#as well as i love you too (ezra bell) very good song

[soni-dragon]

ay mariposas, no se aguanten más ♡

[ID: a digital painting of Zatz and Maya from Maya and the Three. They are both drawn with wings, Maya a set of golden eagle wings, and Zatz a set of purple bat wings. They fly and press their foreheads together in joy. Zatz is drawn with pointed ears and tusk-like teeth. The background is made up of colorful lines and golden butterflies fly around them. The second image is the same but with a blank green background, and the third image is a close up. /End ID]

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 16/07/2022 (Burna Boy’s ‘Love, Damini’)

It’s another slow week, as LF SYSTEM are at #2 for a second week with “Afraid to Feel”, and I’ve got a lot to catch up on. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

This’ll be a fun episode, I think, just from looking at some of these new arrivals, but of course, we have to start with notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 – which is what I cover – after at least five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40 and other than some recent debuts, we say farewell to “Die Hard” by Kendrick Lamar, Blxst and Amanda Reifer, “10 Things I Hate About You” by Leah Kate, “Balling” by Vibe Chemistry and finally, “Anyone for You (Tiger Lily)” by George Ezra (I’m not exactly complaining about any of these).

There was a decent amount of movement in general here on the chart, with nine new arrivals and whilst we don’t have returning entries, these gains are pretty interesting. For this week, our notable gains include “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers at #61 (really?), “Big City Life” by Luude and Mattafix at #55 off of the debut (good!), “Ferrari” by James Hype and Miggy Dela Rosa at #54 (again, good!), “Make Me Feel Good” by Belters Only and Jazzy at #46, “Rainfall (Praise You)” by Tom Santa at #45, “Mixed Emotions” by Chase & Status at #44 (wow, a lot of good EDM making gains – Belters Only excluded), “Sunroof” by Nicky Youre and dazy at #43, “Where Are You Now” by Lost Frequencies and Calum Scott at #40, “Don’t Forget My Love” by Diplo and Miguel at #32, “Hot in It” by Tiesto and Charli XCX at #29, “Big Energy” by Latto at #26, “Master of Puppets” by Metallica at #22, “No Excuses” by Bru-C at #21, “Stay the Night” by Sigala and Talia Mar at #17 and “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic at #14. This is a mixed bunch, but also a generally promising one to the extent that I’m actually kind of excited to see where any of this goes from here. That’s not to neglect our top 10 either, which saw two new entries, both of which I’m not that over the Moon about: “Crazy What Love Can Do” by David Guetta, Becky Hill and Ella Henderson at #8 and Burna Boy getting the album boost with “Last Last” up to #7 – we’ll see if this lasts.

Our top five on the UK Singles Chart consists of “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” by Kate Bush at #5, “BREAK MY SOUL” by Beyoncé at #4, “Green Green Grass” by George Ezra at #3, “As it Was” by Harry Styles at #2 and of course, “Afraid to Feel” at the very top.

Off the Charts

There’s around two to three weeks worth of new material – albeit on slower weeks – to keep up with, so whilst next week, I can talk about black midi, Westside Gunn, Shawny Binladen, DJ Premier and probably more, I’ve got a back log of projects that I heard from this year that I mostly really liked that I want to share here, but to prevent my typical ramble, I’ll try and be as concise as possible, sticking it to a sentence each (which might need to be the regulation going forward), starting with...

MEMO – Kota the Friend

If the last, bitter “Lyrics to GO” volume was the death of Kota as a “friend”, this might ring the bells of his death as a “character” as this disappointingly lacks much of the humility as well as the personality that Kota used to effortlessly emit, meaning his “conscious” attempts at flexing and shallow commentary are more unlikeable than ever, with bad production to boot. My favourite track is “365 DAYS OF PEACE”.

Sometimes, Forever – Soccer Mommy

I really do think I should like this more but the newest Soccer Mommy effort may be a tad too eclectic to really grip me as it should, even if the production has a really great level of attention to detail, because the songwriting is just not as compelling as it should be, making this record kind of “boring good” – uninterestingly competent. My favourite track is “Don’t Ask Me”.

Transgender Street Legend, Vol. 3 – Left at London

Nat Puff delivers a great finale to the trilogy of EPs, with honest songwriting as expected intertwined with some killer hooks, fuzzy mixing that tends to be newly refined on this EP, and a weird sense of stiffness that doesn’t always work but allows for a tone of tense burnout that I can especially appreciate right now. My favourite track is “Will My Alters Go to Heaven?”

Henrietta – Baby Zionov

This is a really unique album that uses its soaring breakbeats, funky basslines and choral pickups to deliver a really nuanced soundscape thanks to the intricately-developed atmosphere and a tonal dissonance that takes this atmosphere and grounds it through the comical, dark synthpop asides and euphoria that purges into grimey, alien club music, stretching its motifs to fittingly janky proportions. My favourite track is “PJ Princess”.

SZNZ: Summer – Weezer

This is a massive improvement over Spring in nearly every way possible. Rivers Cuomo chooses violence with this sometimes pissy but often poetic and quotable lyricism over a Robopop-led rework of the Weezer sound that adds more grandiose, anthemic strings, synthy nonsense and digital percussion that is so drowned out by the squealing guitars that I wouldn’t blame you for thinking Patrick Wilson took this one out. My favourite track is “The Opposite of Me”, which is up there with the top tier of Weezer.

Trapped in Cheezlworld 3 – Acid Souljah

Much like Left at London, this is a fitting and wonderful end to the trilogy, with Acid Souljah delivering his manic political nihilism over alien plugg beats in a way that only Acid Souljah could really pull off – not all tracks are great, but each one is immensely quotable and it’s just a fun time. My favourite track is “Get a Bag”, primarily if not solely for that incredible couplet in the refrain.

ECHO CHAMBER – AAAMYYY

This is some pretty excellently-composed J-pop – and J-rock – that has a level of scope I didn’t expect, and though the language barrier does hurt some of the resonance, it’s an excellent expression of frustration, whether by way of hopelessness or a constant fight, that is really cathartic, especially in this hellscape, and I’m so glad it exists. My favourite track is “Come and go” with Gliiico which is a perfect pop song I could probably write an essay about.

no matter how i look at it .. – ilysm

And that’s where this format – however easier and concise – does have its flaws: these next two are some of my favourite albums, by-and-far, of this year so far (and deserve way more to be said about them than I can summarise here), for largely different reasons but honestly, maybe the same root scratch is itched by both. This first one is an ecletic pop-rap effort by ilysm full of sugary chipmunk soul and hyperpop-afflicted production, glitchy as hell percussion and nonsensical boasting that is delivered with enough charisma to make me believe the most violent of lines over instrumentals that sound like they were made on a sugar rush. It’s catchy and zany but not without a level of stress and breathlessness that makes this much more of an emotional release for me than it probably intended to. I love a great degree of this, but the best track is probably “expensive, everyday!” with Robin’s Ghost.

DRILL MUSIC IN ZION – Lupe Fiasco

Finally, we have Lupe Fiasco coming down from wherever he is on this galaxy to deliver one of the best conscious hip hop albums in a year full of great releases from that genre. This is also probably some of the most tongue-in-cheek and honestly fun that Lupe has been on record in a while, with intricate rhymes and flows for sure but a level of witty and at times ridiculously cryptic sarcasm that defines Lupe’s spirit throughout the album. It’s evident through his at times strained or subdued delivery, as well as the instrumentation that whilst switching from trap to lowkey and jazzy, never fully encloses itself in any sort of deserved swell, that things are generally outside of Lupe’s control and much of the record is spent grappling with that, or at least that’s how I’ve interpreted it since everyone will have their own takeaways from this impressive album, one that is refreshingly concise coming from Lupe. My favourite track is “KIOSK”, and now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “Betty (Get Money)” – Yung Gravy

Produced by Nick Seeley, Dillon Francis and dwilly

Finally, satirical rapper Yung Gravy makes his UK chart debut. I’ve been watching the career of Gravy for years now – and lesser so his mediocre partner in crime, bbno$ - and I’ve always seen potential for him to really blow up but thanks to the novelty factor, even hits like “Cheryl” or “oops!” can’t really get past their bubbling under status. Recently, Gravy released this track which I hope is from an upcoming project and it makes perfect sense to me why this of all songs is his final step towards mainstream success. If you’re not in the know, Gravy’s entire niche is one of chirpy pop-trap often sampling or referencing oldies with Gravy playing a more vulgar form of the traditional Casanova, picking up your mother rather than your girlfriend (though in most songs, he ends up with them both). I have no idea how the man pulled this off – and I feel bad for Gravy and his producers probably getting no royalties for this as a result – but the man really sampled the Rick Roll and used that iconic drum fill as the intro to this song, which is probably why this caught on so well (I hope it pays off eventually). Rick Astley’s original “Never Gonna Give You Up” was the highest-selling single of 1987 in the UK and returned in 2008 thanks to Rick Rolls, ironically at the very spot that this song is right now. I doubt that Gravy will reach the heights of that, but this is a top-tier Gravy song. Sure, his punchlines are bit more watered-down, but the Astley classic is effortlessly morphed into a smooth, trap-inflected beat that Gravy can ride with his smooth, fuzzy charisma as he always does. The corny interpolation of the original song which he flips on the chorus doesn’t exactly prove Gravy as a singer, but it’s fun enough and undeniably catchy. What I like most about the song is the attention to detail with the fluttering percussion and sound design that keeps the beat consistently exciting, including some of the signature vocal loops and sound effects that Gravy has used since “Mr Clean”, dropped in the middle of the chorus even. The vocoder-drenched “Get money” refrain in the chorus is as soulful as it is stupid and I think that’s the best way to describe the man’s entire catalogue. I’m rooting for this one, check it out.

#72 – “LOOSE CHANGE” – Brent Faiyaz

Produced by Beat Butcha, No I.D., Brent Faiyaz, Raphael Saadiq, Paperboy Fabe and Jordan Ware

I didn’t listen to the newest Brent Faiyaz album, simply because none of the singles were songs I found particularly interesting, especially not “Gravity” which continued to sour on me long after I reviewed it. The album, WASTELAND, did debut at #6 on the albums chart this week and this is the newest single that’s being pushed, it seems – or at least a fan favourite album cut – so maybe Faiyaz can finally win me over with this one. I’m really not sure if he has, given the bed of jerky strings and harmonising pitch-shifted vocals, alongside the flash photography and Grand Theft Auto samples that do make this song feel claustrophobic – and with the pitch-shifting, reminds me a lot of “Gravity”, but this does work a bit better thanks to the lack of an immediate groove or beat for much of the song, which is about a confusing relationship dynamic with anxieties and tensions increasing as the song goes on and develops more of a pulse. It’s pretty theatrical in its composition as a result, and I do like the sweet harmonies so I can say that this works for what it’s going for. It’s not my thing – I’m starting to think a lot of R&B just isn’t – but it’s a damn good, if not muddled, attempt so I can praise it for that.

#69 – “Bad Habit” – Steve Lacy

Produced by Steve Lacy

Speaking of male alternative R&B stars on the come-up who just released new albums, we have Steve Lacy, member of soul group The Internet – largely a spin-off from the larger Odd Future collective – and guitarist or backing vocalist on many a bigger star’s albums (Tyler the Creator, Kendrick Lamar and Vampire Weekend of all bands are included in that), here making his solo chart debut... and I pretty much hate this song. This is largely a bedroom pop track, so naturally there’s a lo-fi element to this production that kind of crushes all of the soul in those guitars to sound even more numb and monotonous than the loop already does, with Lacy’s clipping vocals and incredibly weak falsetto not really helping matters. The drums are weak and feel kind of plucky like they do in a lot of bedroom pop, and the very 70s synths that are an Odd Future staple sound okay but not against a song with basically no smoothness to it. It’s a rough, awkward track and I don’t think it works for the premise: sure, Lacy is basking in his awkwardness by thinking about what could have been if he didn’t over-think being in a relationship with someone, but the framing feels so off – given his delivery, and some of the underwritten verses, it should come off as lighthearted and therefore have a more organic swing than it does here, but him referring to the partner as “my dear” adds an unnecessarily creepy and clingy edge to the song that Lacy can’t entirely wallow in given his vocals not being nearly as expressive as they should be. That second verse is pretty rough, and then the outro comes in to shake things up and whilst it doesn’t feel entirely warranted, there is some progression in the songwriting with that second chorus that does make sense for this beat switch, which almost acts as his fantasy. The light melting of the acoustic guitars should work but that nasal, buzzy vocal loop and scratchy drums come in that just flatten everything under it, it sounds awful, and I don’t think the lyrical content is that far from being heavy-handed and kind of embarrassing. I can see this lasting, maybe with a radio edit that stops it at that bridge, but I hope it doesn’t, which hurts me to say as I do like Steve Lacy but can’t stand this track. Sorry.

#67 – “SNAP” – Rosa Linn

Produced by Lilith Navasardyan, Ben Samama, Alex Salibian, Ethan Schneiderman and Larzz Principato

Oh. Well, this is easy. A week or two ago, to escape from Chris Brown, Piran suggested that I listen to “SNAP” by Rosa Linn, an Armenian singer who represented her country in Eurovision this year, ultimately placing 20th in the final. Whilst the song wasn’t successful at the song contest, it has gained a bit of second traction and I understand why: the songwriting is pretty simple and at times generic but the counting gimmick is fun enough and Rosa Linn can sell the content with a lot of exhausted frustration – she sounds really good on this. My problems lie somewhat with the production which sounds like someone got into Mumford & Suns way too late and delivered a pretty folkish guitar strum alongside the drums that make this sound more like music for a car advertisement than for an international song contest, especially with all the reverb. Regardless, it’s a decent song, and absolutely a catchy one, with the melancholy pianos and buzzing synths coming in at the end that actually add a lot more to this mix, even if I wish they were a bit louder. Yes, I did just copy-paste my review from two weeks ago, but hey, if I’ve got Internet friends who can predict the future, I may as well utilise their powers.

#64 – “STFU” – Digga D

Produced by 4Thedrill and 2K Beatz

I swear Digga D never stops releasing music, even though his last mixtape was released very recently. It doesn’t exactly help that he tends to shovel out a lot of it, leading to if not bad songs, just dull, uninteresting songs that feel slap-dash in both production and flow. This one is a bit different, though, as this is actually kind of a banger. I’m not really fussed about the menacing piano sample they use, but the rough vocal mixing and gunshot sound effects give a really harsh mixtape sound to this that is just elevated by the string loop and your typical booming drill 808s that get constantly interrupted by Digga on that first verse. Some of the content here is just straight-up harsh, with several targeted disses that had to be censored due to their violence, and whilst he accuses Fredo of noncery, there’s enough detail in the desensitised gang violence to make this genuinely kind of scary on Digga’s part, with the switch to the whispering flow in the first verse sounding really smooth. His Lil Tjay-esque Auto-Tuned hook should undermine this, but the sing-songy flow makes his already condescending, emasculating content hit just that much harder. It’s far from unique, really, but it goes pretty hard and Digga has the energy to back up the violence so for now, I can say I think Digga effectively plays the villain here (much as he’s done for his whole career, to varying degrees of success).

#60 – “sTraNgeRs” – Bring Me the Horizon

Produced by Zakk Cervini, Evil Twin and BloodPop

Alt-rock band Bring Me the Horizon are back for another single off of whatever’s coming next from this unpredictable group, but much like their last few efforts, they’re kind of playing it safe. Sure, Oli Sykes has his typical pained emo screech, covered in a level of Auto-Tune we’ve heard before but sounds particularly scratchy over the beeping industrial beat and acoustic guitar before, of course, it becomes a metal song. With that said, I don’t think it really works as one given the heavily compressed mixing in some parts that really strips the chorus of its grit, with the bass and squealing guitar riffs sounding heavier in the verses, alongside the cheesy synth tones that are kind of coming back into fashion after the scene era. In terms of content, it’s about unity in mental health issues, and again they’re playing it safe, not really saying anything interesting beyond the general “togetherness” and it does feel a bit lazy, especially since I know that this band can both get way more out-there and also hit the emotions a lot harder, often at the same time. This isn’t awful, but it’s disappointing.

#57 – “Part of the Band” – The 1975

Produced by George Daniel, Jack Antonoff and Matthew Healy

Anyone else forget that The 1975 exist regularly and get slightly disappointed when you’re reminded that they do? I’ve always found Matthew Healy’s brand of songwriting kind of cringeworthy and absolutely exhausting... but I don’t know, I liked “Me & You Together Song”, maybe I’ll like this new lead single where Healy has a more relaxed delivery over a well-orchestrated string section? Well, I would if his writing wasn’t still as frustrating as ever in its excuses for social commentary. Healy may be more nuanced and a bit laid-back in its observations but that doesn’t make his ramblings about the Internet, social media and “cancel culture” – alongside all the drug references – any more compelling. Dude, you’re 32: you made this and you’re very much “part of the band” when it comes to creating the social media platform you exist on and function with. To frame yourself as out of touch from the “clique” of Gen Z that supposedly run the world is doing more harm than good for the progressive politics you pretend to support. Regardless, Jack Antonoff is doing a lot of heavy lifting as it’s a lot easier on the ears than much of The 1975, thanks mostly to this chamber pop change in sound that actually sounds pretty good, but I can’t get over how unnecessarily exhausting this is in lyrical content and delivery. I could just ignore the lyrics, but I know damn well that it’s kind of what Healy wants me to do, because thinking any deeper will make this evidently a group of breaking-news buzz words thrown into a meaningless poetry that frames itself as the “modern art”, the “observational piece” when it’s a lot less interesting – and saying a hell of a lot less – than the art that actually exists within that frame. But for The 1975, that’s nothing new.

#47 – “Cloak & Dagger” – Burna Boy featuring J Hus

Produced by Telz

Nigerian singer Burna Boy’s sixth studio album Love, Damini just debuted at #2 on the UK Albums Chart, right behind Harry’s House and whilst I can’t claim to have many thoughts on it, it did do well enough on streaming to debut two songs, with the aforementioned “Last Last” already in the top 10. This means that we can end this episode on a pretty easy two songs that should be at least okay, especially since he’s recruiting J Hus to make his first musical appearance in years on this pretty great instrumental from Telz. The Afrobeats percussion is shaky and a tad stiff but it tightens the groove to this otherwise pretty loose song with the light pads, fairy vocal loops and those wonderful flutes, which despite their beauty, definitely make this a tense track, largely thanks to that rubbery percussive groove. It makes sense for the content too, which is all about enemies praying on Burna Boy’s downfall, whose vocals have never sounded better than this. In comparison, J Hus is a tad messier flow-wise, but Hus has never not been able to play that off well, with a pretty damn long verse that touches upon a lot of references for wordplay, moving from very specific Western pop culture references to West African mythology really seamlessly. Burna Boy doesn’t even have a verse here but honestly, it doesn’t matter. This is a great track regardless, especially when it goes into that warping screech of a synth in the outro that is a really compelling touch to add, nearly convincing me to listen to the album just so I can see how that trail of sonic thought ends. Eventually, that trail leads us to...

#30 – “For My Hand” – Burna Boy featuring Ed Sheeran

Produced by P2J

This is the big on-release single from the track list, featuring everyone’s favourite Afrobeats artist, Ed Sheeran. Naturally, this one is a bit generic. It’s a sweet love song that reminisces on the ride that led them to this point, but they love each other regardless, or whatever. I don’t know, I want to like this but it feels way too “adult contemporary” – pretty much anytime Burna Boy is singing, Ed’s there to harmonise and deliver backing vocals. His presence feels like it’s sapping some of Burna Boy’s more obvious personality and unique, soulful voice out of the equation which is really unfortunate given that I think he could deliver much more on this kind of instrumental, which although generic, does have some great drum fills and sweet acoustic guitars. There’s not even a part in Yoruba like there was in “Cloak & Dagger”, it just feels very sanitised. With that said, it’s far from bad but not all that interesting.

Conclusion

That concludes what I thought was a generally good week. I like more than half of these tracks, and most of the ones I don’t like aren’t all that unlikeable. Worst of the Week does go to “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy, with Dishonourable Mention going to The 1975 as they get carried by Jack Antonoff of all people on “Part of the Band”. For Best of the Week, it is tricky but I think I’ll give it to Burna Boy and J Hus for “Cloak & Dagger” with “Betty (Get Money)” by Yung Gravy as the Honourable Mention. As always, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week!

[from-beyond]

I know I’m late but if you’re still bored, I’d love to hear you talk about the albums you’ve been loving lately!

Heya anon! You sent this like a full week ago, but I saved it for later and I'm bored now so I'm gonna answer!

Curve of Earth, Ohtis

I discovered this band in early 2021 but I only sat down and listened to the entire album in December and I think it changed me as a person. Their sound is very folk/rock alternative with super blunt and descriptive lyrics. This specific album is almost entirely about addiction and religious trauma, two issues close to my heart. It's heavy, but not overwhelmingly sad. Like you can still put it on for a drive and not feel depressed. The whole album is very atmospheric, best enjoyed while driving through a shitty Midwest small town. (Fun fact: the band is actually local to a town not far from where I was born!) My favorite songs are Diggin, Rehab, Runnin, and Black Blood.

There's Nothing in The Bushes, Joshua Bond

Another alternative folk album. I recently read an interview with Joshua and he said he was very inspired by The Mountain Goats and Bob Dylan, and you can definitely hear their influence, but his sound is still pretty unique. Great lyrics, super fun guitar riffs, and pervasive themes isolation, loneliness, and growing up. (He also just put out a new album in December, I believe, and its pretty good as well.) My favorite songs are I Made Myself a Friend, Pissin' in the Wind, and The Absolute Best Feeling.

Jorji, Ezra Bell

I honestly recommend every album by this band, but Jorji is their most recent creation and it's excellent. They self-describe their music as indie-folk-rock-blues-jazz which is pretty accurate. But they manage to balance all these genres without their music sounding too busy. You've probably heard their song I Love You Too, as it was popular in fandom circles for a while. Their newest album has some of the most interesting songs they've ever written, from a musical perspective. My favorite songs are "for the eradication of seemingly incurable sadness", "the girl in the polka dot dress", and "gently chiding veronica".

Alright I ran out of time to talk about the other ones, but special shoutout to The Gods We Can Touch by AURORA and Tempest in a Teacup by Mal Blum!

[simpbur]

hello! i would like ur 40 song wiblur playlist

anon thank you so much for asking <333 while it would’ve been easier to just drop the link i have so many thoughts about everything so i explained why every single song has its spot on this list which was IMMENSELY fun for me

(also: if anyone does want the link i can provide both apple music and spotify but if u would like the apple music link i’d rather it be through dms or an ask off anon that i can make private!)

another also: i bolded all the songs for ease of perusing if you don’t want the director’s commentary and bolded + italicized the ones that i think fit Very Well

another another also: wrote the second bit of this on my laptop and the keyboard is p funky so if there are any typos or things that do not make sense i will try to fix them asap haha

saint bernard by lincoln: this is one of those like. Dream SMP Songs that i added because it fits into so many different relationships and plot lines and arcs but i think there’s some connection to c!wlbur somewhere out there. idk i asked my friend and he said to add it so this one goes out to him

amnesia was her name by lemon demon: ghostbur song ghostbur song! mostly comes from this lovely animatic

o valencia! by the decemberists: okay this is one of those songs that only really has one lyric that fits but is an absolutely banger so it’s here anyway. you’ll also notice a trend of quasi love songs that i relate to c!wilbur’s perception of l’manburg and i think this song shows this in a really cool way, esp with the chorus (‘and i swear to the stars i’ll burn this whole city down’ is The Line)

achilles come down by gang of youths: another one of those Dream SMP Songs. i think this fits better with c!tommy but i like it too much to remove it. this is a somewhat common trend with the earlier songs on this playlist (i’ve been building this thing since january, for reference)

brave as a noun by ajj: another Dream SMP Song. i think certain verses fit better than others when it comes to wilbur’s character but that ones that work really work

harness your hopes by pavement: a song that is one here for vibes alone. i have no idea what these lyrics mean. all i know is that i heard it, thought of c!wilbur, and put it on the playlist. thank you all for being here

evelyn evelyn by evelyn evelyn: sad-ist made this a tommy and tubbo song (as she should) so it’s validity on this playlist is questionable but folks used to compare it to wilbur and tommy’s relationship during the pogtopia arc and i think some points were made there

the execution of all things by rilo kiley: i’m so excited to get here because this was the first song i put on the playlist that i think really works and i thumb nailed an animatic for the last verse and november 16th so! i think it’s a good l’manburg song and the last verse has some good ghostbur lines (‘and lately you’re all alone with nothing left but sleep/but sleep never comes to you, it’s the guilt and forever wakefulness of the weak’)

i’m just your problem from adventure time: this ones a bit tricky since at is my favorite show of all time and i cannot detach this song from its in-show context very well but there is a very cool animatic with this song that landed it a spot on the playlist

man burning by josh ritter: almost became an animatic but the audio i wanted to use (which i recorded at a josh ritter concert and it’s just him and his guitar and there’s echo and it’s very haunting and pretty) has my stepbrother singing in the background and i could not edit it out so. that will probably not happen. but anyways the only hole i would pick in this song is that it’s mostly about self sabotage which isn’t really applicable but i think the imagery is cool

mamma mia by abba: here me out. here me out. this is another song that fits so well and i have spent so many hours thinking about this and somewhere there is a note on my phone explaining how every single line relates to c!wilbur’s entire arc from founding l’manburg to the resurrection (made when we thought gbur was going to get resurrected in january) and just. the metaphorical ‘you’ is l’manburg does this make any sense (another almost animatic except now that wilbur’s actually back it might become an actual animatic)

the other side of paradise by glass animals: no idea why this is here other than being a Dream SMP Song. it’s good tho

infinitesimal by mother mother: they saaaaay it stared with a big bang but they saaaaaaaay it came out of a small thing latelyyyyy i’ve been feeling like a big bang You Know

curses by the crane wives: had a thing drawn out for this song showing the comparisons between c!wilbur and c!niki because of the chorus and i think the last two lyrics of said chorus are the best thing about this one

lonely eyes by the front bottoms: gotta admit that i have no idea how this song got on here but i’ve come to associate it with ghostbur based on vibes alone. it’s a friendly song he’s a friendly ghost it works. the other tfb song coming up fits a bit better methinks

king of new orleans by better than ezra: not to put better than ezra on my c!wilbur playlist but like. something about the whole ‘tasing something up to let it fall’ motif makes me think

get me away from here, i’m dying by belle and sebastian: another almost animatic song (there’s a trend here). not only does the story told in this song work i like the lines ‘play me a song to set me free/nobody writes them like they used to so it may as well be me’ in relation to my l’manburg

montgomery forever by the front bottoms: certain bits and pieces of this song fit so well, specifically the chorus and those bits in the last two choruses Yeah (’montgomery forever and ever and ever and now they’re blowing it up/(x2)/as you started laughing and crying and trying to explain how all you want to do is leave’)

don’t look back in anger by oasis: out of all my almost animatic songs, this one got the furthest. the animatic, which I got pretty far in thumbnailing, was about wilbur and tommy and kind of drawing comparisons between their characters, also about the revolution in general. maybe i’ll finish that animatic one day idk 

snow by ricky montgomery: i wish i had a link for this so bad but!! saw art on twitter!! with the lyric ‘bury me six feet in snow’!! and went ahfsdjfk!!

burning pile by mother mother: a Dream SMP Song. also a jam there’s no real specific connection for this one but i think it could fit in a couple of ways

rounds by the oh hellos: in the same position as snow except it was on tumblr..... @ whoever made this comic i saw these lyrics in your brain is massive and your art is incredible

lovely by mt. eddy: on here for vibes alone. there’s something in the lyrical content too, but my thoughts in that regard are not very fleshed out

adventures in solitude by the new pornographers: ah yes..... the song that prompted this all...... this is a beautiful and incredibly well written song and if you’re going to listen to any song off of this playlist i’d encourage you to listen to this one. it’s place of here is mostly cause of the chorus but the imagery in the verses could all represent a part of c!wilbur and i’d love to explore that more

caught in the middle by paramore: obligatory paramore song. i think it got on here because limbo = ‘middle’ but i’m not quite sure. on the verge of being deleted if i can find a better pmore song

delicate by damien rice: one of the oddest songs on this list and i am well aware that it sticks out like a sore thumb. a song that’s on here pretty much because of one lyric, which is ‘and why’d you sing hallelujah/if it means nothing to you’ which i related to both eret’s betrayal and how my l’manburg is hallelujah yknow

bang! by ajr: almost animatic song. i think we all know what the bang is here

somewhere only we know by lily allen: ik i said don’t look back in anger has the most potential to get made into an animatic but this song might actually take it place. on par with adventures in solitude in terms of how pretty of a song it is, and probably even moreso. it’s kind of turned into a ghostbur song in my head, and makes me cry like an infant child every time i hear it

a pearl by mitski: i cannot defend this song’s place on here past the line ‘it’s just that i fell in love with a war and nobody told me it ended’

eight by sleeping at last: the official c!wilbur song needs a spot on here <3 if i can dig up the clip of cc!wilbur talking about this song in relation to his character i’ll add it but until then yeah <3

always by rilo kiley: no idea why this is on here but it fits well!! could not tell you why!! banger!!

celebration guns by stars: it’s a hauntingly beautiful song about war, and kind of one of those that necessarily isn’t about wilbur but moreso his place in the story? idk how to explain it but yes

passerine by the oh hellos: it’s. it’s from the . the fic. yeah h

oh, you are the roots that sleep beneath my feet and hold the earth in place by bright eyes: added this after the real resurrection and i think it’s because fo the imagery? also the last verse

we are beautiful, we are doomed by los campesinos!: all i have to say is ‘i cannot emphasize enough that my body/is a badly designed, poorly put together vessel/harboring these diminishing, so called vital organs/i hope my heart goes first, i hope my heart goes first!�� has always made me think of pogtopia era wilbur :(

dead weight by jack stauber: no real connection other than eret played this song during a break during the ghostbur’s january ‘resurrection’ and i heard it and went :0

point me at lost lands by tired pony: gives me season on l’manburg vibes..... i love how free and passionate it sounds and that's p much the only reason it’s on this list haha

ghosting by mother mother: added this five seconds ago because i could not BELIEVE it was not on here. ghostbur song. mans sang it on that one stream with the reverb and everything. the lyrics ‘i will be kind and i’ll be sweet/if you stop staring straight through me’ hit particularly hard back when everyone thought that ghostbur was actually wilbur in disguise 

[maylovexhs]

everytime - LONELY WEEKEND(Chp 13)

Author’s Note: It’s January 4th and it’s the start of world war 3. Good luck everyone and stay safe. Also, Australia is burning. 2020 is coming to kill us all. Anyways . . . Love, May.

Catch up on everytime here

*Y/N’S POV*

SLAM!

I kicked the door open. I stood in the doorway, striking a pose in my pink metallic jacket.

“How do I look?” I asked them.

“Good” Lisa said. “Just don’t kick any doors here. I don’t need to go through another lawsuit”

“Hey, in my defense, if they didn’t want the chair broken, they should have got a better chair” I told her.

“A chair?” Adam asked me. “What happen-“

“It’s a long story” I said.

“We were watching a basketball game and she lost it after her team lost” Camila said.

“And I said it was a long story” I said.

“It’s not” Adrain said.

I rolled my eyes at them. A knock was heard at the door. Camila walked over to the door and opened it. Sophia said in the doorway.

“We got your message” She said.

I walked out the door, passing Sophia. I stopped in my tracks, noticing Ezra.

“Finally you show up!” I said to him.

We hugged each other.

“Well, sorry I needed to look my best for your big night” He said.

“Yeah, my big night” I told him. “Not yours. You could have at least warned me”

“Next time” He said.

We pulled away from each other. I noticed Harry standing to the side of us. I didn’t even notice him when I walked out.

“So, what cringe-worthy stories did they tell you?” I asked him. “High school stories?”

Harry smiled, refusing to answer. He looked to my pink shiny boots. 

“I like your boots” Harry said, changing subjects. “You can walk in them, right?”

“Gareth Pugh” I told him. “And yes, these boots were made for walking”

I kicked my foot out while clutching my jacket.

“And kicking” Adam said, walking out of the dressing room. “You’re really sure you want to go out like that?”

I crossed my arms at him.

“Yes” I told him. “I like it. Why wouldn’t I go out in this?”

“It’s just that-“ Adam was about to speak but shut his mouth.

“Yeah, why not?” Harry asked him.

“No reason” Adam said, shaking his head. “You look great in it”

Harry and I looked to each other, smiling. It was a fashion thing.

I looked to Ezra. I held him by his arm, cozying up to him.

“You need to tell me all about Japan” I told him. “Every single thing”

*HARRY’S POV*

I watched as Y/N and Ezra walked off together. I smiled, entranced by how friendly they were together. She never treated me like that.

I looked to Adam. He looked like he just tasted a sour lemon.

“Was it too much pink for you?” I asked him, teasing him about Y/N’s outfit.

“What?” Adam asked me.

“Y/N’s outfit” I said. “Too much pink?”

“Yeah, yeah” Adam said. “Too much”

Adam walked away from me. I smiled to myself.

Fashion. He didn’t have a fashion taste.

. . .

Later.

“And I don't wanna be somebody without your body close to me” She sang. “And if it wasn't you, I wouldn't want anybody close to me”

I stood in the balcony, watching Y/N sing. I stood between Jie Lin and Adam.

“Because I'm an animal, animal-al,” Y/N continued to sing. “Like animal, like you”

“And I don't wanna be somebody without your body close to me” She sung as she walked back to the microphone stand. “Close to me”

Y/N adjusted her microphone on the stand.

“Close to me” Y/N sang in a sweet, long note.

The crowd cheered as the song ended. The lights came back on. I whistled for Y/N. Adam and Jie Lin covered their ears from me. 

“Sorry” I apologized.

“Umm,” Y/N spoke. “How’s everyone doing so far?” 

The crowd was a mix of cheers and mumbles.

“Not good?” Y/N asked in shock while talking to someone in the front of the audience. “I think it’s been more than good”

Y/N looked at the person as they talked more.

“Ohh” Y/N said, smiling. “You’re upset because  the song ended. Well . . . SORRY!”

The crowd laughed.

“I would love to stay here all night and sing my songs but they won’t let me” Y/N spoke to them. “It’s Radio City, I’m on a strict schedule!”

The crowd laughed a little more. Y/N looked to the balcony. She looked to Adam.

“So, when I wrote this album” Y/N said, looking back down to the crowd. “I wrote it with a very special person. I wrote it with a singer called Marina”

The crowd grew excited.

“And when I wrote it, she became someone I could call a friend” She said. “I wrote this next one with her. This is called Savages”

Some people in the crowd cheered. The lights dimmed, turning blue. The beginning of the song played. I focused on Y/N as she felt the music. She leaned into the microphone. She closed her eyes.

“Murder lives forever and so does war. It's survival of the fittest, rich against the poor” She sung. “At the end of the day, it’s a human trait, hidden deep down inside of our DNA”

The lights turned red as the beat kicked up.

“One man can build a bomb, another run a race to somebody's life and have it blow up in his face” Y/N sung. “I'm not the only one who finds it hard to understand. I'm not afraid of God, I am afraid of Man”

A spotlight turned on, shining on Marina as she walked out. Y/N grinned at Marina.

“Is it running in our blood? Is it running in our veins? Is it running in our genes? Is it in our DNA?” Marina sung. “Humans aren't gonna behave as we think we always should”

“Yeah, we can be bad as we can be good” Y/N sang along with her.

I looked at Adam when I saw him turn around in the corner of my eye.

“Hey, where are you off to?” I asked him.

“Bathroom” He said. “I’ll be right back”

I nodded at him.

I moved closer to Ezra. I tapped on his shoulder. Ezra turned to me.

“So . . . How was Y/N when she was twenty-one?”

. . .

Later.

*Y/N’S POV*

I bent down, taking a bow on stage. I stood up, blowing kisses to the crowd.

“Thank you” I mouthed to them.

I blew them one last kiss, saying goodbye as I left the stage. I walked behind the curtain, grinning from ear to ear. Lisa and Cory, my sound engineer, approached me.

“And she’s back!” Lisa cheered.

I took my pink coat off, grasping it in my hand. I stood still as Cory removed the mic on me.

“I am!” I said, still feeling the high from being on stage. “God, I missed being out there”

“I could tell” Lisa said. “You were dancing your ass off”

If Ali was here, she would have said I looked like a dancing flamingo. 

Cory removed the mic off me. I thanked him. I saw Harry and Ezra walking to me in the distance. I walked past Lisa to them.

“So, what did you think?” I asked them. “How was my dancing?”

I did a side kick, flaunting my boots at them.

“Amazing” Harry said. “Loved it every time you did a kick on stage”

Harry leaned in, trying to hug me. I pulled away from him.

“Oh, trust me” I told him. “You don’t want to hug me when I’m still sweaty”

Harry stepped back from me. I saw the rest of my friends walking towards us. Except for Adam.

“Where did Adam go?” I asked.

“He said the bathroom” Ezra said. “He left right after Savages”

My eyes widened. That was like twenty minutes ago. He should have been back by now.

“After savages?” I asked, looking at Harry and Ezra. “He had to be back by-“

“Y/N” 

I heard Adam call me. I turned my head to the side to see him walking to me. I smiled. I ran up to him.

“There you are!” I said. “Harry said you left to the bathroom a long time ago. I thought for a second you had ran off”

“Why would I do that?” Adam asked me.

“Well, you’re a dad” I told him. “Best guess was something happened to Luka and you had to go to him”

Adam smiled down at me. There was a glisten in his eyes. 

“No, no, everything’s fine” He assured me. “Should we go get you changed?”

“Oh, yes” I told him. “I regret wearing the coat. God, they told me it was going to be sweaty but I didn’t expect this”

I turned around to my friends talking with each other. Harry seemed to be getting on well with them. I smiled at them, realizing something.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked me.

I looked to Adam.

“I have to do something” I told him.

“Something?” Adam asked. “Like . . .”

“I’m going to get Ali” I said to him.

“What?” Adam responded, surprised. “Now?”

I nodded at him, smiling. I stood up on my tippy toes to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Go home to Luka” I said to Adam. “I’ll call you tomorrow”

Adam squinted his eyes at me.

“Don’t worry” I reassured him. “I know what I’m doing. I’ll call you soon”

I walked over to my friends. I looked to Isabella.

I took her hand.

“What are you doing?” Isabella asked me.

“We’re leaving” I told her.

“To where?” Ezra asked.

“To get Ali” I answered him. “Just me and Isabella”

Harry smiled at me. I nodded at him.

“Well, then” Harry said. “I guess that means you can’t make dinner tonight?”

“Rain check” I told him. “I need to get my best friend first”

“Tell her I say hi” Harry said.

I smiled at him. I turned around, dragging Isabella with me.

“Are we really going?” She asked me.

“Yup” I said. “And with my coat”

. . .

Later.

I buzzed the bell again.

“I think she’s not here” Isabella said. “We can call her again”

“For her not to pick up?” I said. “Nope”

“But how do you know she’s here?” Isabella asked. “She could be out”

“If she was out, she would have told you” I said. “She tells you everything”

I buzzed the bell again.

“She doesn’t tell me everything” Isabella defended. “There are other things I don’t tell either of you”

I looked to Isabella, raising my eyebrow at her.

“Other things?” I asked her.

“It’s personal” She said.

“As long as you’re not hiding important shit from me. . . Fine” I said.

I buzzed the bell once more.

“I swear to god Ali if you don’t-“

“If I don’t what?” I heard Ali ask.

Isabella and I turned around to see Ali standing in front of us. So, she was out.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Ali asked me, taking out her keys from her jacket pocket. “And why you still in your pink outfit?”

I crossed my arms at her.

“Why do you think?” I asked her. “Why else would I be waiting outside your apartment at 11 at night? I came to make up”

Ali inserted her key into the apartment building’s door. It opened. Isabella and I walked in after her.

“Now you come to make up?” Ali asked me as she walked over to the elevator. “Weren’t you the one who thought you would be better off without me?”

Yes, I did. But now, I realized I was wrong.

Ali pushed the elevator button.

“I did . . . but I was wrong” I said.

Ali squinted her eyes at me. The elevator’s doors opened. I stepped inside the elevator with her and Isabella. The doors closed. The elevator started to move.

“Listen, I didn’t mean what I said to you” I began to explain. “I mean yes, who were annoying me with all the Adam and Harry criticism but I would never want you out of my life”

“Oh, really?” Ali asked me. “It sounded like you did when you ignored me for the past two weeks”

Isabella and I looked to each other. We knew I dug a hole in our friendship. I looked to Ali.

“I know you missed me too” I said. “Isabella showed me the texts and told me about it”

Ali have Isabella a death stare.

“What?” Isabella asked. “We’ve been friends forever. It felt not right without you and Y/N talking”

“And?” Ali asked me. “Just because I missed you doesn’t mean I still want to be friends with you”

The elevator’s doors opened. We walked out. We followed Ali to her apartment door.

“Oh, cut the bullshit” I said to Ali. “I’ve been friends with you for almost a decade. We’ve been through worst fights than this and still were friends after”

Ali inserted her key into her apartment door, opening it. She walked in. I followed her in.

“And I know if you missed me as much as I missed you, you still want to be friends” I said to her. “I know you’re too stubborn to admit it”

Ali turned around to face me.

“Come on, Ali” I pleaded. “You know more than anything we need each other”

Ali crossed her arms at me, refusing to admit the truth.

“Why did you come?” She asked me. “Why now?”

“Well,” I said, crossing my arms as well. “I had this feeling all day that something was missing. At first, I thought I was nervous because I felt something was off but . . . After the show, everyone I loved was there. Jie Lin. Lily. Isabella. Harry. Everyone except you. I realized you were missing. I was missing my best friend. I know what I’m saying sounds like complete bullshit but it’s true. Nothing really matters without you by my side”

Ali looked down. She uncrossed her arms, looking up to me.

“I was wrong too” Ali said. “I was being such a bitch to you. I didn’t mean to but I felt hurt. Hurt by Christian. You had everything going well for you while everything in mine was falling apart. I shouldn’t have taken it out all on you”

“It wouldn’t be the first time” I joked with Ali.

Isabella chuckled.

“And it wasn’t my place to complain about Adam and Harry” Ali said. “I only did that to protect you”

I smiled at her.

“I know” I told her. “So . . .”

I spread my arms open.

“Are we friends again?” I asked her.

Ali wrapped her arms around me, hugging me.

“I take that as a yes” I said.

“Don’t make me block you again” Ali said. 

We stopped hugging each other. Ali looked to Isabella. 

“You really had to show her the texts?” Ali asked her.

“She forced me” Isabella blamed me.

“You’re the one who brought her up” I defended. 

Ali rolled her eyes.

“How long were you outside my apartment by the way?” Ali asked.

“About fifteen minutes” Isabella said. 

“Give or take a few doorbells buzzes” I added. “I thought you would be home”

Ali smirked to herself.

“Yeah, I wasn’t” Ali said. “I was out with someone”

“Someone?” Isabella asked. “Who?”

“A guy” Ali said. “I was on a date”

Isabella and I looked to each other and then back to Ali. We were in shock.

“A date?”

[prairiesongserial]

epilogue 10

“Operator, this is Mac,” came the familiar, bored drawl of Lady’s secretary.

Mac was a heavyset butch, strawberry blond hair buzzed to the quick. He had sweat through his white shirt, especially where he had been wearing his underarm holsters, which were now slung over the back of his chair. He was an excellent secretary, and Lady didn’t just think so because he had saved her from two hours of phone calls that afternoon.

Mac leaned back in his chair, phone cord tethering him to the kitchen table as he made exasperated eye contact with Lady.

Lady raised her eyebrows archly. Mac had been complaining - mostly through facial expression - about the very, very small Hemisphere operation they had commandeered since they had arrived this morning. It was a family operation in the middle of Alabama, evident by the fact that its headquarters was a farmhouse. By the sound of the feet pounding up and down the stairs at all times, Lady counted sixteen members of the Rushforth Family Company - which was such an embarrassingly vanilla name for a crime ring, mob, or gang, that Lady was beginning to wonder if the Rushforths were actually straight. They paid Hemisphere dues, and had immediately acquiesced their home to her upon her arrival, but Lady wouldn’t have been surprised if the Rushforths merely ran a dozen successful general stores.

Lady and Mac sat at the kitchen table with the rotary phone, but across from them, Mrs. Rushforth was composing a bolognese, dicing the mirepoix inches from Mac’s makeshift workstation. It had been a long afternoon of playing catch-up. This was what Lady got for travelling. She hadn’t phoned in to Central since Oklahoma City, and a lot of people had left her a lot of messages. Mac took notes for the less important calls, but occasionally Lady had to take the phone.

Lady watched Mac take a page of notes, scribbling down shorthand with impressive speed, then hang up the receiver.

“That’s all your missed calls, except for the Dead-Eyes, who want to know - ”

“Never mind the Dead-Eyes,” Lady groaned. She pinched her forehead, looking up at Mac with an expression she hoped conveyed martyred misery. “God, what a fucking waste of a day.”

“You’re not done yet,” Mac said, utterly unyielding. Cruel, cruel woman. He stretched his arms behind his back until his shoulders popped. “Weren’t you tellin’ me…”

Lady rolled her eyes. The real reason she had commandeered the Rushforth’s kitchen table hadn’t been to listen to her messages.

“Give me the phone,” she snapped, pulling the rotary phone over. She dialed quickly and waited for the line to connect.

“I think you should sweet talk the operator,” Mac said. “It’s Ruth on duty right now. Tell her you’ll give her a raise.”

Lady shot Mac a glare, but quickly fixed her face as her call went through.

“Hi, Ruth. It’s me. Yes, you were just on the line with Mac. Yes, I know.” She paused, listening as Ruth launched into a mile-a-minute soliloquy on just how busy the switchboard had been today.  Lady cleared her throat. “So, about your hourly rate…”

This was what the head of Hemisphere had to resort to, these days. Auntie had never had to schmooze with the girls working the phones, let alone the discontented gangs under her thumb.  Back in Constantine’s day, If a gang had a problem, they either died for it or shut the hell up.

“...Now Ruth, would you mind connecting me to Marc Waters?” Lady said saccharinely.

Mac rested his chin in his hand and smiled up at her, clearly amused that this was one call Lady had elected to make personally. He was lucky he was such a good secretary. The line made a satisfying click as the call went through.

“Bonjour, bonjour!” Marc crowed over the line. Lady held the phone away from her ear. “My, if it isn’t a treat to hear from you. How’s Central lately? How’s Mac, is he around? I was so sorry I had to miss last year’s gala, but as usual business comes first - I don’t have to tell you, of course! It seems like forever since I’ve been out of Texas, and now I’ll probably have a teensy war on my hands, what with all that unpleasantness with Las Realezas. Oh, I should tell you about that, but where to begin…”

Lady stared down at the receiver for a moment.

“Marc, I called you,” Lady growled.

“Oh, and so you did! What did you want to talk about? My goodness, you wouldn’t believe the rumor I heard lately about a Vegas gang - Oh, what was their name, there are so many of them…”

“Marc,” Lady said. “I need information. Since you love a rumor so much - ”

Marc laughed, and the sound came and went as he apparently moved his receiver around. There was some scuffling over the line, and the sound of a closing door.

“Don’t mind the noise, I’m just getting in the bath,” Marc yelled distantly, and the sound of running water was all Lady could hear for several long seconds. She held the receiver away from her ear and glowered across the table. Mac refused to commiserate, his attention utterly distracted by Mrs. Rushforth’s cooking. Mrs. Rushforth had given him a spoon to lick.

Lady returned her attention to the receiver just in time for the middle of something or other about La Salle, for some godforsaken reason. This summer had been one thing after another. The Vegas gangs were breathing down her neck about their wrecked city, La Salle was toast, Whist hadn’t checked in and was probably dead, and every gang within 50 miles of the Dead-Eyes’s path of destruction wanted assurance that she was going to take care of it before Ethan came for them, next.

Watching Ethan die hadn’t solved one damn thing. She should have killed him herself. She should have scooped him up when she’d had the chance, locked him away, and then publicly executed him in the middle of the ballroom at Central headquarters’ yearly gala. Then no one would have said a damn thing about how much spine she did or didn’t have.

The only way to recoup her lost face was to ferret out the four who had beaten her to it. Cody Allison. Friday Wilmot. Valerie Lecter. And the silent travelling companion who it had been very, very difficult to get a name for, and even then, she’d only gotten “John.”

“Listen, Marc,” Lady interrupted. “I need to know more about Friday Wilmot and Valerie Lecter.”

“Who?” Marc said.

“I don’t know what the connection is, but they were at the riverbank where Ethan died,” she explained. “What do you know?”

“Ethan’s dead? Ethan Rouse?” Marc whistled. “You’re kidding! Who killed him, the rest of the Dead-Eyes? You know, they gave me a very hard time a few weeks back. They drank three barrels of my water, and in return for my hospitality, they took my men captive! And then - ”

Lady had heard this one before. Yet another Hemisphere gang seeking reparations for the Dead-Eyes.

“Marc. Friday Wilmot and Valerie Lecter. What’s the connection to Cody Allison?”

He stopped short. He was thinking before he answered. Great, that meant he was coming up with a lie.

“You know, I can’t say the name rings a bell,” Marc said with a theatrical sigh.

“Which name?” Lady said, grinding her teeth.

The phone beeped at her, and Ruth’s voice cut into the conversation.

“Lady, um, Johannes Madsen is on the line,” Ruth said. “I wouldn’t interrupt, except you said that I should put Mr. Madsen through with priority, and…”

“Marc, hold on a second,” Lady said. “Put him through, Ruth.”

A cacophony of sounds assaulted Lady’s ears. She held the phone a little ways away as the rumble of an engine, one or more shouted songs, about a dozen barking dogs, and Johannes’s own shouted voice blended into one dissonant orchestra.

“Johannes, I’m on the line,” Lady said, bracing her arm against the table and resting her head in her palm.

“My God, Lady, are you at a construction site?” cut in Marc’s voice, just as the sound of a window slamming shut on the other end of the line silenced the major part of the racket.

Ruth must have done this on purpose. Lady held the receiver away from her ear for long enough to mouth “Both of them,” to Mac.

“You should have offered maternity leave with the raise,” Mac said flatly.

Lady glared, and returned her attention to the phone.

“Lady? I got through?” came Johannes’s lyrical voice. “Those operators of yours are all business lately. Usually the Hemisphere lines are a good thirty minute wait for the likes of us. Did you put in a good word for me or something?”

“Who is that?” asked Marc before Lady had the chance to say anything. “That’s not Mac.”

“Who’s on the line?” Johannes echoed. “Well, anyway, if they’re with you, I guess it doesn’t matter. Listen, I picked up the…”

Marc started speaking at just the same time, clearly aware that Johannes was speaking, and yet also clearly unconcerned with whether either of them could be heard.

Lady held the receiver away from her ear once again, waiting for the two of them to reach some sort of harmony. It was like listening to a brass band of only trumpets. In fact, Lady was pretty sure she could hear a distant trumpet over the phone, probably on the circus end of things. Not that she would put it past Marc to pick up an annoying instrument.

“ - so Lady calls me out of the blue to ask about some so-and-sos, and I’m sure I’ve never heard those names in my life,” Marc prattled on. “And you’d think I would remember, too, meeting someone named after a day of the week, as you don’t see that every day. But honestly, as if I don’t have better things to do! She does have information brokers, doesn’t she?”

“Marc, I’m still on the line,” Lady snapped.

“Yes, dear, and there’s your answer for you,” Marc continued, just as Johannes interrupted.

“Look, I’m blowing through electricity here, and - Oh, Ezra, good timing, I’ve got Lady on the phone. Anyway, you didn’t fucking tell us that you were gonna make this a competition. How am I supposed to make nice on my delivery if every schmuck east of the Mississippi looking to make a few thousand silver is gunning for these four?” Lady heard his hand slam down on something. “God’s sake, Lady, you know I had to shoot someone? Some random bounty hunter out of New Orleans. What a waste! For all I know, he was one of your guys, and you better not make it a whole to-do.”

“Who are you, again, sweetheart?” Marc said. Lady could envision him twirling the phone cord around a finger in the tub. She squeezed her eyes closed.

“None of your business,” Johannes returned cheerfully. “Listen, we got your four troublemakers, we’re heading to Everglades City next, and that’s all I got. Except, you know, a hearty fuck you for the bounty hunters. Ezra, was there anything else?”

In the split second of precious silence while Johannes Madsen waited for his brother to give his input, Marc Waters interjected.

“Lady, is this really necessary?” Marc drawled. “I mean, you called me, remember? And here I am, made to feel like a snoop while you discuss who has and hasn’t been murdered with a gentleperson whom I can only assume to be a common vagabond! Lady, are you listening? Am I an eavesdropper at the window? I mean, far be it from me, but Miss Manners dictates…”

“Marc, shut the fuck up,” Lady said stiffly. While Marc was speaking, the cacophony had joined up on Johannes’s end again. The competing voices and whoops of laughter and the goddamn trumpet - all on top of Marc’s drawl - were making her want to pull her hair out.

“Johannes, was that all?” Lady asked. “Because if you’re finished, please hang up.”

Johannes didn’t answer. He had evidently put down the phone to engage with some circus-related problem - Lady could hear his voice from a distance, and possibly his brother’s, bickering in a language she wasn’t sure was English. Marc was still speaking, undeterred.

Lady laid the receiver down on the table. She was going for a walk. And so help her God if a member of the Rushforth Family Company so much as even glanced her way.

10.14 || 11.1

[iris-writes-things]

Two Guys and a Baby: Day 7 part 1

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You smoked to hide your shaking fingers. You wore sunglasses to hide the fact that the very sight of his shining smile made you tear up. You dressed in black to mourn something that never was, but could have been. Should have been. You got up and tried again.

Or, Crowley asks Ezra on a date. But not that kind of date.

Chapter 9 of 20 Ongoing 2700 words Romance/Humor

That morning, Adam didn’t wake to bright rays of sunshine warming his soft cheeks, nor did he wake from his internal clock telling him it was time to get up and give Crowley an earful about requiring breakfast ASAP.

Instead, he woke from sweet tones coming from Crowley’s ancient tape deck.

‘I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things…’

This was because Crowley was really much better at brainstorming when he was in the right mood, and nothing quite set the mood like just the right Queen song. After all, Queen had at least one song for every possible human emotion, so desperate times often called for Best of Queen. 

‘We can do the tango just for two…’

His mum had given him the cassette tape on his tenth birthday and he had been over the moon. They didn’t have much to spend at the time for reasons Crowley would rather not think about and his mother had been too busy for much of anything for those same reasons, but when he woke up that fateful morning in 1997 he found a neatly wrapped, brittle plastic box sitting on his nightstand and the gesture had meant the world to him. It was in those years that Crowley learned that true love isn’t proclaimed; it’s shown. Not in grand gestures or melodrama, but in the mundane. In a birthday present waiting for you on your nightstand, in packed lunches sitting in the fridge, in bringing your crush chocolate croissants after a massive cock-up.

‘I can serenade and gently play on your heartstrings…’

But as effective as actions were in expressing one’s soul crushing love for another, they were terrifying. They had terrified. Two years ago, he had almost kissed the love of his life, but he’d hesitated. He didn’t know if Ezra wanted it too. He hesitated and was met with Ezra’s painfully blue eyes darting around the bar. He was nervous. He was shaking. And then he paid the tab and booked it out of there. How do you come back from that?

‘Be your valentino just for you…’

The answer to that was, you didn’t. You tore down everything you had painstakingly built up in one fell swoop, and then pathetically, when everything slotted together again, you started pathetically building things back up again, like some kind of wonky Lego castle. You smoked to hide your shaking fingers. You wore sunglasses to hide the fact that the very sight of his shining smile made you tear up. You dressed in black to mourn something that never was, but could have been. Should have been.

‘Ooh love, ooh loverboy…’

You got up and tried again.

*

Ezra had always had a way with the written word. Not so much the spoken word. This was why he had Gabriel for communicating with potential publishers, and his pseudonym to hide behind. It was why he couldn’t convince his family that writing novels was a perfectly respectable pastime, and that, despite not being the most virtuous, Anthony was actually a genuinely good person. 

‘Dearest Anthony…’

But what good were words, even the written ones if you couldn’t find the right ones? Because how did you tell a man you’ve known for a decade that you’ve been in love with him all that time? How would he explain that he hadn’t told him earlier? Why he had wasted their collective time by being a coward? It didn’t bear thinking about; it just wasn’t justifiable.

‘I’m sorry about the way I’ve failed to act on my feelings before…’

He grunted as he hoisted a stack of books from the box in the doorway of his shop and placed it on the new arrivals table, rearranging it as he tried to worry about other things. Things had been slow for the shop lately, but he’d been keeping afloat well enough. The recession hadn’t forced him out of business; the dawn of the ereader hadn’t, either; a slow month was nothing. People would be gearing up for their beach vacations any time now and his books would sell like anything. Well, his books… He chuckled. It would still take well over a year until his, or rather, Aziraphale’s book would hit shelves, which was a tremendous relief. Sure, he had read the book and project Anathema had left at the shop, but he would have to revise almost the entire story, especially now that he knew who his subject’s last surviving descendants were. He wanted to do right by Anathema, her mother and Anthony.

‘The simple facts are these:’

Everything always seemed to gravitate back to him, like the universe revolved around him. Creative Anthony, who found joy in drawing things for him and, once upon a time many years ago, would sneakily sketch him. Happy Anthony, who made his chest swell and burst with butterflies with every dorky, snarky, nervous laugh of his. 

‘You are my sun; beautiful, bright and blinding. You caught me in your orbit many years ago and I would be forever unable to escape. However, a satellite,’ no, that’s not right, ‘a moon of all of my accumulated fears eclipsed your light that warmed my world…’ No. No, that won’t do, either.

Ezra wondered briefly if his books, should they suddenly become sentient (he hoped they wouldn’t), would be jealous of his feelings for the other man. In fact, he hoped they would be happy for him, and quickly decided that they would be more than okay with a break from his fussing, but his admittedly odd train of thought was interrupted by the jingling of the bell over the door.

‘Dearest Anthony, I love—’

“Ezra Fell, you absolute genius, you’ve done it again!” Gabriel cried as he strode into the shop.

“Ex-excuse me?” he stammered.

“The publisher. They want your book. Turns out ‘medieval, strong female-led with a touch of the supernatural’ is exactly what they were looking for. They agreed to all of our terms in regards to royalties and compensation.”

A feeling of pride swelled within him. His book. Exactly what they were looking for. He couldn’t help but grin as even Gabriel seemed to smile down on him. “Well, did they give you any notes?”

“They wanted more from the witch’s perspective, which I told them you can do,” Gabriel started.

“Yes, of course, that will be no problem at all,” Ezra confirmed excitedly.

“And they want you to do some public appearances to promote the book. Mostly just signings.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Ezra, it’s in the conditions.”

“I don’t care what’s in the conditions, I won’t do it!” Ezra cried. Just now noticing that he was growing slightly lightheaded, he drew in slow, deep breaths to steady himself. His mouth set into a thin line. Gabriel frowned at him.

“If this is still about your family,” the American tried. “I suggest you let that go. You’re forty-one, what can they do to you? Really?”

Ezra shrugged but looked down in defeat. There was nothing they could logically do to him, and yet he was afraid. The feeling of pride he felt before was as good as gone. Drained completely by the idea of having to be publicly known. 

He didn’t write for the attention, for the fame, even less so for the fortune. He wrote because he loved it and there was no other option for him than to write. “I just don’t like being in the spotlight…” he mumbled, and Gabriel would have to take his word for it.

“Okay, fine, I’ll try to negotiate it out of the conditions.”

“Thank you,” Ezra mumbled faintly.

“Right, so, in other news,” Gabriel said, trying to turn the mood around. “Ever found out if ‘he was really into you’, or whatever that silly magazine said?”

Ugh. This again. Ezra buried his face in his hands, not really wanting to answer, but he nodded nonetheless.

“So? What did he say? Did you ask him out?”

He shook his head, face still firmly planted in the palms of his hands.

“Oh my god, you’re unbelievable. You asked him if he liked you, didn’t you?”

He shook his head again.

“Then how? How do you know?” Gabriel asked, some exasperation in his voice.

Finally, Ezra looked up, frowning. “His niece told me, alright? She told me all sorts of things. That he loves me. That he’s loved me for about a decade, and, you know, I’ve loved him just as long. But she said he loved me too much to want to risk our friendship, which nearly did go down the drain the last time we almost acted on our feelings. And then—”

The bell over the door jingled.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Speak of the devil and he appears. 

In the doorway of the shop stood Anthony. Adam on one arm, a carton with two paper coffee cups in the other hand, and a paper bag clamped between his upper arm and his chest. Ezra recognized the logo on the bag from a few days prior. It was undoubtedly filled with more chocolate croissants and other delectable baked goods as their smell slowly but surely filled the shop.

Ezra glanced up at Gabriel, whose eyes were fixed intently on Anthony. He didn’t show much of a reaction, but his lips didn’t curl down in disdain. He quickly glanced at Ezra, quirked his lips, then turned his gaze back to Anthony.

“You must be ‘him’, then?” Gabriel asked, extending his hand to Crowley, who gestured his full hands. Adam recoiled slightly.

“I must be ‘who’, then?”

“Ezra’s—”

“Artist!” Ezra interrupted. He got up from the stool behind the counter and hurried up to them, taking the carton and paper bag out of Anthony’s hold. “He’s the artist I want to make the cover. Anthony Crowley.”

Finally, Gabriel shook his hand. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“I mean, I guess,” Anthony almost stammered. “I hope Ezra hasn’t been overselling my work too much.”

“Not at all. I look forward to reviewing your portfolio with Ezra and the publisher. Anyway, I gotta fly. Ezra, we’ll discuss those re-negotiations later. You gentlemen have a nice day.” 

Anthony turned and stared at the man as he walked by the windows, before looking to Ezra and mumbling “Well, he’s a character, isn’t he? Your agent?”

“How did you know? You’ve never met before.”

“No, but you’ve talked about him before. ‘This unnatural glint of perpetual jolliness in his eyes’.” Anthony impeccably imitated his tone and speech. “Or something, you said. Well, he fits the bill,” he mumbled.

A shudder ran up Ezra’s spine. 

“See? Gives even you the chills.” 

Adam giggled.

Ezra shrugged. “Perhaps that’s how he does his job so well. Anyway, will you have some of this today? I’d feel horrible to eat all of it,” he said as he held up the bag.

“If you insist.” Anthony waved his hand noncommittally.

“I do.”

He walked over to the counter and put down the carton with the cups to open the bag and see what’s inside, but not before he breathed in the rich, decadent scent of the food inside. There were definitely chocolate croissants in there.

*

Crowley couldn’t help but smile at the look of sheer delight on Ezra’s face as he dug into the pastries. There was a child-like sort of honesty about him that made him such an open book. When Ezra liked something, you knew, and if Ezra hated something, you knew. Currently, as far as Crowley could tell, he was on cloud nine, and therefore, so was Crowley. 

This was much to the frustration of young Adam, for who Crowley had been picking bits off a regular croissant, feeding them to him. He made a noise.

“Ngk.” Crowley tore his gaze away from Ezra to turn to Adam. “Sorry to keep you waiting, your highness,” he mumbled as he tore off another bit of the croissant and fed it to Adam’s waiting mouth before taking a larger chunk for himself. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring until Adam made him painfully aware.

*

Painfully aware of the eyes burning holes in him, Ezra nibbled on one of the chocolate croissants. Anthony was definitely staring at him. There was no denying it, as alien as it felt. Ezra wasn’t much of a looker and he was well aware of that fact. He was never stared at, no, ogled so openly… so… so… obscenely. Did Anthony always look at him like this? How had he not noticed before?

It wasn’t a bad feeling per se, but it was quite overwhelming to experience for the first time. Ezra wasn’t sure how much he could take of it in the long run. He had to speak up. Had to say something. Come on Ezra, he thought, how hard could it be? He may be the man that you fancy an awful lot, but he’s also your friend, and friends trust each other and tell each other the truth. He took a sip of his lukewarm cocoa to calm his nerves.

‘He cares enough about you not to want to risk what you have.’

Then what kind of friend did that make Ezra, who would give anything for Anthony to be his?

*

There had been a change. Something was bothering Ezra, Crowley could tell. Even when he’d been so happy just moments before. Something would have to be done about that. He gave Adam the final bit of the croissant and settled him down in the windowseat before getting up and walking up to the counter. Whatever it was that was dragging Ezra down would have to square the fuck up.

“Angel, what’s wrong?”

*

‘Your staring makes me nervous,' Ezra wanted to say, but didn’t.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Ezra mumbled instead, trying to keep his cool. He swiveled in his stool and wiped his hands on his trousers. They were growing sweaty.

“Are you sure?” Anthony asked. He tilted his head. With his dark clothes and shining, amber eyes, he looked all the more like a concerned black cat. “There’s nothing I can do to make it better?”

Ezra felt a blush creep to his face and he quickly broke eye contact. “S-silly Anthony, you know you don’t have to do anything for me. You know I’ll be quite alright on my own.”

*

This, Crowley doubted.

“Ezra, what would you say if I, after this whole business with Adam, took you out for dinner? Properly. Like back in the day. We could go to the Ritz,” Crowley suggested as casually as he could. Ezra’s gaze snapped back up at him.

“How would you— Can you even—” Ezra stammered, but finally summarized his thoughts in a single “Why?”

Crowley’s gaze turned towards the floor. “Because I want to make things better with you. I went too fast, I hurt you, and then I didn’t even call the next day.”

*

Ezra took a shaky breath as he tried to formulate an answer. “Well, it’s not like I contacted you either…” he trailed off.

“Well, yes, but I scared you off—”

“You didn’t! I—” Ezra started, but he caught himself, glanced further away and took a moment to reorganize his thoughts. “Alright, perhaps in that moment, you did. But… It was just, you know…” He gestured his hands wildly in hopes of illustrating the point he was trying to make. Anthony nodded, but his eyes told Ezra that it didn’t really land. “I’d very much like for things to go back to the way they were before.” Ezra said, lying, but knowing it would keep them within the safety of their comfort zone, he settled for it. “I’ll go to the Ritz with you after all this.”

Anthony smiled the brightest he had all day.

“On the condition that you let me return the favour some time after. It’s a real pleasure just seeing you again, and if you’re going to treat me to thank me for barely helping you at all, I feel like I should get to do the same.”

Anthony looked taken aback, but tried very hard not to show it. It didn’t work out. “Sure?”

Ezra smiled. “Good. Then it’s a date.”

[yearsblog]

“I’m glad you noticed!” says Olly Alexander with one of his impish smiles. “I’ve come a long way since then.” We’re talking about the difference between the first time I saw him sing with his band, Years & Years, and the strutting peacock that he has since become. In 2015, fresh from winning the BBC Sound Of . . . poll, Alexander had a mean falsetto and a clutch of killer synth-pop ditties (Shine, King), but he cut a diffident figure during his show at the Heaven nightclub, dressed down in a T-shirt and beanie.

The second time I saw him, a year later, he was rising on a hydraulic lift through the stage of a rapturous Wembley Arena, wearing a red tunic with silver shoulder pads, and garlanded with laser beams. Alexander’s ascent to serious, tabloid-baiting stardom continues. Years & Years have a dazzling album out this week and days before we meet he was on Graham Norton’s sofa, regaling Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock with the story of how Meteorite, the song he wrote for Bridget Jones’s Baby, was about “a big dick”. Diffident no longer.

“Looking back, it’s quite overwhelming,” says Alexander, 27, as he lunches on quinoa in a restaurant in King’s Cross, north London. He is slight and conspiratorial, with tiny safety pins through his ears, a ring through his nose and his cropped hair dyed scarlet. “At first you really don’t know what support from an audience is going to feel like. But when people started showing their support for me being honest and being a camp, gay frontman — I just never really expected it and it added so much fuel to my fire.”

Among the things he has eloquently spoken out on are LGBTQ rights (he presented a BBC Three documentary called Growing Up Gay), mental health (he extols the virtues of therapy, which he started pre-emptively, before he became famous) and bullying (at school in Gloucestershire he was regularly “bushed”: thrown into the bushes next to the assembly hall). He is far more vocal than he was at the start of his music career, when an industry person advised him not to talk about being gay. “She was, like, ‘Why do people need to know your sexuality?’ She wanted to protect me.”

Well, it turned out that he didn’t need protection, he needed confidence. That came with experience and a changing musical landscape in which artists as diverse as Janelle Monáe, Christine and the Queens, Frank Ocean and Perfume Genius felt able to be candid about their sexuality. “It’s quite astonishing,” Alexander says. “We’re seeing a lot more visible queer artists and visible gay people.”

Pop has been missing male stars with strong views, especially those with a sense of theatre; it’s all uber-polite George Ezra or anti-glamorous Ed Sheeran. “It has its place, having someone who’s not dressed up,” Alexander says, trying to be diplomatic. “But the thing I love most about pop music is the fantasy, the escapism. I had this moment when I realised I’m in the best place to engineer that for myself. I realised you could go as far as you want on stage.”

A few weeks ago at Radio 1’s Biggest Weekend in Swansea he wore a lime-green Freddie Mercury leotard and led an onstage conga of his dancers, who seemed to be styled as drugged-up zombies. It felt like a long way from Mike Read and Bruno Brookes. “There was a point where I realised if you embody supreme confidence, you can get away with anything,” Alexander says. “It is quite a religious experience for me, to be on stage.”

Religion is a bit of a theme for Years & Years, whose other members are the keyboard player Emre Türkmen and the bassist Mikey Goldsworthy. Their first album was called Communion and their new one is entitled Palo Santo, after a mystical South American tree burnt as incense. Its literal translation, “holy wood”, joins the dots between spiritualism and smut (“It’s a Carry On album!” Alexander says with a giggle). So too does the recent single, Sanctify, partly inspired by a relationship with a straight-acting man, which refers to two very different things that one can do on one’s knees. “See?” Alexander says, turning to his publicist, who is sitting near by. “Ed gets it!”

He has always been into spiritualism and the occult, he says, albeit in a slightly sceptical way. “The first place I ever had a job was in this shop called Moonstones — it sold gemstones, pagan spellbooks and chocolate dildos.” He grew up loving fairytales and fantasy fiction: Lord of the Rings, The Magic Faraway Tree, Harry Potter. You can see why he might have wanted to escape to other worlds, such was the rotten time he sometimes had at school, where he was mocked and sometimes “bushed” for wearing eyeliner, nail varnish and choker necklaces.

Has being a posterboy for LGBTQ and anti-bullying issues become a burden? He gets Instagram messages from fans every day. “It doesn’t feel like a burden. I think it would be more of a burden to not acknowledge any of that. But I’ve had to learn the ways to cope with my own mental health along the way, and I feel like I’m in a good position now, but if you’re having a bad day and you’re suddenly having to talk about things that you experienced when you were 13 years old, it can feel a bit challenging.”

He’s talking about the break-up of his mother, who ran community craft groups, from his father, who worked at amusement parks, but, tellingly, dreamt of being a musician. After the split Alexander moved to Gloucestershire with his mother and brother; his father has only been in contact sporadically. Alexander has sometimes shied away from the subject because “I was trying to protect him, and I was, like, ‘Why am I still trying to protect someone who hasn’t been in my life for over a decade and who’s actually very difficult and caused a lot of pain to my family?’ ”

They hadn’t been in touch for seven years when his father broke the silence in wincing fashion, by tweeting him. Matters got worse when Alexander’s fans started replying to his dad, even trolling him. It sounds horrific. He has seen him once since then, last year. “It was quite triggering,” he says. “I just couldn’t deal with it at the time, it was too overwhelming.”

Social media can be a perilous place for him, especially deciding what to keep private. “I’ve always been fairly ‘Here’s everything!’ ” He’s also prone to “stalking someone that I fancy, and then getting upset because they like so-and-so’s picture and not mine”.

Yet the lure of Instagram can be irresistible. Take his appearance on The Graham Norton Show, when he met Rihanna, one of his heroes, and posted a picture of them backstage, in which he wears an expression of volcanic ecstasy. He was more nervous about meeting Ri-Ri than he was about singing on the show, he says, but she was lovely. “She was, like, ‘My fans love you.’ I feel like we’re destined to be friends.”

Or, perhaps, rivals. Palo Santo, with its mega-hooks, shimmering melodies and sumptuous production, is an album built to take on the superstar Americans at their own game. It was inspired by the R&B and pop that Alexander grew up on: Timberland, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and, before them, Prince and Michael Jackson.

He’s a better fit for music than he was for his first, slightly accidental career as an actor. “It just feels like people can express their identity easier as artists in the music industry.” Still, acting was where he initially made his mark, straight out of school, first in the film Summerhill and later playing a Bullingdon-style posho in The Riot Club, Herbert Pocket in David Nicholls’s TV adaptation of Great Expectations, and a stage role in Michael Grandage’s Peter and Alice, during which he befriended Judi Dench.

He was quite intimidated, but Dench turned out to be “very cheeky. One day she brought in biscuits that had dicks and balls on them; she was, like, ‘Do you want a cock biscuit?’ ” She has since narrated a short film to accompany Years & Years’s new album.

Acting has some happy associations for him, then, but “Hollywood is the worst culprit” when it comes to diversity, he says. “It’s just so far behind the times, it’s disgusting.” He even felt a subtle pressure not to reveal his sexuality on God Help the Girl, a low-budget British indie film directed by Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle & Sebastian, in which Alexander played a straight musician.

“It gave me a lot of anxiety. It was one of the reasons I wanted to stop acting. I definitely felt at the time it was something you had to be quiet about, because otherwise directors wouldn’t believe you could pull off the part.” That was nothing to do with Murdoch, he stresses. “I got on with Stuart really well, and I felt guilty because I never told him I was gay. I kind of tried to play up to the fact that I could actually be straight still, based on lies, even though everyone else knew I was gay.” During the shoot he met a man in a club. “After filming every day I’d just go straight to his house and spend the night with him. You just feel like you’re living a bit of a double life.”

I tell him my editor will tell me off if I don’t ask about his romantic status. “I’m single,” he replies with a smile. “Let everyone know, including your editor! Is he gay? It’s a she? Maybe she has gay friends. Yeah, I am happily single. It’s been like . . . almost two years. Not that I’ve been a nun in that time, I would like to stress.” Celebrity is double-sided in that regard: adulation on one hand, lack of anonymity on the other. “It obviously has positives,” he says with a smile, “but my sex life’s taken quite a beating.”

Don’t buy the mock self-pity — Alexander is doing just fine. There’s the stellar album and an arena tour in the autumn. Nor have his experiences put him off acting. “I feel like I could do something really, really fun and weird, like play an alien,” he says. “Or, you know, a goblin king!” From dressed-down diffidence to a budding Bowie in three years: he really has come a long way.

Palo Santo is released tomorrow on Polydor. Years & Years play the Roundhouse, London, July 10; Manchester Arena, July 14 and tour the UK from November

[zig-a-zow]

As told by Aiden [Chapter 5: No words]

Summary: Aiden Zhou had everything figured out. He was a Junior at high school, he would graduate in two years, attend a prestigious school such as Juilliard and become the best musician he could be. Of course, despite being practically a prodigy at what he loved, he had a lot to learn yet, especially the most important lesson: there was more to life than what he once thought.

Pairings: Aiden x MC (Grace Ashton)

Word count: 3658

Notes: Hello there! What is this, you might be asking yourself? Well, nothing other than what the title says: High School Story as told by Aiden. The events from the book, but from his perspective, plus extra scenes/fanon lore. There are significant changes in this story, though. For once, I have two MCs, best friends Grace and Callie. However, one of them will be significantly more prominent due to being Aiden’s love interest. Also, each chapter has its own song, cause how could I write about Aiden without music included? Click the lyrics to listen.

Taglist: @mlmseangayle @ravenclawpokegirl25 @poofboopmew @apluschoices

Ch. 1 - Ch. 2  - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 (It’s right here!) - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 (Coming soon!)

I could talk all day long about the news, Giving you the current affairs and my views I could talk all night long about a song, Giving you the pointers on where you’re going wrong

Aiden wasn't a big fan of social media as a whole.

He didn't think there was something wrong with it, but he didn't find the appeal either. Myra, however, was having none of that. When she found out he didn't have a FaceSpace account, she was horrified in the most exaggerated way.

And the only reason he had joined that social network, was because she had threatened to create one herself to impersonate him, and he could only assume that her intentions weren't exactly good.

So it wasn't strange that he would spend entire days, even weeks, without even opening the FaceSpace app on his phone.

That Thursday during lunch, however, he was feeling bored enough to give it a chance.

The moment he checked his notifications, he spotted a bunch of familiar faces. Myra had tagged him in many, many 'memes', and although he found some of those mildly entertaining, something else caught his attention.

He had a new friend request, from Emma Hawkins. And when he tapped her profile picture, he saw Emma, Callie and Grace smiling at him from the screen. The picture had a short caption with it:

"True Friends are there when you need them 😌" - with Callie McKenzie and Grace Ashton.

After tapping the 'Like' button on the picture and accepting the request, his finger hovered over Grace's highlighted name for a few seconds before tapping it. Her FaceSpace profile displayed before him.

His eyes lingered on her profile picture for a second too long. She was wearing a red dress and a leather jacket as she smiled for the camera, her chocolate eyes seemingly looking right at him. Her picture had a short caption as well, "✨Carpe Diem✨", and a long list of comments below, which included compliments from Callie and a grammatically incorrect reminder to meet up at the parking lot after school, courtesy of Michael Harrison.

He considered 'Liking' her picture too, but decided against it in the last second.

He soon found that he wasn't allowed to see much more without adding her as a friend. His thumb once again hovered over the screen, indesicive.

Now that he thought about it, they hadn't interacted much after Tuesday night. As they didn't share a homeroom, their only chance was at lunch and casually in the hallways. But on Wednesday she had lunch with Michael and his friends, Wes, Koh and Morgan. And on the present day, she was having lunch with the whole Homecoming committee.

And she was sitting right next to Maria, as he confirmed when he finally looked up from his phone as he heard someone insistently call his name.

"EARTH TO AIDEN!"

He startled, and his eyes fell on Myra's face as she gave him a goofy smirk.

"Geez, you really spaced out there" she said then, and looked over his phone before she cackled. "For someone who hates FaceSpace, you sure seemed distracted by it."

"I only decided to use it now. And..." he pressed a button and the screen went black. "... it's none of your business."

"Aw, at least check out the memes I tagged you in...!"

Aiden didn't listen to her, again. His eyes drifted one more time toward the committee table, where Payton was just standing up with a big bright smile.

"... of course we can! We have our very own Ellen..." she said with a giggle, placing a hand on Maria's shoulder before placing the other on Grace's. "... and Portia, the Dream Team!"

"Payton!" Maria frowned immediately, a deep blush on her cheeks. "I told you to stop saying that!"

"Yeah... why am I Portia?" asked Grace as she raised an eyebrow, smirking a bit. "I see myself as more of an Ellen, to be honest..."

"That is NOT the part to focus on, Grace...!"

Aiden rolled his eyes and huffed as he looked away from them, his gaze falling again on Myra only to find that she was staring at him now. A smile started to spread slowly on her face.

"Ohmygod..."

His body tensed almost immediately. He saw it coming before she even said it, and was already dreading it.

"... Aiden, are you jealous?"

There it was. He quickly shook his head and looked away, trying to seem as dismissive as possible.

"Pffft..."

"Don't 'pffft' me, sir!" she exclaimed then, grinning as she raised an accusatory finger at him. "You're jealous that your crush is spending time with someone else!"

"Keep it down!" he scowled at her, his face flushing red with both embarrassment and anger. "I'm not jealous. And it's not a 'crush'."

Myra opened her mouth to say something else, but just then Ezra returned to the table with a grin, demanding her attention to discuss who was hotter, Matt Rodriguez or Ryan Summers, with both of them on opposing sides.

Sighing with relief but still feeling his heart beat wildly, Aiden lowered his gaze to his phone as he unlocked it.

Grace's smiling face greeted him once again. His finger hovered over the digital "Add as a friend" button one more time, before he took a deep breath and finally pressed it, blocking his phone and shoving it in his pocket so he wouldn't undo his actions.

His eyes found Grace again without his consent, and he froze in place when she took her own phone out of her pocket, as if she had received a recent notification...

Would it be too pathetic to hide?

To his utter surprise (and further mortification), Grace smiled at her device right before looking up, her eyes locking with his. She winked as she pressed the screen, and his phone vibrated in his pocket instantly.

The bell rang a second later, and thankfully she looked away then, because otherwise Aiden would have remained there for a few more minutes.

He could feel his face burn like never before, but as he rushed out of the cafeteria, he couldn't contain that stupid smile that was fighting to see the light.

Perhaps FaceSpace wasn't that bad after all.

"Thank you, Sally. Final lists will be up on Monday morning. Good luck!"

The freshman girl that had just performed a decent saxophone solo beamed at Ezra's words, and left the room waving. Once again, they were the last three people in the band room.

It was Friday, which meant Aiden would stay at the band room after everyone left so he could play alone for a while. Ezra allowed him to do so, just like he allowed him to stay for the tryouts even after performing himself. He wasn't staying alone, however, as Myra was sitting right by his side, typing on her phone.

Ezra made a few notes in his binder, before he turned around to see his fellow bandmates with a smile.

"Thanks for staying, guys" he muttered, sitting down next to them with sigh as he checked his watch. "We're almost done here."

Myra shrugged slightly at that, finally looking up from her screen with a smile.

"No problem, Ezra. We're both waiting for Grace to show up... isn't that right, Aiden?"

He didn't reply, but simply gave a long sigh of impatience. She hadn't stopped her teasing since the day before, and something told him that it wouldn't cease anytime soon. Just because it was true, she didn't have to actually say it.

Ezra chuckled, straightening up in his seat.

"You're in luck, then."

"What's up, my dudes?" Grace's voice made him look up almost instantly, just to see her walk into the band room with a bright smile. "Sorry I'm kinda late, my bestie got super nervous about her own tryouts so Emma and I had to help her out."

"Oh, thank goodness!" Myra jumped out of her seat with a grin. "The other saxophone... playing... people? Well, they sucked."

"Myra!"

"You know it's true!"

Aiden rolled his eyes at that, but couldn't really be mad at her. She was actually right. Ezra shook his head with a smile, and approached Grace with a few pages of sheet music. Aiden couldn't contain a sigh of exasperation. It was the same song over and over again...

"The Fight Song, huh?" Grace read aloud, tapping her foot to the rhythm as she went through the sheets.

"Yup. That's what we're playing in the next game..."

"And the one after that. And the rest of them, really."

Usually Aiden would've felt slightly intimidated when Ezra gave him a warning look, but he didn't. He held his gaze instead, almost defiant. He was tired of playing the same song every game, and all his complaints were ignored. As Myra would say, he was 'salty', and wasn't going to hide it.

"Alright then" they both turned to Grace when she spoke, just to see that she had already settled herself and had her own saxophone at the ready. "When should I start?"

"If it can be before these two divas start fighting again, it'd be great" Myra said with a grin, and didn't really care about the irritated glances she got from them.

Grace simply nodded, and started playing, the sounds she produced being the only thing that could be heard in the room. Even though he had heard that song many, many times, Aiden couldn't help but appreciate its beauty when it was performed with such passion and expertise. Grace clearly had practiced a lot, and probably played sax from a very young age.

When she finished, Myra let out a loud whistle of approval.

"That was awesome!" she exclaimed, smiling widely. "Right, Ezra?"

Their student director kept quiet for a few seconds, taking a few more notes, before looking up and smiling a bit.

"Yeah, it was a strong performance. Well done."

Grace gave the three of them an exaggerated curtsy, with a bright smile on her face. Soon enough everyone started to collect their possessions, except for Aiden. He instead looked for his own sheet music in his backpack, barely hearing them talk as background noise.

"... and I'm saying Ryan is way hotter simply because he's older. He's like wine, y'know what I'm saying?"

"Ezra, the wine thing is a lie, my mom told me! But Grace, what do you think?"

"I think you're both wrong. Victoria Fontaine is clearly the hottest one."

Both Ezra and Myra agreed on that, or so it seemed. Aiden didn't really care. Soon he could hear steps walking away and words of farewell from both of his fellow band members, before the room found silence. He smiled to himself and took a deep breath.

Finally, he was alone.

"So... you're not leaving too?"

Almost.

Grace was standing a few feet away from him, her bag hanging from her shoulder as she kept her eyes on him, curious. He sighed, approaching the piano with his sheet music.

"I... tend to take advantage of the quietness after school to play some new pieces, and some old ones, sometimes I compose too" he admitted, placing the sheets in the holder before simply adding. "Alone."

"Oh! Right!" the girl sounded somewhat surprised at that, but shrugged it off almost instantly. "That's my cue to leave then! See you Monday...!"

"Wait!"

Grace stood at the door at the sound of his voice, slightly turning to give him a questioning look. Aiden could feel his cheeks start to burn a bit at her intense gaze, but this was no time to back down. He stood straight and cleared his throat.

"I usually do this alone but... I could make an exception for you."

She raised an eyebrow at that, and sauntered back into the room, a tiny teasing smile on her face.

"Really now?" she asked, stopping right in front of him and tiltling her head to the side. "Why would you do that for little ol' me?"

"Well..."

Aiden swallowed hard, taking another deep breath. Grace was clearly having a good time teasing him. So maybe, just maybe, he could try giving her a taste of her own medicine. He stood as tall as he was (which wasn't much, but still more than her), and smiled.

"I could use an audience. Especially an audience as nice as you."

Grace stood there in silence for a few seconds, her lips slightly parted as if she were about to say something else but couldn't quite decide what, staring up at him with her big brown eyes. He couldn't tell if she was blushing or not, but her silence and expression was more than enough for him.

With a slightly smug smile, he gestured for the piano bench with an elegant flourish.

"Shall we?"

"Yes! I mean... I guess I can stay for a a little while..."

Grace sat down and he followed suit, his fingers immediately finding the keys and pressing softly, not to make a sound yet. A quick glance let him know that Grace was feeling curious, as far as he could tell by the way she looked on, expectantly.

"I'll play one of my favorite pieces now" Aiden announced, with a deep relaxed sound. "Tell me if you recognize it. It's okay if you don't."

And with that, he let his fingers glide flawlessly across the keys, pressing each of them at the exact moment, hitting the right note quite literally. His eyes closed without him even noticing, concentrating only on the melody, and what it made him feel.

The same feeling he got when he played that song for the first time with an audience. He remembered how nervous he felt at first and how relieved he felt when he finished. His parents smiling proudly from their seats, the audience giving him a standing ovation, people around commenting on how talented he was for such a young age.

He loved the praise. He was good, excellent even, at what he was doing. So he held on to it as tight as he could. And he wasn't planning on letting go anytime soon.

The song was over before he knew it, and after a few seconds of silence, the sound of clapping made him open his eyes and look up.

"Ohmygod, that was amazing!" Grace was beaming as she clapped, an expression of pure enjoyment on her face. "You're SO talented, like, you didn't even need to look at the keys...!"

Aiden could feel himself beam right back, a sense of both pride and joy making him feel almost giddy. He really did love audiences, especially if they gave him the praise he rightfully deserved, and secretly craved.

"Thank you! Thank you!" he exclaimed, feeling himself blush but, for the first time in weeks, not out of embarrassment. He sighed as he came down from cloud nine, caressing the keys absentmindedly. "This is the song I played at my first recital, when I was six. Whenever I play it, it takes me right back. Like no recording or picture ever could."

Grace watched him silently for a few seconds, and as he didn't add anything else, she smiled playfully before speaking.

"By that you're saying there's no recording or pictures of that moment?"

He nodded. She sighed dramatically.

"Well, that sucks. I really wanted to see baby Aiden" she admitted with a shrug, before gasping, as if she just had remembered something. "Oh! I did recognize that song!"

"Really? What is it called?"

"It's Mozart's Sonata 16 in C... my mom used to play it a lot when I was a kid. She would teach me how to play too, we'd play together for hours..."

Aiden was about to comment on her knowledge, but he could hear the nostalgia in her voice, and see it in her eyes when she looked at him again. She smiled again, a bit less enthusiastically.

"Mind if I try playing something?"

"Of course not" he stood up almost immediately, and she took his place in front of the piano, with a sigh. "What are you going to play?"

"The only song I can play from memory, in piano at least" she muttered, taking a deep breath. She gave him a slightly abashed look. "I'm a bit rusty... so it may not be that good. Definitely not as good as you."

And right after that, she began playing. It took him only a second to recognize the melody. Beethoven's Bagatelle in A minor, one of the first songs he ever learned. He started pacing silently as he listened, noticing the slight mistakes she was making, and biting his tongue to keep himself from interrupting.

When the song came to an ending, his pacing did the same, and he stood now in front of the piano, watching her with his hands behind his back. Grace looked up at him after a moment, and gave him a tiny smile.

"It was terrible, I know. But hey, at least I tried!"

"It wasn't terrible. It wasn't perfect either. It was decent" he said then, and he was being as honest as he could without being rude. "When was the last time you played?"

Grace shifted a bit on her seat, looking away.

"Three or four years ago."

"Then it's impressive! You just need more practice... and a better posture."

Aiden rounded the piano and stood right behind her. He studied her current posture for a few more seconds before nodding to himself.

"Keep your back straight. Loose your shoulders" he started instructing, and Grace did her best to follow his lead. "Keep the palm of your hand curved."

That part gave her a bit more trouble. She was trying, for sure, but it wasn't quite right. Aiden sighed and leaned down, placing his hands on hers to help her.

"Like this, as if you’re holding an apple" he said in her ear, placing her hands above the keys in the correct position. "Also remember to place your elbows a bit higher than the keyboard, in a comfortable distance from--"

A giggle interrupted his impromptu lesson.

When they looked up, they could see a pair or blonde girls at the door, watching them intently. Emma covered her mouth while Callie glared at her.

"I'm sorry! I can't help it... I see a cute couple, I giggle."

Just then Aiden realized the position he was in, and how close they were. He immediately stood straight and took a few steps back, clearing his throat. He was blushing intensely.

"I, uh, I think you're good to go..."

"Yeah, literally... I'm their ride" Grace explained with a smile, apparently not as embarrassed as him.

Callie stepped inside with an almost apologetic smile.

"Oh, no! It's okay!" she exclaimed then, shrugging casually. "We can walk! It'll be a good exercise for two cheerleaders!"

"We didn't make the squad yet..."

"But we will, Emma, just trust me!"

Grace laughed as she stood up, stretching her arms for a moment as she shook her head slightly.

"Nah, it's all good. Just gimme a few minutes, okay?" she asked with a wink, and the two girls exchanged looks before nodding, exiting the room.

Silence reigned for a moment, as she grabbed her bag to hang it on her shoulder, turning to him with a smile.

"This was nice. Let's do it again sometime."

Aiden didn't really know how to reply at first. He wasn't used to interacting with someone as forthright as her. He nodded, cheeks still rosy.

"I would like that."

"Cool. See you Monday" she simply said, heading for the door. She stopped for a second, right at the threshold. "And by the way, I really like your cologne."

Grace winked mischievously right before walking out of the room, leaving him standing there in silence, his face burning red.

His phone vibrated after a minute or two. A FaceSpace notification from Myra.

She had posted a picture of a black cat dressed in a suit, paws placed on the keys of a piano. It had a caption, of course:

"Aiden Zhou is that you? 😂😂😂"

He rolled his eyes and was ready to ignore the post when he saw three dots moving in the comment section, which meant someone was writing. A new comment appeared.

"Grace Ashton said: 7/10 not as talented 😌👌"

He wasn't able to stop smiling for the next few hours.

FaceSpace wasn't that bad. Not at all.

But what can I say, about something that blows me away Without it sounding like another cliche From what I’ve seen and I’ve heard, When it comes to you, baby

There are no, there are no words

Chapter 5 is up!

Back to the longer chapters, yay! Also, as you might have noticed, I change many dialogs and actions but try to keep the essence of each scene as much as possible.

Reminder that you can tell me if you want to be added to the taglist, and I’ll do it immediately!

As always, feedback is appreciated and encouraged! Thanks for reading!

[ollyarchive]

Years & Years’s Olly Alexander: ‘Celebrity has positives, but my sex life’s taken quite a beating’

Olly Alexander is Britain’s most exciting new pop star, but the Years & Years singer has also become a poster boy for social change

Ed Potton

July 5 2018, 12:01am, The Times

“I’m glad you noticed!” says Olly Alexander with one of his impish smiles. “I’ve come a long way since then.” We’re talking about the difference between the first time I saw him sing with his band, Years & Years, and the strutting peacock that he has since become. In 2015, fresh from winning the BBC Sound Of … poll, Alexander had a mean falsetto and a clutch of killer synth-pop ditties (Shine, King), but he cut a diffident figure during his show at the Heaven nightclub, dressed down in a T-shirt and beanie.

The second time I saw him, a year later, he was rising on a hydraulic lift through the stage of a rapturous Wembley Arena, wearing a red tunic with silver shoulder pads, and garlanded with laser beams. Alexander’s ascent to serious, tabloid-baiting stardom continues. Years & Years have a dazzling album out this week and days before we meet he was on Graham Norton’s sofa, regaling Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock with the story of how Meteorite, the song he wrote for Bridget Jones’s Baby, was about “a big dick”. Diffident no longer.

“Looking back, it’s quite overwhelming,” says Alexander, 27, as he lunches on quinoa in a restaurant in King’s Cross, north London. He is slight and conspiratorial, with tiny safety pins through his ears, a ring through his nose and his cropped hair dyed scarlet. “At first you really don’t know what support from an audience is going to feel like. But when people started showing their support for me being honest and being a camp, gay frontman — I just never really expected it and it added so much fuel to my fire.” Olly Alexander with Emre Türkmen and Mikey Goldsworthy of Years & Years Olly Alexander with Emre Türkmen and Mikey Goldsworthy of Years & Years

Among the things he has eloquently spoken out on are LGBTQ rights (he presented a BBC Three documentary called Growing Up Gay), mental health (he extols the virtues of therapy, which he started pre-emptively, before he became famous) and bullying (at school in Gloucestershire he was regularly “bushed”: thrown into the bushes next to the assembly hall). He is far more vocal than he was at the start of his music career, when an industry person advised him not to talk about being gay. “She was, like, ‘Why do people need to know your sexuality?’ She wanted to protect me.”

Well, it turned out that he didn’t need protection, he needed confidence. That came with experience and a changing musical landscape in which artists as diverse as Janelle Monáe, Christine and the Queens, Frank Ocean and Perfume Genius felt able to be candid about their sexuality. “It’s quite astonishing,” Alexander says. “We’re seeing a lot more visible queer artists and visible gay people.”

Pop has been missing male stars with strong views, especially those with a sense of theatre; it’s all uber-polite George Ezra or anti-glamorous Ed Sheeran. “It has its place, having someone who’s not dressed up,” Alexander says, trying to be diplomatic. “But the thing I love most about pop music is the fantasy, the escapism. I had this moment when I realised I’m in the best place to engineer that for myself. I realised you could go as far as you want on stage.”

A few weeks ago at Radio 1’s Biggest Weekend in Swansea he wore a lime-green Freddie Mercury leotard and led an onstage conga of his dancers, who seemed to be styled as drugged-up zombies. It felt like a long way from Mike Read and Bruno Brookes. “There was a point where I realised if you embody supreme confidence, you can get away with anything,” Alexander says. “It is quite a religious experience for me, to be on stage.” With Hannah Murray and Emily Browning in God Help the Girl With Hannah Murray and Emily Browning in God Help the Girl

Religion is a bit of a theme for Years & Years, whose other members are the keyboard player Emre Türkmen and the bassist Mikey Goldsworthy. Their first album was called Communion and their new one is entitled Palo Santo, after a mystical South American tree burnt as incense. Its literal translation, “holy wood”, joins the dots between spiritualism and smut (“It’s a Carry On album!” Alexander says with a giggle). So too does the recent single, Sanctify, partly inspired by a relationship with a straight-acting man, which refers to two very different things that one can do on one’s knees. “See?” Alexander says, turning to his publicist, who is sitting near by. “Ed gets it!”

He has always been into spiritualism and the occult, he says, albeit in a slightly sceptical way. “The first place I ever had a job was in this shop called Moonstones — it sold gemstones, pagan spellbooks and chocolate dildos.” He grew up loving fairytales and fantasy fiction: Lord of the Rings, The Magic Faraway Tree, Harry Potter. You can see why he might have wanted to escape to other worlds, such was the rotten time he sometimes had at school, where he was mocked and sometimes “bushed” for wearing eyeliner, nail varnish and choker necklaces.

Has being a posterboy for LGBTQ and anti-bullying issues become a burden? He gets Instagram messages from fans every day. “It doesn’t feel like a burden. I think it would be more of a burden to not acknowledge any of that. But I’ve had to learn the ways to cope with my own mental health along the way, and I feel like I’m in a good position now, but if you’re having a bad day and you’re suddenly having to talk about things that you experienced when you were 13 years old, it can feel a bit challenging.” Olly Alexander: “It’s quite a religious experience for me to be on stage” Olly Alexander: “It’s quite a religious experience for me to be on stage”

He’s talking about the break-up of his mother, who ran community craft groups, from his father, who worked at amusement parks, but, tellingly, dreamt of being a musician. After the split Alexander moved to Gloucestershire with his mother and brother; his father has only been in contact sporadically. Alexander has sometimes shied away from the subject because “I was trying to protect him, and I was, like, ‘Why am I still trying to protect someone who hasn’t been in my life for over a decade and who’s actually very difficult and caused a lot of pain to my family?’ ”

They hadn’t been in touch for seven years when his father broke the silence in wincing fashion, by tweeting him. Matters got worse when Alexander’s fans started replying to his dad, even trolling him. It sounds horrific. He has seen him once since then, last year. “It was quite triggering,” he says. “I just couldn’t deal with it at the time, it was too overwhelming.”

Social media can be a perilous place for him, especially deciding what to keep private. “I’ve always been fairly ‘Here’s everything!’ ” He’s also prone to “stalking someone that I fancy, and then getting upset because they like so-and-so’s picture and not mine”.

Yet the lure of Instagram can be irresistible. Take his appearance on The Graham Norton Show, when he met Rihanna, one of his heroes, and posted a picture of them backstage, in which he wears an expression of volcanic ecstasy. He was more nervous about meeting Ri-Ri than he was about singing on the show, he says, but she was lovely. “She was, like, ‘My fans love you.’ I feel like we’re destined to be friends.”

Or, perhaps, rivals. Palo Santo, with its mega-hooks, shimmering melodies and sumptuous production, is an album built to take on the superstar Americans at their own game. It was inspired by the R&B and pop that Alexander grew up on: Timberland, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and, before them, Prince and Michael Jackson.

He’s a better fit for music than he was for his first, slightly accidental career as an actor. “It just feels like people can express their identity easier as artists in the music industry.” Still, acting was where he initially made his mark, straight out of school, first in the film Summerhill and later playing a Bullingdon-style posho in The Riot Club, Herbert Pocket in David Nicholls’s TV adaptation of Great Expectations, and a stage role in Michael Grandage’s Peter and Alice, during which he befriended Judi Dench.

He was quite intimidated, but Dench turned out to be “very cheeky. One day she brought in biscuits that had dicks and balls on them; she was, like, ‘Do you want a cock biscuit?’ ” She has since narrated a short film to accompany Years & Years’s new album.

Acting has some happy associations for him, then, but “Hollywood is the worst culprit” when it comes to diversity, he says. “It’s just so far behind the times, it’s disgusting.” He even felt a subtle pressure not to reveal his sexuality on God Help the Girl, a low-budget British indie film directed by Stuart Murdoch of the band Belle & Sebastian, in which Alexander played a straight musician.

“It gave me a lot of anxiety. It was one of the reasons I wanted to stop acting. I definitely felt at the time it was something you had to be quiet about, because otherwise directors wouldn’t believe you could pull off the part.” That was nothing to do with Murdoch, he stresses. “I got on with Stuart really well, and I felt guilty because I never told him I was gay. I kind of tried to play up to the fact that I could actually be straight still, based on lies, even though everyone else knew I was gay.” During the shoot he met a man in a club. “After filming every day I’d just go straight to his house and spend the night with him. You just feel like you’re living a bit of a double life.”

I tell him my editor will tell me off if I don’t ask about his romantic status. “I’m single,” he replies with a smile. “Let everyone know, including your editor! Is he gay? It’s a she? Maybe she has gay friends. Yeah, I am happily single. It’s been like … almost two years. Not that I’ve been a nun in that time, I would like to stress.” Celebrity is double-sided in that regard: adulation on one hand, lack of anonymity on the other. “It obviously has positives,” he says with a smile, “but my sex life’s taken quite a beating.”

Don’t buy the mock self-pity — Alexander is doing just fine. There’s the stellar album and an arena tour in the autumn. Nor have his experiences put him off acting. “I feel like I could do something really, really fun and weird, like play an alien,” he says. “Or, you know, a goblin king!” From dressed-down diffidence to a budding Bowie in three years: he really has come a long way.

Palo Santo is released tomorrow on Polydor. Years & Years play the Roundhouse, London, July 10; Manchester Arena, July 14 and tour the UK from November

[musicmixtapes]

April 17th, 2018 Mix

Here is this week's mix, definitely have some strong rock vibes and a couple low key tunes as well, a thorough transition from oldies to brand new stuff that came out a few days ago! Enjoy friends :) 

1. Paris (Ooh La La) by Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - Wow this is a throwback for me... sung this at a gig with one of my old bands and always loved the energy this song put out! You want to sing it and dance around for sure. 2. Pyro by King of Leon - Listened to this upon recommendation and was so happy I did, always feel like theres a KOL song that I somehow missed and uncover and fall in love with. About burning memories and the new arising from the ashes (phoenix vibes). 3. Lola by The Kinks - My dad introduced me to The Kinks awhile ago, but I've been really into their subtle rock that seems to come so naturally to the listener's ears. They totally revolutionized the lyrics of rock songs and the really interesting mixture of folk and rock. 4. Here I Dreamt I was An Architect by The Decemberists - This is an early song in the alternative music world, but it's the basis for a lot of new music and definitely reminiscent of alt music I would listen to in middle school, which formed my taste for now. Really cool guitar riff and the synth in the back is so dreamy. 5. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. by Sufjan Stevens - This is both an equally beautiful and creepy song, mostly because it literally chronicles the life of prolific serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Stevens knows exactly how to make a pretty un-relatable figure seem like an everyday person with a difficult life... only a great lyricist could. 6. Katie Queen of Tennessee by The Apache Relay - The strings in this song are so amazing, they automatically drew me in. A pure romantic song about a love who is faraway and the harmonies really bring it together. Blends really well in any context. 7. Hands Down by The Greeting Committee - Unconditional love. This is hard to find in the world, but it's there. After a bad break up the speaker finds comfort and happiness in someone who is their friend/love interest. She sings "With you it's like I'm coming home again" and that is beautiful. 8. My Love by Bahamas - On the other end of the spectrum, about a love that the speaker isn't even sure exists anymore... lots of memories and old days, but they aren't there anymore. The background voices with the echo and the strong bass in combination with the slow and steady drum beat really keep the song grounded. 9. Sky Full Of Song by Florence + The Machine - A new Florence song points to a new album coming soon which will definitely be amazing. This song individually has so many elements which makes a song that will be my favorite including the cool bass, the gradual buildup, and the many, many celestial and natural references made throughout the song. 10. Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams by Camp Cope - A song about government conspiracy, sexism, and gun control. Basically what everyone is feeling nowadays, except they sung it before it was cool. They sing, "The only thing that stops/A bad man with a gun/is a good man with a gun" This is so relevant to today's national climate it's so important. 11. Nascar by Fox Academy - A song that describes the sky on a beautiful day when the speaker is feeling the beauty of the world. Nostalgia is strong in the song referencing to wishing everything felt like it did when he was a little kid. There is a children's piano sound in the background if you listen carefully and it really hits me with sentimentality. 12. Grand Hotel by Regina Spektor - Is this song about purgatory? Or simply about Earth where people don't realize the fragility of their lives and simply live in luxury while the devils wait in lurk and sometimes come up to have enjoyment too. A simple piano ballad that Spektor is highly known for. 13. They Think We're Stupid by Ezra Bell - This chord progression reminds me of "Next To Me" by Emeli Sande and "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith, except a lot more chilled out and definitely more folky than gospel. The violin/fiddle in the interim of the verses is so beautiful and really shapes the song well. 14. The Gold by Manchester Orchestra - Very deep meaning for this one. About a loss of a relationship because of one side not being able to take care of/put up with/understand the craziness of the other person. The upbeat tempo of the song is really deceiving because it's a sad song, but gives you good feelings at the same time. 15. Ladies Don't Play Guitar by Tennis - A definite feminist song for sure. So sarcastic, even in the title referring to the social construct of girls learning to play piano instead of guitar because it's more ladylike. Love the empowering feeling to this song and it calls for a new regime where no one can decide what you can do just because of your gender. 16. Five Minutes by Her - I would categorize this as Electronic/Indie Rock for sure, it's elements are very synthesized and the vocals are a masculine version of perhaps Sylvan Esso/Marian Hill except with more of a rock influence than their female counterparts. I love the relation to the senses in this song. 17. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds by The Beatles - Everything about this masterpiece always makes me think about the weather becoming nice again and being young and outside and colorful. Lennon penned this song after his song drew a picture and when asked what it was, the son supposedly replied, "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" So psychedelic. 18. Make Me Your Queen by Declan McKenna - A daydream sort of song whereas the singer knows the one he/she has affection for doesn't reciprocate feelings and he/she just wants them to make them their queen. Such a sweet sentiment of that feeling of desperate longing & hope. An easy rock song with really pretty harmonies as the song progresses. 19. Go Outside by Cults - A lot of people have heard pieces of this song, but never the full thing. The beginning with the cuts of voices is so interesting. The song is the dichotomy of people in a relationship, one wanting to be social and do things and the other being introverted and staying in. The vocals are pushed more to the background of the song, allowing a fuller listen of the instrumentals which is really nice. 20. The Conservation Of Energy by Vanishing Twin - A science notion in the title of a song would usually scare me away, but this one is really interesting and has an awesome flute which I love. 

[beckettsthoughts]

i looove all of the botanical asks so id really appreciate if youd answer all of them!! (or all of them that you like)

This is amazing thank you so much! Anon you are wonderful

Baby’s breath: 5 things you associate yourself with:

Crows, strong friendships, sunglasses, shortwave radios, and laughter.

Bleeding heart: What makes you heart go mushy?

@skyward-sheik, in all honesty. All of my friends have the unique ability to melt me into a puddle of warmth and happiness, but Sheik of course holds the true key to my heart.

Bell flower: What’s the title of the song that makes you want to jump around out of joy?

The Last Of The Real Ones, by Fall Out Boy

Evening primrose: What’s your sleeping playlist (Give me 5 songs)?

You know what, I’m honestly just going to give you my whole sleep playlist:

Paris, by The 1975

Those Days Are Gone & My Heart Is Breaking, by Barton Carroll

Fools Rush In, by Eliza Rickman

Stage 4 Fear of Trying, by Frnkiero And The Cellabration

Drugstore Perfume, by Gerard Way

Monkey 23, by The Kills

Rut, by The Killers

I Lied, by Electric Century

Mad Sounds, by the Artic Monkeys

Everyday, by Puggy

Sober, by Broods

Weird Honey, by Elvis Depressedly

Golden Age, by KT Tunstall

New World Towers, by Blur

Coming Down, by Halsey

Time Spent In Los Angeles, by Dawes

Killing You, by Broods

N.M.S.S, by Elvis Depressedly

Busted and Blue, by Gorillaz

Hiding Tonight, by Alex Turner

Barcelona, by George Ezra

Mad at Nothing, by Patrick Stump

Daffodil: What is one plant that you want to have but can never get?

Oh god, I’d love to have so many. More than anything, though, I’d love to have a garden big enough to have a willow tree. If I had that, I would be so incredibly, serenely happy.

Calla lily: Are you more of a sunny day or a rainy evening person?

Here, I’m a sunny day person. I don’t like leaving my flat in the rain, because it’s so hard to get back up the hill when it’s damp. I don’t like the sun so much, but I do appreciate the warmth it brings when I’m walking out and about. At home, though, I adore the rain and I love to spend stormy evenings sitting out in the conservatory so I can hear it against the roof.

Lavender: What is something that you’ve always wanted to be/have/get but can never have?

I’ve always said that in another life I’d want to be a famous singer. I made my peace with that goal a long, long time ago though. In another sense, I’d love for so many things to be different about my body. I want skinnier hips, I want nicer skin, I want a flatter chest, I want a better voice, I want a stronger heart. None of these things are changeable, but they do still haunt me. It’s hard to think about, and most days I can ignore each of them. Some days I don’t want to leave my flat because of it, but I’m trying my best to make peace with these issues as well.

Love in a mist: What is the latest dream that you remember?

Oh, not very recent. I very rarely remember my dreams, and it’s only ever the frightening ones that I can recall. The most recent, then, was actually a strange dream I had back in June. The fourteenth, to be precise. It was the day of the Grenfell Tower fire, the day of my A Level sociology exam, and I fell asleep early in the morning in my mother’s room with the news playing on the television. I won’t go into too much detail because it’s hard to explain and it’s nonsensical in that subconscious way dreams are, my brain making shortcuts and connections that shouldn’t be there. I was in a strange holiday apartment in a row of terraced white buildings, each having different colours accents and trims on the wall. My family disappeared, I couldn’t contact them, and I went to my friend in the next cottage only to find him, his mother and two foreign strangers who were clearly in distress. We tried to comfort them, spent hours with them, and slowly they calmed. My heart absolutely wrenched for them, these two strangers. I think they’d lost their families, they were running from some awful disaster, and the terror of the situation hung heavy in the air. My friend’s mother had left a while back, and then he had left as well, leaving me alone with them. Eventually, they left too. I stayed, watching the disaster on the news, until I noticed some strangers in official-looking suits inspecting each house. They were unfamiliar, detached, inherently alarming. I quickly pulled the blinds. I stayed there, in my friend’s holiday apartment, for almost two more hours. In the end, I braved the strange officials and headed outside, only to find the families of other residents, almost entirely my friends and their relatives, gathered outside and staring at this great, dark, thundering cloud that was fast descending towards us.

That’s when I woke up. I’ll be happy if I don’t remember another dream for a long, long time.

Daisy: What is your favourite flavour of cotton candy, ice cream, and juice?

My favourite flavour of ice is chocolate, although I also love caramel ice cream. My favourite type of juice is apple juice, I don’t have a strong preference between pressed or concentrate. Actually, one unpopular opinion I seem to have is that I genuinely hate orange juice? Like, I honestly can’t stand it. This tends to surprise people, for some reason.

And my favourite flavour of candy floss, is well, candy floss? I didn’t know it came in other flavours.

Painter’s palette: Are you more of a singer, dancer, painter, or instrumentalist?

Singer, for sure.

That said, I’ve tried at my hand at all of those practises throughout my life. I took dance classes several times a week from the age of three, in ballet and tap primarily but there were times when I took modern and street dance as well. Tap was my favourite by far. I quit ballet when I was about eleven, but I didn’t quit tap until I was about fourteen. In terms of painting, I took art GCSE. While painting is by far one of my least favourite art media, naturally I’ve painted quite a lot over the years. Sometimes I even enjoy it, but only if I’m working with acrylics. And in terms of being an instrumentalist, it’s undeniable that I am, by definition, one of them. I play violin, have done since the age of seven, and I also play the ukulele and marching bell. However, I am not a very good instrumentalist, hence why I chose singer. Singing is my most natural talent out of all of these, and it’s the one I enjoy the most.

Waxflower: Are you a bee or a butterfly person? A dog or a cat person?

I am a butterfly person, I used to have a strong fear of any insect that could sting me. These days I try and accept bees for their hard-working selves, but nobody could ever make me like wasps.

And, uh, I’m definitely a dog person. Even though I used to be scared of both dogs and cats, dogs win out on the basis that I’m not allergic to them. You know what, I’d love to have a borzoi some day. If I wasn’t allergic to cats I’d get an oriental shorthair, though. If you were wondering why I’m no longer scared of dogs, the answer to that question is Maya. She’s an adorable, tiny border collie cross who belongs to my amazing partner @skyward-sheik. She’s too cute to be afraid of, so I got over that fear pretty quickly after I started spending more time at his house.

Sugarbush: Do you have sweet tooth? If yes, what’s your favourite sweets? if no, why?

Uh, yeah, you could say. I’m kind of a dessert fiend.

Right now my favourite sweets are M&Ms, but Maynard’s Wine Gums, Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles, Cadbury’s Eclairs and Barratt’s Dolly Mixture.

Sunflower: Would you like to be a fairy or a mermaid?

I’d give my heart to be a sweet little woodland pouque.

Sweet pea: What would you like to call your significant other?

Well, that’s actually a really interesting question. I haven’t talked with him about specific terminology in this regard. He’s my queerplatonic partner, which is actually really difficult to explain in shorthand, but ‘partner’ is the best abbreviation I can find. Obviously QPP works, but that acronym isn’t exactly widely known. 

Sea lavender: Can you swim? Which strokes can you do?

I can indeed swim! I grew up on an island and a mere two minute’s walk from the beach, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d learnt to doggy paddle before I could steadily walk. I took swimming lessons throughout my early childhood, too, both in school and extracurricular. Somewhere in a box at home is a whole pile of badges for achieving my 10m, 50m, 100m, 200m, 500m, etc. I enjoy swimming front crawl the most, and though I dislike them I can also swim backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

I don’t get the chance to swim much anymore, though. The sea, though beneficial in the long run, is too painful for my skin to justify that minimal long-term improvement. Most chlorinated pools, while less painful in the moment, leave my skin flared, red and raised for several days after using them. There’s one leisure centre at home I can use without suffering too much ill-effect but I haven’t been there to swim in well over five years. Maybe sometime over the summer I’ll go there with my friends.

Windflower: List 5 of your favourite blogs and explain why you like them

@skyward-sheik, of course. He’s my favourite person, so of course his is my favourite blog. He reblogs a lot of cute and funny posts about video games and other things he likes, which of course makes me really happy. He also reblogs quite a lot about mental health and neurodivergence, and given you follow me you’re probably into that too.

@shark-myths, my queer writer icon, campaigner for the power of LGBT+ friendships and girls’ solidarity. Fellow Fall Out Boy deep lore analyst and encourager in the realms of both lifestyle and arts, K’s is a blog I would highly recommend. K as a person I would highly recommend, actually, and those qualities clearly translate across social media.

@honoraryplantking is a mutual of mine and a blog I love to scroll through. He’s an absolute sweetie and we have a lot of common interests between us. His blog is just a nice and positive place to be, so if you’re ever in need of a pick-me-up I’d recommend checking him out.

@strangerdarkerbetter is a fantastic neurodivergence and chronic illness activist and general person of good will. I first found Sabrina’s blog back when I was first diagnosed as autistic and they’ve been an awesome mutual and point of reference for me ever since.

I actually can’t think of a fifth that really stands out to me. Many of the blogs I check a lot are mutuals of mine, which I like because I find them relatable, I have a similar sense of humour and I like them as people. Other than those, of which there are quite a few, there’s nobody else off the top of my head who stands out as an absolute favourite.

Golden rod: Are you more of a baker or a cook?

Definitely a baker. I’m a really awful cook, executive dysfunction absolutely wrecks me as soon as I’m placed in a kitchen with nothing more than a vague recipe, but I have a lot more experience with baking and while I’m still bad at it, I can at least make a passable cake. I also way prefer desserts to making savoury meals, so that totally works in my favour.

Bloom: What is something that you would like to tell your children?

While I feel the need to clarify that I don’t actually want children, I’d probably tell them about my friends, how I met them and became close to them and how they impacted my life and wellbeing. I just think that, for a kid, it’s important to know that the friends you make in school might not be your forever friends, might not be close enough to consider family. You might be seventeen, twenty-five, you might be thirty or forty before you find them. They’re out there, I promise.

Peony: What is something that you wish your parents could’ve told you?

Honestly, I wish I’d been told more about my family. I grew up knowing nothing about an entire half of my family. I didn’t know a damn thing about my paternal family until I was about twelve or thirteen, and even now I know hardly anything about them. Not that I don’t appreciate my family’s reasons from hiding this from me, whatever they may be, but it’s hard not to feel like I was cheated out of a potentially huge part of my life and heritage. It was nothing out of the ordinary to have divorced parents, and many of my friends growing up lived in single parent families, but I was always the kid who had never even met my dad, had barely even heard his name. I didn’t even know my parents were married until I found the wedding album. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why my paternal family was effectively kept a secret from me all this time, I don’t know why I was deprived of the chance to know a whole half of my family, not just my father but my grandparents, my half-siblings, my aunts and uncles and cousins. 

Sorry, I actually got really emotional right then. This is one of the few topics that can always bring me to tears and I can’t lie and say I’m not bitter about it. Even to know that they existed would have been better than growing up with no knowledge at all. I’m sorry, I really don’t think I can talk about this any more. 

Prairie gentian: Do you have a significant other?

I do! The ever-wonderful @skyward-sheik is my queerplatonic partner and soulmate. It’s only sixteen days until I get to go home and see him again

September flower: Are you more of a sunshine or sunset person?

Sunset. Growing up on the west coast of a small island meant I’ve always been able to appreciate beautiful ocean sunsets, and I wouldn’t trade those sights for all the tea in China.

Bird of paradise: Do you wake up early? Do you sleep early?

No, I’m pretty awful at both. I have a sleep disorder, Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, which goes a long way to explaining why I have this problem. I actually sleep for a perfectly normal amount of time if left to my own devices, but my circadian rhythm is just a few hours off what is considered ‘normal’. I naturally fall asleep at about two in the morning, and no medications or lifestyle techniques I’ve tried have ever been able to fix this. Once I learnt more about it my family and I have learnt to work with it rather than against it, and thankfully my new university schedule really helps. I only have to wake up early one day out of the week in this current semester, which has meant that I’ve been properly rested and functioning for the first time in my life. When I was a toddler I had split sleeping and then I’ve been in school ever since with an nine o’clock start, so you can imagine how exhausted I was a lot of the time. Being able to sleep properly has been a revelation.

Marigold: What’s your favourite tea?

I don’t drink hot tea, but I tried iced tea for the first time last week and it was really nice! I went with my friends to a comic book-themed pie cafe called Piecaramba because one of my friends said they did really good iced tea. I took her up on her recommendation and ordered a glass of peach iced tea. I’m really anxious about trying new food and drinks so I was nervous, but it ended up being really nice. So I guess peach iced tea is my favourite type of tea, now.

Peruvian lily: What are the names of your pets?

As much as I would love them, I don’t actually have any pets. Though she passed away earlier, I had a beautiful little canary named Abi for a good eight years. I was already in a really rough spot at the time and losing my sweet little songbird made everything so much harder, not to mention an old bully of mine was mocking me about it online later that day. I think that might have been the same day I decided to start a new blog to get away from him, actually, because that really was the last straw. I don’t know what I would name any future pets and I certainly won’t be getting any in the near future, but I would love another pet someday.

Hyacinth: Do you name your plants?

I do! In fact, I have a whole page detailing my plant collection and their names, where applicable.

Lilac: Would you rather sleep and be cosy or hang out with your friends?

Can I not sleep and be cosy in the company of my friends? I think we both know that that’s the superior answer here.

Poppy: Do you like to dip your fries or do you like it as is?

Dry fries are kind of disgusting, so I always dip them in ketchup. 

Fun fact: a good friend of mine developed a habit in his teens of mixing together mayonnaise and tomato ketchup to create a kind of makeshift, poor man’s Marie Rose sauce so that he could dip his chips in it. That boy is either a genius or a madman.

Dandelion: Any special talent that you have?

I guess some of hobbies count, and my writing? People say I have a natural talent for writing, which I really appreciate. Those kind of comments are a wonder for my self-esteem.

[thebestplltheories]

PLL 7x17 Driving Miss Crazy - Thoughts

- LOVED the episode. Entertaining from start to finish! Look, we all knew that “answers every week” is bullshit. I say this every week, but we’ve waited so many years, so we can wait 3 more weeks. So let’s just set aside the fact that we get no answers and just appreciate the fast pace and lack of fillers. I’m glad that the build up to the almighty answers-episode is fun. Season 7 really is the best season to date in my opinion.

- This episode should've been called Mona Mania, instead of that season 3 episode! She owned this episode. I won't even list everything she did that justifies her walking around town with a crown on her head. You know all the reasons. Just every Mona scene was so damn entertaining.

- NO ALI!!! Instant success!!! It felt like a good old season 4 episode. I say this a lot but Ali still feels like the outsider to the group. The dynamics just work better with Spencer, Hanna, Aria and Emily. I love those 4 together. Ali still doesn't fit in the group, in my eyes. I might feel like that because we had 4 whole seasons with just the 4 of them so I’m too used to it and I never adapted to the change properly when she came back in 5A. No hate on Sasha, but I’m just not a fan of Ali’s character, I’ve always thought they ruined her once she came back from the dead. This episode just had great vibes without her, just like 713.

- Hastings drama was on point. Nolan is doing an amazing job playing Peter.

- We did it! Another thing this Tumblr community guessed right: Aria was filing a police report against Ezra during the time she found out he was writing a book. It’s a shame they’re not going further and doing the abortion story, but I still like this.

- MARY!! Welcome back. I actually feel sorry for her. I think she’s the most misunderstood character ever in PLL history.

- I did really enjoy the plot twist that Peter and Jessica were planning to kill Mary but she intercepted and killed Jessica. Self defence. I never saw that coming. It doesn't change the final outcome that Mary killed Jessica, but it’s a nice additional layer to the overall story to show just how complex this mystery is. I appreciated and enjoyed that unnecessary layer. 

- Ezra pisses me off SO MUCH. He’s so blind. He’s so stupid. Just like last week, he thinks everything is about him. “You still don't trust me because I wrote a book?” UMMMM NO???? Two weeks ago (PLL timeline) Hanna was abducted and EVERYONE, including Ezra, got a message from someone named AD, and the twin of a dead woman rocked up in town. Why has Ezra forgotten all of this??? Does he think AD just packed up and went home?? Does he think Hanna’s abduction was just a prank gone wrong and that all the messages about ‘find Hanna before it’s too late’ was just for fun? He saw ‘Hanna’ hanging from ropes in the bell tower, and he thinks the thing bothering Aria is trust issues from 6 years ago? Open your eyes Ezra. Someone is messing with your fiancé again. Not everything is about you.

- On a positive note I did appreciate his comments about regret with the book situation. I know that was very sincere. But get a hold of reality. Aria’s change of mood is not about you, ffs. 

- Did that shirt from Radley belong to Spencer’s twin? Idk, just something to think about.

- The fact that AD is trying to break apart the Hastings house feels like AD has a vendetta against the Hastings. Perhaps, Twincer is angry they adopted Spencer but not herself? Revenge?

- Spencer’s numberplate was CHD. I know we shouldn't be looking into this stuff because not once have these had meaning, but, I couldn't help but think back to Charles DiLaurentis.

- Thank god the musical number was short. I mean, I enjoyed it, and Janel can sing, but it did feel a bit random and out of nowhere. Perhaps that’s because I was so immersed in the episode and enjoying it so much, that when that came on, the pace was ruined out of nowhere. But judging it for what it is, standalone, it was cool! I don't understand Lucy’s comments that all the girls were in it? Were they, and I just didn’t see them? haha

- I’m surprised Spencer hasn't pieced together that Aria is doing this. The earring... bringing dinner then leaving? I don't know about you guys but not once in my entire life have I driven to my friends house to drop off dinner for them and then leave? That’s just weird. Some might say it’s a polite gesture... and it is, but it’s weirdly polite. No one does that?? “Hey I brought you dinner! Ok I’m going now!” wtf?

- Can Marco just arrest them already!? They’re dwindling on this story for too long. Too much talking, not enough action.

- The episode felt incomplete. I don't like how they’re dragging on a few storylines into the next episode, such as Aria’s reward (we know it was her files... but I wanted to actually read them in detail) and the doctor’s ID. Those storylines were the stories of THIS episode. Episode 17 was about THOSE things - they should’ve got total resolution, to define the episode and say “episode 17 revolved around these things”. I was just waiting for them to say Wren’s name (in regards to the doctor who did the procedure). And it never came. This episode should’ve had just one more reveal of sorts. And I don’t like that they didn’t just reveal things then and there. Oh and also the puzzle pieces... I thought with 2 more pieces, we’d get a better idea of what the pieces are forming. But no. So that was a tiny bit disappointing, that Aria did all that work and she/we still didn’t really get much out of it.

- That ending confirmed for me that Mona is not AD. It’s too obvious. I know CeCe was obvious because they literally showed her in a hoodie... but this is different. This is too close to the finale. I don’t believe Mona is AD. Instead, Mona wants to win the liars’ trust back so she’s working to solve the game, rather than administer the game to them. Also she is saving their assess by taking the shovels/potential evidence - it’s good not bad. Unfortunately this all comes back to Mona dying in the finale. She’ll get way too close to AD’s identity, and then AD will kill her. Thankfully, the girls will pickup where Mona left off and end it themselves. Then, they'll realise they couldn't have done it without Mona. So sad, but it’s a great story arc especially for a series finale.

- Caleb’s talk about Hanna to Ashley was adorable. That was a really well done scene. I loved their tent scene with the rings and Hanna bringing the bottle because she anticipated Caleb would say “yes I meant those words”. We all know the writers chose a tent because that’s where they spent their first night - I like that attention to detail. Terrible song choice... oh my gosh. Why not just use the same song as 1x19 (I think that was the episode?) Nostalgia always sells.

- Overall, my second favourite episode this season! 8.5/10. I really did like it. Again, I’ve gotten over the fact that we don't get answers every episode. It was a lie, yes, but I’m not going to sit here and whinge when the answers are just 3 weeks away anyway. I’m just taking the episodes for what they are, disregarding all comments from writers, and I’m loving the ride. Fast paced, good writing, amazing mystery/story. Decent romance too - coming from someone who only watches for mystery, they’re doing well. I honestly would’ve rated this a 10/10 episode if they just went that extra mile and revealed the doctor’s name (Wren), showed us Aria’s reward properly AND give us insight into what the puzzle pieces are forming. The episode felt incomplete that they started stories this episode and never resolved them completely. But nonetheless, it was amazing. No Ali definitely contributed to that ;) 8.5 might seem high for an episode with no answers, but I was entertained from start to finish, no fillers, decent romance, really good mystery... can’t say much bad other than it feeling incomplete. This was an episode of PLL doing what it does best. IF ONLY THEY JUST GAVE A LITTLE BIT MORE IN THE FINAL MINUTES.

EDIT: SORRY I MEAN DONOR - NOT DOCTOR. It’s 2.30am right now, and I just finished watching the episode. I was going to watch it in the morning but I stayed up to get this post out - I always get messages asking when my thoughts post will be up!

[charlottebent-blog]

Panic in the Park

Having spent the previous three days on edge (as if anticipating a life prison sentence, only I’m awaiting a ‘how many biscuits will I be force-fed in the following weeks’ verdict) I wake up feeling emotionally drained and in need of my appointment with Paula. Within 30 seconds of getting up I have stepped in dog sick and feel fully equipped for the day ahead - the squelch of realisation as my bare foot comes into contact with the dog’s regurgitated dinner, convinces me  that whatever happens, this day can only improve. Arriving at my favourite Shameless drug rehabilitation shack, it’s anonymity is poorly concealed with cellotaped pieces of A4 paper covering up the words 'drugs’ and 'alcohol’ (an effort which I can only assume was done prior to treatment by a stoned/drunk individual. I can’t help but think that a more successful attempt to hide the clinics identity would be to cellotape said paper over patients faces). Disappointed that I’d failed to notice the rat poison earlier after casually tripping over it, I let out a sigh of relief when I see a patient-less waiting room. Although I was keen to see how battered-eyed druggy man’s injuries were healing and learning more about hot-spot drug destinations.

Using the facilities before seeing Paula (a result of excessive orange cordial and a very bumpy tram journey) the appointment commences with a discussion about the difficulties of urinating in a pot - for medical purposes obviously.  Despite the fact I feel overly comfortable continuing this conversation (I had intended to get into a debate about the practicality of a Shewee), Paula suggests we concentrate on the defect and asks how I’ve been. Minus having a dog with a shocking ability to control her bodily waste and several panic attacks, I’m not doing too bad. She questions how I dealt with the feelings of anxiety and panic.

I reminisce back to yesterday afternoon, curling up into a ball whilst pointlessly thrashing around and informing my Mum I can’t breathe (I’m pretty sure she had a good indication of this seen as she’d just witnessed her daughter transform into an asthmatic seal), all because of a chocolate cake. Showing more sympathy for my Mum than me, Paula asks how I overcame this, which is quite simply - I ran away from home (it’s not as dramatic as it sounds. Plus it was more of a stroll seen as I’m on strict instructions not to 'exert myself’). I storm out of the house with no intention of ever returning, in my deluded anorexic state I see no other option. With ear phones in, blasting out the most depressing music in existence (i.e. Damien Rice on repeat) I find myself sat in the park only 300m from my house. I sit there showered with recurring thoughts of guilt, agitation and gooey gooey chocolate cake. Howling/hysterically crying like a chipmunk in labour, I notice that even dogs as intimidating as Alsatians are cowering away from me, thus a subtle hint that my face looks like mascara suicide. Running away from home with nothing but a soggy tissue with yesterdays chewing gum in, now seems like a terrible mistake. As I feel, what’s left of my sanity, beginning to return, I realise that the dog will require her post-teatime walk. I also recognise that I have left the house with nothing but my phone (with less than 20% battery life), a pair of sunglasses and my house key. Revaluating my running away plan, in the end it is an agonising wedgie (easily prevented if I’d have brought my carefully selected by my Mum, newly purchased M&S knickers) that takes me home.

Paula surprisingly congratulates me on how I dealt with the (panic attack, not wedgie) situation, but advises that I don’t do this when it is dark or raining. Nodding in reassurance, I inform her that I own both an umbrella and a rape alarm, something I’m sure will help her sleep at night. The dreaded scales then make an appearance and I learn that I’ve gained 0.7kg, I smile in an attempt to conceal the alarm bells going off in my head. She comforts me and tells me how well I’m doing. Knowing that my parents will be thrilled, I leave the clinic desperately trying to remain positive and block out Shanna mauling my thoughts. Calling my Mum I inform her of yet another expenditure of my fatty tissue (and of the dead cat on the side of the road. Something that doesn’t faze me, considering the other life-altering experiences I have witnessed in this area of Manchester). Delighted, she reiterates what Paula says and tells me to keep at it. Although I haven’t put on a horrendous amount of weight, people have commented, saying that I look well. In my head this equivocated to meaning fat.

When in reality, I have the sparkle back in my eyes. Life is worth living again. Yes, I have the small matter of this defect to tackle first, but I will. The more time you invest in awaiting an outcome, the harder it is to walk away. Yesterday my Grandad grasped me by the arms and said 'two weeks ago you looked awful and haggard (cheers Grandad), but you look great now and if you keep at it you’ll only get more beautiful’. Even if I’m questioning my Grandad’s vision, the situation is clearer now. Initially  I lost weight because people said I looked fit and well. But now weight loss has resulted in me looking hideous and unhealthy. Now, weight gain means that I can get my human glow back. Plus with my new found love for George Ezra, I realised that such an attractive/lip-lickingly delicious individual wouldn’t want a haggard chick. Let’s face it you don’t hear songs about musicians declaring their love for a scrawny anorexic. If I have any chance of becoming Charlotte Ezra (an amazingly, elegant name, I know) then I’m going to need some more jaffa cakes. George baby, I’m doing this for you.

[zig-a-zow]

As told by Aiden [Chapter 1: Come hang out]

Summary: Aiden Zhou had everything figured out. He was a Junior at high school, he would graduate in two years, attend a prestigious school such as Juilliard and become the best musician he could be. Of course, despite being practically a prodigy at what he loved, he had a lot to learn yet, especially the most important lesson: there was more to life than what he once thought.

Pairings: Aiden x MC (Grace Ashton)

Word count: 3123

Notes: Hello there! What is this, you might be asking yourself? Well, nothing other than what the title says: High School Story as told by Aiden. The events from the book, but from his perspective, plus extra scenes/fanon lore. There are significant changes in this story, though. For once, I have two MCs, best friends Grace and Callie. However, one of them will be significantly more prominent due to being Aiden's love interest. Also, each chapter has its own song, cause how could I write about Aiden without music included? Click the lyrics to listen. Without further ado, let’s begin.

Ch. 1 (It's right here!) - Ch. 2  - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 (Coming soon!)

And all my friends say

Come hang out , 'cause you're out of your mind

You're working so damn hard you forgot what you like.

"Aiden... Aiden!"

His eyes moved quickly from his music sheet to his mother's face when he heard her voice. He sighed deeply. She was giving him that look again.

"Yes?"

"Darling, could you maybe leave your music sheets aside for a moment?" she asked as softly as she could, smiling slightly. "You haven't even touched your breakfast!"

"Mom... this is very important. I need to figure out this next piece, soon."

"Aiden, listen to your mother."

He casted his father a single, subtly exasperated glance. Of course, Glen Zhou wouldn't notice, since his face was hidden behind today's newspaper. Aiden sighed yet again as he reluctantly put his music sheets back in his bag.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his mother's effort to feed him, but his mind was elsewhere, as usual. He had to show Ezra that he was much more than his first chair trumpet, he was also a composer, and a very talented one at that.

The fact that he had been trying to impress his student director for two years now, to no avail, really got him on his nerves.

He jumped slightly when the alarm on his watch went off, and immediately stood up. It was time for him to leave.

"Aiden, you're forgetting your lunch."

He returned a few steps with a sigh, and his mother gave him a small smile as she carefully tucked the paper bag on his backpack.

"Thanks, mom" he muttered, and pressed a brief kiss on her cheek. "See you later."

He barely heard her reply as he rushed outside, towards his car. No, he wasn't late at all, he just enjoyed being early. The ride was short, as always. It was a relatively small town after all, which had its perks. For example, he knew practically everyone in the neighborhood, at least by name.

He was just parking when he could see Myra waiting for him on the other side of the parking lot, a wide grin spreading on her face as she spotted him as well.

"There he is, the Piano Man!" she exclaimed as she approached and he climbed out of the vehicle. "Any progress on your masterpiece?"

"I know you're being sarcastic, but I will take it anyway" Aiden couldn't help but smile slightly as he hung his bag on his shoulder. "And no... I keep writing a few notes just to erase them five seconds later."

"Mhm... maybe composing isn't your forte after all, huh?"

Aiden didn't even reply, just rolled his eyes and sighed. He was more than used to those silly puns and jokes from her, so it was better to roll with it. Since he had met her, last year at band tryouts, she had always been that cheery, loud, and sometimes obnoxious self.

He still wasn't sure why they were friends at all.

"... never seen that car before!"

He was barely hearing her, but he followed her gaze anyway. He had to agree, that bright red car wasn't one he was familiar with, and he had seen all of them by parking there every single school day. That meant someone had a new car, or there was a new student. Maybe two.

A pair of girls climbed out of the car almost at the same time. The first one was practically bouncing on her heels, her bright blonde hair jumping around with her.

"C'mon, c'mon...!"

"You seem way too excited to be the new kid again" the second girl shoved her car keys in her bag carelessly as she followed her bouncing friend, not paying attention to the only other two people in the place.

But they were paying attention. At least Aiden was. He found it a bit difficult to stop staring at the second girl's perfect dark curls, which bounced with every step she took as she walked away, until she was out of sight.

"Hey, hey!" Myra snapped her fingers in front of him to get his attention, a sly smile on her face. "Already crushing on the new girl, are we? Which one was it?"

"Oh, please" he muttered as he frowned slightly, brushing her words off with an indifferent wave of his hand. "You know very well that I have no interest in... 'crushes', as you like to call them."

"Sure, uh-huh. We'll see about that."

"No, we won't. Now come on, I don't want to be late."

He was painfully aware of the red tone on his cheeks, so he rushed towards the school as quick as he could.

Aiden was very, very thankful that his classes were enough to distract him. He really didn't want to think about that girl's face, her long eyelashes that batted slowly, her dark skin which seemed to glow under the morning sunlight, her chocolate eyes that...

... dang it.

The bell before lunch rang and he let out an exasperated sigh as he headed out of the classroom. He was not 'crushing' on that girl.

No. Definitely not.

He just... appreciated her beauty? Like one would appreciate a painting at the museum. It was an objective feeling.

She was pretty, and he was mesmerized by her. That was it.

"Aiden, my man!" he startled slightly when Ezra Mitchell, his student director, placed one of his arms around his shoulders. "It's good to see you."

"Ezra! The feeling is mutual, believe me" Aiden sighed with relief, a new distraction was just what he needed. "I've been working on a new piece that could really... how would you say it, 'spice up' the band's upcoming performance."

"Look at you, learning today's slang! Good for you, buddy."

Aiden frowned slightly as he slipped out of his embrace, though Ezra didn't seem to notice or care as they continued walking toward their usual table, Myra joining in a few seconds later.

At a nearby table, most of the band was eating and chatting. Aiden wasn't exactly close with any of them, however. He mostly interacted with them only when necessary, so it was a relief that both Ezra and Myra found his company appealing enough to get their own table.

Ezra spent most of lunch talking to Myra about an action movie he watched with his brother on the weekend, Devil's Canyon.

"... he took his shirt off every five minutes! I'm serious, I even counted!"

"Hah! You say that like it's a bad thing!"

Aiden sighed heavily. He had given them more than enough time to talk about such trivial things. He cleared his throat loudly, getting their attention.

"If you're quite done... I would like to direct your attention to more important topics."

"Is this about the music we'll play at halftime, again?" asked Myra, rising an eyebrow at him. "'Cause I'd rather keep talking about Matt Rodriguez and his awesome... acting skills."

"No, Myra, let's hear him out" Ezra turned to him and finally gave him his attention. "What's on your mind, buddy?"

Aiden proceeded to take two different music sheets from his bag, a slightly pleased smile on his face.

"I've got a few new songs we might want to consider for the next halftime show..." he said then, and offered the sheets to Ezra, who began to read them curiously. "There's, 'The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs' by John Cage... or how about 'The Gadfly Suite' by Shostakovitch?"

Ezra shook his head as he read the sheets once again, grimacing slightly.

"I ain't gonna lie, Aiden, these sound pretty obscure."

"You haven't even listened to them yet!"

"Exactly. If I don't recognize them, no one else will either."

Aiden frowned in frustration as he stood up to pace in front of their table, running a hand through his dark hair.

"Very well. Let's suppose that you're right..."

"I am."

"... and most of the school doesn't recognize these pieces" he ignored the interruption, his frown deepening. "Does that really make a difference? I don't think anyone at this school can recognize anything but the fight song, aside from us band members, of course."

"It's not about that, Aiden. We've been playing the fight song every year, and we're not stopping now. End of discussion."

Aiden couldn't help but scowl this time, placing his hands on the table as he leaned forward just slightly. Now he was pissed.

"How can someone self-taught be so conservative? You should be the bold one."

"That's funny. I was just about to ask how someone so classically trained could be so eager to change things up."

Myra rubbed her temples for a second before she raised her own voice in an attempt to stop their argument.

"Let's keep it civil, okay? This is real life, not a Reddit thread" she said with a frown, obviously deciding not to take sides. "Besides, it's just a song."

"Just a song?!"

Aiden heard that his voice go a few notes higher than intended, but he didn't care. He was too busy feeling indignation towards his fellow band member.

"Hey!" a feminine voice shouted, startling the three of them at once. "There's a new person standing here. Pay attention!"

They all turned toward her, and Aiden held his breath for a second.

There she was, the pretty girl with the perfect hair that had mesmerized him earlier. She was frowning at him, arms crossed above her chest. He found her strangely intimidating, taking into consideration that she was at least a few inches shorter than him.

"Uh... my apologies. We didn't notice you there."

"Yeah, I kinda picked up on that" she muttered, although her expression softened slowly.

"... wait a minute, I know you! You're one of the new girls on my homeroom!" exclaimed Myra with a smile, standing up as well to have a good look at her. "You're Grace, right? Grace Ashton."

"Yeah... you must be Myra. I could hear your voice from the front row."

"Hah! Guilty as charged!"

"Ahem. Welcome... Grace. Are you a musician?" Aiden regained the girl's attention with ease, before he shook his head slightly. "Wait. Don't tell me. Give me your hand."

Grace raised an eyebrow, and he could feel his cheeks burn just by the sight of the smirk on her lips.

"I don't think so. You'll have to buy me dinner first."

"I... uh..."

Aiden swallowed hard as he looked away for a second, feeling the heat on his face rise even more. Was she... flirting with him? Why? And how was he supposed to react?!

He cleared his throat as he addressed her again, ignoring Myra's giggle and Ezra's chuckle.

"I... didn't mean it like that?"

"You sure about that, buddy?" Ezra's voice called for Grace's attention, much to his relief. "You'll have to excuse him. Aiden here is much better with instruments than with actual human beings... I'm Ezra, by the way."

Grace nodded and finally decided to take a seat with them, casting Aiden a curious glance. He sat beside her as he regained his composure. Maybe changing the subject could help.

"Please tell me you play the saxophone."

"I do play the saxophone. And a little bit of piano, but mostly sax."

"I knew it. Your lips told me everything" he beamed at her, and she smiled back, her eyebrows arching until he realized what he had said. "Er. Not literally. But, you know what I mean."

"Heh. Yeah, I do" she turned toward Myra, who seemed to be bouncing on her seat from excitement. "I take it you were in need of a sax player...?"

"Ah, yes! You're a gift from heaven!"

"You should totally come to the band room and play with us" Ezra shoved the remainings of his lunch on his tray and stood up with a smile. "Put your sax skills to the test, what do you say?"

"I say bring it!" Grace almost jumped out of her seat, a confident smile on her plump lips. "Lead the way."

"Alright, alright! That's the spirit!"

The two of them walked away, and Aiden found himself alone with Myra, still slightly stunned by what just had happened. Myra was giving him a significant look.

"What?"

"Are you gonna buy her dinner, Aiden?"

He scoffed as he stood up as well, carefully tucking his music sheets back in his bag before following both Ezra and Grace, hearing Myra's laugh and steps right behind him.

When they arrived to the band room, Ezra was already handing Grace a saxophone, which she took on her hands with obvious expertise.

"Don't worry, it's totally clean" he assured her, patting her back with a friendly smile. "It hasn't been used since our previous sax player graduated last year."

"Okay, but I'll bring my own next time."

Both Aiden and Myra prepared to join her, as Ezra stood in front of them with a music sheet that was identical to the ones in front of them.

Preparing his trumpet, Aiden turned to Grace.

"Try to keep up. The key thing is to time your cues with the rest of us."

"I know. But thanks for the reminder" she offered him a tiny smile as she took the instrument to her lips. "I mean it."

"Enough" Ezra spoke firmly from the front, commanding their attention. "I think Grace is ready."

And just like that, they started playing. And while their sounds blended together perfectly, Aiden was having a hard time concentrating on his own instrument.

He really was trying to find some kind of flaw on Grace's sound, but he wasn't very successful. She did sound very good.

"Not bad!" exclaimed Ezra as they put their instruments down, grinning at them. "Just a little bit more practice and I can see you joining us."

"I'll admit the notes were... technically correct" Aiden gave her the slightest of smiles, but she scoffed as she shook her head.

"Wow. High praise from Mr. Fancypants."

"I'm wearing regular pants."

Grace couldn't help but laugh briefly at that, directing her attention to Ezra and handing him back the saxophone she had played.

"What they're trying to say is that you should totally audition for the band" said Myra with a smile, grabbing her arm gently. "Not only would you be saving our butts, but you'd also get to spend more time with the best musician here... me!"

"Ha. Can't argue with that."

"No need to answer now. You've got a week to think about it" assured Ezra as he placed the music sheets they had used back on their binder.

"... and to practice" Aiden took the chance to pipe up, getting her attention right back. "Auditions are... competitive."

"Even if I'm the only sax player you can find?"

"Even then."

"Great, I love a good challenge."

"I can tell you and I are gonna get along" Ezra placed an arm around her shoulders with a grin. "By the way, are you going to Brian's party tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

Myra gasped.

"But I thought Brian said you were not invited!"

"So?"

"Oh... oooh! I like you already!"

Aiden was barely hearing their conversation. He was deciding whether he would attend that party or not. He wasn't specifically invited, but that was because it was implied that everyone was invited.

Except those that weren't.

He decided he had better things to do than staying up late out of his house, engaging in annoying small talk and pretending to have any sort of interest in anyone outside his inner circle.

"... see you there!"

He looked up when he heard Ezra's voice, and saw him walk out of the room with Myra close behind. Grace followed suit a few seconds later, and he hurried to reach her. She stopped when she heard his steps, turning around with an arched eyebrow. "Hey... I just wanted to say. I'm sorry if I came off a bit harshly back there."

"Don't sweat it" she said then, shrugging slightly. She smiled. "Like I said, I love a good challenge."

"Still. I guess you could say I'm a bit protective of this marching band. It's very important to me" Aiden sighed deeply. He considered what he was about to say, thinking maybe she would think it was silly, and decided to take the risk. "The truth is, I thought we had a connection."

"Mhm... is that a 'love' connection or something like that?"

Aiden took a step back as he felt his cheeks begin to burn once again as he looked for words to say. There it was again, that feeling of intense embarrassment and vulnerability that he loathed so much. He couldn't help but frown.

"That was not my intended meaning" he uttered after a moment, scowling as he looked away. He scoffed. "I'm far too busy with my music to concern myself with romantic frivolity."

Grace remained silent for a moment, seeminly unfazed by his clear aversion to the topic. A few seconds later she snorted, covering her mouth with her hand as she shamelessly laughed, right to his face.

"S-Sorry, I just... oh boy. I never heard anyone call it that way. Romantic frivolity" she repeated with an amused tone, shaking her head as she regained her composure. "Ah, you're something else."

"Are you done mocking me?"

"I'm not... alright, sorry. That was genuinely funny though."

"I beg to differ" he muttered, but had to look away once again. Her face was flushed and her hair was disheveled from laughing, and he wasn't about to give her appearance another chance to render him speechless again. "Anyway... I truly do hope you try out for the band. We could use you."

Grace opened her mouth, a glimpse of mischief in her chocolate eyes, but she refrained from speaking, pressing her lips together. She was containing herself from saying something that would probably embarrass him, and he was thankful for that.

"Alright, I'll think about it. See you around."

Finally, the final bell had rang and Aiden was heading toward his car to call it a day. He wasn't as tired as he could be, but couldn't wait to reach the peace and solitude that his room represented.

He was adjusting his seatbelt when his phone buzzed. It was a text.

Ezra: r u coming 2 the party or what???

He only took a few seconds to reply.

Aiden: No.

Aiden: See you tomorrow.

Ezra: awwww come on man!! u GOTTA go!

Ezra: every1 will be there

Ezra: grace said shed be there yknow

Ezra: 👀

Aiden huffed as he decided to ignore his incoming messages, which didn't stop as he drove silently, frowning to himself. However after he finally got home, briefly talked to his father and headed to his room, he couldn't help but grab his phone again.

Aiden: What makes you think I'd suddenly be interested in attending just because of her?

Silence. A minute. Two minutes. Suddenly he found himself feeling impatient. Why was everyone acting so strange? Insinuating things that obviously weren't correct? It was getting on his nerves.

Finally, a reply.

Ezra: see u there buddy

Ha! As if he was actually going to that party! It wasn't like he would take a quick shower, try to distract himself with homework and composing, only to give up and head out with a frown and a sigh of defeat.

That wasn't going to happen.

He was still in denial as he drove toward Brian's house.

And come hang out, don't you leave us behind

But, I'll be there next time, I'll be there next time.

So... that was chapter 1!

I hope you enjoyed it! Feedback is appreciated and encouraged. Thanks for reading!