewhere else.”

“Riley,” he kneeled down in front of her before taking her hands. “What were you thinking about that made you forget that there’s a whole world around you?”

“I was thinking about the whole radio DJ thing,” she said to him before putting one of her hands on his face, looking into those green eyes she’s known so well for so long. “Not for me but for Charlie, Zay, and Sam.”

Lucas watched her eyes for a moment, as she ran her hands through the roughness of his five o’clock shadow. “They would be an interesting combination on the air, especially when they’re plotting something,” he said before he took her hand and kissed it.

“Yeah well I figured after the whole writing contest thing, that it would be a good idea to give them a hobby, plus it also means that they wouldn’t get into too much trouble, and they’re good at talking.”

“I’m also sure that putting them there would mean that they wouldn’t have the time to plot out another way to sign you up for something that you weren’t sure of.”

“Don’t remind me,” she said thinking back to Halloween weekend, they had all decided to go to a party, they needed to relax, only for Zay and Sam to shove her on stage before blindfolding her and dropping her into a kiddie pool full of jello. “They’re a menace I tell you.”

“You sound like your dad,” he said with a laugh. Riley looked at him horrified, she hadn’t realized that her father’s mannerisms had rubbed off to the point where she would quote him at a moment’s notice. “Don’t worry, it’s cute. Plus, there’s days where you sound like your mom too. They raised you so it was bound to happen.”

“It’s still weird though,” she said to him making him laugh.

“Okay,” he said after he could breathe again. “Tell me more about the radio thing.”

It took her ten minutes to explain to Lucas about the fact that she knew that the trio would be good for the radio station. They all experienced life differently, they were from three very different backgrounds, but they all had gone through their own problems over the years. She knew that they could talk about a number of things, while at the same time relating to other people. There was also the fact that they liked to make jokes and laugh which would be fun for their classmates to listen to, especially during stressful times like finals.

“Well Zay has always loved cracking jokes, plus he’s good with music,” Lucas said when she finished. “I’m still getting to know Sam but from having lunch with her during the week, I realized that she’s a good person, and while I’m still trying to get over the fact that Charlie is around, it would be good for him too.”

“For all three of them,” she said feeling weird for plotting this.

-----

Bringing up the idea to the trio was a lot harder for Riley than she would have thought, mainly because they were all on a weird finals schedule and they were nowhere near each other or in the same place. They didn’t even have time to have their usual lunches between classes, they were almost always running in one direction or another. Lucas always made sure to stop by her room to check on her, and she always brought him a snack when she was sure that he hadn’t left the library in hours. His classes were a little more demanding than hers, because she was still undeclared while he was in the veterinary sciences, so she worried about him.

At the end of the week she still hadn’t had the chance to talk to Charlie, Zay, or Sam about the radio thing and was about to give up until she got a message from Zay about a movie night. The message as it turned out was from Sam, who had taken Zay’s phone by accident during a mad dash to the dining hall.

“It’s insane, I really should put a different case on mine,” Sam said as she leaned back on her bed while Riley looked through Netflix for a movie. “But I was like, what are the odds that someone would have the same phone case as mine, it’s only a bunch of cookies.”

“Yeah but Zay loves cookies,” Riley said with a smile. “One time his grandmother sent him a cookie, this was during freshman year of high school and it was cookie day, I had an assignment from school for a debate, so I decided to be evil to understand the assignment, and I stole Zay’s cookie and told him it wasn’t that good of a cookie.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice,” Sam said to her, but Riley could only smile.

“I know and I felt bad about it after a while, but if it weren’t for that cookie we wouldn’t have started taking baking classes, and we wouldn’t be as close as we are now,” Riley sighed thinking about the early years of her friendship with Zay. “Don’t get me wrong we were close but it always felt as if there was this invisible wall between the two of us.”

“I doubt that, you’re a very friendly person.”

“That’s the thing though, for Zay I was the girl Lucas couldn’t stop talking about, I was the one stealing away his best friend, and well in some ways, I was the reason Lucas had changed so much since leaving Texas. There was always this weird thing because of it, but after the cookie incident I guess we sort of found a happy middle.”

“I wish I had had friends like that growing up,” Sam said smiling. “My sister wasn’t the best sister I could have had, when my mom remarried it was weird and having Missy for a sister was probably not always the best when it came to making friends.”

“Well now you have friends, and we’ll be there for you,” Riley said smiling, she loved meeting new people, but she also loved it when her inner circle of friends expanded.

The door swung open revealing Zay with a bag full of snack in his hand. “We have food,” he said as he walked in, Charlie not far behind with a bag of drinks.

The four of them settled around the small TV they had in her and Sam’s room, Lucas was still in class finishing up his lab so Riley was left to cuddle with her pillow until he got there.

“What are we watching,” Charlie said as he settled himself on the floor in front of Riley’s bed.

“Sense and Sensibility,” she said as a joke remembering how Charlie had told her about his sisters. When he looked at her with wide eyes she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “I’m joking, we’re watching Thor Ragnarok.”

“I hate being the only boy in my family,” Charlie muttered and while Zay and Sam started laughing.

“Oh, before we start,” Riley said before dropping her pillow to grab the flier on her nightstand. “I saw this a while ago and thought about you three.”

She handed the flyer to Zay who had been sitting on Sam’s bed, the three of them converged around it and started reading it. “I thought it would be fun for you guys to have a radio show,” she said not knowing if it was a good idea anymore. “I think it would be a good outlet for you,” she continued, while thinking that they would stop ganging up on her for certain things.

“As interesting as it sounds,” Zay looked up after a moment. “Why not you?”

“I already have a million things on my plate,” it wasn’t a lie, she was always doing something. “Plus, you three like to joke around, and you’re so different from each other, not just in family background but in all aspects, but you all click and you can give advice on things like what you’ve lived through.”

“Again, why not you?” Zay asked one more time.

“I don’t know, I guess I just want to concentrate on my writing, and school, plus I was thinking of going out for the school’s journal instead.”

Zay nodded along with her words before smiling. “You’re going to be a great writer one day,” he said with a smile. “And well, maybe this would be fun. I don’t have anything in my background other than sports though.”

“I doubt that matters,” Sam said looking at them. “I have academics in my background.”

“I have nothing other than a part-time job and some sports,” Charlie added.

“See what I mean,” Riley said smiling at the trio, “From what I know, Zay loves music… a lot, it’s also really diverse because he could be talking about Celine Dion one moment and Childish Gambino another. Charlie, you love to talk about movies, it’s weird that you watch the b movies more than anything even if some of them are horrible. Sam, while we’ve only known each other for a short time, you have a sense of humor and a passion for books, that scares me sometimes but heck if I know anything.”

“You my friend pay too much attention to the people around you,” Sam said before getting up and sitting next to Riley. “I’m with Zay though, you should do this with us, you’re a people person, you’re good with helping others, and you have this unhealthy infatuation with Cuddle Bunnies and Red Planet Diaries.”

“Not cool Sam,” Riley said feeling her face heat up. The only reason Sam even knows about Cuddle Bunnies is because she caught Riley and Lucas watching it one day, while cuddled up against each other.

“Oh god,” Zay said before he started laughing. “It’s Lucas… oh man… this is too funny.”

“What,” Charlie asked before Zay started cracking up next to him.

“Zay if you know what’s good for you,” Riley said in warning, pointing her finger at him. “You won’t say another word.”

“Yes, Miss Matthews,” he said before turning to Charlie. “Lucas loves Cuddle Bunnies.”

“Isaiah Babineaux, you meanie,” she screamed out before throwing her purple pillow at him, Zay stuck his tongue out and she launched herself off her own bed, landing on him before attempting to smoother him with Sam’s pillow.

The door opened behind them, Lucas standing there gaping at what she was doing, “Do I even want to know what Zay did to piss off Riley?” Lucas asked before walking inside and taking off his coat.

“Something about you and Cuddle Bunnies,” Charlie answered.

Lucas’s eyes went wide, “Riley you have my permission to kill him.”

“Lucas, NO,” Zay screamed out.

“Riley,” Lucas said looking into her eyes communicating his intent to take out his best friend, for revealing his secret, so she hit Zay with the pillow. Laughing for a moment before she stopped her assault on Zay she jumped off of the bed and walked over to her boyfriend, kissing him on the lips while smiling. “Nice to know you have my back,” he said softly before putting his arm around her.

“I have been forsaken,” Zay screamed out. “And attacked.”

“Yeah well, it’s your own fault,” Charlie said before getting up and sitting on the bed next to Zay. “Now can we finish this conversation so that we can start the movie already.”

“Fine,” Zay said grumbling and acting wounded, before winking at Riley. She knew he wasn’t really hurt, honestly it reminded her of Auggie, the way they used to fight.

“What’s there more to say,” Sam said looking at the room. “The four of us could fill up an hour or two just talking and playing music once in a while, it’s not like we would have to do it every day.”

“Wait,” Lucas said to the room. “Four of you?”

“Yeah, we’re dragging Riley into this,” Zay said with a smile. “It wouldn’t be the same without her around.”

“Plus, if there’s anyone here who could keep us in check it’s her,” Charlie added.

Lucas smiled at her, “Well I approve, it also means that if I had to study I could listen to you all joke around.”

“See big plus all around, now let’s watch the movie,” Charlie said before settling himself next to Zay, Sam on his other side, while Riley snuggled up next to Lucas.

“Sure whatever,” she said admitting defeat, there was no way to get around the three of them, and she knew she would have fun even if they just talked about random things on the air.

[justadadonthenet]

Loser’s Club as camp half blood kids hc

(These are terribly organized I’m so sorry, all under the cut)

Stan: deffo an Athena kid, look at that little logic man and tell me he’s not Athena. He would be extremely talented on the battle field but would rarely want to fight (besides, why do that when he could command his battalion in capture the flag) and he somehow befriended an owl in his third year at camp and it’ll do whatever he wants (including keeping richie in check)

Ben: also in the Athena cabin, but one of the softer of them. Always wins when they’re tasked with a building competition cause he actually reads up on what types of structures work best,,he would develop and design all of the Athena cabin weaponry and would specially design stuff for stanley. Their cabin is the coolest one because Ben is always reconstructing as needed, and it’s never too full because he has somehow developed a building that expands as needed, but only on the inside. This kid is fucking gifted.

Mike: Jesus imagine my boy mike as a Persephone kid that’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen,,,persephone kids are almost as rare (if not more) than big three kids, so he lives in the Demeter cabin. the whole camp would adore him and the wood nymphs would love talking to this ~one~ boy because he has major respect for all parts of nature,, he would grow lil flowers to give to everyone and would make flower crowns for bev,,and although he is a little flower child he takes capture the flag VERY seriously if he’s up against his Losers. (The wood nymphs love doing favors for him such as tripping richie and taking bev’s sword right out of her hand)

Richie: holy fuck he would definitely end up head of the Hermes cabin (somehow) and he would be worse than the Stoll brothers combined,,,don’t ask how he managed to acquire a dildo tree or get a Trojan horse to camp without anyone noticing, he’s also ~conveniently~ part messenger god, which makes sending pranks to people even easier (also imagine the first time he tries to use the winged converse y i k e s there was definitely a face plant in there)

Bill: listen,,,,he would definitely be a Zeus kid if he wasn’t such an angery piece of shit,,, so you better believe he is one of the softest Hades kids to ever enter that camp,,,when he got bored he’d summon cool rocks and shit. As soon as he hears of Nico being able to summon the dead he pesters him into teaching him, learning extremely quickly how to summon spirits. Every once in a while the losers cant find bill, cause he’s sitting in a hidden cave he managed to create, talking to Georgie

Bev: listen my fiery girl would obviously be an Ares kid. She may be the nicest in the cabin, but you’re dead wrong if you think for a second she wouldn’t beat your ass if provoked. Her and Stan definitely have a friendly rivalry in capture the flag (or any battle-related activity, for that matter.) she loves her bf Ben but she can’t help but coaxing the latest Athena cabin weaponry plans out of him. Ben goes to mush as soon as Bev talks to him, and every thought he had of keeping the developments to the cabin goes out the door with one look into those eyes. Coincidentally, next week’s capture the flag battle is between Ares and Athena, and Ben is completely lost as to how the Ares cabin somehow had counter measures for all of their weaponry,, he’d been planning them for months, and had picked through all of the Ares cabin’s tactics previous to this, how did they know? Let’s just say stan was HEATED

Eddie: okay with an idiot of a boyfriend like richie (who constantly forgets where he sets up traps during capture the flag) eddie needs to be able to fix his boy. He may not seem like an Apollo boy other than the fact that he’s wicked good at being camp medic, but he’s getting pretty dialed in on his foresight (even though it only consistently reaches about an hour into the future.) still, this makes fixing up his idiots easier, as he knows exactly what to pack in his magic fanny pack (think Leo’s tool belt) before every capture the flag (even though he no longer needs it, after realizing that it wasn’t his drugs healing him but his own abilities). After LOTS of practice, Eds walks up to richie, touches his forehead, and richie fucking loses his shit because h o l y s h i t why is everything so blurry??? Before taking his glasses off and crying because everything is in focus

Also:

-bill and mike always help in developing the area for the capture the flag games and make sure it’s aesthetically pleasing, interesting, and different from the last time

-SHIT AND MIKE AND THE DEMETER CABIN MAKE CORN MAZE CAPTURE THE FLAG FOR FALL (complete with spooky scares from the grain nymphs)

-most of the hades kids come and go, so billiam is alone a lot in his cabin, making the hades cabin basically the loser’s cabin for sleepovers

-(bill also sleeps in the Athena cabin a lot cause of the immense space and his bf)

-Eds discovers his poetic abilities when sitting with Ben and trying to think of what to say to ask rich out

-Eds definitely also helps richie write songs

-richie is a large lanky boy but somehow kicks ass when they have track events (its one of the only places he doesn’t trip)

-his biggest threat? Billiam, aka lanky boy #2

-“it’s not fair, he can literally influence the track and make my lane turn into sand!” “S-step up your p-prank game, tozier”

-richie replaces bill’s shoes with some winged ones and Jesus Christ he’s never laughed as hard as he did when bill hit the side of the big house as soon as the race started

-eddie never really pursues his artistic abilities but one time rich has a bad night and sends Eds a message to meet him at the hades cabin (bill is with Stan) and he finds richie panicking over a nightmare so he starts singing to richie and holy shit richie was crying but not cause of his nightmare

-mike always brings flowers to the medics tent and brings some of each patients’ favorites to put at their bedside

-mr d cannot stand richies existence sometimes but all of that is forgotten when richie somehow gets him some ancient bottle of wine that d hasn’t seen in millennia

-whenever eddie sees richie’s laugh or smile the camp gets a lil brighter for a second

-sometimes mike goes and sits with bill while he’s talking to Georgie. He helped him with hiding bill’s little spot, can also (to an extent) contact the dead, and bill trusts him immensely. Bill loves the losers but most of the time he just wants to talk to Georgie alone. When he does invite the losers to come talk, they don’t go to bill’s spot

-I can’t help but imagining mike making all of the losers little flower crowns made of assorted flowers and all of them match the person

-richie has so many laurel wreaths from mike due to his immense list of track records

-they think bill was conceived while the gods were battling with their second self, because he was claimed by hades but has the ability to conjure metals and jewels like Pluto (which is super uncommon when you’re Greek)

-(of course he gets his bf’s cabin some of the best metals for weapons)

-richie somehow gets all of the Good Shit from the outside world into the camp. Nintendo switch? Stan buys it off of him the first day rich has it (along with all the Mario games that comes with it.) cigarettes? Him and Bev share those. Books from libraries across the world? Ben is still amazed as to how richie gets a hold of some of the Ancient Greek texts he sells him but he’s not complaining.

-Eds sometimes misses his boyfriends stupid glasses, so richie finds some hipster glasses and wears them sometimes

-sometimes Eds wishes he had better luck with curses bc sometimes his boyfriend needs to shut the fuck up

-richie and Bev live at camp year round, while bill and Ben often return home, eddie has to go home every break (no matter how short), and mike and stan only goes home on the really long ones

-mike also helps Eddie with finding certain medicinal herbs (richie of course finds the medical marijuana eddie is keeping hidden in his fanny pack)

-instead of “your mom” jokes richie now makes jokes relating to Percy (with only the occasional jokes about mrs k) because come on he’s now the camp mom

-“wait eddie this is so gross that we’re dating cause we’re related” “fuck off richie” “gives me more of a reason to date your mom”

-eddie always makes sure Bill gets enough sunlight,,,that kids depressed enough he needs some vitamin d

-Stan’s owl friend always watches the cabins during the night, and when he sees richie setting trip wires and such on the playing ground, alerts stan

-eddie teaches richie guitar, which he picks up on quickly. It’s one of the only things his Hermes dexterity applies to, and his lankiness gives him a little bit of an advantage

-reddie is the musical power couple that everyone loves during campfires, although Eddie objects every time until richie literally pulls him to the middle of the circle with Eddie on one knee and his guitar on the other

-they have WiFi thanks to richie

-richie sets up sensors on all the cabin doors on April first and the first door to be opened (bill’s) sets off speakers in all the cabins, blasting Africa by Toto at full bass and full volume

-let’s just say eddie didn’t talk to him for four days because WHY WOULD TOU DO TJAT RICHARD

-“wait bill can you have blue fire hair like hades in Hercules??” “Richie I s-swear to god”

-eddie purposely makes it sunny all the time cause he loves the way the sun shines in Rich’s hair and gives him lil freckles :,,,,)

-Ben appreciates the sun too because bev’s hair looks like fire and she gets so many freckles

-Percy stays at camp during breaks cause he knows how lonely it can get and it always helps for richie to have one more friend while most of his are gone

-he adopts richie cause he sees a little bit of himself in that little shithead (and he may use him to long-distance pester Jason with letters rigged to spew water at him as soon as he opens the envelope before pulling out a soggy piece of blue paper that says “hope you’re not missing us too much in California”)

-Annabeth ADORES Ben and Stanley, she basically adopts them as her kids cause Ben is an intelligent little softie and stan is equally intelligent (although in battle strategy rather than crafting)

-Ben loves it when annabeth visits cause he has someone to show his architectural plans to and help him revise them

-Ben gets SUPER good at architecture, so good in fact that he’s literally hired at age sixteen to help in construction in Olympus

-Hermes learned from his mistakes of neglecting his kids, and is sure as hell to visit and talk to richie and the others as often as he can, especially Richie because of his family history

-after the Athena cabin’s plan backfire, stan gets richie’s assistance in payback (he gets the Hephaestus cabin to create weapons that look exactly like the Ares cabins’, but turn into a mini metal figurine of richie doing finger guns as soon as the capture the flag buzzers go off)

-Bev has a rage in her eyes that hasn’t been seen since they defeated IT, and sweet sweet Ben has to hold her back and (try) to calm her down until bill can come in and make her pass out

-she wakes up kicking and screaming with her entire cabin giving up at blocking her from the door and parting like the Red Sea as soon as they see a red glow surrounding her

-this is the one time bill allows a third loser into his cave hiding place, as nobody knows where it is (he made richie pass out as well before taking him into the cave to protect him from the Wrath of Beverly)

-Bev finally calms down (eddie may have put that medical marijuana to use in some special tea he’s formulated)

-mike sometimes just goes and sits in the forest if he can’t sleep. He loves how it looks at night, and how many odd creatures are roaming around

-he meets Grover one night, and they instantly become great friends

-Grover figures out that one of the wood nymphs has a crush on mike, and plays match maker

-the losers notice mike going to the forest more frequently, and while walking back into camp, little patches of flowers grow in his footprints

-when they start dating, mike likes to make his girlfriend’s tree bloom, and changes the color and type of flower each time

-they’re adorable and everyone loves them

-he protects her tree with all costs, as its life is tied to hers

-mr d has definitely found richie in his underwear and a camp Jupiter shirt passed out on the steps of the big house at 6 in the morning, with Richie holding a bottle of fireball

-richie was put on pegasus shit duty for a week, and Eddie refused to rid him of his immense hangover

-somehow richie gets a cat into the camp, its the camp pet and rich always brings it into the med tent to cheer up injured and sickly kids

-the cat mainly lives there, but it goes to bill’s cabin a lot for peace and quiet

-listen,,, the cat would totally have some horrible name that richie makes up like mr noodles and mr d would be so confused as to who mr noodles could be

-Ben my sweet boy and Stanley sometimes sit with mike in the forest during the day. Mike and stan watch the birds, and Ben reads more of the books rich has smuggled in

-richie tozier makes it his goal to get as many aphrodite kids after him as possible (eddie acts like he hates it but knows his idiot would never leave him)

-literally half the Aphrodite cabin is in love with him, and the other half isn’t interested in guys

-richie gets mike to give him assortments of flowers, and brings them to Eddie in the medics tent every morning

-it’s basically like an alarm cause every day, without fail, the sun will shine a little too brightly at 8 am

If you took the time to read all this you’re a Saint and I appreciate you