#and this is his work appropriate stuff. think about the stuff that’s too disco to even consider wearing to work. imagine.

[ato-dato]

I don’t think they’re ugly. But I think the number of times Jean has begged him to buy new clothes is astronomical.

[shyficwriter]

I've Got You

Guardians of the Galaxy Fanfic | Reader x Guardians (Yondu is alive)

Summary: After you never let anyone else listen to your music Rocket and the guys decide they want to see what potentially embarrassing songs you have on your music player, but find something else entirely.

Author's Note: ANGST! This story does NOT have a happy ending, or an ending at all really. It may be funny at the start but it's all angst at the end and it'll make you cry. Proceed with caution. This isn't even a joke- it gets heavy. I was going through some stuff... If you think this might trigger anything for you at all, skip this one.

Content Warning: Mentions of suicide/depression.

Word Count: 2,508

You didn't mind sharing with the rest of the gang. You really didn't. You'd share your clothes with Mantis, your food with Groot, and your books with Drax. There was very little you didn't share, except for one thing, and that was your music player.

Anytime someone would occasionally ask to borrow it you would always make up an excuse, usually: "Nah, you wouldn't like my music." and that was usually that for a little while. But, of course, eventually someone would ask again and you'd have to make the same excuses over again. Once you even told Peter it was all accordion music so he'd stop asking to compare playlists. That worked for a bit, until a week later you forgot you had told him that and said how much you hated accordion music when the topic of Polka was brought up. Oops. Well, there went that excuse.

One day was different, however.

You were walking in Peter's ship, minding your own business with your headphones in when Rocket motioned to you. He was sitting at a table with Groot. You paused your player and removed one of your earbuds. "What's up?"

"Groot was trying to ask if he could listen with you. but of course you had your volume up like always."

"You're going to damage your hearing if you keep that up," said Gamora, sitting on the other side of the room with Drax.

You ignored her, turning your attention back to Rocket. "Oh. I don't think that's a good idea.." you said with a wince, feeling bad for having to tell the little guy 'no.' Other than Mantis, he was the one you always felt the most guilty saying 'no' to. Those puppy-dog eyes were killer.

Rocket eyed you suspiciously. "Why? Quill lets him do it all the time?"

He was right. Peter did let little Groot listen to music with him quite often. But you weren't Peter.

Peter startled you when he came up from behind you with Yondu, saying, "Yeah, you're weirdly possessive of that thing. It won't hurt to let him have a listen."

'It might.' you thought. "He might be better off listening to your music, we already know he likes that."

"What's wrong with yers?" Yondu asked, who agreed with Peter about the weirdly possessive thing. You barely ever let that thing out of your sight.

You tried to think of something, "It's uh, not really appropriate..."

Yondu chuckled, "Are ya trying to say ya have dirty songs on that player of yers?"

You blushed. That's not exactly where you were going with that, but if it works... "I'd just say my music isn't exactly, uh.. kid friendly."

Your blush only made it more convincing that this whole time you had been hiding embarrassing music on your device. Rocket raised an eyebrow in amusement and Peter laughed too. "There's no way I'm gonna believe you have dirty songs on there. Let me see." he said, moving to reach for your music player.

You quickly put it in your pocket. "Nope! Bye." you said, turning on your heels and making your way to leave the ship, glad you were docked on a planet as it gave you an escape. "Gonna go head out for a walk, be back soon!"

Peter looked slightly disappointed, but let you go.

Once you were gone Rocket spoke up. "You know, I think I know a way how we can sneak a listen to what she's got that's so secret on there," he said, smirking. "Ya know, if you want..."

Yondu and Peter shared a glance before looking over at Gamora, sure she'd reject the idea in favor of your privacy. Surprisingly, she nodded in agreement.

"I have to admit, now I'm curious too." Gamora said with an almost embarrassed shrug.

And with that it was settled. Rocket told them his plan.

***

The next day when you went to retrieve your music player from your nightstand drawer, it was there as expected. However, when you went to power it on nothing happened.

You groaned, walking out into the common area to look for Peter. Once you found him you asked if he had any spare batteries, only to be disappointed when he didn't.

"Although," Peter said, "If you're gonna walk down to the store to get some I'll transfer you some units to bring back a case of soda."

You agreed to bring him back some soda, but told him not to worry about the units as you headed out the door, having been convinced to take little Groot with you last minute. You never could resist those little eyes of his.

The team waited a few moments to make sure you weren't coming back for anything before telling Rocket to make his hasty trip to go get your music player from your room.

Your batteries hadn't died, Rocket had just quietly replaced them with dead ones while you were sleeping. He switched them back once he got back to where the rest of the team had gathered around the table.

Rocket grinned, thinking he was about to hit the jackpot on embarrassing secrets from you. "What do ya think it is?" he asked, handing the player to Peter. "I bet it's boy-bands."

Peter powered on the player and snickered. "What if it's that Justin Bieber guy that was always on the radio when we went to Terra?"

"Oh, he was awful. I would also be embarrassed to be caught willfully listening to his music." Drax said.

"I dunno, I still kinda think she's got dirty songs on there," Yondu laughed. "Ya saw how she blushed."

Peter rolled his eyes and began scrolling through your playlists. He raised an eyebrow. "I hardly recognize any of these songs." he said. "The only ones I recognize are ones I've already got on mine."

"Let me see," offered Kraglin. "I know more Xandarian songs, maybe they're some of those?" He scrolled for a bit before as Peter got up to grab something from a trunk behind him.

Peter sat back down and Kraglin handed the player back, shaking his head. "I don't recognize them either. Maybe they're Terran?"

"We'll see." Peter said, plopping the device he got from the trunk on the table and plugging it into the player. It was a speaker. "Here, now we can all hear it. Which one should I try first?"

"What's in her 'Recent's' list?" Gamora asked.

"First one says "Stay Alive," Peter says, "Oh! I actually think I know that one. My grandad used to listen to it, it's so old!" he laughed. "I didn't expect her to be into disco music though..." Peter hit play and as the lyrics came out he realized he was mistaken. "Oh... that's... That's not the song I thought it was at all..." he said in surprised concern.

♫♩"... Stay alive, stay alive For better days to come around.

When nothing is right in your head And all of your tears are shed I know how it seems, you're in this too deep But take it from me, it's not the end..." ♫♩

"Um..." Peter swiped to play a new, hopefully less depressing, song.

♫♩"Do you ever feel like breaking down? Do you ever feel out of place?" ♫♩

Nope. Peter swiped again.

♫♩"All day starin' at the ceilin' makin' Friends with shadows on my wall All night hearing voices tellin' me That I should get some sleep Because tomorrow might be good for somethin' Hold on, feelin' like I'm headed for a breakdown And I don't know why" ♫♩

Peter furrowed his brow. The others shared concerned glances, but didn't say anything. He swiped again.

♫♩"It's caving in around me What I thought was solid ground I tried to look the other way But I couldn't turn around" ♫♩

*Swipe*

♫♩"Hello darkness my old friend..." ♫♩

Peter could already tell it was another depressing song, he backed out of the screen into the list of recently played songs seeing titles like: "Nightmare," and "I'm not okay (I promise)," and unfortunately more bluntly: "Don't try Suicide." They listened to a few more songs, and they were all depressing. You did have happier songs on your music player, but your "Recents" list was full of much more depressing songs, as if that's all you had listened to for a long time.

Nobody was smiling anymore, Rocket looked like he was sorry he came up with this idea. Even Drax clearly understood that they hadn't discovered anything good.

Yondu's expression was hard, "Well, I don't like this at all."

"I think we made a mistake." Mantis said, concern painting her features.

"But... she always seems so... ok?" Rocket said, his ears lowered. You were his friend. His prank buddy. He had no idea. "Do you really think...she, you know...?"

"I don't know? I mean, do you think she'd really not say anything if she was hurting this much? Wouldn't Mantis at least have picked up on it?" Peter asked. He looked over at Mantis expectantly.

"I can only feel other's emotions if I touch them," she started, "and... she's never actually let me touch her."

"What should we do?" asked Gamora.

***

You walked in a few minutes later to just catch the last bit of Peter saying something about having a talk with you.

"Have a talk with me about what?" you asked.

It was clear you had startled them, Gamora having spun to face you upon hearing you speak up, and she almost never got startled.

You chuckled, walking nearer the table to place your grocery sack on it. Groot hopped off your shoulder to run across the table to Rocket. "Oh gosh, I didn't mean to scare you guys! I got the soda you asked for- ...what's that?" Your demeanor changed from almost cheery to nervous, the blood draining from your face when you saw what was very clearly your music player plugged into a speaker. Your eyes shot to Peter, the one closest to your device. "Peter? What the fuck?"

"It was Rocket's idea!" Peter exclaimed, his guilt having managed to trip his self-preservation switch.

Rocket didn't even try to deny it. He looked at the ground, "I thought it'd be funny..." he muttered. Groot looked at him in confusion. His friend usually never looked sorry for anything.

You snatch your player from the table. It was currently off, leading you to believe there might have been a chance they didn't listen yet. "Boundaries!" you scold, putting the player in your pocket. "Seriously uncool!"

You went to turn around but you bumped into Yondu who had walked around the table while you were scolding Peter.

"Sit." he said, his face stony.

You look up at him in surprise before Gamora spoke up. "We... listened to the songs you had on your player... We just want to talk."

You just stare at her for a moment. "Seriously guys, what the fuck?!" you say, your tone exasperated and your eyebrows knitted together. "You know what? No. I don't want to talk. I'm going back out."

Yondu grabbed your arm as you tried to push past him. "No. Yer gonna sit." with that he walked you to the nearest open chair and made you sit. His tone wasn't angry, but it was firm.

You felt knots tying in your stomach. Gamora spoke again.

"Look, we're sorry we took your music player without asking, but now that we have, we're concerned."

You pinch the bridge of your nose. No. No no no. "I literally told you guys so many times-"

"I know," Peter said, "but please... Just- we need to know if you're ok."

"Of course I'm ok!" you lied. "Why would I not be ok?!"

"Cut the crap." Kraglin said. His tone didn't seem angry either, it almost seemed sad. "I seriously doubt you'd be listening to all that depressing stuff if you were actually ok."

You attempt to stand again, saying, "Look just screw off-" before you were silenced by Yondu firmly pushing down on your shoulder to stop you.

"Look, we care about ya, ya lil' shit, and we ain't about to just let ya keep suffering if yer hurtin."

That tore something in you.

"Please- guys." You clenched your jaw and looked at the floor. No. Fuck. Not right now. "Just-" You inhaled sharply. Dammit. You were not about to start crying right now. You screwed your eyes shut, before covering your face when you realized that wasn't going to stop the tears and not wanting them to see. "Fuck!"

It all flooded you. All the hurt. All the pain. The hopelessness. The humiliation of the current situation. The guilt of your friends worrying about you. The numbness shattering as white hot pain tore through your soul. You felt what you thought was Gamora putting a comforting hand on your shoulder and you tried to hold back a sob as every bad thought you had about yourself came flooding in. You started to shake, feeling shame as memories of thoughts about ending it all leaked out your eyes. How many nights you had stood in front of the airlock weighing whether that night would finally be the night you pushed that button.

From behind you you heard a strangled cry. A cry of pure anguish. It was only then you realized the hand on your shoulder couldn't have been Gamora's. It had come from behind you. She had been standing in front of you. You quickly jerk forward and turn around in your seat, wrenching yourself from Mantis's hand- but it was too late.

Mantis nearly doubled over, hands clawed into her chest as a sob lodged itself in her lungs. She had only wanted to make you feel better. She wasn't expecting the torrent to flood into her so forcefully, hadn't realized this wasn't something she could just make go away with her abilities. She had felt everything.

The others looked at her with wide, startled eyes. Drax pulled her in and held her, not really knowing what to do but trying to make the hurt go away. Poor little Groot didn't understand what was happening, and Rocket held him so he couldn't see. Peter and Gamora shared an alarmed glance.

You were speechless. You could only stare in horror witnessing what you- or rather your pain- had done to her. "Mantis-" was all you could manage, not knowing what else to say. You barely noticed your tears now started flowing freely down your cheeks. You stood up to run away, but just like every other time you had tried, Yondu stopped you. Only this time he pulled you tightly to his chest, his hand cradling the back of your head as if you were a newborn.

"Girl, why didn't you tell us?" you heard him say softly.

You allowed yourself to be held, not realizing until that very moment just how badly you had needed to be. Fresh sobs broke from you and you buried your face into his chest when he said, "Shh now, little girl, I've got you."

[queerdraws]

Cleaning Out the Rooms - a Harry Du Bois playlist Alcoholism, getting better?, memory loss, being a superstar, The Final Dream, forming political opinions, bad breakups, past transgressions, being a strange and inconsistent being, and persisting despite it all 26 songs (r-slur warning for Turnin’ on the Screw - QotSA)

including: David Bazan, They Might be Giants, The Mountain Goats, British Sea Power (of course), Queens of the Stone Age, and more.  Full track listing and lyric excerpts under the cut

---- Turnin' on the Screw - Queens of the Stone Age (This is the opening track on Era Vulgaris, seemed like an appropriate opening song / introduction to Harry's general essence) ----

... They say those who can't just instruct others And act like victims or jilted lovers You can't lose it if you never had it Disappear, man, do some magic

Want a reason? How's about because You ain't a has been if you never was

I sound like this

Scared to say what is your passion So slag it all, bitter's in fashion Fear of failure's all you've started The jury is in, verdict: r******d

I'm so tired, and I'm wired too I'm a mess; I guess I'm turning on the screw

---- Bless this Mess - David Bazan (Harry being a drunk and a general mess, things going in cycles) ----

God bless the man who stumbles God bless the man who falls God bless the man who yields to temptation God bless the woman who suffers God bless the woman who weeps God bless the children trying her patience Trouble getting over it Is what you're in for So pour yourself another 'Cause it'll take a steady pair of hands Holy or unholy ghost Well now I can't tell, but either way you cut it You should get some distance if you plan to take a stand God bless the house divided God bless the weeds in the wheat God bless the lamp hid under a bushel I discovered hell to be the poison in the well So I tried to warn the others of the curse But then my body turned on me I dreamt that for eternity My family would burn Then I awoke with a wicked thirst

---- Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair - Arctic Monkeys (general Harry vibe.  off-kilter) ----

Break a mirror, roll the dice

...

Find a well-known hard man and start a fight Wear your shell suit on bonfire night Fill in a circular hole with a peg that's square

But just don't sit down 'cause I've moved your chair

...

Bite the lightning and tell me how it tastes Kung fu fighting on your roller skates Do the Macarena in the devil's lair

But just don't sit down 'cause I've moved your chair

---- I've Been Seeing Things - They Might be Giants (feels very Harry's detecting style, surreal happenstance) ----

I've been seeing things I've been seeing things Don't have answers but I've got lots of questions

Carpool's up, someone gets out Hand someone else a violin case I'm trying not to let them see me looking at them But I'm pretty sure there was a dollar sign

Keep your eyes peeled and you'll see stuff Which at first seems like unimportant irrelevant things

Can't just ask some perfect stranger "What are you hiding in your violin case?" Shadow them at a distance instead Try to get inside their head

Where'd they go now (Where'd they go now) I got distracted (I got distracted) Begging me to stay (Begging me to stay) Wearing a disguise (Wearing a disguise) That lady (That lady) Must have ditched the kid (Must have ditched the kid) Hidge the down (Hidge the down) [???] What's she up to now? (What's she up to now?) Trembling cold by the airport road Watching them stack containers in rows Seagulls, helicopter, windblown trash Something doesn't add up

I've been seeing things I've been seeing things No one asks but I'm packing all kinds of attention

Later I'm watching a news report Camera pans across a crime scene Unremarked upon detail Empty violin case Okay maybe not the same case Different material, different color Still you have to wonder Am I the only one who knows

I've been seeing things

---- Music is the Victim - Scissor Sisters (breakup Harry.  drug-addled disco Harry) ----

I left my heart in San Fransisco It's at some motherfucking disco The people there where dancin' on it And that's including Ms. Matronic

Hell if music is the victim then so am I Of lovin' and a cheatin' the snake gon' bite I beg and I scream and I cuss and I cry If music is the victim then so am I

Of your bad fun Money's all gone but you need some Lover's on the phone but they got none Daddy ain't home from the dog run And you're riding through the city with a shotgun

I left my bag in Pasadena Where all them girls was doin' Tina Them bitches sure were crunked up on it I said I'd rather smoke some chronic

Hell if music is the victim then so am I Of lovin' and a cheatin' the snake gon' bite I beg and I scream and I cuss and I cry If music is the victim then so am I

---- Down to Your Soul - Right Away, Great Captain! (about the Final Dream and pre-game Harry) ----

And I see things I actually don't see. I knew it wasn't actually you a few feet from my reach. I looked into your eyes and I began to lose my teeth, And I felt you were dreaming the same thing.

And I know you don't know what I'm capable of But if you give me just one more minute I'm sure That you would be shaking right down to your soul And I'd hope that the fear of the lord brings me home. I'm a man in a body of water so tall Could swallow you whole and forget where he's going But I carved a map in the back of my arm Don't worry I'm coming home I said don't worry cause I'm coming home

---- No Surprises - Radiohead (suicidal harry, pre-game.  Maybe immediately before the game.  A little Big Communism Builder) ----

A heart that's full up like a landfill A job that slowly kills you Bruises that won't heal You look so tired, unhappy Bring down the government They don't, they don't speak for us I'll take a quiet life A handshake of carbon monoxide

And no alarms and no surprises

…

This is my final fit My final bellyache

…

No alarms and no surprises, please (get me out of here)

---- Cleaning Out the Rooms - British Sea Power (The instrumental part seems to have been used / referenced for a background music track.  And also the name of that one thought project. as expected, it fits beautifully.  Wake up in a new life, down by the seaside.  Cleaning out the rooms.  She’ll be coming soon.) ----

Where life is good in a way Swept away upon our hearts, in cold coal ceremonial On a rainy day, hang it up Get the vacuum and suck it in Cleaning out the rooms, I'll clean it up Dark cloud, drifting out of view I'll never know, she'll be coming soon, that is all I'll wake up in a new life, ship shape and shoe shine Cleaning out the rooms, I'll clean it up She'll be coming soon Drifting into view, way in the west, white cloud If everybody knew, I never knew, she'll be coming soon I'll wake up in a new life, down by the seaside In a new life, down by the seaside Cleaning out the room, I'll clean it up Dark clouds, she'll be coming soon Down the chimney, out the window, that is all

---- In the Morning of the Magicians - The Flaming Lips (waking up with no memory, but bad vibes) ----

In the morning I awake

And I couldn't remember What is love and what is hate

The calculations error

Oh, what is love and what is hate? And why does it matter? Is to love just a waste? And how can it matter?

Oh...

As the dawn began to break I had to surrender The universe will have its way Too powerful to master

---- Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads (Huh??  What's happening??  same as it ever was, same as it ever was) ----

And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?" And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?" And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house" And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"

...

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

...

And you may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?" And you may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?" And you may ask yourself, "Am I right? Am I wrong?" And you may say to yourself, "My God! What have I done?"

---- Don't Change - David Bazan (alcoholism, cycles of wanting to get better, depression, slipping in to old coping mechanisms, plus a little bit in here about dreams.  This is a song for if Harry continues partying after the memory wipe, I suppose) ----

He seems nice You met him once or twice But you wonder what he's like When he's sober

Then again You hear he has no friends Just people that he spins To do him favors

When he wakes up in the morning he tells himself Today I'll make a change But falling into his bed at night he thinks Man it was a beautiful day to stay the same

I'm so deep That only in my sleep Do the secrets that I keep Float to the surface

So I hold them down Till they don't make a sound Like they accidentally drowned Except on purpose

And when I wake up in the morning I tell myself Today I'll make a change But falling into my bed at night I think Man it was a beautiful day to stay the same

---- Airbag - Radiohead (born again, back to save the universe) ----

In the next world war In a jackknifed juggernaut I am born again In the neon sign scrolling up and down I am born again

In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe

In a deep, deep sleep of the innocent I am born again In a fast German car I'm amazed that I survived An airbag saved my life

In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe

---- A Comet Appears - The Shins (puppeting a man-body around pretending to be a living thing. drinking, depression) ----

One hand on this wily comet Take a drink just to give me some weight Some uber-man I'd make I'm barely a vapor

They shone a chlorine light on A host of individual sins Let's carve my aging face off Fetch us a knife Start with my eyes Down so the lines Form a grimacing smile

Close your eyes to corral a virtue Is this fooling anyone else? Never worked so long and hard To cement a failure

---- The Communists Have the Music - They Might be Giants (Big Communism Builder, but especially Harry's shallow understanding of Communism.  Party-boy communist) ----

I got handed an Ayn Rand sandwich Straight from the can, it tasted so bland I asked a lass to pass me a glass Of Engels' Conditions of the Working Class

Right away they dragged me to the committee To explain my un-American activity They're gonna see they made a mistake If they'd only let me play my mixtape

I'm not partial to the martial Or the plutocrats, in their beaver hats And the fascists have the outfits But I don't care for the outfits What I care about is music And the communists have the music

---- Harlem Roulette - The Mountain Goats (Harry thinking about Guillame le Million?  Generally: that vibe of secret, maybe supranatural machinations happening just outside your field of view.  A kinda lonely, pensive vibe, sprinkled with past drug use, driving...memory) ----

Unknown engines underneath the city Steam pushing up in billows through the grates Frankie Lymon's tracking "Seabreeze" in a studio in Harlem Its 1968. Just a pair of tunes to hammer out. Everybody's off the clock by 10:00. The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again. Feels so free when I hit the avenue. Nothing like a New York summer night. Every dream's a good dream, Even awful dreams are good dreams, If you're doing it right. Remember soaring higher than a cloud. Get pretty sentimental now and then. The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again. And four hours north of Portland, a radio flips on. And some no one from the future remembers that you're gone. Armies massing in the dusky distance. Ghosted in the ribbon microphone. Leave a little mark on something, maybe, Take the secret circuit home. Nothing in the shadows but the shadow hands. Reaching out to sad, young, frightened men. The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you're never going to see again.

---- Suture up Your Future - Queens of the Stone Age (Harry's gonna fix his mess) ----

I'm gon' suture up my future I ain't jaded, I just hate it See, I been down too long It's kinda hard to explain Burned and buried, all I carried

...

Tried explaining unexplained Got caught in the plan All this talking at once I've been giving my love away To the things that tear it apart I'm gonna suture up my future

---- Lampshades on Fire - Modest Mouse (Harry trashing his body / having already trashed his body, just kinda a Harry-vibe song) ----

...

Well, the lampshade's on fire when the lights go out This is what I really call a party now Well, fear makes us really, really run around A-this one's done so where to now? Our eyes light up, we have no shame at all Well, you all know what I'm talking about The room lights up, but we're still dancing around We're having fun, having some fun now

Pack up again, head to the next place Where we'll make the same mistakes Open one up and let it fall to the ground Pile out the door when it all runs out

...

As our feelings are getting hurt Oh, we want you to do the work Our ass looks great inside these jeans Well, we want just our water clean

Well, this is how it's always been And this is how it's going to be So you just move on

---- Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes (Harry "can-opener" du Bois.  Talking to the skills, solving things, detecting, generally being a terrifying force of nature / the pale) ----

I'm gonna fight 'em all A seven nation army couldn't hold me back They're gonna rip it off Taking their time right behind my back

And I'm talking to myself at night Because I can't forget Back and forth through my mind Behind a cigarette

And the message coming from my eyes Says, "Leave it alone"

Don't wanna hear about it Every single one's got a story to tell Everyone knows about it From the Queen of England to the Hounds of Hell

And if I catch it coming back my way I'm gonna serve it to you And that ain't what you want to hear But that's what I'll do

And the feeling coming from my bones Says, "Find a home"

---- Body of Years - Mother Mother (Harry's past that follows him, Harry's half-decomposed body that marks the years of abuse it's been through) ----

All the remains of a cadaver of days I keep hidden away, keep them there just in case I wanna visit that place Blow the dust from the bones Off a body of years that I leave all alone Just a body of years

See the skin disappears And the blood turns to stone In a body of years now a pile of bones Like a sheet of veneer Each a piece of my soul It's a body of years that I leave all alone

It's Just a body of years, now a pile of bones You know Old soul who falls down Can't stop trippin' on these Old roads I go down Get back up and get my foot in the door And my face on the page Make my mark in the world With a bat and a blade It's a body of work that you can't ever change Like a body of years that you take to your grave It's just a body of years that I leave all alone It's just a body of years, now a pile of bones Like a sheet of veneer Each a piece of my soul

---- The Cap-m - They Might be Giants (just a Harry vibe song) ----

When I talk you keep looking away from me 'Cause you probably think that I'm high on pot But I'm not, I'm not

Look me over, I'm the Cap'm You say it's such a joke But I don't see you laughing

People seem to think you can't be called the Cap'm Unless you drive a boat Well, I don't I don't

Look me over, I'm the Cap'm Go ahead and mess with me You'll find out what will happ'm

...

Did you say what I think you just said My hat looks good on me? I agree, I agree

Look me over, I'm the Cap'm You act like it's a joke But I don't see you laughing

---- Broke - Modest Mouse (oops!  all mistakes.  Broke it all.  Want to forget it but can't) ----

Broke account, so I broke a sweat I've bought some things that I sort of regret about now Broke my pace and ran out of time Sometimes I'm so full of shit that it should be a crime

Broke a promise 'cause my car broke down Such a classic excuse it should be bronze by now Broke your glasses, but it broke the ice You said that I was an asshole and I paid the price

Broken hearts want broken necks I've done some things that I'd love to forget, but I can't

Broke up, and I'm relieved somehow It's the end of the discussions that just go 'round and 'round And 'round, and 'round, and 'round ... It was like everything was evidence of broken time

You're living on fancy wine You'll drink that turpentine You're starting conversations You don't even know the topic

---- Spent Gladiator 2 - The Mountain Goats (Defiantly alive) ----

Like a spent gladiator, Crawling in the coliseum dust. Who can count on his remaining limbs, All the people he can trust. Like the one who stands behind him, Cheering him on. Ecstatic when he stands defiant, Wild with abandon when he's gone. Just stay alive. Keep your eyes on the pay line. Like a village on the step, About to get collectivized. When the men emerge with rifles from the haystack, Everybody looks surprised. Like the mice in the forgotten grain, Way up on the top shelf. Like someone who's found a small town to escape to, Keeps one eye on his abandoned, former self. Stay in the game. Just try to play through the pain. Like a fighter who's been told its finally time for him to quit. Show up in shining colors, And then stand there and get hit. Like the clock that ticks in Dresden, When the whole town's been destroyed. Like the nagging flash of insight, You're always desperate to avoid. Like the bloody-knuckled gunman, Still stationed at the breach. Like that board game with the sliders, And the children on the beach. Stay alive. Maybe spit some blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.

---- You Only Live Once - The Strokes (just general Harry, talking about the skills, choices you can make, what kind of cop you can be) ----

Twenty-nine different attributes Only seven that you like, oh-oh Twenty ways to see the world, oh And twenty ways to start a fight, oh

...

And countless odd religions too It doesn't matter which you choose, oh, no One stubborn way to turn your back, oh This I've tried and now refuse, oh

Oh don't, don't, don't get up I can't see the sunshine Oh, I'll be waiting for you, baby 'Cause I'm through Sit me down Shut me up I'll calm down And I'll get along with you

---- Pork and Beans - Weezer (Superstar Cop) ----

They say I need some rogaine to put in my hair Work it out at the gym to fit my underwear Oakley makes the shades to transform a tool You'd hate for the kids to think that you've lost your cool

I'ma do the things that I wanna do I ain't got a thing to prove to you I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans Excuse my manners if I make a scene I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like I'm fine and dandy with the me inside One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink I don't give a hoot about what you think

Everyone likes to dance to a happy song With a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the charts Maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art

I'ma do the things that I wanna do I ain't got a thing to prove to you I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans Excuse my manners if I make a scene I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like I'm fine and dandy with the me inside One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink I don't give a hoot about what you think

No, I don't care I don't care

---- Freaks - Surf Curse (head filled with skills, The Final Dream) ----

Don't kill me just help me run away From everyone I need a place to stay Where I can cover up my face Don't cry, I am just a freak

I am just a freak(x3)

My head is filled with parasites Black holes cover up my eyes I dream of you almost every night Hopefully I won't wake up this time

I won't wake up this time(x3)

---- The Smallest Church in Sussex - British Sea Power (oh yeah this is mandatory) ----

[nevermindirah]

Dorothy Freeman facts

By facts I of course mean headcanons, because Nile's mom doesn't get a first name in canon (or even confirmation that her last name is Freeman). All we know about her is the picture on Nile's phone lock screen (which is Kiki Layne's real-life mom and brother!) and a few lines that Nile tells Andy about her. I’ve been collecting my Dorothy headcanons for a while now to eventually make a post, and @mprosperossprite​‘s excellent post giving non-Americans context for what it means that Nile is from the South Side of Chicago prompted me to go ahead and share this. Disclaimer that I’m white and I will absolutely make corrections if it’s pointed out that I’ve caused harm with any of this.

So here have some fun facts about the version of Mama Freeman who lives in my head rent-free:

Her family and growing up:

she was born in the mid-'60s and named after Dorothy Dandridge

I can’t decide whether she was born in Chicago or moved there later on (maybe with Nile’s dad?) and when in the waves of the Great Migration her family left the South

she came of age in the "post"-Civil Rights movement and went to college in the mid-80s when a lot of what are now the foundational classics of Black feminism were being written

she was a young adult when Anita Hill risked so much to report that a Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her, and as a result she HATES Joe Biden

Marriage and babies:

she met Nile's father — I can’t decide how they met and I have two competing headcanons for his name, either Gideon for the hefty Biblical masculinity vibes (Giddy for short among family, that man loved to laugh) or Carl, which started out as a shitty Carl’s Jr burger chain joke that turns out to be perfect (it means free man!), and @knoepfchen​ used it in the sequel to if you do take a thief where Carl is alive!! — and Dorothy was a little skeptical of his near-religious devotion to the military but he was really hot and really devoted to her and they made it work

she's a little pissed that she was right but it's unbearable if she thinks about it too often

it's going to be a long, long time before she can look back on pictures of Baby Nile stomping around the house in her dad's combat boots (this is a Gina Prince Bythewood headcanon, whyyyyyyyy can I not find a link to where she said this)

she named their second baby Indus, Indy for short (this is nearly as established fanon in Book of Nile circles as how much Booker loves eating pussy, and Indy Freeman as a young adult is portrayed by either Aldis Hodge or John Boyega I don’t make the rules)

Work:

Dorothy did some office jobs but nothing really grabbed her, and she was probably gonna have to move for her husband's career, so she decided on teaching — high school humanities

she’s been active in CTU (one of the strongest teacher’s unions in the US) her whole career and one year she was on the bargaining committee and her babies know damn well never to trust a boss, not even one who says all the right things — if she ever finds out the way Nile said "like Quynh?" when Andy promised to protect her, she will lose her mind with pride

(Nile was 18 and freshly graduated from high school in 2012 when CTU went on strike for the first time in a generation and she brought her mom snacks on the picket line)

one of her very favorite things is getting her students to laugh despite themselves at her "oh my GOD you're so EMBARRASSING" old-people jokes

she's one of those teachers who can get 30+ teenagers to go dead silent with judicious application of body language

she's known to occasionally go easy on grading subjective things like essays when she knows students are having a particularly rough time at home, but the second she gets the feeling they're taking advantage and not trying their best that shit is over and they better mind their Ps & Qs

she's the kind of person who says old-people shit like that

she gives her students assignments like "help 5 neighbors register to vote" and "write a compare/contrast table about the candidates in this local election" and "research 5 different ways you could get grant money to do X" and other practical civic-minded shit

standardized testing is her supervillain origin story, just kidding it’s Rahm Emanuel, why the fuck did Obama trust that asshole

After her husband died:

she would have lost her goddamn mind if it weren't for her church friends after her husband died, people from the church raised money so they could make ends meet while his pension paperwork was taking forever, church friends watched Indy so Nile could go out for the soccer team, etc etc

she sold her and her late husband's house and moved to a 3-bedroom co-op unit when Nile started high school, it's more affordable and it meant she didn't have to worry about household repairs in the same way, she can use a wrench if she needs to but she doesn't have time and it just makes her grief flare up (co-op housing has a long history in Chicago and other US cities (like Washington DC where I live) as a way for Black people to access decent, affordable housing in the face of entrenched discrimination)

the move meant putting a longer commute between her and church, but she didn't even bother looking for a church closer to their new home, she loaded the kids into the car on the weekends, parking is hell in their new neighborhood but it's worth giving up a hard-won parking spot to not have to wait so long for the L on Sunday mornings

Indy lived with her through college and he was gearing up to get his own place when Nile died, Dorothy was planning to move into a one-bedroom in the co-op building because she doesn't need so much space anymore, Indy took a day off from his new job (not so new anymore, her baby's so grown!) to help her sort things to donate when those dress-uniform Marines came to their door

part of her wishes she could've been home more and not had to rely on Nile so much for help with Indy, but he's turned out such a kind young man, and he's a much better cook than his sister is (was, oh God — no wait, is! she’s alive! what do you mean you’ve been alive all this time??)

some of the girls from church are encouraging her to check out this social dancing thing, nobody's pressuring her to date but there's definitely been some ribbing, and with Indy out of the house... maybe? probably not, but maybe

Her feelings and beliefs and likes and dislikes:

she's an absolute badass and also she's a soft human woman with lots of feelings

she's very, very traditional in some ways, and part of her mixed feelings about Nile following in her dad's footsteps is gender stuff, she's proud of her daughter and would never stand in the way of what Nile wants to do with her life, and if Nile came home and told her she's a lesbian she would never reject her, but if Nile came home and told her she's bisexual maybe she can just try focusing on men? “I love you sweetheart and I want you to be happy I just know how hard it is already for us in this world” type shit

she has been on team natural hair basically her entire life and one of the worst fights she and Nile ever had was over Nile wanting to straighten her hair as a pre-teen

Indy takes more after her and Nile takes more after their dad, she's so proud of both of them, but Dorothy's activism was mostly wearing her natural hair to work and daring bosses to give her shit, Indy's out there marching in the streets like her parents had and she WORRIES

she teases Indy for going to so many protests like he's using it as an excuse to meet girls, but she WORRIES

when she turns 60, she gets box braids with streaks of dark purple, subtle enough that it's still work-appropriate but it makes her smile, she may be old now but damnit she’s still pretty!

she loves Grey's Anatomy and Star Trek and she watched Bridgerton all in one day

she has a dirty-old-lady celebrity crush on Chris Hemsworth

if she's ever masturbated thinking about Donna Summer, well, that's nobody's business but her own (do non-Americans know about the queen of disco??)

If you want to read fic featuring Dorothy:

I won't have to leave alone, 1000 words, Nile has a nightmare and decides to go tell her family she's immortal

I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore, 65k, Nile adjusts to immortality and does a lot of soul searching about what it means to "do what we think is right", Booker goes to grad school for trauma studies, the working title of this fic was Booker Reads Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and Goes Down on Nile and the final product has an annotated bibliography in the author's notes if you’re into that kind of thing, a lot of my Dorothy Freeman headcanons were born of my process writing this

Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat, 2279 words, college AU, Nile brings her Jewish boyfriend home for Christmas

a contribution I made to Shitty Old Guard Deaths: (Booker, USA, 2025, cause of death: a mother’s righteous wrath)

[longitud-de-onda]

{un veneno} march: eloquence

pairing; javier peña x female reader summary; your time with emiliana is running out and your feelings for javier are only growing rating; m warnings; talk about sex, alcohol (can i even write a javi fic without it?), angst, age gap, two idiots who need to get over themselves word count; 3.1k january, february

un veneno masterlist

You turned over as you woke up, not wanting to open your eyes to the bright light that streamed into your room from the windows. When you did, however, your eyes didn’t open to the darker side of your room but the worn fabric of Javier’s couch.

You stretched out, groaning as you woke up. Your neck was a little sore, which you attributed to the position you were lying in without a pillow. A blanket was half-draped over you, and you were still wearing yesterday’s clothes. It didn’t feel great, but the couch was surprisingly comfortable.

The events of the night before began to return to your memory: going out for drinks with Javier, returning to his apartment, watching TV on the couch until late. You must have drifted off at some point.

It was nice to know Javier let you fall asleep there. It had happened before, more often than you’d like to admit, but usually, he’d set you up in the small spare bedroom he had.

You heard a bit of rustling as you rolled over to glance over the room. Javier was walking out of the kitchen towards the door, a piece of toast in hand.

“Javi?” you said, voice dripping with sleep, “What are you doing?”

“You’re awake!” he startled before breaking out into a smile. “Good morning.”

He had grabbed his leather jacket and looked like he was about to leave.

“Morning,” you smiled up at him. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to go to work,” he said. There was a tinge of apology in his voice like he wanted to spend the day with you.

“It’s Saturday,” you complained. It was too early for you to care about being respectful, or care at all about what you were saying. You wanted him to stay.

After that day on the mountainside, you had taken to spending your Saturdays with Javier. He had the day off, so you could go do stuff together. Except, obviously, today.

“I know, but it’s important,” he said. He took a bite of the toast.

“I hate the DEA,” you said. You had hoped you’d get to go out to the market on the other side of town. Javier had promised he’d take you there at some point, he didn’t trust you to go alone. Too dangerous, he said.

“I know,” he laughed, “I’m sorry. You can stay as long as you need. Just lock up.”

“Okay,” you said, “When’ll you be done?”

“I meant you could stay as long as you need to wake up and eat and stuff. You can’t spend all day inside.” Javier opened the door. “We can do lunch tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” you said. “Bye, Javi.”

“Have a good day,” he said before exiting the apartment.

You pushed the blanket off of yourself and sat up. It hurt, having him leave as soon as you woke up. Not that you were in a position where you could be offended. You were lucky he let you spend the night.

Javier’s attention was something you found yourself almost fighting for, and you knew others must as well. He was charming, young, handsome, and worked for the Embassy. That was the definition of a perfect man in most peoples’ books.

You stood up and walked over to the kitchen, where you grabbed a banana and sat down to eat. This was your 8th time, if you had kept track correctly, spending the night at Javier’s, and you seemed to always get a better nights’ sleep, even on the couch, than you did back at Emiliana’s.

Unfortunately, today was different in that Javier wasn’t there. You missed having him wander around, talking about different things. You missed telling him about work. Sometimes he’d talk about his favorite music or Colombian political secrets, and you’d tell him about how you always managed to find the best restaurants in every city and lecture him about packing a bag for an overnight because whenever he had to go up to Medellín he always overpacked.

As you sat eating, you found yourself wondering what the back half of his apartment looked like.

You walked over to his room and pushed open the door. The smell hit you before you could even notice what it looked like. A combination of sweat and latex and whatever that distinctly sex smell was, and the wave of it was so strong you had a hard time imagining that he hadn’t had sex in the past 8 hours you had been in the apartment.

Usually, that smell dissipated, you were familiar with that. For it to linger?

Your stomach clenched as your mind cleared a bit to notice the big bed in the center of the room and you realized he must have someone else in here almost every day. There’s likely been girls younger than yourself in that bed.

And for some reason, you haven’t been one of those women.

You’re standing in Javier’s closet, shuffling around in the small space, Javier sitting on his bed beyond the closed door. You had been chatting ever since you arrived at his place after school got out.

You hoped to be able to change out of your work clothes into the outfit that had somehow migrated to Javier’s closet, but the limited space didn’t allow for any speed.

“Hey, um, you have to move out of Emi’s soon, right?” Javier asked, voice muffled through the wood.

“Yeah,” you said, frowning. “I do.”

You had a couple days left and had been lying to Emiliana for a couple weeks now about having a place to stay. You chalked your procrastination up to over-involvement with teaching work and spending the rest of your free time with Javier or out partying. That didn’t fix the fact that in a few days you’d be effectively homeless.

“What are you going to do? You’ve set something up, right?” he said.

You couldn’t outright say no. Not to Javier. He was a decade or so older than you, had things figured out, had dealt with his own fair share of housing problems in the past. To admit that you had ignored this problem would be to admit how naive you were.

“I’ve traveled a lot, you know,” you decided on saying. “Been places where I didn’t know where I was going to sleep for the night.”

“Y/N!” he sounds like he’s rolling his eyes. “This is different. You’re working a job, you need something stable.”

“I don’t do stability.” That was as close to a life motto as you had. Living someplace for two months was new territory for you. The prospect of another nine or so was practically impossible to imagine.

“I know, but...” he stopped.

You paused, shirt halfway on, and waited for him to finish his sentence.

“What if you just move in with me?”

“What?” you ask, stunned. You finish putting on your shirt, mind working double time.

“I mean, you practically already live here. Your clothes are here, you eat here. I have a spare bedroom,” he said.

Moving in with Javier? As roommates? It was like some sort of angel and demon joined forces to create a godsend that would also torture you for the rest of the year. And how long was he suggesting this for? Because the nights you spent here were already pushing your limits of staying shut up about how much you wanted to kiss him.

“You know what, forget I said anything. It was a bad idea,” Javier rushed out.

You tensed up. No. You wanted this. Even if he was going to be the death of you.

You slipped on your pants as fast as you could, and flung open the door, throwing yourself onto Javier. He hugged back.

“No,” you said into his shoulder, “It’s a great idea. Thank you.”

“Where are you headed?” Javier walked out from his room, seeing you grabbing your jacket and purse which had been tossed across the couch earlier that day.

You were wearing the tightest jeans you owned and a cropped tank top, and the feeling of Javier’s eyes swooping over your body was just what you needed. There was no question: you were wearing this outfit to get the attention of someone.

“Dancing,” you responded, keeping it short as not to divulge your feelings. I’m going out so that I can forget about the fact that I get to sleep in the room next to you but never in your bed wasn’t the most appropriate answer.

“Fun.” He was frozen in the opposite corner of the room and you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. You had been living together for two weeks. You had gone out before. Why was he acting weird about it now? Why was this different?

“You’d hate it,” you said.

He liked going out for drinks but that was his limit. You had learned that the reason Javier was so perplexed by your social tendencies was your comfort around crowds. After years of training and working with the DEA, too many people put him into Agent Peña mode, and while it was useful for self-preservation, it meant his idea of fun usually involved fewer people.

“Maybe not?” he said, walking further into the living room. You furrowed your brow. What was he getting at? “The fact that you’d be there makes a pretty compelling argument.”

“Sure it does,” you laughed, trying to ignore the way his words sent a chill down your spine. Your brain helpfully supplied you with the image of Javier in a disco with you, tipsy and on the dance floor, hands around your hips, grabbing at bare skin on your waist and sliding up your leg under a short skirt. The goosebumps crawled up your arms and you shrugged on your jacket.

“I’m not going to be back until tomorrow,” you said.

“Why not?” He actually looked confused and for a moment you felt sorry that he didn’t understand. Until you remembered he was why.

“Um...” You didn’t know how to tell him, I’m going to go out of my way to fuck someone so that I can forget that I’m falling in love with you. It hurt everywhere, but mostly in your chest, and you knew staying in this apartment any longer would cause you to explode. Your heart couldn’t handle the sort of torture you were putting it through.

Javier was perfect in all the ways you didn’t think men were capable of. He respected everyone, even the women he paid to have sex with. He was great at being a roommate: sitting down for dinner with you, going out and buying groceries, listening to you vent about your bad days. He was vulnerable, at least within the confines of your apartment, sharing the difficulties of his job in ways you were beginning to understand. He said good night to you every evening with so much tenderness it hurt.

You knew Javier was getting lots of action. It was no secret that before most of the fucking occurred in his living room. Now that you were around he had the decency to always stick to the bedroom if he even had them there. Usually, he would leave for the evening, but sometimes you would get to meet his encounters.

Some of them were young, just over 18 and absolutely stunning, while others were closer to his age and would stay for an hour to smoke with him and talk. It didn’t matter who they were. Only that they were almost always different every time and they each were successful in confirming that you were quite possibly the only girl in Bogotá who wouldn’t get to warm Javier’s bed for a night.

You couldn’t handle it anymore. The last time you slept with someone was over a month ago, with Mateo, and your most recent orgasms had been at your own hand with Javier’s name on your lips, face pushed into the pillow, hoping he wouldn’t hear.

Your pause was enough for him to understand you’d be falling asleep in someone else’s bed tonight.

“Right,” he nodded. He stood across from you, hands in his pockets. “Well, stay safe?”

You rolled your eyes.

“You too, Javi. You never know, I leave you alone and you’ll end up setting this whole place on fire or something.”

Your head was pounding as you woke up, wrapped up in the arms of not one, but two men. As you shuffled around, you realized one was awake, and you mumbled a good morning. The events of the night before weren’t very clear, once you left Javier’s apartment (you still weren’t used to the fact that it was your home, too) you had gotten as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. It was a blur of neon lights and hands around your body.

You could remember leaving the disco in a haze, arms wrapped around you. Remember moaning as you rode someone. Remember being held by your waist. By your hair. Remember Javier’s face flooding your mind as you came. Remember biting down on a pillow to keep from shouting out his name.

You looked down at the two men surrounding your body. You weren’t sure if they were together. They might have been? Most men wouldn’t dare sleep in the same bed as another unless they were involved.

You thanked them, wanting to make your leave before it got awkward. Maybe they wanted to have breakfast with you. Debrief. Talk. Sometimes that was custom. You didn’t want to do that. This wasn’t a normal threesome. Not that those existed. But this was you, trying to forget someone, and if that came up in conversation you would feel guilty.

So you gathered your things, got dressed, and left.

Walking the streets of Bogotá in the morning was nice. The fresh air on your skin felt amazing and the smell of fruit wafting through the air was refreshing. You loved the way the city breathed. It didn’t sound or smell like any other city you had been to. You knew you were falling in love with the city itself.

You opened the door to Javier’s and startled at the empty apartment. He was an early riser, and he liked to work in the living room. There was no one there. He must’ve still been asleep.

You entered the kitchen, collapsing into one of the chairs at the table. You grabbed an apple from the bowl and started eating. You didn’t really want to talk to Javier today. Sleeping with someone else hadn’t exactly helped the way you thought it would.

“Javi didn’t mention he had a roommate,” said a voice from behind you, accent thick. English wasn’t their first language.

You turned around, taking in the woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She was probably around your age, wearing nothing more than her underwear and one of Javier’s button-downs. She was beautiful. Your stomach flipped.

“Um, yeah. Hi,” you mumble. “And you are?”

“I’m Elena,” she said, smiling. She entered the kitchen like it was her own home and sat down across from you, grabbing another apple from the bowl.

You knew what she was here for. They didn’t usually spend the night. But there was a first for everything, you supposed. You told yourself you had to get used to it. You were roommates, and this was who Javier was. That was something you’d have to learn to accept. It just hurt so much more given the events of the last twenty-four hours.

“Nice to meet you, um—”

“Did Javi not tell you I would be here?” she interrupted you. Her brow furrowed a bit and you wondered how long she had been planning to sleep with Javier. 

“No, he, uh,” you stuttered, “He didn’t mention anything.”

“Elena,” called Javier from further back in the apartment, out of sight. “Do you want to have breakfast before my roommate gets back, I don’t really want her to know someone was...”

He had wandered into the kitchen, trailing off as he saw you. He at least had the decency to look guilty.

“Hey, Javi,” you said, swallowing back the pain.

“Y/N? Hi,” he said, “Sorry, I, uh, I didn’t realize you were here.”

Of course he didn’t. You stared up at him. He had on pants but no shirt, and damn if you didn’t want to walk up to him and feel every square inch, trace the side of his neck, feel the rise and fall of his chest. You glanced away, hoping futilely he hadn’t caught you staring. You looked over at Elena, knowing that she had gotten to do exactly what you wanted.

And you were sitting in between this couple, ruining their morning after.

“It’s fine,” you said, pushing back your chair and ushering Javier into your seat. “It’s your place, you should have breakfast.”

“I should go,” Elena said, standing. “I think you two need to work out whatever is going on.”

“No!” you and Javier said at the same time. He looked back at you.

“Stay,” you said, not wanting for Javier to say anything that would completely screw over your day. “I need to take a shower, I’ll make myself scarce.”

You turn around and walk away, knowing that the two are starting at your back, still wearing the skimpy outfit you had on as you left the night before.

Upon entering your room, you closed the door and leaned against it, exhaling shakily. You squeezed your eyes shut, praying that the tears wouldn’t fall. This was exactly why you didn’t stay in one place for too long. When you were traveling, there was no time for feelings to develop, anything that happened was casual. You didn’t have to deal with pining in silence for months as someone flirted meaninglessly back at you.

You had dug yourself into this hole, agreeing to the job at the school, and now you wished you hadn’t. Getting to be around Javier was a blessing, some days you couldn’t believe how lucky you were to get to meet someone so perfect. But nothing made sense. Why did this guy, years older than you, offer to spend his time with you, even give up his privacy and let you live with him, but stay so painfully distant? What was it about you that he didn’t want?

The sound of laughter erupted from the direction of the kitchen and you sank to the floor, wishing you could go back to when you said yes to living here and stop yourself. You’d rather be back at a shitty hostel than feeling this.

next part

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[words-and-seeds]

“They hear the music the other person is listening to in their head” for any ship, but this could make... one hell of a Sharky/Reader sksksksksksk

This is old as balls, and I don’t even know if this was a request or a comment, but you got a fic. 💋💋💋

Your parents hated your soulmate long before you learned his name or anything about him.

It all started when you were a baby. When you would wake up screaming in the middle of the night with no warning. Your already sleep-deprived parents took you to doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist, but the most the doctors could come up with was that maybe you just had a bad case of colic.

When it continued long after the age colic was supposed to go away, one enterprising young pediatrician came up with a surprising and unconventional answer: maybe it was your soulmate’s choice in music keeping you up at nights.

You were too young to talk at the time, so it wasn’t like they could ask you about it, and since it was possibly music that was only playing in your head, they couldn’t just give you earplugs. But since they were desperate for anything that would give you, and them, a full night of sleep, they installed a CD player in your room and began to play soothing, toddler appropriate music instead.

Your soulmate seemed to get the hint.

Once they started, you never woke up, crankily sobbing your little heart out, after that for anything other than normal baby reasons.

It didn’t mean you didn’t hear the music anymore, it just meant your soulmate was more considerate about when he played it.

You grew up listening to disco, which worried your parents a bit. They knew your soulmate was older by his taste in music, they just hoped he wasn’t too much older. You weren’t as worried, content to just go with the flow and see what happened.

You didn’t entirely love his taste in music, but he probably hated yours. After all, your tastes ran much more toward opera and classical, which was about as far from Donna Summer and The Trammps as you could possibly get.

But you thought about him a lot as you grew. What his name was, what he looked like, why on Earth he loved a genre of music that went out of style forty years ago. You found yourself wishing you were the kind of soulmates who could communicate by writing on your skin and be done with it, because your brilliant idea of communicating by song lyrics either went completely over his head, or he just chose not to acknowledge it.

You only hoped that he enjoyed hearing the first lines of The Zombies’ Time of The Season on repeat.

When the years stretched on and you started to despair that you would meet him, you started to date around. Mostly because your parents were sick of you moping around and crying every time one of your friends would get married. But the knowledge that the other half of your soul was out there, waiting for you, meant that any relationship you bothered to start was pretty much dead in the water.

Besides, you had started to suspect he knew when you were going out on dates, because on those nights, the disco played louder than ever.

You found yourself in the very awkward position of explaining to your dates that you couldn’t actually concentrate on what they were saying, because your soulmate seemed to be the jealous and passive aggressive type.

By the time you enter the police academy, you’d all but given up on finding him, and devoted yourself to your career. Law enforcement suited you, and you liked the idea of making a difference.

That pretty much changed immediately when you were given a desk job and moved to the basement to do reports.It was all you could do to get through a day, and during those times, the disco actually helped. It gave you something to dance around and lip sync to, even if you did look like a lunatic to anyone who walked in. But there was only so much paperwork one person could do before going completely postal.

So you start looking around for a new job, and for reasons you couldn’t even explain to yourself, you feel drawn to the job opening for a junior deputy in the Hope County sheriff’s department.

After applying and receiving a surprisingly quick response - a terse ‘you’re hired’ and a time and date to show up for orientation - you made the move to Hope County with a light heart.

You felt like you went in with your eyes open: you knew that Hope County wasn’t likely to be a hot bed of criminal activity, you knew you’d more than likely relegated yourself to the position of cow crossing guard - or whatever the hell they had out there in the boonies - but at least you would be out in God’s own country and the fresh air.

What you were not expecting was a federal marshal walking in on your first day - a day of doughnut runs and sorting paperwork - and tell you that you would be accompanying him to arrest a dangerous criminal.

In spite of yourself, the idea had a certain appeal, right up until the helicopter landed and you got your first look at the Peggie compound. Then your stomach dropped to your toes.

Almost to the second, as if he were just waiting for your cue, you heard the first strains of Disco Inferno start up and had to fight the nervous laughter, because it was actually quite comforting.

Plus, it was quite hard to concentrate on someone giving a sinister monologue when The Trammps were singing. If anything, it made you want to tap your toes. But because you weren’t paying attention, Marshall Burke’s demand that you cuff the dangerous psychopath in front of you made you leap about a foot in the air.

Things got a little blurry after that - probably due to the concussion - but there were flashes. Explosions, planes flying overhead, going off a bridge and being left for dead. Basement filing never looked so good as when you woke up in a bunker with a strange man telling you that you inadvertently put yourself directly in the middle of a holy war.

It definitely didn’t make you any happier to hear that the responsibility of restoring a little sanity had fallen directly onto your shoulders. What did help was the knowledge that an entire Resistance was standing behind you.

Several miles behind you, as it turned out.

It got easier when you started recruiting people to your side, guns for hire, Dutch called them - something that always made you feel like you were in the midst of a Clint Eastwood movie. 

Being the inveterate animal lover that you were, you went for Boomer and Peaches first. And then - even though all logic and common sense told you to get the hell out of the Henbane before Faith freaking Seed realized you were there - something else was telling you to stay. A gut feeling. 

That same feeling took you to the Moonflower Trailer Park. You weren’t sure what that feeling was, at first. At least, not until the music started and everything clicked into place. This was your soulmate. 

It…wasn’t quite the meetcute that you had in mind; there was music, and there was fire, but it wasn’t the violin music and candlelit supper of your dreams. In your dreams, you didn’t usually end up with the ends of your hair scorched beyond belief and covered in blood. 

You weren’t certain he realized it, not with the adrenaline cocktail buzzing in his veins, along with whatever other rush the fire brought him. You took a moment to study him as he danced off his nervous energy, gyrating and thrusting to disco music that was no longer playing. 

Older than you, but not too much older. Not exactly a MENSA member, but sweet, and oddly charming. The emphasis was on the odd there, and you couldn’t help but wonder what your parents would think of him. If you ever saw them again. 

As if he was only just seeing that your enthusiasm didn’t match his, he came closer, putting his hand on your shoulder to give it a little shake. “Hey, listen Po-Po, we got chemistry. I can tell, we’re going to make a great team! Like Starsky and Hutch, or Turner and Hooch.”

That got a laugh out of you, and you were grateful for the distraction. “Which one of us is Hooch?”

Sharky hesitated. “Listen, that’s not important right now. What’s important is that we get back to blasting these Peggies to hell. It’s like fate that you were coming, man; I put together a little playlist. It’s the good stuff, too. I wouldn’t share this with just anyone, but I can tell we’re going to be bueno amigos, you know?”

You liked him, you couldn’t help it. The more he talked, the more he grew on you. “Good stuff, huh? Like Donna Summers?The BeeGees? KC and The Sunshine Band?” 

As you went through the, admittedly, small number of disco artists you knew, Sharky pressed his hand to his heart. “Oh man, I knew we were going to be great together. I just knew, when I saw you, that here was a person who could truly appreciate the greatest music of all time.”

“Well, I grew up listening to it.” That hint went wide of the mark, so you decided to try again. “My soulmate loves the Trammps.”

The speed his face dropped would have been tragic, if it wasn’t so damn comical. Poor baby didn’t have a clue. 

“I am not at all surprised that someone as fine as you is taken, Shorty. He’s a very lucky man. Or she. I don’t judge. Everyone’s gotta live their best life.”

“He,” you replied. “He is very lucky. He also can’t catch a hint when it’s dropped from a great height.”

“Men,” Sharky said, with so much disgust that you couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling up in your throat. 

What a guy.

You didn’t love him, not yet - soulmate bonds didn’t work like that, and you wouldn’t want one if they did - but you liked him. A lot. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Sharky. It’s nice to finally meet you. You’re right. We’re going to make a great team.”

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

[alanlicht]

Alan Licht’s Minimal Top Ten List #4

A few weeks ago, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, my friend Mats Gustafsson sent out a mass email encouraging people to send him record lists to post on the “Discaholics” section of his website--top tens, favorite covers, anything. I immediately thought of the first 3 Minimal Top Ten lists I did (now found online here) back in 1995, 1997, and 2007 respectively, for the fanzine Halana (the first two) and Volcanic Tongue’s website (the third), and sent them to him. Those articles have sort of taken on a life of their own, and I still see them referenced as the albums get reissued and so on. Occasionally people ask me if I’d ever do another one, and looking at all three again made me think now is the hour. I started writing this in the midst of the lockdown, and the drastic reductions in people’s way of life—the restriction of any activity outside the home to the bare essentials, the relative stasis of life in quarantine, even the visual stasis of a Zoom meeting—make revisiting Minimal music, with its aesthetic of working within limitations and hallmarks of repetition and drones, somehow timely as well.

The original lists were never meant to represent “the best” Minimal albums: they were ones that were rare and in some cases surpass, in my opinion, more widely available releases by the same artist and/or better known examples of the genre. Some were records that hadn’t been classified as Minimalist but warranted consideration through that lens. Likewise, the lists aren’t meant to be ranked within themselves, or in comparison to each other; the first record on any of the lists isn’t necessarily vastly preferable to the last, and this fourth list is not the bottom of the barrel, by any stretch. In some cases the present list has records I’ve discovered since 2007; others are records I’ve known for quite a while but haven’t included before for one reason or another. I’ve also made an addendum to selected entries on the first three lists, which have become fairly dated in terms of what is currently available by many of the artists, and to account for some of the significant archival releases in the 25 years since I first compiled them.

Unlike the mid-90s, most if not all of these records can be heard and/or purchased online, whether they’re up on YouTube or available for sale on Discogs. So finding them will be easier than before (although I haven’t included links to any of the titles as a small tribute to the legwork involved in tracking records down in olden tymes), but hopefully the spirit of sharing knowledge and passions that drove my previous efforts, forged in the pre-internet fanzine world, hasn’t been rendered totally redundant by the 24/7 onslaught of virtual note-comparing in social media.

1. Simeon ten Holt Canto Ostinato (various recordings): This was the most significant discovery for me in the last decade, a piece with over one hundred modules to be played on any instrument but mostly realized over the years with two to four pianos. I first encountered a YouTube live video of four pianists tackling it over the course of 90 minutes or so, then bought a double CD on Brilliant Classics from 2005, also for four pianos, that runs about 2 and half hours. The original 3LP recording on Donemus, from 1984, lasts close to 3 hours. It’s addictively listenable, very hypnotic in that pulsed, Steve Reich “Piano Phase”/”Six Pianos” kind of way, with lots of recurring themes (which differentiates it from Terry Riley’s “In C,” its most obvious structural antecedent). Composed over the span of the 70s, as with Roberto Cacciapaglia’s Sei Note in Logica, it’s an  example of someone contemporaneously taking the ball from Reich or Riley and running with it. Every recording I’ve heard has been enjoyable, I’ve yet to pick a favorite.

2. David Borden Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments (Red Music, 1981) 3. Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. Like a Duck to Water (Earthquack, 1976): These were some of my most cherished Minimal recordings when I was a teenager in the mid-80s, and are still not particularly well-known; they’re probably the biggest omission in the previous lists (at least from my perspective). Borden formed Mother Mallard, supposedly the first all-synthesizer ensemble, as a trio in the late 60s, although there’s electric piano on the records too. He went on to do music under his own name that hinged on the multi-keyboard Minimalism-meets-Renaissance classical concept he first explored with Mother Mallard, as exemplified by his 12-part series “The Continuing Story of Counterpoint” (a title inspired by both Philip Glass’ “Music in Twelve Parts” and the Beatles’ “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”). I first heard Parts 6 & 9 of “Continuing Story” (from Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments) on Tim Page’s 1980s afternoon radio show on WNYC, and bought the Mother Mallard LPs (Like A Duck is the second, the first is self-titled) from New Music Distribution Service soon after. I mail-ordered the Borden album  from Wayside Music, which had cut-out copies, maybe a year later (c. 1986). I wasn’t much of a synth guy, but I loved the propulsive, rapid-fire counterpoint and fast-changing, lyrical melodies found on these records. “C-A-G-E Part 2,” which occupies side 2 of the Mother Mallard album and utilizes only those pitches, has to be a pinnacle of the Minimal genre. Interestingly, Borden claims to not really be able to “hear” harmony and composes each part of these (generally) three-part inventions individually, all the way through. The two-piano “Continuing Story of Counterpoint Part Two” on the 1985 album Anatidae is also beloved by me, and there was an archival Mother Mallard CD called Music by David Borden (Arbiter, 2003) that’s worth hearing.

4. Charles Curtis/Charles Curtis Trio: Ultra White Violet Light/Sleep (Beau Rivage, 1997): Full disclosure: Charles is a long-time friend, but this record seems forgotten and deserves another look, especially in light of the long-overdue 3CD survey of his performances of other composers’ material that Saltern released last year. This was a double album of four side-long tracks, conceived with the intent that two sides could be played simultaneously, in several different configurations; two of them are Charles solo on cello and sine tones, the others are with a trio and have spoken vocals and rock instrumentation, with cello and the sine tones also thrown into the mix. (I’ve never heard any of the sides combined, although now it would probably be easily achieved with digital mixing software.) The instrumental stuff is the closest you can come to hearing Charles’ beautiful arrangement of Terry Jennings’ legendary “Piece for Cello and Saxophone,” at least until his own recording of it sees the light of day; the same deeply felt cello playing against a sine tone drone. And it would be interesting to see what Slint fans thought of the trio material. Originally packaged in a nifty all-white uni-pak sleeve with a photo print pasted into the gatefold, it was reissued with a different cover on the now-defunct Squealer label on LP and CD but has disappeared since then. Stellar.

5. Arthur Russell Instrumentals 1974 Vol. 2 (Another Side/Crepuscule, 1984) 6. Peter Zummo Zummo with an X (Loris, 1985):  Arthur Russell has posthumously developed a somewhat surprising indie rock audience, mostly for his unique songs and singing as well as his outré disco tracks. But he was also a modern classical composer, with serious Minimal cred—he’s on Jon Gibson’s Songs & Melodies 1973-1977 (see addendum), and played with Henry Flynt and Christer Hennix at one point; his indelible album of vocal and cello sparseness, World of Echo, was partially recorded at Phill Niblock’s loft and of course his Tower of Meaning LP was released on Glass’s Chatham Square label. He’s the one guy in the 70s and 80s (or after, for that matter) who connected the dots between Ali Akbar Khan, the Modern Lovers, Minimalism, and disco as different forms of trance music (taken together, both sides of his disco 12” “In the Light of the Miracle,” which total nearly a half-hour, could arguably be considered one of his Minimalist compositions). Recorded in 1977 & 1978, Instrumentals is an important signpost of the incipient Pop Minimalism impulse, and the first track is a pre-punk precursor to Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca’s appropriations of the rock band format to pursue Minimal pathways (Chatham is one of the performers in that first piece). The rest, culled from a concert at the Kitchen, features long held tones from horns and strings and is quite graceful, if slightly undercut by Arthur’s own slightly jarring, apparently random edits. [Audika’s 2006 reissue, as part of the double CD First Thought Best Thought, includes a 1975 concert that was slated to be Instrumentals Vol. 1, which shows an even more specific pop/rock/Minimal intersection]. Zummo was a long-term collaborator of Russell’s and his album, which Arthur plays on, is a must for Russell aficionados. The first side is made up of short, plain pieces that repeat various simple intervals and are fairly hard-core Minimalism, but “Song IV,” which occupies all of side two, is like an extended, jammy take on Russell’s disco 12” “Treehouse” and has Bill Ruyle on bongos, who also played on Instrumentals as well as with Steve Reich and Jon Gibson. A recently unearthed concert at Roulette from 1985 is a further, and especially intriguing, example of Russell’s blending of Minimalism and song form. (That same year Arthur played on Elodie Lauten’s The Death of Don Juan--another record I first encountered via Tim Page’s radio show--which I included on Top Ten #3; Lauten as well as Zummo played on the Russell Roulette concert, as their website alleges).

7. Horacio Vaggione La Maquina de Cantar (Cramps, 1978): Another one-off from the late 70s, and yet more evidence of how Minimalism had really caught on as a trend among European composers of the time. Vaggione had a previous duo album with Eduardo Polonio under the name It called Viaje that was noisier electronics, and he went on to do computer music that was likewise more traditionally abstract. But on this sole effort for the Italian label Cramps, as part of their legendary Nova Musicha series, he went for full-on tonality. The title track is like the synth part of “Who Are You” extended for more than fifteen minutes and made a bit squishier; but side 2, “Ending”--already mentioned in the entry on David Rosenboom’s Brainwave Music in Top Ten #3--is my favorite. Kind of a bridge between Minimalism and prog, and a little reminiscent of David Borden’s multiple-synth counterpoint pieces, for the first ten minutes he lingers on one vaguely foreboding arpeggiated chord, then introduces a fanfare melody that repeats and builds in harmonies and countermelodies for the remainder of the piece. Great stuff, as Johnny Carson used to say.

8. Costin Miereanu Derives (Poly-Art, 1984): Miereanu is French composer coming out of musique concrete. Unlike some of the albums on these lists, both sides/pieces on Derives are superb, comprised of long drones with flurries of skittering electronic activity popping up here and there. Also notable is the presence of engineers Philip Besomes and Jean-Louis Rizet, responsible for Pôle, the great mid-70s prog double album that formed the basis of Graham Lambkin’s meta-meisterwork Amateur Doubles. I discovered this record via the old Continuo blog; Miereanu has lots of albums out, most of which I haven’t heard, but his 1975 debut Luna Cinese, another Cramps Nova Musicha item, is also estimable, although less Minimal.

9. Mikel Rouse Broken Consort Jade Tiger (Les Disques du Crepuscule, 1984): Rouse was a major New Music name in the 80s, as was Microscopic Septet saxist Philip Johnston, who plays here. Dominated by Reichian repeated fills that accentuate the odd time signatures as opposed to an underlying pulse, this will sound very familiar to anyone acquainted with Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin albums on ECM, which use the same general idea but brand it “zen funk” and cater more to the progressive jazz crowd rather than New Music fans, if we can be that anachronistic in our terminology. Jade Tiger also contrasts nicely with Wim Mertens’ more neo-Romantic contemporaneous excursions on Crepuscule. Rouse later performed the admirable (and daunting) task of cataloging Arthur Russell’s extensive tape archive for the preparation of Another Thought (Point Music, 1994)

10. Michael Nyman Decay Music (Obscure, 1976): Known for his soundtracks to Peter Greenaway films, and his still-peerless 1974 book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (where I, Jim O’Rourke, and doubtless many other intrepid teenage library goers learned of the Minimalists, Fluxus, AMM, and lots of other eternal avant heroes), Nyman is sometimes credited with coining the term “Minimal music” as well, in an early 70s article in The Spectator. Decay Music was produced by Brian Eno for his short-lived but wonderful Obscure label. The first side, “1-100,” was also composed for a Greenaway film, and has one hundred chords played one after another on piano, each advancing to the next once the sound has decayed from the previous chord (hence the album title). For all its delicacy and silences, you’re actually hearing three renditions superimposed on one another, which occasionally makes for some charming chordal collisions (reminiscent of the cheerfully clumsy, subversive “variations” of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D major” on Eno’s own Discreet Music, the most celebrated Obscure release). This is process music at its most fragile and incandescent. In hindsight it may have also been an unconscious influence on the structure of my piece “A New York Minute,” which lines up a month’s worth of weather reports from news radio, edited so that one day’s forecast follows its prediction from the previous day. I’ve never found the album’s other piece, “Bell Set No. 1,” to be quite as compelling, and Nyman’s other soundtrack work doesn’t hold much interest for me, but I’ve often returned to this album.

11. J Dilla Donuts (Stones Throw, 2006): One more for the road. Rightfully acclaimed as a masterpiece of instrumental hip hop, I have to confess I only discovered Donuts while reading Questlove’s 2013 book Mo’ Meta Blues, where he compared it to Terry Riley. The brevity of the tracks (31of ‘em in 44 minutes) and the lack of single-mindedness make categorizing Donuts as a Minimal album a bit of a stretch, but Questlove’s namecheck makes a whole lot of sense if you play “Don’t Cry” back to back with Riley’s proto-Plunderphonic “You’re Nogood,” and “Glazed” is the only hip hop track to ever remind me of Philip Glass. Plus the infinite-loop sequencing of the opening “Outro” and concluding “Intro” make this a statement of Eternal Music that outstrips La Monte Young and leaves any locked groove release in the proverbial dust. There isn’t the space here to really explore how extended mixes, all night disco DJ sets, etc. could be encountered in alignment with Minimalism, although I would steer the curious towards Pete Rock’s Petestrumentals (BBE, 2001), Larry Levan’s Live at the Paradise Garage (Strut, 2000), and, at the risk of being immodest, my own “The Old Victrola” from Plays Well (Crank Automotive, 2001). On a (somewhat) related note I’d also point out Rupie Edwards’ Ire Feelings Chapter and Version (Trojan, 1990) which collects 16 of the producer/performer’s 70s dub reggae tracks, all built from the exact same same rhythm track--mesmerizing, even by dub’s trippy standards. 

Addendum:

Tony Conrad: “Maybe someday Tony’s blistering late 80s piece ‘Early Minimalism’ will be released, or his fabulous harmonium soundtrack to Piero Heliczer’s early 60s film The New Jerusalem.” That was the last line of my entry on Tony’s Outside the Dream Syndicate in the first Top Ten list in 1995, and sure enough, Table of the Elements issued “Early Minimalism” as a monumental CD box set in 1997 and released that soundtrack as Joan of Arc in 2006 (it’s the same film; I saw it screened c. 1990 under the name The New Jerusalem but it’s more commonly known as Joan of Arc).  Tony releases proliferated in the last twenty years of his life, which was heartening to see; I’d particularly single out Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain (Superior Viaduct, 2017), which rescues a 1972 live recording of what is essentially a prototype for Outside played by Tony, Rhys Chatham, and Laurie Spiegel (Rhys has mentioned his initial disgruntlement upon hearing Outside, as it was the same piece that he had played with Tony, i.e. “Ten Years Alive,” but he found himself and Laurie replaced by Faust!) and an obscure compilation track, “DAGADAG for La Monte” (on Avanto 2006, Avanto, 2006), where he plays the pitches d, a, and g on violin, loops them over and over , and continually re-harmonizes them electronically--really one of his best pieces.

Terry Riley: The archival Riley CDs that Cortical Foundation issued in the 90s and early 00s don’t seem to be in print, but I feel they eclipse Reed Streams (reissued by Cortical as part of that series) and are crucial for fans of his early work, especially the live Poppy Nogood’s Phantom Band All Night Flight Vol. 1, an important variant on the studio take, and You’re Nogood (see Dilla entry above). These days I would also recommend Descending Moonshine Dervishes (Kuckuck, 1982/recorded 1975) over  Persian Surgery Dervishes (Shandar, 1975), which I mentioned in the original entry on Reed Streams in the first Top Ten; a lot of the harmonic material in Descending can also be heard in Terry’s dream-team 1975 meeting with Don Cherry in Köln, which has been bootlegged several times in the last few years. Finally, Steffen Schleiermacher recorded the elusive “Keyboard Study #1” (as well as “#2,” which had already seen release in a version by Germ on the BYG label and as “Untitled Organ” on Reed Streams), albeit on a programmed electronic keyboard, on the CD Keyboard Studies (MDG, 2002). As you might expect it’s a little synthetic-sounding, but it also has a weird kinetic edge (imagine the “Baba O’Riley” intro being played on a Conlon Nancarrow player piano) that’s lacking in later acoustic piano renditions recorded by Gregor Schwellenbach and Fabrizio Ottaviucci. But any of these versions is rewarding for those interested in Riley’s early output.

Henry Flynt, Charlemagne Palestine: A few of the artists on that first Top Ten list went from being sorely under-documented to having a plethora of material on the market, and Henry and Charlemagne are at the top of the heap. I stand by You Are My Everlovin, finally reissued on CD by Recorded in 2001, as Henry’s peak achievement, but I’m also partial to “Glissando,” a tense, feverish raga drone from 1979 that Recorded put out on the Glissando No. 1 CD in 2011. Charlemagne’s Four Manifestations On Six Elements double album still holds up well, as does an album of material initially recorded for it, Arpeggiated Bösendorfer and Falsetto Voice (Algha Marghen, 2017). The Strumming Music LP on Shandar is a definitive performance, and best heard as an unbroken piece on the New Tone CD reissue from 1995. Godbear (CD on Barooni, vinyl on Black Truffle), originally recorded for Glenn Branca’s Neutral label (which had also scheduled a Phill Niblock release before going belly-up), has 1987 takes of “Strumming Music” and two other massive pieces that date from the late 70s, “Timbral Assault” and “The Lower Depths”; Algha Marghen released a vintage full-length concert of the latter as a triple CD.

Steve Reich: Not a particularly rare record, but his “Variations on Winds, Strings and Keyboards,” a 1979 piece for orchestra on a 1984 LP issued by Phillips (paired with an orchestral arrangement of John Adams’ “Shaker Loops”), is often overlooked among the works from his “golden era” and I’d frankly rate it as his best orchestral piece.

Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue: As with Henry and Charlemagne, after a slow start as “recording artists” loads of CDs by these two have appeared over the last twenty years. Phill and Eliane’s music was never best served by the vinyl format anyway—you won’t find a lackluster release by either composer, go to it.

Jon Gibson: I called “Cycles,” from Gibson’s Two Solo Pieces, “one of the ultimate organ drones on record” in the first Top Ten list, and it remains so, but Phill Niblock’s”Unmounted/Muted Noun” from 2019′s Music for Organ ought to sit right beside it. Meanwhile, Superior Viaduct’s recent Gibson double album Songs & Melodies 1973-1977 collects some great pieces from the same era as Two Solo Pieces, with players including Arthur Russell, Peter Zummo, Barbara Benary, and Julius Eastman. 

John Stevens: In Top Ten #2 I mentioned John Stevens’ presence on the first side of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Life With the Lions; the Stevens-led Spontaneous Music Orchestra’s For You To Share (1973) documents his performance pieces “Sustained Piece” and “If You Want to See A Vision,” where musicians and vocalists sustain tones until they run out of breath and then begin again, which result in a highly meditative and organic drone/sound environment. In my early 00′s Digger Choir performances at Issue Project Room  we did “Sustained Piece,” and Stevens’ work was a big influence on conceptualizing those concerts, where the only performers were the audience themselves. The CD reissue on Emanem from 1998 added “Peace Music,” an unreleased studio half-hour studio cut with a similar Gagaku--meets--free/modal jazz vibe. I also mentioned “Sustained Piece” in my liner notes to Natural Information Society’s Mandatory Reality too, if that helps as a point of reference.

Anthony Moore: Back in ’97 I wondered “How and why Polydor was convinced to release these albums [Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom and Scenes from the Blue Bag] is beyond me (anyone know the story)?” That mystery was ultimately solved by Benjamin Piekut in his fascinating-even-if-you-never-listen-to-these-guys book Henry Cow: The World is A Problem (Duke University Press, 2019)—it turns out it was all Deutsche Gramophone’s idea!

Terry Jennings, Maryanne Amacher, Julius Eastman--“Three Great Minimalists With No Commercially Available Recordings” (sidebar from Minimal Top Ten list #2): Happily this no longer applies to these three, although Terry and Maryanne are still under-represented. One archival recording of Jennings and Charlotte Moorman playing a short version of “Piece for Cello and Saxophone” appeared on Moorman’s 2006 Cello Anthology CD box set on Alga Marghen, and he’s on “Terry’s Cha Cha” on that 2004 John Cale New York in the 60s Table of the Elements box too. John Tilbury recorded five of his piano pieces on Lost Daylight (Another Timbre, 2010) and Charles Curtis’ version of “Song” appears on the aforementioned Performances and Recordings 1998-2018 triple CD.

Whether or not Maryanne should really be considered a Minimalist (or a sound artist, for that matter) is, I guess, debatable, but I primarily see her as the unqualified genius of the generation of composers who emerged in the post-Cage era, and the classifications ultimately don’t matter—remember she was on those Swarm of Drones/ Throne of Drones/ Storm of Drones ambient techno comps in the 90s, and I’d call her music Gothic Industrial if it would get more people to check it out (and that might be fun to try, come to think of it). She made a belated debut with the release of the Sound Characters CD on Tzadik in 1998, an event I found significant enough to warrant pitching an interview with her to the WIRE, who agreed—it was my first piece for them. Her music was/is best experienced live (the Amacher concert I saw at the Performing Garage in 1993 is still, almost three decades later, the greatest concert I’ve ever witnessed) but that Tzadik CD is reasonably representative, and there was a sequel CD on Tzadik in 2008. More recently Blank Forms issued a live recording of her two-piano piece “Petra” (a concert I also attended, realizing when I got there that it was in the same Chelsea church where Connie Burg, Melissa Weaver and I recorded with Keiji Haino for the Gerry Miles with Keiji Haino CD).  While it’s somewhat anomalous in Amacher’s canon, making a piece for acoustic instruments available for home consumption would doubtless have been more palatable to the composer herself, who rightly felt that CDs and LPs didn’t do justice to the extraordinary psychoacoustic phenomena intrinsic to her electronic music. “Petra” is more reminiscent of Morton Feldman than anything else, with a few passages that could be deemed “minimal.” Some joker posted a 26-minute, ancient lo-fi “bootleg” (their term) recording of her “Living Sound, Patent Pending” piece from her Music for Sound-Joined Rooms installation/performance series on SoundCloud, which is a little like looking at a Xerox of a Xerox of a photo of the Taj Mahal; but you can still visit the Taj Mahal more easily than hearing this or any of Maryanne’s work in concert or in situ, so sadly, it’s better than nothing (and longer than the 7 minute edit of the piece on the Ohm: Early Gurus of Electronic Music CD from 2000).

A few years after Top Ten #2 I was on the phone with an acquaintance at New World Records, who told me he was listening to a Julius Eastman tape that they were releasing as part of a 3CD set. Say what?!?!? Unjust Malaise appeared shortly thereafter and was a revelation. Arnold Dreyblatt had sent me a live tape some time before then of an Eastman piece labeled “Gangrila”—that turned out to be “Gay Guerrilla,” and is surely one of my five favorite pieces of music in existence (the tape Arnold sent was from the 1980 Kitchen European tour and I consider it to be a more moving performance than the Chicago concert that appears on the CD, although it’s an inferior recording). The other multiple piano pieces on Unjust Malaise more than lived up to the descriptions of Eastman performances that I’d read. The somewhat berserk piano concert I mentioned in that entry seems similar to another live tape issued as The Zurich Concert (New World, 2017), and “Femenine,” a piece performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble, came out on Frozen Reeds in 2016. Eastman’s rediscovery is among the most vital and gratifying developments of recent music history--kudos must be given to Mary Jane Leach, herself a Minimalist composer, for diligently and doggedly tracking down Eastman’s recordings and archival materials and bringing them to the light of day.

The Lost Jockey—I was unaware of any releases by this group besides their Crepuscule LP until I stumbled onto a self-titled cassette from 1983 on YouTube. Like the album, the highlight is a piece by Orlando Gaugh--an all-time great Philip Glass rip-off, “Buzz Buzz Buzz Went the Honeybee,” which has the amusing added bonus of having the singers intoning the rather bizarre title phrase as opposed to Glassian solfège. Also like the album, he rest of the cassette is so-so Pop Minimalism.

Earth: Dylan Carlson keeps on keepin’ on, and while I can’t say I’ve kept up with him every step of the way, usually when I check in I’m glad I did. However I’d like to take this opportunity to humbly disavow the snarky comments about Sunn 0))) I made in this entry in Top Ten list #3. Those were a reflection of my general aversion to hype, which was surrounding them at the time, and of seeing two shows that in retrospect were unrepresentative (I was thunderstruck by a later show I saw in Mexico City in 2009). Stephen O’Malley has proven to be as genuinely curious, dedicated and passionate about drone and other experimental music as they come, and the reissue of the mind-blowing Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea on his Ideologic Organ label is a good reminder of how rooted Minimalism is in ethnic music, and how almost interchangeable certain examples of both can be. 

And while we’re in revisionist mode, let’s go full circle all the way back to the very first sentence of the introduction to the first Minimal Top Ten: “I know what you’re thinking: ECM Records, New Age, Eno ambients, NPR, Tangerine Dream. Well forget all that shit.” Hey, that stuff’s not so bad! I was probably directing that more at the experimental-phobic indie rock folks I encountered at the time, and expressing a lingering resentment towards the genre-confusion of the 80s (i.e. having dig through a bunch of Kitaro records in the New Age bins in hopes of finding Reich, Riley, or Glass; even Loren Mazzacane got tagged New Age once in a while back then, believe it or not), which probably hindered my own discovery of Minimalism. What can I say, I’m over it!

Copyright © 2020 Alan Licht. All rights reserved. Do not repost without permission.

[parachutingkitten]

Dancing Without You - Ch 4: Ice Cream

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Whose ready for the title drop? I am! I absolutely had way too much fun writing a party with this select group of ninja for the second half of the chapter. It’s a bit of fun fluff before absolutely everything hits the fan next chapter. 

Happy Reading!

“I’ll take a double scoop of the rocky road.” Cole pointed to the tub through the window as Madelyn began scooping. 

“In a cone, or a cup?” 

“Cup please,” He smiled.

“Anything else?” Madelyn asked, handing him his cup over the counter. 

“I also need a double scoop of cotton candy in a cup as well please.”

I hit Cole on the shoulder as he chuckled. “I can pay for my own ice cream, you know!” I scolded. 

“Chill Lia, I have a bunch of extra cash on my student account that I’ve got to spend by the end of the month,” He explained. “I accidentally added an extra 200 dollars to my account instead of 20 dollars, so... I’m definitely going to be hitting up the student shop later this week.” 

I laughed as Madelyn handed me my cup and moved over to the cash register. 

“That'll be $6.50, just go ahead and swipe your student id.” Madelyn instructed.

Cole did just that as the receipt started printing. “And that’s it! Thanks,” she smiled, handing it to him. 

“Thanks Maddie!” I smiled as we walked out towards the field.

“You know her?” Cole asked. 

“She works there every Wednesday and Friday. Don’t you recognize her?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “But I don’t know her name!”

“I don’t know. I think it’s rude not to make an effort,” I shrugged as we sat down on the grass. It was a beautiful sunny day outside for being the middle of fall. It was the perfect temperature outside with the sun peeking out just enough to warm the air. I knew perfect weather like this couldn’t last long though. “So, you ready for midterms?” I asked, eating my first spoonful of ice cream.

“Midterms,” Cole laughed nervously. “Yeah. I have no idea how ready I am, but it’s definitely not ready enough.”

“I’m excited! I mean, in just a few weeks we’ll get our rankings! Aren’t you excited to see where you fall?”

Cole rolled his eyes, looking down at his ice cream, mixing it around with his spoon. “I don’t know. It all seems a little superficial to me. I mean, how can you possibly distill all of someone’s talent down into one number? And then they’re going to take everyone’s number and rank us against each other? Doesn’t that just seem needlessly antagonistic?”

“I mean, most schools have grades. That’s how grading things works,” I shrugged, taking another bite.

“It just doesn’t seem right. Singing and dancing and all this stuff is all just so subjective. It shouldn’t have such a concrete ranking system attached to it.”

“Well… yeah. It’s blunt, but that’s kind of just how performance arts work. They’re competitive, and messy and… harsh.” 

Cole seemed distant. He looked at me for a moment, pensive. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just not really for me.”

“What do you mean not really for you?” I pressed.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” he sighed. “But it’s like… recently, I’ve been feeling more and more like instead of going to school here, I’m just being trapped here, you know?”

I studied him. He was being honest, but I didn’t exactly know what to make of it. “Well, I know classes can be tough, but everyone knows first year is the hardest. Things will ease up soon. I mean, you might feel like you want to leave, but it’s not like you’re actually considering it, right?”

He paused for a moment, looking out at the skyline. “...maybe. I mean, the more I stay here, the more I feel like I just don’t belong. Like I can’t fit into the mold that everyone wants from me.”

“Cole, you’re a great dancer! If you’re worried about living up to people’s expectations, don’t be-”

“It’s not that.” he shook his head. “I just don’t fit in the system. I can’t do this forever. I can’t live like this.”

I set my ice cream down on the grass, thinking for a moment. “Look, I know this kind of stuff is a lot of work. And I get that it comes easier to me than it does for a lot of people, but you shouldn’t throw away your chance just because it gets hard. I mean, why did you come here in the first place unless you really wanted something out of it, right?”

Cole’s head hung low as he picked at the grass. 

“I… didn’t choose to come here.

My dad did.”

~*~*~*~

“Oh! We’re halfway there! Oh! Livin’ on a prayer!”

They both sounded absolutely terrible at this point in the song, but the energy in the room was undeniable. Lia had pulled out all her snacks, moved the furniture, dug up her mini disco ball, and had started blasting music. She and Jay and were currently caught in an intense impromptu Karaoke battle, Jay singing into the ice cream scooper while Lia had chosen the tv remote as her microphone of choice. 

“Hold on! Hold on!” Jay screamed out, “Air guitar solo!”

“Shred it guys!” I called out, egging them on as they flailed around in the middle of the room.

“Put your heart into it, Jay!” Pixal mocked him. “She’s wiping the floor with you!” 

Pix and I both laughed as the last set of choruses came around. 

“You really weren’t kidding, she’s extremely high energy.” She looked over at me, smiling.

“Yeah, she was a good warm up for dealing with Jay,” I joked, both of us laughing again.

“Take my hand! We’ll make it, I swear!” They were singing into each other’s faces at this point, more screaming than singing. “Oh! Living on a prayer!”

Both of them pumped their fists in the air as the song faded out, Pix and I both cheering them as they bowed. 

“It’s such a good song!” Jay raved.

“It’s such a good song!” Lia tossed the remote onto the couch in the corner, taking a few heavy breaths. 

“Sorry about that Cole, I had a bit of a point to prove,” Jay boasted, walking over to the snack table. “Which flavor did you want?” He looked down at the various tubs of ice cream.

“You know what, I don’t even think I want ice cream anymore,” I shrugged.

“Well, I want some mint chip!” Lia called to him, running over. “I am overheating big time!” She smiled. 

“I know, right?” Jay agreed, dishing some up for her, my eyes drifting.

“You rocked it up there.”

“I’ve done my fair share of lip sync battles, I know how to work a good song,” Jay smirked, handing her the bowl he had scooped.

My eyes had been drawn to the neat orange stone hung around Lia’s neck, shining in the dancing light of the disco ball. “Is that the necklace?” I asked.

“Oh! Yeah,” She lifted it off her neck. “I usually only wear it for good luck, like when I’m auditioning for stuff or what not, but I thought since you’re here it’d be appropriate.”

“I didn’t even think you’d have it still,” I chuckled. 

“What’s this all about?” Pix asked. 

“Oh nothing,” Lia shrugged. “Cole just got me this necklace at the end of first semester.”

Pixal leaned over, looking at it. “It’s a beautiful piece of sunstone,” she admired.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I waved it off, glancing back at Lia, now enjoying her ice cream.

“Hold on,” Jay interrupted, pointing at the other end of the room. “Is that a guitar? Do you play guitar?!”

“Yeah, I play guitar,” She smiled. “I know most of the basics. Guitar, Piano, Violin, I’m learning how to play the flute. I’ll have to play for you sometime, you know, when my voice isn’t so hacked up from song battling you,” She winked.  

“As in like… play and sing?” Jay asked. “You sing too?! As in like, real, legit singing?”

Lia burst out laughing, leaning on my shoulder. “Cole, this idiot wants to know if a Marty Oppenheimer Alumni can sing! What do you think?!”

“Yes, she can sing,” I rolled my eyes at Jay.

“Does that mean you can sing too?” Jay nudged me.

“Oh, you’ve never heard him sing?” Lia smiled, turning to me, wide eyed.

“I can sing, but that doesn’t mean that I do. Not anymore anyways,” I stopped them.

The music began to switch as Lia took my hand. “That’s okay, Cole’s always been much more of a dancer.” She smirked. “Come on, this song is great for swing dance!”

“You know full well, I dropped out right before the swing dance unit,” I put my hands up in surrender.

“I don’t know, that sounds like quite a slim excuse to me,” Pixal teased.

“Oh, so you think you’re better than me?” I challenged her.

“I’m a droid, you don’t think I can’t follow rhythms and memorize a complex series of steps?”

Lia placed down her ice cream bowl and turned triumphantly towards Pixal. “Would you like to dance?”

“Of course!” Pixal smiled in my face as they moved back out towards the center of the room.

“Aw man! She slammed you!” Jay clung to my shoulder, jumping up and down.

They took the floor, moving in unison as the chorus kicked in.

I knew I was in for a ride as we

Swing to the sound

Our feet tap-tappin' and our heartbeats beatin' 

“Dude, you’re not recovering from this,” Jay shook his head, watching as they spun around each other to the beat of the music. 

“Yeah, Pix sure wasn’t bluffing.” 

They had some great synergy too. So concentrated on the moves they were making, anticipating what the other would do next. It had been a while since I’d seen Lia dance. I had forgotten how happy it made her. It breathed life into her in a way nothing else ever quite did. Like dancing was the one thing keeping her alive, like doing anything else would just be unnatural. The way her stray hairs would fly away in the air as she spun, the way her nose would scrunch up when she smiled. Those moments when she felt so in the rhythm that she'd just close her eyes. It was all wrapping in this warm familiar comfort that I had lost to the back of my mind to years now.

Spin 'round and 'round

We got lost in the rhythm, the lights, and the crowd

“You’re so good!” Lia’s excitement caught me out of my daze. Her arms were wrapped around Pixal, who was a bit unsure of what to do.

“You’re quite talented yourself.”

“See, that’s how you dance!” She broke away from Pix, pointing at me. “You just forget how to move your feet after all these years, or what?”

“I’ve kinda been focused on other things,” I rolled my eyes.

“That’s so cool! How did you do that?” Jay marveled at them both. “It looked so choreographed and everything!”

“It just takes practice,” Lia hit him in the shoulder. “It’s really not that hard. It’s first year stuff.”

“I could teach you the basics if you wanted,” Pixal chimed in.

“Hell yes! Let’s do it!” Jay swung around me, back to the middle of the floor, Pixal following him. I leaned back on the snack table watching them. She took his hands, carefully guiding him through some basic motions, both of their eyes glued to their feet. I could feel a smile spread across my face watching Jay fumble at Pixal’s simple instructions.

“Pix is a great dancer! I was actually really surprised.” Lia sat next to me, a half empty glass of water in her hands.

“You know, if I’m being honest, it was kinda weird seeing you dance with someone else,” I chuckled.

“Yeah,” She sighed, hanging her head a bit. “I guess it would be.” Her fingers fiddled with the rim of the glass. I could tell something was off. 

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked, trying to keep the tone light.

She looked up, her eyes distant. “Cole, I’ve been dancing without you for five years now.” She glanced over at me, gauging my reaction.

“Well…” I hesitated. “Yeah, that’s a good thing, right? I wasn’t supposed to be a dancer, staying would have just been a mistake. We both found our calling in life! That’s great!”

She looked at me with a blank stare. “...You don’t get it, do you?”

I looked at her a moment, trying to read what the answer was that she wanted. “Get… What? I mean, what happened, happened. Sure, it sucked to leave you behind, but no one got hurt. I’m back now, what’s the big problem?”

She looked at me for a moment, taking a deep breath. She placed her glass down on the table behind her, her eyes glazing over again as she looked at the floor.

She was thinking.

After a long moment, she closed her eyes, standing up. 

“I think I’m gonna head to bed.” She started towards the back hall as I stood up, trailing her.

“Lia, is everything okay?”

“Cole, please, I can’t do this right now.” She sighed as she continued moving.

“Amelia, talk to me, please. What’s wrong?” I pleaded with her.

I was cut off as she reached her room, shutting the door on me, leaving me a little disoriented on the other side.

“Everything okay back here?” Jay asked, peaking back into the hall.

I turned to look at him, still wondering what exactly had just happened. 

“I… don’t know.”

[cncoh-damn]

annie’s 200 celebration!

Hi, howdy! It’s your local tater tot, Annie. Jk, I’m human. But thank you so, so much for 200 followers! I didn’t think people would like what I posted, so it was a huge surprise when people reblogged my stuff and liked my posts, so thank you ^^.

Anyway, like the title suggests, this is my 200 followers celebration! The auction thingy wasn’t my way of celebrating 200 followers, but it does tie into what I have planned.

Much like the friends I’ve made here (hi @estoy-enamorado-de-ti​ @smoljoelito​ @pretendcnco​ and @quierick​), I’m holding a writing contest because I highkey have zero other ideas. Anyway, here are the rules:

entries should be tagged #annie’s 200 celebration 

tag me in the entry too! if I don’t like or reblog it within 24 hours, please DM me the link.

drop by my ask box to claim the prompt you want! 

you don’t need to place the lyrics in the story itself, and if you think a different lyric would work better with what you have in mind, then go ahead! let your creativity take you where it wants to go.

the entry can be about any CNCO boy, or RK.

triggering content is allowed, as long as there are appropriate warnings

the contest ends December 20, 12 noon GMT +08:00

Of course, what’s a contest without prizes? My three favorite entries will get the following:

First Place: a full-length imagine set in the date auction idea I had, a chance to collaborate with me, and a character in one of my ongoing series—be it the Director AU, Linquere Legatum, or Luxuria.

Second Place: a short blurb set in the date auction idea, and a character in one of my ongoing series.

Third Place: either a headcanon list in the date auction or a character in one of my ongoing series.

Prompt List:

How could I ask for more? / A lifetime of laughter / At the expense of the death of a bachelor || Death of a Bachelor - Panic! at the Disco [taken by @just-another-cnchoe]

For the thrill of your touch / I will shamefully lust / As you tell me we’re nothing but trouble || A Love Like War - All Time Low ft. Vic Fuentes [taken by @richukisbb]

Oh no, oh what’s the use? / Oh please, I bet everybody here is fake happy too || Fake Happy - Paramore

Seems like each time I’m with you / I lose my mind || In Too Deep - Sum 41

Hold me ‘til I’m not lonely anymore / It’s only the crashing of the ocean to the shore || Lost Boy - The Midnight

If I spilled my guts / The world would never look at you the same way || Just One Yesterday - Fall Out Boy ft. Foxes

That if you say goodbye today / I’d ask you to be true / ‘Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you || Cancer - My Chemical Romance [taken by @christophersdicc]

In a city so dead / Held up so high / By a breakable thread || My Happy Ending - Avril Lavigne

I close my eyes / I can’t stop thinking about you / Crack a smile, I just can’t lose || Kiss Me Again - We Are The In Crowd ft. Alex Gaskarth

We don’t have to smile / We don’t have to make friends || We Don’t Have to Dance - Andy Black [taken by @badboysobsession]

‘Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you / You’re gonna believe them || Fifteen - Taylor Swift [taken by @you-kinda-smell-like-christmas]

Don’t you want somebody / Who’s gon’ love you like I do / I wanna waste all my love on you || Waste - Dove Cameron [taken by @benditocnco]

Moon has never glowed this color / Hearts have never been this close || Maybe The Night - Ben&Ben [taken by @cnc-oh-boi]

Here I am beautiful as you see / Standing on the pedestal you made for me || I Ain’t Perfect - IV OF SPADES

They talk about, talk about you boy / They say that you never gonna treat me right / I know that your forever’s only one night, one night || Rumors - R3HAB & Sofia Carson [taken by @pretendcnco]

[meat-husband]

Slashers react to a s/o that loves looking like they’re a 70s disco dancer. You know like with a big fro (implies a black s/o but doesn’t have to be if you don’t want too), bell bottoms, groovy colors, maybe even likes to dance like it too

Brahms

Interested, but very confused about the whole concept. He was brought up old fashioned, but a bit further back than just the 70s. Probably hasn’t seen much, or even anything, similar to your style.  

Not a big fan of the music, he’s pretty firmly stuck in his ways and doesn’t want to change now. Won’t complain if you play it, but maybe don’t do it as loud as he likes his played. 

He might poke fun at your colorful clothes and dance moves, but he loves the hair. It’s just so fluffy and he’s a little impressed at how you manage to style it everyday. He will offer to help with that, but usually it’s best to turn him down because he makes no effort whatsoever to follow your instructions. 

Michael

He’s probably seen people wearing similar clothes on Halloween, but other than that there’s no real reference for your style. He spent most of his time locked up, so he’s not super familiar with pop culture or fashion. 

He’s not going to dance with you. Just because you’re doing it next to him doesn’t mean he’s participating. 

Maintaining a hairstyle can be difficult with him around, because he’s going to touch or pull or grab it whenever he feels like it. Either invest in some heavy duty products or get used to constantly fixing your hair. 

Bubba

Have you seen his brothers? It doesn’t faze him in the slightest. If you’re lucky, there might be some of Chop Top’s old stuff laying around for you to go through, but there’s no telling what else you’ll find in there, so it might be best not to. 

You’ll have no shortage of other wardrobe options though, since you’ll get first pick at anything that comes through the house. Anything that’s not your style can be repurposed and sewn into something new, so you also get custom made outfits!

Please teach him to dance, he wants to learn so bad. He’s awful and has no sense of direction, but he has a lot of fun trying anyways. There’s also a lack of appropriate music, so you’ll be disco dancing to whatever twangy country the radio picks up. 

Thomas

Like with Bubba, there’s a lack of any music other than country in this house. If you’re lucky you might be able to pick up some more upbeat gospel music, but there’s not much else. 

He won’t pick any of it up himself, but Thomas is a perfect audience whenever you want to dance around. He likes watching you have fun, so even if he thinks it’s a little weird, he still enjoys it. 

He’s not handy enough with sewing to put together new clothes for you, so you’ve only got whatever you can get out of a suitcase to work with. You’ve got to get creative, and maybe learn some sewing on your own, but he’ll show you what he can. 

Jason

As long as you’re happy and having fun, he doesn’t mind. He’s got a limited amount of exposure to anyone other than trespassing teens and campers, so he doesn’t realize at first how unique your clothes and style are. 

He doesn’t quite have the aesthetic down, but he’ll bring home anything he thinks might fit in. It’s really hit or miss because his idea of it really stops at ‘lots of colors’. 

Bring back some music or old tapes to show him. He’s still probably not going to pick up the whole idea, but he likes watching the old movies with you. 

[unlimitedricepudding]

Wayhem actually crying about not getting to hang out with Adrien

oh Adrien also missed a fencing lesson?

'I can't deceive my Dad like that!'

PLAGG never change but I can't understand anything you say in french

Nathalie just having to go be in Japan and handle Gabe's job with only a fake hologram boyfriend for company

The Butterflies are some independent thing? What even are miraculous?

Gabe wearing beekeeper stuff? like are the butterflies dangerous? is it just to make him look like a rich guy with weird hobbies?

Gabe just raising butterflies and making promises to his coma wife while Nathalie does Tokyo fashion week by herself

Why does Gabe have to stay behind for this weekend? Obviously one of Nath and Gabe have to stay in Paris to protect Emilie at all times, but why does Gabe get to go to a royal wedding while Nath has to do the work?

So did Nino draw those Gabe, Nath, Gorilla drawings?

OMG Nino's Signature and little doodle :)

THE GIRLS MUST NOT KNOW!

but why? for Adrien!

Nathaniel and Marc being a part of Nino's excuse for Max is an obvious weak point so they were probably informed earlier and are in on the plan but don't have to be with nino for him to keep an eye on them?

Rose being like, why did Kim message me?

Did only Ivan agree to do this and then all the guys preemptively sent can't come messages?

Did only Mylene think to actually prewarn her boy that there was an event?

Did the boys agree to go, with the plan to ditch for the party?

Why did the event they were lying to get out of have to be volunteer labour work?

like the guys, having a giant party, the girls, heavy lifting volunteer work

No one texted Marinette :(

Marinette already on the case before the guys are in the house

Why does Marinette even do this? It's only so LB is there for the fight

the Gorilla would betray Gabe for action figures

The cut with the three action figures

oh yes the PROJECT

THE GROUP HUG!

Adrien sees his friend be sad for 0.2 sec, okay I can deceive my dad

Kim instantly finds the bath

The god damn piano

Marinette quietly joking about being LB on the train and Tikki is done

Nino: if you answer Marinette will know what's up. Marinette: knows what's up even if you don't answer

Adrien: but why can't the girls know? Nino: fails to adequately explain gendered social structures in only two sentences

Adrien: wait are you saying Marinette's not even my friend?

Adrien keeps his mother's records at his bedside

The glitter on the rainbow record

Nino complaining that it's not loud enough when the extra sound is already enough to decrease my ability to understand the french

'My dad does every thing to the max' you don't say

Agrest Mansion vs Couffaine House Boat

That elevator, I love it

Nooroo just hovering around Gabe the entire ep

The coffin room also has a giant window? That is actually just a light that fakes the sun? There are like statues on the walls?

Max and Markov just accidently took Emilie off life support, like Adrien has one party and his mother dies

There is a giant hole in that fence that Marinette could climb thorugh

What is this photo shoot for? Is it for the Ladybug movie? What?

Jagged Stone entering Adrien's bedroom like he's GODDAMN LADYBUG IN A LADRIEN FIC, the alligator also joins

Where is Kim bonding with Fang?

Luka, Marinette and Wayhem are the only age appropriate guests to arrive for the rest of the party

So why isn't Chloe bothering Sabrina with this?

Andre's magical love icecream is at this party

The weird glitch effect of the party getting bigger cuts

The BANANA, The banana swinging from the chandelier

Marinette just casually cosplaying the sixth band member

Marinot

heehehihi, je veux dire HOHOHOHOoo

Master Fu brought all the miraculous into Hawkmoth's house

WTF this ep

not even master Fu can recognise Marinette

Grown adults at this party sad for 0.2 secs, Adrien: Here's exactly what you need right here!

Kim's so good

reminded himself of the water and right back in

Mixture of almost heroic/ominous Papillon, him braking the glass

nice seeing him in different environments

Party crasher, so majestic

gorilla making the figurines kiss

they all instantly laugh at Party Crasher for some reason?

oh hey there was a background teen too

so I went back and like the background teens are just lying on Adrien's bed and maybe on the couch

Party crasher exists only to turn the power back on but also gets so close to winning

Why does Gabe move back to the attic? why? do his powers work better there?

what does the beam weapon do?

Adrien riding around on Wayhem's shoulders

wait the beam power is just as good as touching with the disco balls what the hell? He's too powerful!!!

Why does he let Carapace give his full speech? what ever

Their faces when they disappear! :(

Kim is still swimming

hit the pinata to save the day!

Ahh their terrible dancing, the heroes of Paris

Viperion: draw me like one of your french girls

Wayhem died his hair?

Nino: SO maybe I shouldn't have lied to have a guys night with Adrien. Marinette: Are you kidding it's totally fine to lie when it's for Adrien

Is Adrien just walking them to the gate or is he actually leaving the house to spend time with his friends?

Gabe's plan for this weekend must be pretty important that he didn't at least call Adrien to repremand him

Adrien needs to know that he can't play with the house's power grid

and Gabe finding out about this party, I don't think it would wreak the story that he's still in Japan

[dailyexo]

[NEWS] EXO - 181227 Billboard: “EXO's 'Love Shot' Album: The Producers & Songwriters Break Down Every Song”

"The long-awaited one-two punch of EXO’s Don’t Mess Up My Tempo and subsequent Love Shot repackage provided fans with two heaping doses of polished pop. From Daft Punk’s Tron to U.K. garage, EXO checks off all the stylistic boxes on their latest works, expanding upon and further fleshing out their diverse discography.

The sonic gambles have paid off: The Love Shot repackage has already swept iTunes charts around the world from Thailand to the United States, building upon the record-breaking success of its predecessor Tempo. The members of EXO are still going strong six years into their careers, with Love Shot representing a new apex for the boy band.

We spoke with the producers behind EXO’s greatest LP thus far for the stories behind the songs.

“Love Shot”

Mike Woods: Last year in January, we had a camp with Marz Music and SM. They had liked the song since January [2017] -- Korea's just very strategic when they release songs and how they brand everything around the song. It was purposely [for] the repackage album from day one -- not necessarily day one, but they were deciding between "Tempo" and "Love Shop" -- the original [title] is "Love Shop," by the way. So we kinda knew that the repackage album would have "Love Shot" being the title single.

We wanted something that was very, very performance-driven, very dance-driven -- something that would sound good loud and in an arena. We like the fact that it's kind of in a different time signature -- it's in 6/8, so that's not like a generic pop song. With Korea, we like to do things that push the boundaries, not super generic, because they're very musical. Things like that translate a lot better than they do in America. We really like the anthemic [sound] -- even [with] "Oasis," that's what we strive for. We like to do things that just sound big -- I feel like that's our niche with me, Kevin [White], and Bazzi. It's fun, big, and loud. We saved it for the last day 'cause we knew we wanted to end the camp with a bang, and in our heads, we knew what song we wanted to make. We had voice notes of it from the first or second day we got there, but we wanted to save it for the end 'cause we knew it would be a big song for them.

“Tempo”

Leven Kali: Two years ago I went to Seoul for the first time for a writing camp with SM, and we started “Tempo” during that trip. It took a few sessions after that back in the states with the rest of the writers [Tay Jasper and Adrian McKinnon] to finish it up, and then Digi, the main producer, brought it home with the final touches. We didn't know where the song would end up, but I'm grateful that it ended up with EXO because they always execute the records at a unique and high-quality level. I'm really happy [with] how it turned out and blessed to be a part of their story.

The song is inspired by a lot of different genres and artists, like Teddy Riley, OutKast, and Take 6. Adrian is one of the most talented singers and musicians I’ve ever met, and he really brought that doo-wop flair to the track. In K-pop they really encourage experimental arrangements, so we got to be creative with this one.

“Tempo” was so fun to make because the energy during the entire trip was on fire. We were working so fast, coming up with tons of good songs, and definitely dabbling in the Seoul nightlife. Digi and Adrian had started the song on one of those crazy nights, and when we got back to the studio, it was a party making the record. Gotta give a big shout out to the blue soju. Also, fun fact: The original spelling of the song is “Ttempo,” with two Ts.

Digi Chammas: “Tempo” was a huge group effort with the writers and they absolutely killed it. I feel like you can tell it was a group of us having the most fun making that song. The constant switch ups and harmonizing is how we like to work. When we do that, there is a lot of back and forth for months with fine tuning, especially the a cappella section because it’s so special. Adrian [McKinnon] is a genius with his harmony. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve produced, and EXO just crushed it. Crushed it! Having a single with them is what I’ve always wanted, and to be a part of such an exciting release is unreal.

"Tempo" is an amalgam of R&B, funk, disco, EDM, and '90s house. It all goes together without trying too hard. The pieces just fit. Doing edits on the demo wasn’t annoying or daunting because it just never got annoying to listen to.

I wanted to bring a bright energy to their music while still letting it still be serious without being too serious. Also, bed squeaks. They just work.

“Trauma”

Keynon “KC” Moore: Since [co-producer] DaBenchwarma and I are both managed by 3Sixty Music Group we collaborate on many different songs. Danny [Smith, KC’s manager] is telling me he had a plug for 5 Seconds of Summer. And I know they wanted to kinda go [in] a crossover, kind of urban [direction], but still keep it pop. So DaBenchwarma sent me over a few tracks for that and I wrote to four or five of them. And “Trauma,” as it is now, was one of them. It was actually called "A Little Bit" originally. I wrote to that -- usually what I do is I'm a night owl. I'll write really late, like 3 a.m., and then I'll toy with the melodies in my head. If I can remember the melody the next day when I get ready to record, it usually works out. The next day I went in and recorded it, so when I sent it over to DaBenchwarma, that was one of the tracks he really liked. Danny sent the records over to the A&R for DNCE and Ryan [Jhun], but Ryan hit us back first and was like, “We really like this track -- I’m going to send [it] to SM Entertainment, but let’s make some changes before I pitch it.” We made all those changes, [and] Ryan hit us back [and] said, “They want this for EXO.” A special shout out Ryan’s team Marcan Entertainment because none of this would be possible without them.

Maroon 5's last album was very [influential] -- I have a friend that wrote on it and she's one of my biggest inspirations. I wanted to keep things simple -- I'm still working on really simplifying what we call "pop music," trying to strip things down enough to where it's still very much intelligent but easy for a two-year-old to catch onto. Maroon 5, definitely, I feel like I utilized some of their simplicity and took my own take on it from there.

To me, it's a progressively pop song in which it's simple, but it definitely has a lot to it if you really strip it down and listen -- there's so much going on.

Cedric “DaBenchwarma” Smith: When I started working on that particular track, I was working on some stuff for DNCE at the time, and KC was writing some stuff for them as well. One of the songs that we'd written to, Danny had just gotten a pitch from SM again. At the time I was doing a lot of urban music, and so… it took me a day or two, because I had to readjust myself, just kinda reset and get in a different zone for the type of track it is. 'Cause it's uptempo, guitar-driven pop, a lot of energy. And I had to readjust and reset to get it how I wanted it, and once I sent it over to Keynon, we just started vibing out to it. We were like, "Man, I think we got something here." And so we sent it over to Ryan Jhun; he and his team loved it but wanted to make a couple of adjustments to make it fit for EXO. After making the adjustments, Ryan sent it to SM Entertainment. They loved it but ask[ed] for some changes and edits in additional to the changes Ryan’s team requested, plus a rap verse was requested since it wasn’t in the original pitch. We made numerous adjustments so it could be more energetic so that EXO could showcase their dancing. They're just a very multi-talented group; we wanted the music and the track to reflect who they were.

I was listening to so much at [that] time. I don't like to listen to one thing too long -- I kinda get influences from a little bit of everywhere. A little bit of DNCE, Maroon 5 -- guitar-driven melodic tracks that just keep you moving rhythmically from top to bottom. For me, I was looking for records that have that strong guitar influence in 'em at the time. I think that's one of the things that caught [SM’s] attention, 'cause it gets your attention right from the front of the melody of the guitar, and it drives the song right on home.

Last time we did an urban R&B mid-tempo style [track]. But this time around, we just wanted to do something more upbeat. Like I said, they have so many talents, with their dance and the stage presence and the energy they give. We were doing a track, we heard the energy to it, we [were] like, "Hey, this'll be a little different than what we did, but I think it'll be perfect for them because of how versatile they are." One day they may do the R&B, mid-tempo [sound], then next they come out with [a] high-energy dance track, and they can kill it all.

“Wait”

Andreas Öberg: This is kind of an interesting story, because it's an older song. We did this back in 2014, so the name "Wait" is very appropriate. I've done many camps, over ten camps together with [SM] in Seoul, but this was in my own camp -- it was arranged by a publisher in Korea called Iconic Sounds. So we were doing a week of sessions, and we had one day off. We were gonna go somewhere, but for some reason we didn't. We were indecisive [about] what we were gonna do that day, so Jimmy [Burney] and I were talking and we had done a bunch of songs based on tracks, more full-on kind of productions. We said, "Oh, we have this afternoon off, why don't we just go to the studio, do something just you and I, acoustic guitar and vocals?"

Back then, EXO were already doing winter albums, so we were aiming at that. Shortly after the camp, [SM] said, "Oh, this is perfect for EXO's winter album." So we got it confirmed as a placement. It was supposed to, I think, be on one of those Christmas releases. But then for some reason, they said, "Oh, sorry, no, we decided to use it at a later stage." Through the years, at different times, they told me, "Yeah, it's about to come out." So we didn't pitch it elsewhere because we thought it was coming out, but it always got pushed. And now, finally, four and a half years later -- I think it was autumn of 2014 that we created this song. We were kind of joking about it, "Wait" being an appropriate title, but it ended up where we kinda intended it to end up. We're really happy with the results, how it sounds with EXO's vocals.

I had to re-record the guitar a month ago because they changed the key slightly. It's basically two channels of guitar, one [with] basic chords, a little bit of lower bass mid-range chords, and then there's one other channel where I lay out some of the chords in the higher register just to get a little bit more glitter. We wanted to create something emotional for the winter season. Not necessarily a plain Christmas song, but this is, I would say, a winter season song. I think in Korea, in my experience, the releases from the labels are very season-based. People and fans are expecting specific colors, chords, styles of music.

Jimmy Burney: Four years ago I was in Seoul, Korea at SM doing some sessions with my friends from Iconic Sounds, a very talented music production crew. I went to breakfast one morning with Tesung [Kim], who is the head guy at Iconic, and he asked me who else I had been writing with in the K-pop market at the time. I told him about my buddy Andreas Öberg who does really well in the K-pop scene, so they ended up flying him out as well. Andreas is a genius on the guitar. So after a few sessions of writing to fully produced tracks, I suggested maybe doing something a little more stripped down. He started playing this beautiful progression and the record just came together like magic. A year after that, we were told that EXO would be cutting it and releasing it. That ended up not happening that year; we had to wait a little longer... so long to the point I almost forgotten they even recorded it. It was a nice surprise to wake up and see that the repackaged album it’s on had went No. 1 in 60 countries [on iTunes]. So I guess it was well worth the wait.

I really wanted to do a record that captured raw emotion, and the best way I felt it would stand out was to write a song that was opposite of what we had been writing the whole trip. Don’t get me wrong -- I think uptempos, drums, 808s, synths, and other fun sounds are amazing, but there is nothing like the feeling of a real instrument, like guitar, piano. It was really fun to arrange this with Andreas who has a great ear for structure and harmony. When I recorded my vocals on the demo, I wanted to make sure that it captured the essence of raw emotion so that whoever ended up cutting it would feel it immediately.

Andreas and I started creating this song in the evening -- I was extremely jet lagged. We ended up taking a break and my friend Siwon Choi from Super Junior came and picked us up and took us to dinner and a night out on the town showing us Seoul. We got back to the studio after midnight and finished writing and recording “Wait.”

I had another song with EXO years ago called "Love Love Love.” I’m honored to be a part of another album, I think EXO are amazingly talented. Since “Love Love Love” had more rap elements, it was really nice to give them a record that was more vocal driven this time around.

“Sign”

Patrick "J. Que" Smith: We called it originally "Body Don't Lie," but I think it might've been a little too spicy, so they made some flips to it. But the process of writing it was super, super easy. I remember we got over there and HM -- Harvey [Mason, Jr.] -- brought the track to the table. This trip, in four or five days, we maybe wrote fifteen or sixteen songs. So we've written one or two songs, and Harvey comes in the room excited -- "I got one! I got it! I know I got it!" And he plays the track, and immediately everybody's hype. We sit down and we start writing and we start vibing off of each other. We blew through the song fast, cut it, dressed it up, played it for the crew, and they were like, "Yo, we love this one, we definitely think we wanna use this one." We got the call when we knew they were gonna cut it. The guys ended up recording it, and I remember being back in L.A. at this time, getting a call from Harvey saying, "Hey, it's going really well, they wanna know if you can write a rap for 'em." We sat down, banged out a rap really fast, and sent it back.

Before we started writing, that [concert aspect] comes up now. You have to picture it on stage. If you can't hear it being sung, if you can't see it being performed in a stadium, then it's not the record it needs to be. We've met them, and they're all amazingly sweet guys, but seeing them perform was just wild. It's like watching Clark Kent turn to Superman. They're so amazing and mild-mannered and good natured and super polite, and then when they step on stage, they just become these superheroes. When we sit down to write, you just understand that you can't write this song for Clark Kent. We knew that we had to write the song for Superman. If Superman can't sing this song, we're not doing our job.

“Ooh La La La”

Digi Chammas: “Ooh La La La” came together so smooth. Bazzi is an animal with the pen. One of the A&Rs said something a little Latin would be amazing for EXO. Bazzi and I sat in the studio listening to this bossa guitar loop I had made with Justin Lucas right before I had gone out to Seoul. Honestly, [Bazzi] probably had half of song done within 5-10 minutes while I did the drums, haha. Then I just touched up the arrangement later that week before I left for L.A.. [Bazzi] knows how to write the catchiest shit ever. All I had to do was make it slap.

“Ooh La” is a Latin bop. It has low end and it moves. The inspiration for that was just EXO. When you have them as [the] goal, it’s easy to get inspired because you can almost already see them bodying it. You just know what direction to go.

Justin Lucas: The guitars throughout is me. It's got a bossa nova-inspired kind of groove. Me and Digi [Chammas] were messing around with the sort of bossa nova-inspired feel on the guitar, and then he sort of flipped that to more of the K-pop feel. We got together and played around with ideas, and while we were there writing, they sent some ideas. They said, "Hey, we're finishing the track, here's the bridge chords, can you do the bossa nova-style guitar over this section?" Once we started writing to the initial idea, it [took] about two days and it was done.

“Gravity”

Greg Bonnick, LDN NOISE: Whenever we start to work on records for EXO, we usually start by creating tracks freely and try to be as experimental as possible. Being fortunate enough to have worked on past records, we are quite connected to their journey, so therefore [we] have a feeling of what we would like to hear them do next as listeners and fans.

For “Gravity,” we started with a simple beat like Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” and then played a funky bassline. As we layered more sounds, it became more like a disco/funk hybrid and gave us a futuristic feel. We visualized the movie Tron and the soundtrack by Daft Punk for the mood of the song and added the lead sound from “Power.” The lyrics added to the theme, and then Chanyeol helped with translation.

“With You”

Mikey Akin, Sons of Sonix: We basically had the writing session for another artist by the name of Aston Merrygold who's based back home in London, and it was a writing session that we had with him. It was us, Varren Wade, and Aston. I felt like [Aston] loved the song, but he was still deciding his sound for his project, so the record was still open. And then Varren had a meeting with one of the representatives at SM, someone that was looking after EXO, and played the record to them in the meeting, and they loved the record. SM was like, "Yo, we would love to take this for our project." ["With You"] was [created in] May 2016, and it found a home eventually. [SM], they must have heard it top of this year or later.

Myself and Mo [Samuels], our whole production is based in fusion, a lot of fusion [from] our background, us being British and Nigerian. Being from southeast London, you grow up listening to so much garage, so much jungle, so much grime, so what we tend to do is we fuse elements of each genre that makes our foundations in our productions. So even though the record is an R&B pop record, you have the elements of U.K. garage in there. I guess that's kinda one of the reasons why the record must have stood out, because it's something new, but something they could relate to. We just added a different spin to it with the U.K. element. It's kinda like cooking, when you make [something] a certain particular way and you [add] extra ingredients, and you go, "Oh, this is new, I didn't know you could do that!" But you're not scared to enjoy the meal.

[Chanyeol's involvement] was more of a direction kind of basis, making it fit into EXO's vision for the song. Because you gotta understand, if someone presents to you a whole complete record, there's still things you might wanna change. When we were finishing off the record and doing post-production on the record, he did have his input in terms of if we could try this and move this section of the rhythm there and have a drop out here. It was a collaboration back and forth to get the best out of the record.

“24/7”

The Wavyz: The initial idea for “24/7” came together almost a year before it got released. Our team is constantly working on new stuff for K-pop artists, and this is one of the ideas that we felt super strongly about.

Funny enough, it actually was meant for NCT 127 originally. We didn't find out that EXO was interested in it until around March, which is when we started to rework some of the parts.

We were going back and forth with [SM Entertainment] about different options for the intro of the song. We felt like we hit a wall and were stuck until the engineers we work with -- Aaron Berton, Andrew Hey -- walked by whistling the melody from the chorus. That’s when we knew it had to be the intro!

Our goal for this song was always to make it sound effortless while still keeping a high, driving energy going throughout. We wanted it to stand out from the other records on the album.

“Bad Dream”

Bianca Atterberry: It was [titled] "Stranger" when we initially wrote it. Me and Deez and Mike Daley and Mitch, they played the track. Deez will have a track listening when we come in and then we'll sit down and listen to the tracks that they've created. We started with melody -- that's how I normally start in general. I'll hear it and then we'll come up with the melody, and [Deez]'s so good at hearing harmonies and backgrounds and little ambiances. His ears are crazy. Deez is a very hard worker, so he was like, "We gotta get it done." That's all harmonies, all backgrounds, all lyrics -- we [got] it done that day. I feel like songs that are made in the moment are best.

It almost sounds like a '90s R&B song [in] the intro, and then it just hits with this energetic drive to it. It has a whole 'nother drive, almost like a poppy drive to it. But I felt like the melodic pocket needed to be a little bit more open because the beat was moving a lot, so I didn't want the melody to be too fast. I wanted it to be something you could still sing to and vibe to, so I was just going through melodies. I just sang, girl, I don't know where it comes from! I freestyle [the] majority of the songs that I write -- I'll just come up with the melody and sometimes I'll have the concept within whatever I just came up with. I'm not saying anything, I'm just [mumble-sings], you know what I mean? Just hearing what naturally feels good in that pocket.

Of course [the inspiration] would be a '90s male group, of course. It's New Kids on the Block, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys. Because I know that they have these supergroups and they're still in that '90s vibe but then they have these pop elements to them as well. They also dance like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, and it's like they all had a baby, basically. That's what the vision normally is for EXO and groups like that.

Deez: “Bad Dream” was written during a song camp hosted by SM Entertainment. Normally in SM camps, producers bring their tracks, and the songwriters choose one of them to work on based on the discussion between the writers, and also with the A&Rs. When I’m in those song camps, I usually get involved in the track and vocal producing and toplining. For this song “Bad Dream,” I worked as a vocal producer and topliner. This was my first collaboration with the co-topliner “Blush” [Bianca.] She has [a] classical voice, but at the same time, it’s very trendy -- you don’t see that very often. Right after I listened to her voice, I could easily come up with melody of the song. She’s absolutely one of the best U.S. songwriters I’ve met. Blush and I worked on the track in very extemporary way, as we both like that type of work.

In song camps, I normally create one song per a day, but the chemistry with Blush made us to do two songs on that day, and “Bad Dream” was the first song of the day. It took 6-7 hours for the toplining and the vocal production. [It] was a very satisfying session. I normally do not follow any leads, but for this one, I was exactly targeting EXO, as Blush’s voice gave me the inspiration.

When we were going through Mike Daley’s tracks, it was hard for me and Blush to choose, as most of Mike’s tracks were used during the previous sessions. While we were struggling, Mike played a track that I heard while I was in L.A. last year. Mike let me listen to the track at that time, and I kept that one since I really liked it. I was thinking of TVXQ. Mike didn’t remember the fact that he gave it to me already, and played to us. Blush and I agreed with working on the track, and result was more than great.

Mike Daley: Usually when I go out [to Korea], I try to have a couple tracks ready from my camp just to be able to start the first couple of days off, and then start making new stuff when I'm out there. But that was a track I worked on with a producer I work with a lot, Mitchell Owens. So we started working on a couple of songs and if you hear two different beats -- it started off as a guitar-R&B vibe [track], and then I just started messing with some of the chords and different sounds and got a whole different vibe in the verses. [I] tried to make it sound a lot different than the intro, 'cause I know that's the stuff Deez likes writing to.

I think their sound, it can't be anything regular, down the middle. It's gotta be a little left of center, just something that's engaging, because their performances are so crazy. That's what I'm thinking about with the track, trying to make something that performance-wise will be cool.

Some of the new EDM pop elements, I got some inspiration from that. But then still, the real feel-good R&B, boy band vibe, which is what I came up in with The Underdogs -- that's always a part of what I'm doing.

“Damage”

Greg Bonnick, LDN Noise: For “Damage,” we really wanted a bouncy hip-hop record but with [an] anthemic chant feel to the chorus, so even though the verses were laid back, the crowd could really engage with the hook. We started with a piano riff and clap and built the song around that, adding in different elements as it progressed. It was a lot of fun and something different for EXO, one of our favorites.

Deez: “Damage” was created during the same camp that “Gravity” was made. The work flow with LDN Noise was pretty similar, but I wanted to stress [the] bridge part of the song. As you can hear, the chord progression, the melody, [and the] harmonies of the background vocals in the bridge part are quite dramatic. Since the initial track was [a] very strong hip-hop track, I wanted to give some turn around through the bridge part, and it was very satisfying, as listeners could have more [of a] spectacle when they get to the final chorus, with the bridge.

Adrian and I [are] always obsessed with new topline[s] and fresh harmonies, and this song was particularly a challenge for us. I think we were just trying to make the topline of the chorus part with obvious counterpoint. We took a break to think out of the box, and boom, all the rhythm and notes of the chorus hit my head. Based on them, we worked on the catchy rhythm.

“Smile On My Face”

Iain James: “Smile On My Face” came together in Los Angeles at Brian Kennedy’s studio with myself and Sam Hook. Sam is very close friends with the artist Trey Songz, and the song originally started out as an idea for him. It didn’t take long to be produced, mainly because Brian already had a lot of the track in place, especially the chord structure. So it was really just a case of myself and Sam coming up with the concept, defining the lyric[s], and then creating the melody, which I remember being a lot of fun as we’re both singers.

In terms of inspiration for the song, I think it was clear from the start that we wanted it to be an intimate love song, something for a singer to really connect with, and have a catchy chorus -- which I think it really does.

The song I did for EXO-CBX was probably a bit more fun and upbeat, so I’m glad we could do something a bit more heartfelt this time for EXO. Something their fans could really connect with, and something that would really show off their vocal abilities.

“Oasis”

Mike Woods: The original title is "Running," and the chorus [was] "I'm on the run/Baby I'm running."

Kevin White: I think the first or second thing [Bazzi] did [was] the "Running" [part]. I think at first it was kind of a mumble, and then he transformed it into words. We work real close with Bazzi -- we have a really good rapport and really good working relationship. I think this is one of the earlier songs we did in the camp. I remember Mike playing the stabbing chords, and then that kinda hit in the verses, and I remember we were saying, "It'd be crazy if the drums hit with that and then cut out." So it's doing a lot of things that come naturally to us.

Mike Woods: With us and Bazzi working together, I think we always try to do something that hasn't necessarily been done before or the way that we've done it. That's a really big thing for us anytime we work collectively, it's always about "How can we push the boundaries?"

Kevin White: The big choral stack... we just knew it had to go there because I think we were really searching for that big anthemic chorus that everybody's gonna sing in a stadium -- that's always the goal."

Credit: Billboard.

[dilettantereviews]

Here is my delayed but finalized 2018 EP list!

Princess Nokia- For this EP, Princess Nokia switched to an emo rap style popular on Soundcloud. I thought I wouldn’t like or even understand this EP because I don’t listen to Soundcloud rap, I didn’t really have Fueled by Ramen fever in middle school, and I never liked nu metal (which Princess Nokia says this EP is inspired by but I don’t personally hear it). I listened to the songs ironically until they began to grow on me. Those warbly vocals. The repeated Smash my heart to pieces line. How For the Night sounds like Frere Jacques instrumentally. And now I can proudly say it holds my top spot in my 2018 EP list. I’d like to say something about “in a world where we’re always told to look like we’re unbothered and #winning and other people are always pressed, Princess Nokia tells us it’s okay to feel normal human emotions” but that’s not close. 2018 was the year of Princess Nokia for me, so it’s only natural her new EP would be my favorite. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be with a wink and a nudge but let’s ask all the other Soundcloud rappers first.  

Kilo Kish- While Kilo Kish’s sound is the epitome of chill, her lyrics are bizarrely accurate portraits of millennial anxiety and contemplations. This time, she changes her ambient spoken word poems for outsider electronic music that is neither PC music nor generic tropical house. In one interview, she said that her biggest regret was that she didn’t go as experimental as she could’ve on this project, so here’s to wondering what the multi hyphenate will do for her next project.  

Ojerimie- I feel like 2018 is the year that alt r&B became oversaturated. Personally, I think as long as there will be sad and lonely late night texters, there will be an audience for musicians who can’t always sing, use electronic production, and claim to be influenced by Sade. Artists like The Weeknd and Beyonce who used to receive more commercial attention (or at least better first week numbers) were unable to meet previously set high expectations; Drake, who set the tone for alt r&b in 2011, turned out to be a secret father, cementing his status as f***boi supreme with several years of worst behavior including streaming schemes, Spotify takeovers, cultural appropriation, mental health misstatements, age gaps, and celebrating human traffickers, showing us that sensitive isn’t always good. Genre gentrifiers like Disclosure, The 1975, Justin Timberlake, Years and Years, and Ryan Hemsworth left to do other sounds; critical darlings like Blood Orange and The Internet have less hype for their albums this time around, newcomer Jorja Smith was completely clowned upon by Twitter for her vocals, and artists like Zayn, Tinashe, and Indiana all had albums all pushed back and compromised (all on Sony), so hearing a newcomer have late night red wine R&B music is a great pleasure. Highlights include drum and bass 2003, 80’s sophisti pop sounding Heat, and camming theme song 4U. Do yourself a favor and check out her great back catalogue as well.

Ravyn Lenae- I listened to Ravyn’s EP back in February, but what made me really remember her now was her performance on the now cancelled Rundown with Robin Thede on BET. Not only was it a good place for politics, but also a good venue for smaller artists. SNL is only decent for white hipster bands so it’s nice for black artists who aren’t that huge yet to have places to perform on television. Ravyn is from the Chicago scene and has put out 2 projects before this. EP highlights include the chill Night Song, the uplifting Sticky, and her stellar collaborations with Steve Lacy. With catchy hooks, sweet vocals, and a short track list that leaves you craving for more, Ravyn Lenae is the real Sweetener of 2018.

Hatchie- I once read that shoegaze and noise pop are popular because the whirring and noises from the guitars make it sound like people are talking, which makes people feel less lonely. I can’t say whether or not that’s true as a fact, but I can admit that Hatchie does make me feel happy. The shoegazer from the South has toured with Kylie Minogue and worked with Robin Guthrie already. Her songs have a joyful warmth to them and remind me of 90’s artists like The Cranberries, Drop Nineteens, and Madder Rose. Don’t incubate- hatch today.

Disclosure- I once read about the 2nd album UK artist curse, where an artist who had a specific UK niche tries to go too general for their sophomore album and end up losing everyone, with Katy B and Duffy being some examples of it. I still loved Caracal by Disclosure, but other people thought it was just a straightforward pop album rather than a forward thinking electronic album. Then another bad EP in 2016 made me lose interest in them until their new EP this year. It’s more sample heavy and very retro inspired but I think anyone would like it, but in a good way and not like Maroon 5.

Kitten- 2 years after their most recent EP, Kitten is back with their first fan funded project. Truth be told, I don’t really see why their had to be an independent label, because it stays in the same 80’s goth synthpop atmosphere as their previous songs. That doesn’t mean it’s derivative, but I’d like to know what happened at the label. Tracks include the Halloweenish Pink Champagne, the Robert Smith sounding I Did It!, and the vulnerable Abigail.

Kaytranada- More straightforward R&B/synth than his albums and remixes but good stuff to chill to.

Childlike Sound- I’ll be honest and say that I don’t know too much about them. I always saw @emoblackthot promote them on Twitter which encouraged me to try them out. Although they’re self produced, they go above and far beyond most bedroom pop acts. Some of their songs sound nu disco while others would fit right in on Solange’s True. Remember, why act grown when you can be Childlike?

St Beauty- A duo of singer songwriters on Janelle Monae’s label, St Beauty released a promising debut EP this year. Maybe this is because I had no expectations, but I preferred this to Dirty Computer because they were more concise and didn’t try too hard with the concept. I enjoyed Stone Mountain, a niece to Cranes in the Sky by Solange. Tides is a nice pseudo trip hop song (well, at least it sounds more trip hop than whatever the hell Morcheeba and Hooverphonic have been putting out for a decade), and Colors is a nice summery dancehall song.

Channel Tres- He joins Princess Nokia’s Versace Hottie as the only non Azealia Banks or Drag Race contestant hip house song that came out after the year 2000 and is actually good. Minimal camp value though, if that’s what you’re looking for.

Shygirl- Bombastic club music perfect for a night out or the last night on earth. A cross between Jlin and Charli XCX, has enough bite in it to keep you going the whole night. Bring your steel toe boots.

Yuno- How someone this catchy flew past me is a complete mystery, but I’m glad I know about him now. If you liked when Tame Impala remixed Miguel, you would enjoy this. It’s perfect enough to soundtrack your summer to, or at least a soundtrack for cruise line commercials and martinis in a can. Some slight unconventional moments like pitched vocals.

The Marias- Lofi, chill, jazzy, summer, outdoorsy music. I’m still waiting for an a ha moment song but for now, I’m enjoying the nice psychedelic vibes that they give me.

Alina Baraz- I was almost finished with this list, but I thought 14 was an ugly number and some Russian collusion lead me to putting Alina Baraz on my EP list! I didn’t listen to this too much yet, but I can always appreciate minimal electronic music with pleasant vocals and decent features, especially now that Sabrina Fraudio has been exposed.

[iwriteficsnottragediesladies]

Search and Seizure Pt 8

Request: “S&S where Brendon is at an interview and they start talking shit about Y/N?”

A/N: this was kind of hard for me to write because these are all my true feelings based off of so many similar events I’ve experienced. I still don’t even know if I captured it the way I feel, but I tried.

Pre-read Epilepsy Disclaimer

Brendon had left with Zack to go to an interview at Rock 104 FM, a local radio station. You stayed behind to get some work done and watch the dogs. Brendon went on the air at 3 pm.

“I’m here with Brendon Urie of Panic At The Disco! Thank you so much for being on the show today, Brendon!” Tim said.

“Thank you for having me!” Brendon smiled widely.

“So you just released your new album a couple weeks ago,” Tim started and Brendon nodded along, “Do you wanna tell us a bit about that?”

“Yeah,” Brendon responded happily, “It’s very much inspired by some of the music I grew up listening to, which is a pretty broad selection. A lot of it was the kind of stuff I would sneak around my parents, ya know?” he giggled, “All the rock stuff.”

“And you’re on your own now?” Tim clarified, “You’re the only band member left?”

“Uh yeah, yeah,” Brendon responded and tried to reframe the question positively, “Having complete creative control has been really freeing. It’s a lot of fun.”

“But it’s really just the Brendon Urie show now though,” Tim said condescendingly, “You’re just using the Panic name, keeping it alive?”

Brendon picked up on his tone and started to feel uncomfortable.

“It’s still a team effort,” Brendon countered passively, “I work closely with my producers, who are incredible. They really help mentor me and shape the music into what you hear on the album.”

Tim nodded and moved on.

“The last time we heard from you, you hadn’t experienced your death as a bachelor yet!” Tim said enthusiastically, “You’re now a married man.”

Brendon’s eyes lit up at the thought of you. He couldn’t help it.

“Yes,” Brendon said proudly, “To my beautiful wife, Y/n.”

“I understand she’s had some pretty... public health issues,” Tim noted.

Brendon’s discomfort immediately returned. Again, he tried to reframe the off-color question to be more positive, hoping they could just move on from the topic.

“Unfortunately yes,” Brendon said, “But she is incredibly strong and doing very well.”

“That’s good to hear, good to hear,” Tim said absently. Brendon could tell that Tim had more to say and dreaded whatever his next comment would be. Sure enough, Tim continued to prod: “It sounds really scary, for you and for her.”

“It’s hard to see someone you love struggle with anything,” Brendon answered generically. His protective instinct was beginning to kick in and he really wanted to stop talking about it all together. It was none of this guy’s business and the way he was asking questions felt more disrespectful than concerned.

This interview was about to go downhill.

“There was a video of her circulating on the internet for a while of an incident in a grocery store,” Tim stated.

“That was a very traumatic time,” Brendon immediately shut him down, “It’s really not an appropriate thing to talk about.”

“But it sure did look traumatic,” Tim said, not laying off at all, continuing on with disgust in his voice, “It’s pretty gross, with the blood and all that.”

And with that, Brendon was done.

“Wow, that is an awful thing to say,” Brendon rejected, having to force a bitter chuckle of disbelief just to keep his composure. The anger within him was undeniable. “And there’s nothing ‘gross’ about it,” he said defensively.

How dare this interviewer to make fun of you, right in front of Brendon. Zack was watching through the window as the situation escalated and he was ready to step in. The last thing he needed was for Brendon to have a meltdown or get in a fistfight.

Tim didn’t really seem to care that he had offended Brendon. He may even be enjoying getting a rise out of him.

“I was just thinking it kind of has that demon vibe,” Tim continued humorously, “Very Emperor’s New Clothes-ish.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?!” Brendon exclaimed, quickly standing up from his chair, “You think this is funny?” He was not about to let anyone say something so horribly insensitive about you. He was clearly squaring up with Tim, ready to fight. Zack could tell and ran into the booth, rushing in to defuse Brendon’s anger.

“Brendon!” Zack’s voice boomed in warning as he swung the door open, commanding him to stand down.

Brendon stood with fists clenched, scanning Tim for another moment. He willed himself to let it go, but not before giving Tim some words of advice.

“If you ever talk about my wife again,” Brendon hissed, getting up in Tim’s face, “You’ll regret it. This interview is fucking over, you piece of shit.”

Zack arrived next to Brendon to escort him away and out of the studio.

You were still at home, typing away on your laptop when you suddenly get an influx of notifications. You succumb to the temptation of checking them.

This is the cringiest interview I’ve ever heard. Poor @y/handle. #rock104fm This guy is a douche bag. I feel so bad for @y/handle right now. #rock104fm Brendon is handling this like a champ. I would’ve snapped. #rock104fm 10 out of 10 would punch this guy in @y/handle’s honor. #rock104fm

What the fuck is going on?

You immediately go to the radio station’s account and play their stream. There’s just music playing now, so you go back a little bit and find Brendon’s voice, talking about the album. You listen as the conversation progresses and the topic shifts over to you.

Fuck.

“It’s pretty gross...” “Kind of has that demon vibe...” “Very Emperor’s New Clothes-ish...”

Tears stung your eyes and anger clutched your throat, squeezing it shut.

You don’t understand how people can be so heartless. Do people think it’s funny that you live in constant fear of dying? Tears roll down your face. Everyone thinks you’re disgusting. Brendon is too good for you. He deserves someone so much better.

Your phone starts to vibrate. It’s Brendon. You don’t want to pick up, but you know you should. Being upset will make Brendon upset too, and you don’t want to make him feel bad. It wasn’t his fault. You thought that maybe you could act like you hadn’t heard it and that everything was fine, but you can’t seem to stop crying. You give up and sniffle hard before swiping open the call.

Brendon doesn’t even wait for you to greet him.

“Y/n?” He asks quickly.

The sound of his voice instantly reduces you back to tears and you cry into the phone.

“Aw no, baby,” He sighed with disappointment. He was hoping you hadn’t heard. “Shhh, it’s okay.”

“Bren,” You choke, “I’m s-sorry.”

“Y/n, no!” Brendon replied, “You have nothing to be sorry for! He’s a fucking idiot. I’m on my way home right now, okay?”

“Okay,” you sniffled.

“I love you so much, Y/n,” He said, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Love you too,” you replied.

You sit on the couch with your knees pulled up to your chest and wait. It feels like no time had passed when you hear the door open.

“Y/n?” Brendon calls out. You don’t answer, but he easily spots you on the couch. You look at him, clearly ashamed. “Y/n,” he frowned as he walked over and carefully sits down next to you. “I’m so sorry baby,” he said quietly and put a hand on your shoulder.

As soon as he touches you, you completely fall apart. You practically crawl into his lap and begin to choke on your tears. He gathers you up and wraps his arms around your trembling body.

“Talk to me,” He directs you softly.

“I feel s-so scared,” you cried, “All the time. So alone.” You can’t control your sobs, letting it all out to Brendon. “I don’t think anyone understands how scared I am.”

Brendon can’t stand hearing you like this.

“I know Y/n, I know baby,” He soothed, “It’s okay to be scared. And you’re right--people have no idea how brave you have to be. Every day, you are the bravest person I know. I’m so proud of you.”

“It’s not fair,” you cry, “It’s not f-fair.”

“Shhh, I know it isn’t,” Brendon tried.

“No one else constantly thinks about what will trigger a seizure,” you continued to sob. “I just want to be like everyone e-else. I don’t know why you even love me.”

“Y/n stop!” Brendon cuts you off and holds you tighter, “There are so many reasons I love you. Just the way you are.”

“I shower with a baby monitor so you can hear me if I fall--a fucking baby monitor, Brendon. I’m an adult and I can’t even shower alone. It’s like... like epilepsy just takes everything away. It just takes up so much energy and I’m so tired.”

“I know it’s hard,” He said sweetly, “You’re such a fighter.”

“I just want it to be over but it never ends,” you hiccup. “People always talk about me and ask me so many questions. I just want to be like everyone else. I want to be able to think about other things, but it never ends. It never fucking e-ends.”

You become limp in Brendon’s arms, feeling beyond hopeless and exhausted.

“Take a breath,” Brendon spoke softly, “You’re okay.”

“Bren, please make it stop,” you begged him quietly, “Make it stop.”

Brendon felt his heart being torn from his chest, wanting to cry with you.

“I got you,” He whispered in your ear, “I’m right here. I’ll always be right here."

You grab fistfuls of his soft t-shirt and manage to bury yourself further into him.

“It’s going to be okay, Y/n,” He soothed, running his fingers through your hair. He didn’t know what else to do but hold you and gently rock you. It seemed to be working. You continued to cry for a few minutes, but you were slowly quieting down, clearly drained. “I’m right here,” he spoke gently, “It’s going to be okay. Okay?”

You nod against him.

“I love you, Brendon,” you murmur, adjusting yourself in his lap. He can tell you’re so worn out that you’re about to fall asleep and allows you to get comfortable.

“I love you too, Y/n,” he replies, giving you a kiss on the top of your head.

It’s not long until your breathing evens out and Brendon can tell you’re asleep. He then cries tears of his own. He wished he could fix it all, take away your fear and pain, and make it better. He wished that he could keep you safe. He wished that people weren’t so cruel.

And he definitely wished that he had punched Tim when he had the chance.

It takes a long time for the radio interview incident to die down. It was kind of interesting to see that almost all the comments completely trashed the radio station. You’re used to the internet having mixed reactions, but this was different. Nearly everyone was coming to your defense, praising Brendon for how he handled the situation and offering kind words of support to you. It was a much-needed reminder of the good in the world.

Emma came to visit, checking to see how you were doing and having a fun girl day. You were so happy to have an amazing best friend.

You were also happy to see Tim was fired from his job. The selfish part of you hopes he ends up making minimum wage at a job he hates. You knew that was a mean thing wish upon anyone, but your anger had to seep out somewhere. Fucking asshole.

A couple weeks later, you had come home from grocery shopping and Brendon was sitting on the couch.

“Hey babe?” he asked.

“What’s up?” You replied, setting the last of the groceries down on the counter and walking over to him.

He had a serious, unsure kind of look on his face and you were a little worried. You sat down next to him.

“I know it’s really hard for you sometimes,” He started carefully, “And I know you can feel really alone.”

You nod. It’s true--epilepsy was very isolating. It feels like no one really knows how it feels to live in constant fear of having seizures. You remember telling him about it when you had your meltdown. You wonder where he’s going with all this.

Brendon pulled his laptop out from next to him and opened the screen.

“So I looked around and found out that there’s actually an epilepsy support group in the area,” He looked at you cautiously, “I was thinking it might be nice to have people who can truly connect with and help you.”

He saw tears pooling in your eyes.

“It’s not because I think you’re crazy, or that you’re weak!” He jumped in quickly, panicking that he may have hurt your feelings. “You don’t have to, it was just an id--”

He is cut off as you throw yourself into him, arms wrapping around him.

“What did I do to deserve you?” You choke, “Like, I must have been a saint in a previous life or something.”

“Aw babe,” he chuckled.

You lean back a little and take his face in your hands and squish it.

“You are the sweetest human,” you said, “Of course I want to go, I think it’s exactly what I need. I love you so much.” You plant a quick kiss on his lips and release him.

“I love you too, Y/n,” He gazed at you with a smile.

You never knew you could love someone this much. You realize you’re straddling him.

Perfect.

You reattach your lips to his and lace your fingers through his hair, pushing your body against his. He is very pleased with this unexpected turn of events. You grind down on his lap and he sighs a bit, pulling away.

“I guess I should offer you psychiatric intervention more often?” he giggled.

You just smiled back at him and dove back in.

I hope you liked this chapter, it was a tough one. There is more to come, so stay tuned :)

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[thotyssey]

On Point With: DJ Ted Bishop Nieves

The newly-anointed Mr. Fire Island Bear 2018 is actually a veteran nightlifer and DJ in this city, breaking through during the days of ball houses and big clubs. He shares a bit of his history with Thotyssey, and hints at some amazing stuff to come.

Thotyssey: Ted, hello! Happy Pride! And of course, a big congrats on winning Mr. Fire Island Bear at Cherry’s on the Bay this past weekend! 

DJ Ted Bishop Nieves: Thank you so much, Jim.

How good did that win feel? It really felt amazing to win. I'll be honest, I'm still in a bit of shock. It was really quite a surprise for me to be entering the contest, and it blew my mind when I won. It was an amazing rush of joy that I really can't describe.

Have you done contests before this one?

My first "contest" was actually just a few weeks ago during the Urban Bear street festival run by Robert Valin and his Urban Bear team. They had their first ever Mr. Urban Bear Contest, and I had enough liquor in me to give me the bravery to enter. I ended up winning on the strength of my lip sync performance, lol! That contest, of course, was all in good fun and I enjoyed that immensely.

And now look at you, you’re a pageant queen! How did the Fire Island Bear contest go... what was required of you?

It was pretty intense. The first part of the contest actually took place several hours before the event at Cherry's. Each of the contestants who signed up ahead of time sat with the judges for a pretty intense Q&A.

After that we had the event at Cherry's, and there we had to present two outfits: a "bar night" look followed by a fetish outfit. That was pretty amazing and difficult. I'm sometimes very shy, and had a hard time getting up the courage to go up there. Once I dd though, there was no going back.

So the bear world--and nightlife in general--knows you best as a DJ, which we’ll get to a bit. But first, let’s start at the beginning: where’s your  hometown, and what were you into growing up?

I was born and raised here in the South Bronx, where I was surrounded by a lot of loud family and friends! Many of them were loud because they were musicians, so I developed a love of music pretty early on. And that was really what I was into as a kid: music.

The kids I grew up with in the neighborhood all played together after school, and most of the day during the summer. I was the one who always had the boom box with him, playing the loud music as we played handball, slugs, red light / green light, or all the other games a lot of us played as kids.

What were you listening to?

Back then I loved it all. My sister introduced me to disco, but I also listened to rock, country, and just about any other genre that was showcased on Kasey Kasem's American Top 40 radio show. Haha! Do people still know that existed?

I bet they don’t!

How did you discover nightlife?

I was probably about 16 years-old, and like a lot of kids in the Bronx I decided to get working papers, and had worked a few jobs around my immediate neighborhood... stock boy, and stuff like that. But at 16, I got a job at Alexander’s department store. One day while riding the train, I caught an older man checking me out, and he got off at the same stop as I. We started speaking, and he told me about a place called the Pier. He asked if I wanted to check it out. I said yes, and we exchanged numbers and we stayed in touch.  

That Friday after work, he picked me up for what I thought would be my first date with a man, but turned into my first class in NYC nightlife and drag and voguing and houses. That night I got the education of a lifetime, and he told me we'd do it again the following night.

That next night, instead of the Pier, we went to the legendary Tracks Nightclub on 19th Street. I stepped foot into that club, and it felt like I was home.That began my love affair with NYC's gay nightlife.

Over the years, I would be able to experience The Saint, Red Zone, The Copacabana, The World, Mars, my favorite of all time Sound Factory, and The Roxy. These places were my home, and I felt connected to them like nothing else.

Were you voguing yourself, and turning lewks?

Ha! No, I never did master voguing, and was very shy back then. Never tried to draw too much attention to myself. But the LEWKS my friends would turn! Gurrrrrl. They were epic! Especially at Red Zone and The Tunnel.

Did you have a favorite Ball House?

Well, ALL the houses knew how to turn it in their own way. They all had it going on, so I wouldn't say I had a favorite house. However, you were always guaranteed crazy heights of entertainment when the Magnifiques, Aviances and Extravaganzas were in attendance at Sound Factory.

Is the new show Pose accurate in its portrayal of that time, from what little has aired so far?

I would say that yes, it's quite accurate as far as depicting the scene and the struggles of the people who were part of it.  It's really quite spot on.

How did you ultimately get into DJing?

So, DJing started when I was pretty young. It's actually the reason I started working as a kid; I wanted to buy my own DJ equipment, and I did. I started teaching myself around 15-16, but it wasn't until my late 30's that I grew the balls to try and do something with it outside of it being a hobby.

Did you ever try using a DJ moniker before deciding to just go by your (presumably) actual name?

My real name is Ted Nieves. I decided to use “DJ Bishop” back in the 90s, when the X-Men introduced this character named Bishop, who absorbed energy and converted it into concussive force. I've always felt that a DJ absorbs the energy from the crowd and turns it back to them as concussive beats, so it seemed appropriate. Later on, as I started working, I added it to my own name in order to help spread my brand.

As of right now, what do you enjoy spinning most when given the freedom to do whatever?

Oooh. I'm seriously feeling my Afro and tech house vibes when left to my own devices. Those beats just get right under your skin, and drive your hips into madness.

What have been some highlights for you, or major moments, DJing venues in this city over the years? 

Oh, that's a really hard question... but I think that I can narrow it down a bit! The first major milestone for me was when G Lounge asked me to be part of their now legendary DiLF party, promoted by Mark Lander and Franco DiLuzio. 

Next would be getting to be part of the team of DJs that work with NYC promoters Antonio Cedeno and Shane Tate. It's always an honor to be listed as a part of their teams. Also, being a part of the Fire Island Bear Weekend has been amazing. I've played the opening party two years in a row, and loved every minute of it.  

Finally, now being able to have my own party in partnership with John-John Punki (Mr. Eagle 2017) at Rockbar. Those are really some of my proudest moments.

Did you ever think the bear scene would become as huge as it is today?

Yes. The bear community was built out of a need for acceptance. The level of shaming and prejudice in the gay community has always been really bad. We're all aware that, often, the oppressed become the oppressors. Well, it is certainly true in the gay community. We are oppressed, so we need to oppress those who are larger than we think they should be, or skinnier than we think they should be, or who have a different color skin than we find attractive... and it goes on and on.

That doesn't mean, of course, that it's always love and light within the Bear Community. But I have certainly experienced more love and acceptance here than I have in the other aspects of gay life that I've experienced.

And with that said, that is why I believed from the beginning it would be a growing community. Who doesn't want to walk into a room of people that all look different, and not feel like they are judging you? Man, that's heaven right there.

Okay, that brings us to the gigs. First off, there’s the Pride edition of Soaked at Rockbar in the West Village on Friday, June 15. John-John appears,  J. Rios and Matty B. host, Viva Vidalia performs, and dudes in underwear get wet for our entertainment. This monthly has been a huge success for Rockbar!

This is actually my debut with the Soaked team, so I'm super excited about it. What makes it even more special is that there is a full upgrade of the sound system at Rockbar that [manager] Jason Romas and I worked on. It's going to be the official unveiling of that, and I can't wait to blow people's socks off with that sound.

And you'll be back with John-John at Rockbar for your actual monthly, Purgatory, on June 28th! Hey, why aren''t we calling it FURgatory?

LOL, we had originally wanted to use a different name, but had to change it at the last minute. “Purgatory” was whet we came up with because that sounded sexy and naughty, and it kinda stuck. But maybe we should put it to a vote and see if people would like us to change it to FUR-gatory.  What do you think?

Either works! What's the scene like?

It's a really fun vibe. The party takes place right after RuPaul’s Drag Race, so people are really happy (usually) and very chatty after the show. We like to carry that vibe over, and slowly make it sexier. I bring a blend of pop, house, and EDM to the event, and I keep it sexy with our gogo dancers. We've had awesome response to the event, and are excited to continue and see how it goes.

And tell us about (r)Evolution at the Hangar, also in the West Village. It looks that venue is trying to have more defined nights there (named parties, established DJs, some drag, etc).

Yes. (r)Evolution Saturdays at The Hangar was born out of them wanting to have a legit, full-on house music event that catered to the classic house heads, and the new kids that are still discovering what real house music is. DJ Mando and myself talked about it, and determined the sounds we wanted. We worked with management to come up with an official name for the event to start branding it, and breathe new life into this NYC gay nightlife fixture. 

There are a few plans to really begin fleshing out some other nights as well. As you know, the Hangar has been a haven for many of our brothers and sisters of color for decades now, and yet so many people don't even know about it. I mean, can you believe that this coming Pride march, they will be celebrating 25 years of service to our community?

Amazing! 

So, anything else coming up for you?

Well, along with Soaked and (r)Evolution this week, I have Purgatory next. And Pride Sunday is a double-header for me playing at Rebar from 2-9pm for their annual Pride celebration, followed by The Hangar's Annual Pride and 25th Year anniversary celebration. So, it's a jam-packed June for me.

Nice! Enjoy the gigs! Okay, last question: What should a young, new DJ do when trying to make a career in this business?

Work hard and promote yourself.  No one will believe you if you don't believe it yourself.

Thanks, Ted!

DJ Ted Bishop Nieves spins weekly Saturdays at The Hangar NYC (10pm), and last Thursdays at Rockbar for Purgatory (10pm). Check Thotyssey’s calendar for all his scheduled gigs, and follow DJ Ted on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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