#buddy and malcolm will never not make me laugh for one reason or another

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

[bellakitse]

Greener on the Other Side

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, not believing what she’s just said. “Say that again, please.”

“I said he’s married,” she repeats herself softly, giving him a pitying look. “And he has a kid."

+

Alex hasn't heard anything about TK Strand in over four years. That's about to change.

Alex Fletcher walks into Gramercy Tavern twenty minutes later than he agreed to meet his friends. He already dreads what is sure to be a lecture on his constant tardiness from the group, but more so, what he knows will be pointed looks when they see he’s come alone instead of with his boyfriend.

Spotting them to the left of the restaurant, he starts to make his way over to them. “Sorry, sorry,” he starts to say with a charming smile as all five of them look up at his voice, hoping to curb the scolding before it starts. “The 6 train was an absolute mess. It got the 33rd street and then refused to go forward.”

Liz and Becca share a look at his excuse, and Alex has to keep from rolling his eyes at them. He gets it. Being late is one of his less desirable character traits, and they find it annoying, but after over a decade of friendship, he thinks they should get over it by now.

“Yeah, the trains have been acting up all week,” Malcolm offers while his wife Patricia gives him a small smile, the two of them ever the peacemakers of the group. “Sit down, man.”

Alex offers his friends a more sincere smile, shaking hands with him and his other buddy Chris before giving all three women kisses on the cheek.

“Where is Dean?” Patricia asks politely, and Alex winces at her mistake. It’s been a while since he and Dean ended things, but it’s also been a while since Patricia has joined her husband at one of their dinners.

“We broke up a few months ago,” he tells her, his face feeling tight from his fake smile. “I’m dating someone new now. His name is Wallace.”

“Oh,” Patricia says softly, going a little red in the face at her blunder. “My apologies, Alex.”

He waves her off, wanting to move on from the embarrassing moment quickly. “No worries, Patty,” he says to her. “And Wallace wanted to come, but he had to work,” he explains, trailing off lamely, not believing the lie himself, but it’s not like he can tell his friends that Wallace simply didn’t want to come because he thought it would be boring.

His friends all give him understanding, if not quite believing looks, and Alex wonders just how pathetic his expression is that they don’t push for more.

The mood around the table is awkward and quiet, making his skin feel tight. Thankfully their waiter comes over to take their drink order, easing the moment, giving him something else to focus on.

He starts to loosen up once there is a vodka soda in his hand. He listens to Liz as she talks about her latest architecture project, laughs at the funny story Chris tells them about his 1st-grade class painting the class bunny with washable markers. He’s enjoying their company, forgetting for a moment that his boyfriend should be there with him getting to know his friends when Becca’s eyes light up as Chris wraps up another story about his students.

“You guys will never believe who I saw yesterday walking out of FAO Schwarz,” she starts, her brown eyes lighting up with the chance to share some juicy gossip.

Alex leans in, already intrigued by the look on her face.

“Who?” Liz asks with a grin, curious herself.

“TK Strand,” Becca answers, saying the name with emphasis, and Alex gets why even as he feels shock go through him. It’s been over four years since he has seen or heard from TK. Not since the night he stopped him from proposing, confessing he was in love with someone else.

Mitchell, he thinks bitterly as he takes a large gulp of his drink. In the end, he’d turned out to be Alex’s own personal karma for hurting TK.

Walking in on him and another guy from their gym eight months into their official relationship had been a kick in the teeth and a hard lesson to learn.

He shakes his head to clear it from the lousy memory just in time to hear Becca’s following comment, shocking him more than her first. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, not believing what she’s just said. “Say that again, please.”

Becca looks at him, hesitating as she bites down on her lip, looking remorseful for a moment, probably remembering that out of all of them, he’d be the one with the most invested interest.

“I said he’s married,” she repeats herself softly, giving him a pitying look. “And he has a kid. They were coming out of the toy store when I bumped into them, and he introduced them to me. His husband’s name is Carlos, and their little boy is Luca. Really cute kid – was talking a mile a minute about all the toys in the place, and given all the bags they had, they must have bought him half the store.”

“Wow,” Chris breathes out, his surprise evident. “I can’t believe he’s married and with a kid. How old do you think?”

“Four,” Becca answers instantly. “I asked Luca, and he held up his fingers.”

Alex shakes his head again. It’s been four years since he and TK were together, and he has a four-year-old son. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says mostly to himself.

“I get the feeling he’s adopted,” Becca answers. “Or maybe Carlos’ son,” she continues with a shrug. “But he called TK dad.”

“What was the husband like?” Liz questions, and Alex is grateful because he can’t bring himself to ask.

“He was polite and friendly,” Becca pauses, shooting him another look before continuing. “Ridiculously hot, and hopelessly in love with TK. I spent maybe ten minutes with them, and you guys should have seen the way he looked at him. It was like TK hung the moon.”

The table is quiet for a moment. For his benefit, he’s sure, as he tries to process everything he’s learned, when Liz speaks up again.

“Good for TK. He deserves that and more,” she says with a smile on her face that takes a hard edge when he shoots her a glare. “What?” she questions, her whole expression challenging him. “You didn’t take care of him when you guys were together, and he’s a great guy. I always liked him even though we lost touch after you broke up. I’m glad he’s found happiness.”

Alex bites down on the urge to lash out at his friend, not only is it a losing battle with Liz, but deep down in the parts of him where he has buried his guilt and shame at his past actions, he knows he can’t argue with the truth she just laid on him.

 ֎֎֎

 The rest of the dinner is awkward to say the least. Even though they move on from TK, Alex can’t stop thinking about his ex and what he’s learned. He pulls Becca to the side as they’re leaving, grilling her for any more information she might have.

She finally tells him TK had mentioned they were staying with his mother and little brother – one of the few things he did know about TK and his family since Gwyneth and his father ran in the same legal circles. He’d learned about the woman’s surprise pregnancy almost three years ago.

Becca looks at him as he absorbs the information before letting out a heavy sigh, reminding him not to do anything stupid.

He’d given her an absent nod that even he didn’t believe. Which is probably why he’s outside of Gwyneth’s Park Avenue apartment in a hat and sunglasses like a stalker, hoping to catch a glimpse of his ex and his husband.

Whether luck is on his side or karma wants to teach him another lesson, he doesn’t have to wait long. He’s been outside of the swanky apartment building for maybe 15 minutes, trying to decide what exactly he thinks he’s doing, when the front door opens and out walks the person he wants to see.

He ducks behind a tree just in time to not be spotted, peeking behind it to look at the small family.

TK, at 26-years-old, had been a beautiful man; Alex remembers that well. But now, at 30, he’s even more stunning if that’s even possible. He walks out of the building with a tall, muscular man Alex instantly recognizes as the ‘ridiculously hot’ mystery husband. Each of them with a little boy in their arms.

“So what are we doing today?” he hears TK ask with a grin on his face as the little boys instantly start to chant, ‘Park, park, park!’

“I wanna see the penguins, Dada,” exclaims the little boy in the arms of TK’s husband. Carlos and Luca, he remembers.

TK smiles softly at his son before looking at the child in his own arms. “What about you, little brother? Do you want to go to the Central Park Zoo and see the penguins?” he asks, tickling his chin, getting a happy giggle along with a nod from the little boy.

TK’s grin grows before he looks over at his husband, getting a nod from the man too.

“It’s unanimous then,” TK proclaims in an animated voice that has the boys lighting up. “To the park! To the penguins!”

The pair of boys let out a ‘yeah!’ leaning over at each other to share a clumsy high-five that has the adults laughing.

“You just had to rile them up, troublemaker,” Carlos scolds TK, and he might be a stranger to Alex, but he can tell it’s said with amused fondness.  

“You love me,” TK teases his husband, going easily when the man reaches out to tug him in closer by his shirt, turning his face up as his husband leans in to kiss him, tilting to the side to keep the boys out of the way.

Alex swallows hard at the display. Even from where he’s hiding, he can see TK’s bright smile and dancing green eyes once he and his husband break the kiss.

“Always, my love,” Carlos tells TK as he kisses the side of his face adoringly.

“Dada, Papa,” Luca groans out. “Kissing later, park now,” he continues, much to the amusement of the two men.

“So demanding,” TK teases, leaning in to kiss the little boy’s cheek too, laughing at the face he makes. “Okay, let’s go.”

They start towards the park, and Alex hesitates for a moment. He’s seen and heard TK and his family with his own eyes and ears. It’s obvious his ex is happy and not at all thinking about him. He should turn around in the opposite direction and leave before his luck runs out and they spot him. It’s the reasonable thing to do, and yet he finds himself following them about half a block back, keeping his head down.

He can’t hear them from this distance, but he can watch them. He takes in the way the two men hold hands while each holding on to a child, listening and chatting with the two little ones. Everything about them screams family, and Alex can’t deny the dull ache it causes inside his chest.

Is this what he and TK could have had?

He follows them through the park until they come to a series of benches. He watches as TK hands over his little brother to his husband, the man easily carrying both kids. TK sits down, but no one else does. Instead, he waves at them as his husband walks away with the children, leaving TK alone.

Alex hesitates again. This is his chance to approach TK, and yet he’s frozen in place by indecision.

A moment later, his ex takes the choice out of his hand.

He startles as TK turns his head to look straight at him with a raised eyebrow. “Are you just going to stand there?” he calls out to him casually, the picture of calm as he places his arms on the backrest of the bench. It’s different from the TK he remembers, who was always constantly bouncing his legs with nervous energy.

“How did you – “ he starts, feeling awkward and off-balance.

“I didn’t,” TK answers with a shrug as Alex gets closer to him. “It was Carlos who realized. He’s a cop. Noticing weirdos is kind of his job.”

Alex cringes at the descriptor as he comes to a stop in front of him. “Hi, TK,” he says lamely, wincing again at the high pitch sound of his voice.

TK raises an eyebrow at him again. “Hello, Alex. Any particular reason you’re following us in that get-up?” he questions, pointing at his hat and sunglasses.

Alex feels his face grow hot at the question. He reaches up, taking them off. “Becca said she saw you,” he says uncomfortably, getting a casual nod back from his ex. “And I got curious,” he continues weakly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“That sounds like poor impulse control,” TK mutters to himself. He moves to the side, leaving half the bench open for Alex to decide if he wants to take a seat or not.

Alex would be embarrassed by the speed with which he takes the offer, but the joy at being allowed to get closer overrides that. Neither says anything after he sits down, him because he’s nervous, TK it seems because he’s simply waiting him out.

“So,” he starts slowly. “You’re visiting?”

TK looks at him, seeming to study him before giving him a nod. “We try to see my mother and my little brother Robbie every few months. Sometimes they come to see us, but New York is always pretty in the spring, and Luca has never been.”

“That’s your son,” he blurts out, his face going hot again at the look TK shoots him.

“Becca shared everything, did she,” he questions with a dry smile, shaking his head to himself.

“The group had dinner,” he explains, not needing to add who exactly was there. There was a time when TK would have sat right next to him at one of those dinners, charming everyone with stories about fighting fires and daring rescues.

“Ah,” TK exhales softly. “It’s nice you all still do that. They’re good people. I liked them.”

“They liked you too,” Alex answers, giving TK a half-smile. “Liz was thrilled to hear that you’re married and have a kid. She’s happy you’re happy.”

TK smiles, this time more genuine. “That sounds like her,” he comments, looking nostalgic for the first time. “She was always kind to me,” he finishes, not adding anything else.

It goes quiet between them again, causing Alex’s nerves to fray at the edges. He’s not used to this TK. The one he remembers always filled the silence, even if it was just with nervous chatter.

“So, are you?” he can’t help but blurt out, swallowing nervously when TK gives him a curious look. “Are you happy?”

TK lets out a huff, and while he doesn’t smile or laugh, Alex can see a hint of amusement in his bottle-green eyes. “Is that why you’re here? You want to know if I’m happy?”

He feels the hairs at the back of his neck stand at the mocking he hears in TK’s voice. “Is that so crazy?” he questions defensively. “The last time we spoke wasn’t precisely the best encounter – “

“That’s because I was getting ready to propose to you and instead found out you were fucking around my back with a spin instructor,” TK interrupts him, surprising Alex with how calm he is. There is no anger or reproach in TK’s voice like Alex anticipated, just a simple fact. It hurts Alex more than he expected to witness how unaffected TK seems. “How is Mitchell by the way?”

Alex clenches his fists, his nails digging into his palms as embarrassment courses through him. He wants to stand up and walk away from this. He’s not sure what he’d hoped to accomplish by seeking TK out, but it’s clear now whatever it was, he isn’t going to get it.

He looks at TK to find a mild curiosity on his face, like Alex’s answer doesn’t really matter to him one way or another.

“We broke up,” he answers anyway, taking a breath to try to soothe the ache before his next words. “I found him in our bed with someone else less than a year after you and I broke up.”

“Well shit,” TK says quietly, letting out a breath of his own. He doesn’t look gloating the way he has a right to look. Instead, he looks at Alex with what can only be called compassion. “Karma didn’t just pay you back. It sucker-punched you in the face, huh?”

Alex lets out a startled laugh at the description. TK joins him with a chuckle of his own, and Alex welcomes it even if it’s at his own expense. They laugh for a few seconds before they let it trail off.

“To answer your question,” TK starts to say. He looks at him, bobbing his head softly. “Yes, I’m happy. I’m the kind of happy where I wake up in the morning, look at my husband sleeping, usually with our kid between us, and I can’t believe just how lucky I am.”

“You love him,” Alex whispers, not really needing an answer when he can see it clearly on his face.

TK answers anyway. “He’s my soulmate,” he says with a smile that isn’t directed at him at all. It’s directed at the man who walked away with two kids in his arms minutes before. “I used to think that was you,” he continues, his voice sounding far away, lost in the past while Alex aches in the present. “I was so sure of it once, and then I met Carlos. I was still a mess about you, and I wasn’t looking to fall in love at all, but there he was, and I fell. I fell so fast, Alex. Years later, I’m still falling in love with him every single day.”

“That sounds – “ Alex starts, exhaling through the dull throbbing in his chest. “Scary, honestly.”

TK smiles, bright and beautiful, just like Alex remembers. “It is,” he says with a short laugh. “It’s terrifying, but it’s also amazing, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world.”

Alex nods quietly to himself.

“I’m sorry you haven’t found that yet,” TK continues softly because it seems that surprising Alex is the name of the game today. He gives TK a shocked look that has him giving Alex a compassionate look back. “I never wished you ill will. I was hurt and angry after everything went to hell between us, but in the end, I wanted you to find someone to love the way you couldn’t love me and for that person to love you back just the same.”

Alex swallows hard at TK’s words, feeling overwhelmed by them. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

TK looks away from him, and Alex follows his gaze to find that his husband and the kids are coming back with ice cream in their hands. “Thank you for saying that,” he says softly as he stands. He looks down at Alex, giving him a slight quirk of his mouth. “Goodbye, Alex. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Alex watches TK walk away from him, knowing it will be the last time he’ll see him. “Goodbye, TK,” he whispers at his back, feeling the loss more now than he did four years ago.

 ֎֎֎

 “Dada, we got ice cream!” Luca exclaims happily as he slurps on his spiderman popsicle.

“I can see that. Can I have a taste of spidey?” he questions, leaning in when Luca sweetly offers him his treat. “Mmm, that’s yummy. Thank you, sweetheart.”

Luca smiles up at him, his face already a sticky red and blue mess. He looks at Robbie to see his face is yellow from his Spongebob popsicle. He smiles at them fondly as he turns his backpack to his front, searching for the wet wipes to clean their faces.

“We got you a cone with sprinkles,” Carlos says with a smile, though TK can see the worry in his eyes. “Is everything okay?”

TK looks at his husband, taking in his concern for him along with his ever-present love, and smiles as he remembers what he just told Alex moments ago. The love he and Carlos share is so strong – it can be frightening at times to feel so much and so intensely for another person, but like he told Alex, he wouldn’t change it for the world when it means Carlos loves him back just as strongly.

“Yeah, baby,” he answers, reaching out to touch Carlos’ cheek. “Everything is okay,” he smiles at his husband before looking down at his son and little brother. “Better than okay because we’re going to go see some penguins!”

Luca and Robbie cheer happily.

“Let’s go, Robbie,” Luca says to his uncle, throwing an arm over the other little boy’s shoulder.

TK and Carlos watch them walk a few steps ahead of them, chatting away the way only little kids can.

“You sure you’re alright?” Carlos asks as he hands him a melting ice cream. TK takes it, giving it a few licks to keep it from dripping.

“I swear, babe,” he assures him as he wraps an arm around Carlos’ waist. “We talked, and then we said goodbye.”

“What did he want?” Carlos asks curiously.

TK shrugs. He’ll be honest even after talking to Alex; he’s still not entirely sure what the other man wanted out of the conversation. “I’m not even sure he knows,” he answers after a moment. “He apologized for the past and asked me if I was happy. Maybe he was feeling guilty.”

“What did you tell him?” Carlos questions, a smile playing on his mouth when TK shoots him a look. “What?” he asks innocently, and TK can’t help but chuckle at his fishing.

“I told him,” he starts to say, making sure that he’s holding Carlos’ gaze, as usual falling in love all over again as he gets lost in Carlos’ soulful brown eyes. “That every morning, I wake up amazed I got so lucky to love and be loved by you.”

Carlos pulls him to his side, pressing his face into his neck. “I’m the lucky one, Ty,” he whispers against his skin.

TK smiles at Carlos’ words, his smile growing as Luca shouts for them to keep up; the penguins are waiting. “We both are, my love.”

[angelicichor]

Like you did for bubba but for brahms now (male s/o)?

Brahms with a boyfriend?? On MY CHRISTIAN SERVER?? Ya sure UvU

N//SF//W

♥ It was a desperate thing, something the Heelshires thought would never work, but nobody else would reply to the baby sitting add and they were so, so very tired. They knew their son’s shadow loomed over them for a reason, that the creaking in the walls was their curse, for what they did to their baby, how they treated him, but they had to get away, somehow, anyhow.

♥ Even if it meant sacrificing such a fine, young man.

♥ You came to the house looking prim and proper, with the warmest smile they’ve seen in years and while they weren’t happy with your gender, a compromise was made. For the good of their son and for their own. The only cost being your suffering.

♥ The tour went well and even when you saw the child, it didn’t phase you that much. You’ve seen ‘crazy’ before, and even if that was a bit of a step up from back then, it was acceptable, so with all the care and love you could, you welcomed the doll, taking it’s cold porcelain hand, giving it a small squeeze, a shake, calling it a buddy and making the parents smile. They were tired signs of joys, something that made you just a tad bit worried, but it was probably a long time since anyone showed acceptance to them in that manner, you told yourself and it was enough to make you smile back.

♥   “As long as you follow the rules, everything should be fine, my child.” The Lady spoke and you could swear there was a hint of warning in her tone. The list was simple, really:1. No Guests

2. Never Leave Brahms Alone

3. Save Meals in Freezer

4. Never Cover Brahms Face

5. Read a Bedtime Story

6. Play Music Loud

7. Clean the Traps

8. Only Malcolm Brings Deliveries

9. Brahms is Never to Leave

10. Kiss Goodnight Yet the final one made you chuckle lightly, looking at the old lady with a slight hint of amusement in your smile, eyebrow rising in question. “Is there a problem?” She asked and you shook your head.

♥ “Nothing ma’am, just awfully precious, this list. Especially the last point. Brahms is a clingy child, ain’t he?” you asked and she seemed a bit offended, but happy that you’d entertain the whole thing. “That he is. Please, take good care of him when we’re gone and we’ll make sure your pay comes in regularly.” she replied and after a short exchange both her and her husband left the mansion, leaving you alone with the doll.

♥ And you looked at it for a long second.

♥ “Ah, fuck it.” 

♥ With that your hands lifted Brahms up and you gave him a joyful smile. “I’m getting the cash, so might as well do my part, nah?” you laughed, the warmth of the sound radiating through the whole house, giving it just a bit more life, something that it desperately needed.

♥ You followed the rules almost perfectly, almost, it was hard to invest all your time and energy in a doll, but every time you needed some “me time” to drink some scotch, workout a bit, read a book, anything, you’d make sure to apologize to Brahms in advance, explaining your problem like you’d do with any other child. It was, after all, what his parents would’ve wanted.

♥ Then it started.

♥ Your things started going missing and you blamed it on your ‘stupid, forgetful self’, but then, why was the food you left in the freezer just… disappearing? Why did you find your leather jacket on a coat hanger one day after it disappeared and you threw a fit over it?

♥ And why do you keep hearing foot steps in the walls?

♥ “Fuck, I’m going crazy.” you huffed and once again, fell asleep, trying to ignore the creeping feeling that someone’s… something’s watching you, yet you still laughed. “Brahms, if that’s you… that’s VERY rude behavior, young man.” 

♥ You dozed off after it, but you could’ve sworn somebody swallowed in your wardrobe. 

♥ And soon after another thing happened. Something involving you, your abusive ex boyfriend, Malcolm… and a man from the wall.

♥ It was a disaster, finding your ex at the pool table, playing away like he owned the thing, talking to you like you were still his, like Malcolm wasn’t there to listen and judge, like he was the lord, the master of this house.

♥ Yet the learn owner made it a point to show him who really owned anything in this place.

♥ The glass shattered from inside, the tall, lanky figure crawling out slowly, threateningly, standing tall in the living room, head tilting slightly, eyes focused on your ex, flickering only once to you and your injured forearm, the one that your past lover cut with his nails when he tried pulling you closer, right before smashing the doll against the table, and the sight seemed to agitate the being.

♥ “What the FUCK is that?!” your ex managed to sputter, but not long after the masked man rushed him down, grabbing the porcelain remains to stab his neck, repeatedly, before you came to and pulled him off the now dead bastard. It snapped back at you, both hands overpowering yours, how, you didn’t know. 

♥ Back crashing against the wall you tried to pry the man’s hands off your shoulders, but they wouldn’t budge, gripping tighter, forcing you to give and collapse down, the figure soon following and once he had you trapped, his eyes softened and you took in his appearance.

♥ Black hair, intense, gray eyes, a scruffy appearance, covered in sweat and a face hidden by a porcelain mask… reminding you so much of that boy in the painting, the doll.

♥ “B-Brahms?” you dared ask and his whole body relaxed, head giving you soft nods, leaning in, pressing his masked forehead against the crook of your neck, shaking, a soft whimper leaving his throat. “Oh God… you should be dead… what the… Brahms you killed a ma–” but before you could finish his arms enveloped you, pulling you in closer, a soft sob escaping him. 

♥ “Don’t leave me.” a soft voice spoke, child mixing with adult, something you realized came from him and the softer tone you’ve already met with before, that night you’ve been angry and already suspected a ghost was in the house. He left you a sandwich back then, now however, he was giving you a whole ass heartbreak. 

♥ “Oh darling, I won’t. I won’t hush.” you cooed him and a sudden realization hit you. This was going to be a problem.

♥ And OH BOY WERE YOU RIGHT.

♥ Sure, adult baby Brahms was problematic to say the least, but you were right to question the adult part the first time he spoke.

♥ Because now there you were, with him being an absolute brat and pinning you to the bed and you though he just wanted to rough house with you, like young boys usually do… Except there was a pretty obvious hard on in his pants and he was dangerously close to your neck, the cold porcelain that hid his lips trailing over your skin and you knew that man wanted to do SOMETHING.

♥ But he stopped.

♥ “Is this fine…?” the child spoke, scared and confused. “I want to… touch you…” and lowering his tone forth come the adult, letting his hands move from your jaw to your chest, clawing slightly at your shirt, stopping himself from going further, unsure of what to do.

♥ It took a moment to process, but finally you nodded, motioning for him to move back, so your shirt could come off, his eyes instantly moving down to adore your form, the shape, the curve, his breathing softly following the rhythm your chest followed and his hand reached out to touch, but was stopped. 

♥ “Brahms.” his head snapped back to attention hearing your voice and his head tilted slightly, questioning why would you stop him. “You can touch me… but the mask comes off.” 

♥ At that he shot back, getting off the bed and fighting himself to leave, rush into the walls, panic, but your hand pulled him back quickly enough, just the right amount of strength to make him fall back and onto your back, letting him see your handsome face as you bent over him slightly, giving him an amused smile.

♥ “I can’t really kiss you with it on, baby boy. And I don’t want my lips bruisin’.” You laughed and the conflict in his heart was visible through his eyes, you knew about the burns, knew why he acted this way, so jokingly you added: “You’ve seen my ex, Brahmsy, you know I ain’t picky.” And that, surprisingly, worked, making him chuckle lightly and rise his hands to the porcelain face, pulling it off, with eyes closed, too nervous to open them, letting you investigate the new view, curious hands running along his features, caressing even the bumpy, rough, burned skin. “Cutie.” you huffed and with that his eyes snapped open, startling you slightly, but before he could get worried you ruffled his hair jokingly. “Don’t startle me like that!”

♥ “You mean it?” he asked you, his tone showing that he was serious, anxious even.“Of course, darling. You’re darned adorable.”

“Oh…” He looked away, almost nervously, a hint of pink dusting his healthy cheek. “So…” He started again, unsure of his words. “Can I… touch you now?” 

♥ The shy smile on his lips made your heart melt and you quickly pulled him up, letting him turn so you could catch his face and kiss him lovingly, forehead, nose, cheeks, corners of his mouth and finally - lips. “Yes, you dummy!” you laughed warmly and seeing the joy reflect in his features was just pure bliss. “But only if you can beat me to it!” 

“Huh?” his surprise was well placed, as you overpowered him, pressing him gently into the mattress and attacking his lips with your own, stealing kiss after kiss in a hungry need and he tried to kiss you back properly, but there wasn’t any experience in that and that made him only so much more adorable.

♥ Soon enough your hand was on his crotch, rubbing softly, feeling his length, playing a small game of “guess the size” while your eyes focused on his bothered expression, his gaze just begging you to do more, to teach him more and his hands pulled you in closer, to hold onto you, to not panic. You hushed him, undoing his pants and shoving them away, then doing the same to his boxers.

♥ His hips were quick to rise to your touch, to feel the roughness of your fingers on his length, whimpering softly. 

♥ He melted in your hands, shivering every time your fingers pressed harder. You lifted his shirt and your tongue found one of his nipples to play with gently. The soft moan that came from his throat was a honest surprise, to you and him both, seeing as both of his hands went to his face and he groaned in annoyance.

♥ “Adorable.” you joked and he groaned again shooting you a barely angry stare, his thick brows knitting together, but not for long when your teeth pressed softly on his nipple, making his head loll back. 

“Don’t be...” Brahms voice was interrupted by a low moan and with it you could feel his dick twitch in your hands. “...Mean.” He finished and reached out to brush his fingers against your jaw, pulling you closer, tilting his head slightly. “Kiss?” he asked, trying to reach his childish tone, but failing miserably as every single stroke from you brought him closer to his peak.

♥ You laughed at his shy demand and humored him, pressing your naked chest against his still half-dressed one, leaning in to kiss his lips, careful not to overwhelm him, but to your surprise he was the one to grab your head and keep you close, smashing his mouth against yours in a messy, heated kiss, that lasted long enough for you to lose your breath, just like he did, but the heat only got broken because of his loud moan. His arms shoot forward and around your waist, pulling you as close as he could and soon enough you felt the warmth of his dick on your stomach, as well as the warm, sticky substance coming from it.

♥ Brahms whimpered once more, shyly looking towards you to see your annoyed expression.

♥ “Brahms...” you started with a growl.

“I’m sorry I--” he panicked, pulling away, but you help him in place with a tight hug. 

“Warn me next time, you doofus.” your voice hushed him and he gasped softly at your insult. 

♥ “Alright...” he answered, and his face found it’s place in the crook of your neck, giggling softly, letting you pet his back. “Hey... (Y/N)?”

“Yes, Brahms?”

“Can I... also make you feel good?” his question caught you a bit by surprise and you laughed, shaking your head in slight disbelief.

♥ “Yeah, I’d like that, sweetheart.” 

[pieceofmyheart8]

Truth Untold | Shawn Mendes Fan Fiction | Chapter Three

Truth Untold | Shawn Mendes Fan Fiction

Chapter Three

I got on the bus the next morning with the intention of distancing myself from Shawn again. Liam wouldn’t take too kindly to the idea that I was being all buddy-buddy with him.

Was I going to let a few smiles and jokes between us really shape what I thought about Shawn? Change what I knew to be true about him?

Emily said he broke her heart, and that’s what I chose to believe.

So, why was there this nagging sensation in my chest, this ominous feeling that things weren’t as they seemed?

“Hey babe, I’m just getting on my bus now,” Liam was saying to me over the phone. “I hate that I don’t get to see you as often.”

“I know,” I said, sighing. “I knew they would never pair us together. We would never get any work done.”

He laughed that beautiful laugh I loved.

“Oh yeah? What would we be doing instead?”

“We’d be —”

I cut off quickly, as I heard the bus door open and watched Shawn climb up the stairs and onto the bus.

“Alex?” Liam asked.

“Uh, sorry,” I stumbled. I didn’t know why I was all of a sudden so clammed up around Shawn. Like I didn’t want him to know I was talking to Liam.

“It’d be that dirty, huh?” Liam asked, teasingly.

I nervously let out a laugh. “Yup. You got me. Look, the first few kids are about to come on the bus. Gotta go.”

“Love you,” he said.

My cheeks burned. “Love you.”

I hung up quickly.

“How freakin’ adorable,” Shawn said, monotonously beside me. I rolled my eyes, facing frontwards so I didn’t have to look at him.

He looked over at me, seeing if I would take the bait. But, I didn’t. And he didn’t pursue the line of teasing. I closed my eyes, until we got to the next house.

He was probably confused because we had left on such good terms yesterday. If only he were in my head, he’d know that I’m trying to commit to distancing myself from him. Because I don’t trust him.

I had to remember — Emily was broken because of him. He cut her out, froze her out. He could do the same to me. At any time. So why get invested in some sort of friendship?

As we brought more kids on the bus, the less we had to talk to one another. Until one of our campers, Harry, piped up. He was a chatty kid.

“Hey, Shawn,” he said from the back of the bus.

“Yeah, Harry?” Shawn asked, leaning down to get to eye-level with this kid.

“We all want to ask you something, but the other kids are too scared to ask,” Harry said, boldly. His cheeks were chubby and his eyes were bright.

“What’s that?”

“Are you crushing on Alex?” Harry wondered, turning his baseball cap backwards on his head.

The nerve of this eight year old. My stomach twisted for some reason.

“Oh,” Shawn said, laughing. “No, no. Why do you think that?”

Harry shrugged and rolled his eyes. “I dunno.”

Shawn looked over at me briefly, in disbelief at this kid. And I couldn’t help but crack a smile. We both started laughing out loud, nervously.

“Love isn’t funny!” one of our other campers, Hannah, piped in.

“No, it’s not. We’re just definitely not in love,” I said to Hannah.

As we got to camp, the kids found another topic to discuss other than our love lives. Shawn hung back to chat with me, as the kids started running to the Main Hall.

“So, we’re definitely not in love, right?” Shawn said, nudging me slightly. My stomach twisted again.

I laughed. “Oh definitely not.”

“So definitive.”

“Well, I know what I want.”

“And clearly, I’m not it, eh?” he said, jokingly. But half of me thought he was serious.

I didn’t answer that. I saw Liam getting off his bus, and I edged away from Shawn instantly. I think he noticed.

“I’ll catch up with you in the Main Hall,” Shawn said, walking away.

From behind, I heard my name. I looked around and saw my two best friends from camp, Lily and Jess. Lily had fiery red hair that was always pulled up into a ponytail, and Jess had curtain black hair — perfect no matter what she did to it.

“So, did I just see the two of you getting along?” Lily asked, crunching on a granola bar.

“Maybe,” I admitted.

“See? He’s not half bad,” she teased.

“We’ll see,” I admitted.

“I thought Emily said he just cut her out,” Jess chimed in.

“Yeah, he did! I don’t know, I’m still not warmed up fully to him,” I said. “Plus, Liam would hate it if I got along with Shawn.”

“Ugh, he would definitely punch Shawn out,” Jess responded. “Anyway, enough drama talk. Did you hear about the party Malcolm is throwing at his parent’s house tonight? They went out of town.”

“Trying to rekindle their romance?” Lily asked, laughing.

Jess rolled her eyes. “Who cares? All that matters is Malcolm is throwing a party and we need to be there.”

Malcolm was one of Liam’s friends, and someone Lily was pretty interested in. We were definitely going tonight.

“You know, Malcolm is also pretty tight with Shawn,” Lily said. “He’ll be there.”

“Goodie,” I said sarcastically, as to not give away what my mind was really thinking.

Because strangely enough, I really wanted him to be there.

*

The party started at 9:30 PM, and we strolled in forty-five minutes later. I was wearing my high-waisted jean shorts and a white t-shirt. I always opted for the more casual look. Like, an “oh, I just threw this on, but still kinda look cute.”

Jess and Lily had their arms linked with one another and mine as we entered.

Everybody was crammed into his house and spilling out into the backyard. Music was blaring, as the beat roared through the room. Red cups and bottles lined the tables, as we walked through.

“Hey Alex!” I heard from behind. It was Liam.

I went over to give him a kiss.

“Hey Liam,” I greeted.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

“I’ve missed you more,” I replied.

“Ew,” Lily said, sticking out her tongue. “I’m going to go mingle with the single pringles to see if I can get away from all this gushing.”

We laughed.

“I’ll probably go join her to keep her out of trouble,” Jess laughed.

“Go,” I said, smiling.

Liam had his arm around me, and I looked up at him. He gave me another long kiss, and I couldn’t help but melt into it. But another part of me just wanted to see if Shawn was here. We broke apart for a moment, and my head wandered around to see who else was here.

“Who you looking for?” Liam asked.

“Hm? Oh, no one.”

I kept trying to steal glances at the crowd, until I saw the familiar wave of brown hair. My heart jolted. What was this feeling? Stop, Alex, stop it.

I saw him disappear out the back door. Looked like he was trying to follow someone.

“I’m going to go get some fresh air,” I told Liam.

“Sure. Want me to grab a drink for us?” he asked.

I nodded. I’m not sure what compelled me to do this, but I took the same path as Shawn and bee-lined for the back door.

As I opened it, I realized there weren’t very many people out there. I walked a little further out, until I heard tense voices at the back near the fence. One of them was Shawn’s.

I decided to stay behind a large plant near them, to see if I could hear what was happening.

“Emily, stop. I don’t want to do this right now,” he was saying.

So, the other person was Emily. I pressed my lips together and listened.

“Shawn, please,” she pleaded. “I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

“Please, Shawn, please. It was a mistake. A goddamn mistake,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

“Some colossal mistake,” he murmured.

“I still love you, Shawn,” she was saying.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes I do —”

“No, you don’t! You don’t love me, and you never have,” he retaliated, loudly. “You wouldn’t have — you wouldn’t have just…”

He trailed off, lost for her words. He sighed with frustration, and I couldn’t help but feel my heart ache for him. I was confused. 

“I need you. I’m so sorry,” she said, quietly. “But, I need you.”

“Em, I can’t do this. I loved you. I loved you so fucking much, but I can’t go back to that. Okay? I just can’t.”

“Shawn —” she called after him.

But, it was too late. He was already walking away from her. Towards the plant I was standing behind. Shit, shit.

I tried to shuffle away, but it was too late. He had walked in my direction and saw me. We locked eyes, and I know I looked ashamed for eavesdropping.

“Jesus,” he said when he saw me, visibly upset. His eyes were red from tears. “Great, I’m sure you heard all that.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Shawn —”

“Forget it. I don’t want to hear anything right now. Go tell Liam I made his sister cry,” he said, roughly.

“I won’t,” I said, quietly. “Shawn —”

“I gotta go,” he mumbled.

He pushed past me and into the house. I watched him disappear, left to stir in my own thoughts. Something else happened here, and I was going to get to the bottom of this.

__________________

What did you think of this chapter? Send a message in my ask or comment here :) Thank you for all the lovely messages so far! Makes my day! 

Read chapter one

Read chapter two

Look out for a new chapter this coming Sunday! 

[mojave-misfit]

1OO IMPORTANT CHARACTER QUESTIONS

original by @belomihelps

taken from beth kinderman and nikki walker’s the 100 most important things to know about your character. a good list to help develop a character’s background, personality, and general aspects.

PART 1: THE BASICS

What is your full name?  Charles Merle Quinn

Where and when were you born? Boston Massachusetts, October 13, 2050

Who are/were your parents? (Know their names, occupations, personalities, etc.) Mother: Carmilla Quinn nee’ Merle. Occupation: None, Personality: Easily agitated, kind, and somber, Father: Malcolm Quinn. Occupation: Photographer, Manager. Personality: Distant, Workaholic, Kind

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like? No

Where do you live now, and with whom? Describe the place and the person/people. I live in Red Rocket Truck Stop with two robots, Ada and Winston, and Dogmeat. 

What is your occupation? Railroad Agent, Mercenary, and General of the Minutemen

Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks. 5′7″, 145 lbs., Caucasian and Pale, Jet Black Hair, Pale Blue eyes, Whatever isn’t too bloody, scar on lip and right eyebrow.  

To which social class do you belong? The living one

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses? Easily tired

Are you right- or left-handed? Right-Handed

What does your voice sound like? (see Male Sole Survivor voice on YouTube)

What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently? Sorry

What do you have in your pockets? Candy and a knife

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics? Always picks up random things to build with, always having to have 5 packs of fancy lads snack cakes on hand, and never throwing away nuka cola of any variety. 

PART 2: GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general? Lonely. 

What is your earliest memory? Meeting my mother at 5 years old. 

How much schooling have you had? Bachelors Degree in Engineering

Did you enjoy school? No

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities? Military

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them. I always looked up to detectives. Basically anyone willing to provide justice to the world. 

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family? I didn’t have any other family other than my mother and father. The neighbors kept me whenever my dad was gone and passed me around like potato chips. 

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be James Bond. 

As a child, what were your favorite activities? Petting cats and Reading

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display? Quiet, Pyromanic, and Loner

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like? No. I had a cat. That was it. 

When and with whom was your first kiss? It was Nora on December 24, 2066

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? No, I lost my virginity on my wedding night on...August 25, 2072. 

If you are a supernatural being (i.e. mage, werewolf, vampire), tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities. If you are just a normal human, describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do today. Military training and the genuine will to live?...and my desire to avenge Nora and raise Shaun in peace. 

PART 3: PAST INFLUENCES

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far? Shaun being born. 

Who has had the most influence on you? My mother. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being alive. 

What is your greatest regret? Er...I try not to regret much. I guess..Never saying goodbye to my mother. 

What is the most evil thing you have ever done? Other than killing a man for a pair of ugly sunglasses or burning my home down? Not sure. 

Do you have a criminal record of any kind? I set a man and then a house on fire. 

When was the time you were the most frightened? When I was seven and my mother tried to strangle me. 

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you? Existing

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why? I would live happily with my mother and father. That was my only wish as a child. 

What is your best memory? Either marrying Nora, Shaun being born, or meeting Hancock.

What is your worst memory? See most frightened above. 

PART 4: BELIEFS & OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic? Realistic

What is your greatest fear? Another apocalypse

What are your religious views? Christian views, but I’m not very religious in general

What are your political views? Government in general holds too much power over people and too many corrupted individuals have held that power. 

What are your views on sex? *turns red* Er...well....only the 18 and consenting. 

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable? *gestures to wasteland with a raised eyebrow*

In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do? Enslave others

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love? Depends on how hopeful and/or drunk I am. 

What do you believe makes a successful life? Good friends, family, good food and drinks, and an unholy amount of turrets

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)? Depends on who I am around. I’m a fairly honest person, but I can hide emotions when needed. I am who I need to be. 

Do you have any biases or prejudices? Dogs are always better than people. 

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it? Enslave another person. Everyone should be able to decide how to live their own lives. 

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)? I’d die for the Railroad’s goal and for the people I care about. 

PART 5: RELATIONSHIPS W/OTHERS

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how? I treat everyone with polite distance at first. If they are rude to me, I tend to be even more distant. If they are nice, I’m less so. 

Who is the most important person in your life, and why? Shaun. He’s my son. 

Who is the person you respect the most, and why? I respect Nick Valentine the most. He is just a genuinely nice person when he has every reason not to be. 

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people. Rosa Stellata: Wonderful, Crazy, and Kind. Deacon: Sneaky Egg, Sad. Cait: Irish, Tougher than nails, Will kill you, Sad. Glory: Glorious, enough said. Drinking Buddy: He gives me Ice Cold Nuka-Cola I love him. Nick: Cool Synth Detective, Not a dick. Hancock: Perfect, Handsome, Funny, *goes on for about an hour*

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person. Nora was my wife. She was..wonderful, smart, beautiful, kind, and strong. Hancock..*blushes* He’s a force of nature. I’ve never met anyone who made me so happy to simply be alive. 

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened. Yeah. I've been in love with two people: Nora Cunningham, and John Hancock. Nora is in a better place, and John and I are still together.

What do you look for in a potential lover? Expressive eyes, a kind heart, and natural confidence. 

How close are you to your family? I was very close to Nora and Shaun. My parents? Much less so. 

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not? Yeah...Nora was my wife. I already described her, so...My son is an innocent child.

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help? No one. I don’t want to be a burden. 

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why? Whoever I’m traveling with. 

If you died or went missing, who would miss you? I hope no one will, but maybe the rest of the Railroad and Hancock, at least a bit. 

Who is the person you despise the most, and why? The raiders at Nuka-World. They enslaved so many people...and that is something I can't forgive.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict? I avoid conflict when I can. 

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations? No, but sometimes it just happens. 

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not? No. too many people working for the same thing is dangerous. 

Do you care what others think of you? To a certain degree. 

PART 6: LIKES & DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? I still love reading and petting animals. 

What is your most treasured possession? My wedding ring. 

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite food? Fancy Lads Snack Cakes. 

What, if anything, do you like to read? Magazines, books, blueprints, etc. 

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)? Watching other people try to kill things, reading, exploring, burning things, and the Red Menace game. 

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit? I take med-x and psycho in emergencies and drink Nuka-Cola Dark on occasion. I have no desire to quit as I want to live a little on both occasions. 

How do you spend a typical Saturday night? Sorting through weapons, ammo, armor, and/or supplies. 

What makes you laugh? Something funny. 

What, if anything, shocks or offends you? Entitled people who think they are better than others due to money or status. 

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself? Red Menace or rereading magazines

How do you deal with stress? Holotapes. 

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan? Spontaneous

What are your pet peeves? Everything has to be sorted into a certain container and I have to have 5 snack cakes with me at all times. 

PART 7: SELF IMAGES & OTHER

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted? Check ammo supply, go kill things, go kill more things, sell extra ammo and get usual ammo type, repeat until tired. Interruptions are welcome. 

What is your greatest strength as a person? Being okay with violence

What is your greatest weakness? Everything else

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I would forget a lot of things. 

Are you generally introverted or extroverted? Introverted

Are you generally organized or messy? messily organized

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at. Good: Building things, Modding weapons/armor, Shooting things. Bad: Explosives, killing mirelurk queens, dealing with people. 

Do you like yourself? No

What are your reasons for being an adventurer (or doing the strange and heroic things that RPG characters do)? Are your real reasons for doing this different than the ones you tell people in public? (If so, detail both sets of reasons…) I want to help people. I want to see others happy. 

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime? Destroying the Institute, Marry Hancock, and see Shaun grow up to be smart and kind. 

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Hopefully alive. 

If you could choose, how would you want to die? *shrugs* Burn to death? 

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left. Spend the day with Hancock, say goodbye to the Railroad, and bury Nora. 

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death? Being a decent person/father. 

What three words best describe your personality? odd, shy, and kind

What three words would others probably use to describe you? odd, shy, and kind

If you could, what advice would you, the player, give to your character? (You might even want to speak as if he or she were sitting right here in front of you, and use proper tone so he or she might heed your advice…) (Forgive him.)

((Edit: Minor changes.))

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – January 3, 2019

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

Archive

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also reread books I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

    June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

  November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

  November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

  September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J from President's Corner http://bit.ly/2CNqJdM via IFTTT

[lock-my-feelings-in-a-jar]

Right so

I propose

A music trade

You give me a ton of showaddywaddy music i have to listen to

And i give you an album by the move and an almost album by ace kefford (of the move) you have to listen to

(the move album is very long, so please bombard me with music)

by the looks of my browser tabs, i have never been more prepared to bombard in my life.

omg okay i'll just start linking things here.

this is the first song(different video but same song) i ever heard from them and it will never not make me laugh no matter how many times i see it:

i wonder why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWjMOOXaTRY (optional; the first video i've ever seen, same song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6gyP_Ty_B8 )

2. this is the second song i found after that first one got me hooked:

pretty little angel eyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48rq5HRVn_o (optional; i couldn't choose just one video for this song so here's a second one just to put my mind at ease: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2veG0JYK3C4 )

3. there are better quality ones for this song, but i'm linking this one specifically for the moment with dave and buddy (which starts at around 2:20):

under the moon of love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIBnYMltl0U

4. this is the one with al singing lead with malcolm using buddy as a drum while being on top of the piano:

say mama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_K4LEvyU-4

5. another one that makes me laugh every time because of buddy:

blue moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENHrMm4OnaQ (optional; the one where they dance in tight pants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csMbGdR7CA8 )

6. speaking of tight pants(another one al sings lead on):

king of the jive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok6RqFTdhfM

7. another one from the same show, linking this version specifically for malcolm's shenanigans:

hey rock n roll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s5aU-ezSxg

8. this one also has better quality ones but this is my favorite video for it:

trocadero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5PaBGURkto

9. this one i already knew the original of and i now love both versions:

doo wah diddy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-kbX2AmLJ0

10. i can(and have) listen(ed) to this on repeat for days and will never get sick of it:

who put the bomp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJyWf3UhWCE

11. this gets stuck in my head way too often:

remember then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPg3Mi4eosQ

12. linking this one mostly for more malcolm shenanigans but also for the "rubbish" bit: 

three steps to heaven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkGOUcEHa-4

i'm going to speed-link the rest because of reasons

13. sweet music(the end of the video is messed up but i'm just excited about MALCOLM WITHOUT SUNGLASSES): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3F-Emd_j9Q

14. sweet little rock n roller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gnQzIYQpXI

15. footsteps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp30pTWSvX0

16. why do lovers break each other's hearts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSqievaLw2A

17: when: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKA7QHu_KcY

18. dancin party(this was in a movie): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU_xNL0ql2w

19. the party: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow8Ohpll8Jc

20. heartbeat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIs0KCvCvDs

these ones don't have performance videos and are a little less goofy and more serious and/or slow and/or meaningful:

21: i don't want to dream anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or5vozTYqvM

22. smiling eyes(one of buddy's favorites): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siVHgbn36Ys

23. windows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSxoagi1fBo

24. i wish that i could undo all the bad that i have done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffq-HZu-CYU

25. lookin back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuJG7-DkNwo

26. showboat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnoqKyZ4C84

27. i'm yours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNogFPbb0M0

28. behind a painted smile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6qnMNX8ayk

29. really going out of my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzS29oU3WaU

30. paint your picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3F_UW7gOtU

31. swansong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDJYjBIOots

32. i don't like rock n roll no more(one of buddy's favorites): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LO5ydX5TfE

i could do more but i'll stop and just end it with this being optional because it's 30 minutes long:

33. the music med gummisko one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbDqd0e9DS8