#i want to discover more music because I do eventually want to just swap to mp3s and an mp3 player instead of spotify

[mokeonn]

I think the frustrating thing about Spotify recommendations is sometimes it really does introduce me to lots of cool Indie Bands that I really vibe with and allow me to try some new stuff and sometimes it keeps telling me that I need to Listen to Mother Mother (I have not listened to Mother Mother ever and at this point I never will because it is a pride thing.)

Or a random unfunny tiktok joke song from 3 years ago/ a viral YouTube song from over a decade ago.

[blueathens]

Midnight Masterlist

Remember: I will be writing other fics along with these so just be patient with both, and some songs will take longer than other’s because of inspiration, so any help is much appreciated too. You can also suggest other people, but the ones above doesn’t mean I will add them to my general masterlist, they are just ones I’ll write for these songs.

Attention: All stories that I write is purely fanfiction and when I write about real people it is once again purely fiction. I don’t know them in real life and all my ideas are my own. Also please don’t steal my work. Thank you.

Warning: Don’t steal my work thank you! Also all summaries are subject to change :)

Masterlist

Lavender Haze - (Daniel Ricciardo) ↬ For a relationship that is heavily in the limelight, the pair of them had to regularly dodge many rumours about their relationship, but for them they just want to hide from the world and live in their own world that only contains them.

Maroon - (Daniel Ricciardo) ↬ In which their relationship went from a loving, passionate flame to that flame being the cause of their relationship blowing up.

Anti-Hero - (Peter Parker) ↬ His lover wasn’t seen as a hero, nor was she seen a villain. Peter was a hero and the Green Goblin was a villain. For Y/n, she didn’t know where she stood and being so lost in a world full of good and bad made her fall into the rabbit hole of badness - not in the ‘destroy the world,’ way, but in the struggles of herself. And she begins to worry if those so called problems is going to give her the name of a ‘monster.’

Snow On The Beach - (Rúben Dias) ↬ It’s been a few dates and the couple is discovering how falling in love at the same time is truly a weird but beautiful thing.

You’re On Your Own, Kid - (Pope Heyward) ↬ Y/n and Pope has never had anyone, not really anyways. He was working towards his scholarship when he was younger, and now, a few years later, Y/n found a love for music and wrote about a boy who she thought could never love her back. But after those years, after she made a name for herself, she saw him, the boy who never had anyone like her, in the crowd of one of her performances.

Midnight Rain - (Steve Harrington) ↬ Y/n always wanted to get out of Hawkins, and she eventually did, even if that meant leaving Steve behind after he told he wanted the opposite for her. She wanted to be something more and he wanted his dream of a family. Maybe when she returns, they’ll be ready to do the dream he created for the pair of them, but right now she got to get out the the place that made her feel trapped.

Question…? - (Jude Bellingham) ↬ Y/n has questions for Jude after he gave her a kiss in front of the entire stadium. More importantly though, Y/n imaginary built a life whilst her curiosity remained in reality asking the questions of, “what about your lover?”

Vigilante Shit - (Sarah Cameron) ↬ The one where Y/n performs her new hit song about her telling the man - she has feud with - wife about everything he has done, and successfully she destroys his life. (Slight AU?)

Bejeweled - (Pierre Gasly, ft Lando Norris) ↬ In which Y/n realises she’s worth more than being another warm body to warm her lover with. (+ I Was All Over Her by Salvia Palth)

Labyrinth - (Daniel Ricciardo) ↬ The one where Daniel shows Y/n that love isn’t actually as scary as she always thought it was.

Karma - (Pedri González) ↬ The one where Y/n quietly tells her boyfriend that everything in her life is going so well. However, she knows that soon it will all come crumbling down, like it always does.

Sweet Nothings - (Charles Leclerc) ↬ Despite the chaotic limelight the couple are in, they are lucky enough to find comfort and peace within one another behind the closed doors.

Mastermind - (Daniel Ricciardo) ↬ Y/n admits to her husband how she was the one that swapped their name cards around so they could sit next to one another at the dinner between a mutual friend’s wedding. She tells him it was never accidental - but he knew.

The Great War - (John Stones) ↬ Y/n thought that this argument was the thing that was going to end their entire relationship due to past experiences, but her partner was quick to reassure her that these things were healthy and he was not going to go anywhere.

Paris - (Rúben Dias) ↬ For Rúben and Y/n, the only thing they see right now is each other, stumbling through the streets of Paris, pushing and pulling one another to passing walls to find peace within each other’s lips and home in their touches.

High Infidelity - (Charles Leclerc ft John Stones) ↬ Where the so called ‘perfect marriage’ doesn’t seem so perfect behind closed doors. No one knows about the neglected wife falling for another man, and no one is aware of the husband’s lack of love for his wife.

Glitch - (Ben White) ↬ Everyone Y/n is close to (along with herself) are surprised that she has been able to find a man to actually love and stay in a stable relationship with.

Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve - (John Stones) ↬ Y/n sits by herself in her room, writing a song about a relationship she regrets with a man who was a few years older than her. (Links with Dear John).

Dear Reader - (Jude Bellingham) ↬ Where Y/n is secretly falling apart and reminds the limelight that she is human too and she will make mistakes here and there - even in her relationship there been mistakes that he has forgiven her for despite her breaking down and stating he’s too good for her.

You’re Losing Me - (Daniel Ricciardo) ↬ In which his lack of care for their relationship is slowly making him lose her.

Hits Different - (Pedri González) ↬

[smash-64]

2022 Game of the Year Countdown 2. Panel de Pon Intelligent Systems Super Famicom, 1995

Yeah! FAIRIES!

In early January, @studentofthors​ said she wanted to try this game. I’m not into puzzle games, but I said I’d give it a shot. Between being completely lost and being stomped into the dust, I somehow developed a love for everything this game offers. Gorgeous visuals, overflowing charm, bright colors, funky bass guitar, and a depth to gameplay that far outreaches my humble skills. Panel de Pon is the greatest puzzle game I’ve ever played, and nothing else even registers on the scale.

Let’s start with the visuals. This game is so gorgeous, it’s hard to believe it’s a Super Famicom game. It has highly detailed and animated sprites, each one distinct from the others and displaying each fairy’s personality with the many reactions during games. The backgrounds are also gorgeous, and I just cannot understand why new Puzzle League games have removed this sort of thing. Just look at them!

Everything about this game is charming and upbeat. Positivity is kind of my thing, so seeing a character like Lip is really fun for me. And all of the fairies have detailed and colorful backgrounds.

Even the bad guys have a sort of charm to them. Thanatos is supposed to be scary, but some of his sprites are just ridiculous.

I cannot get enough of the music from this game. Neris’ theme is calm and relaxing, with a really funky slap bass beat when the panic theme kicks in. Flare’s theme is probably the most invigorating tune. Ruby has a great theme, too. And Walking on a Rainbow is one of my all-time favorite credits tunes. It’s just so calming and reassuring.

So, as everyone likes to point out, this game came West as Tetris Attack, rebranded as a Yoshi game. There was an N64 sequel planned, which ended up being rebranded as Pokemon Puzzle League, and while it did eventually get released on a Japan-only puzzle collection for GameCube, it seems like the developers had only one goal in mind for the series: remove ALL charm from sequels. No fairies anymore for Puzzle League games. This is supremely sad for me and honestly kills all desire for me to play the newer versions. I do like the actual puzzle gameplay, but the rest of the game was what really enticed me to begin with.

I cannot even begin to describe the gameplay to this game because it is so deep and complex. However, the basic concept is so simple, you can grasp the goal of the game in mere seconds. Yet, even after a year of playing this game, I’m probably considered barely even intermediate level. Watching tournament finals absolutely blows me away every single time. I’d lose to these people in literally 10 seconds. It’s absurd.

The VS mode is probably where the most fun can be found, as you can do the story mode against CPU opponents, or fight your friends. But there is an endless mode where you can go for a high score, and there is also a 1P puzzle mode where you are given a puzzle and must solve it within a certain amount of moves. There are an astounding 120 levels to this 1P puzzle mode. This game is 27 years old. I love it.

With the addition of this game to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription, you can play it online against anyone in the world. This was how I initially tried the game out, and it’s probably the best thing that ever happened to Panel de Pon. So many people are discovering the game this way, and are able to play against other people online. I even ordered a physical copy from Japan and swapped the board for a donor cart to be able to play it on my SNES. I brought it into work and we’re currently working on an interdepartmental tournament on break time! 

In the past year, I have gotten no fewer than seven people hooked on this game. I guess it’s similar enough to Candy Crush that people took to it quickly, but then stuck with it because it was more interesting and deeper. Take a break from your normal game rotation and check out something different.

[mackerelphones]

Video games I've played lately

Hey, hardcore gamers. This is WD of the Mackerel Phones News Network reporting from the front lines of "video games I played recently and still remember"

Metroid Fusion: Definitely an interesting spin on the Super Metroid design. The controls are less floaty, though Fusion doesn't feel as flawless to play as Zero Mission. The structure is much more linear, with the player locked into certain levels before being able to access others. Internally, each level has a bit of the nonlinear, exploratory design, with typical Metroid-style hidden paths, but the levels are almost always self-contained, with clearly telegraphed A to B to C progression until later on (probably around the point you're hunting for Nightmare). Despite what people will say online, though, it is possible to 100% it your first time through. This just involves knowing about the unintuitive hidden secret paths between every area and going through them in the right order with the Screw Attack. I admire that the story changes the status quo of the series, instead of trapping Samus in eternal stasis, even if the greater narrative focus would eventually spawn Metroid: Other M. For how much I saw people online talking it up as super scary, Fusion is more like a Saturday morning cartoon children's comic book version of horror. Hilariously, Samus says her surgery "damatically [alters her] physical appearance," but instead of being covered in scars, she's still a sexy supermodel at the end (not to say being covered in scars would necessarily mean she isn't sexy)

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: I had a blast returning to Metroid Prime, so I decided to beat Metroid Prime 2 after all these years. Some people online seem to disagree, but I consider this a downgrade in almost every way. I've never before played a video game that caused me to gasp "What were they thinking?" this often. The vapid dark/light theming is obnoxious, especially when the opening setup seems to promise a more complex narrative. The Light World seems designed organically to make sense and look good, but the Dark World is just an ugly, more barren palette swap instead of feeling like its own place. Okay, we're in the Ing Hive! Sounds interesting. But this sinister headquarters is just the Sanctuary Fortress painted black and much emptier. The Space Pirates have become more boring, brainless enemies, just marching forward shooting instead of dodging and jumping around like in the previous game. Dark Samus fails to have anything to do with anything--like, shouldn't she instead be clearly working for the Ing? It continues to have that really disturbing Metroid staple of murdering random wildlife, even when it's barely dangerous (I don't want to hurt some cool bug that isn't even attacking me!), but even more fucked up here because Samus does not give a shit if the animal is only attacking her because an Ing stole its body. The bosses also drag on to an almost hilarious extent. With some, I was pummelling an unflinching bullet sponge for like twenty minutes. In Prime, I could always understand what I had to do against a boss, not least because scans explained the weakness, whereas in Prime 2 I had to check an online guide for almost every new bizarrely unintuitive fight (and there are a lot more than in the first one). And that HORRIBLE Spider Guardian almost made me want to drop the game. I hear those of you who played the Wii port could jump in Morph Ball form, so you have no idea how much easier you had this waste of time. Also the ending is literally genocide. I appreciate how dark and bleak Prime 2 feels, however, and some of the music is still good

Dead Estate: This is a really fun horror-themed roguelike action game. Monsters chase Jeff and Jules into an isolated mansion one stormy night, but once locked inside, they discover it's a shifting, unnatural space full of even more monsters. They suddenly have guns now (the trailer shows Cordelia tossing them the guns), so time to kick ass. Since I can play Dead Estate, I know it must be on the easier end of the spectrum, but the variable difficulty options can probably assure a tough challenge. On opening, Dead Estate advises you to play it with a mouse and keyboard. Don't let that fool you! When I tried that setup, I thought the game was simply much too difficult to control. Before refunding it, though, I decided to try using a controller just once. Then I put over 40 hours into it before finally getting every true ending (except an A or S ending for Anya). Despite the horror theme, Dead Estate is 99% silly comedy. Many large, frequently jiggling breasts. In addition to the wacky roguelike, there is also a straight-up horror adventure game in which you play as the aforementioned Anya. (I would strongly recommend playing the normal game mode first, at least until you unlock Axel, whose cutscene shows how Anya ended up in the mansion to begin with.) Anya also has large breasts. My biggest disappointment is simply the genre: with so many colorful, wacky characters, it's a shame I can't see them really interact. I want to enjoy the chemistry Jeff and Jules have, and also let's see Fuji be gay

Enjoy the Diner: This is a charming Japanese adventure game/visual novel where you go to a diner. There are two endings. The characters all have extremely strange names, such as "Railroad Spike." I much preferred the first half, when it's a sad, psychological low-key absurdist story, when the nightmare seems to represent people suffering aimlessness and ennui, than the second half, when it instead veers into sci-fi romance stuff with lore. Pretty much all my criticisms are for that back half. The script does not quite grapple with how horrifying what happens to the main characters is, though that might be the intention. Still has great "vibes" throughout, and the art is fantastic, pixelated and in only three colors yet feeling as if drawn in pen. This isn't one of those reading text looking at PNGs and occasionally make a choice-type video games. Rather, you navigate the diner at will, interacting with the other characters through a dialogue menu that expands with new topics to discuss as you learn more. The only issue is that you can't skip through text, at least not as far as I could tell, which I found annoying when I would accidentally re-select a topic I had already discussed with the character. Also I hoped the main character would get some gay romance, but no such luck

Slay the Princess: It's a fun adventure game/visual novel thing. Not really all that deep, though, imo. I think it's a great example of something complex in structure (an impressive number of branching paths) but thematically not as rich as many of its fans seem to think. There's something going on about codependency. But the drama does not quite work, starting promising but becoming too abstract, focused on symbolic embodiments of cosmological concepts instead of characters (and also, at the end, veering into rambling about that "wanting to live forever instead of dying means you are scared of change" or even "dying is basically good" trope I hate so much). However, moment to moment, it's surprisingly fun to play! I had a blast. Got a few real laughs out of me. I'm satisfied I got the best ending just by being stubborn and disinterested in the finale, though I also went back to various points to poke around and see some of the other weird situations that could arise. Gore. Also, I had so much fun annoying a narrator here that I decided to bite the bullet and buy…

The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe: I finally got the remake of The Stanley Parable with 5+ hours of new adventures glued on. While the quantity of new content is admirable, and I was amazed to see, even if in silhouette, actual people in the speech ending, I'm overall not all that thrilled with what that new content is. See, the odd thing about The Stanley Parable is that it is often very funny but also frequently scary and sad, enough so that I wouldn't call it primarily funny. But people remember it, I think, as primarily funny. (Choice. It's the best part of being a real person.) With at least one major exception, the new material leans so heavily into the zany lol haha comedy that the more existential and unsettling writing seems lost. Then again, this might be deliberate, since to some extent the central joke is that the idea of a sequel to The Stanley Parable is ludicrous and misses the point, so (a lot of) the new paths parody a cashgrab sequel/lazy new content. Ultra Deluxe dares to ask: What if The Stanley Parable was the same, except there's a bucket?

[beautifulletdownfics]

Terrible to Meet You - A Harry Styles One Shot - Act 3, Hearts beat not fail

++

Harry wants to get out of the house. Alex wants to get home.

Alex meets Harry at at crossroads. Harry meets Alex on a one way street.

A coffee shop OU fic feat. lattes, lamingtons & that Great Unfathomable Feeling.

Story Page Here  My Masterlist Here

Read Act 1 & 2 Here

++

Four Walls 'I wanna make you feel how I feel when I'm listening to love songs'

For their first date, Harry took Alex to his favourite spot at the top of Golders Hill Park, the place with the view that often derailed his outdoor runs, it was so breathtaking.

For the two weeks leading up to him asking her, Harry made an effort to occasionally visit The Daily Dose in the afternoon as well as his daily morning visit.

On those afternoons he and Alex would usually end up in the park near the cafe-—just like that first time—spending hours talking about what they were watching or reading or telling each other about friends or family members, travel adventures and failures. Once, Harry listened to Alex list her top five arguments between her flatmates, which ranged from week-long silent treatments over unstacking the dishwasher to a year-long war over missing socks. Alex liked hearing about all the things Harry loved about being back home in London indefinitely. Harry's favourite thing was when Alex got passionate and started 'swearing in Australian' as he phrased it.

When he admitted to only knowing Australian music to be the likes of Kylie Minogue, Keith Urban and Gotye, Alex vowed to educate him. Later that evening, a text came through a link to a Spotify playlist and Harry listened to nothing else for months.

Neither said it to the other, but as their hearts watched their exchanges—beady little eyes flicking back and forth like tennis spectators inside rib cages—there was a sense a story was unravelling before them Harry and Alex were powerless to control. Harry saw it all as instantly as a human could, while Alex needed half an inch of beckoning to read along with the words on their page. How perfectly two stars aligned—one coming home while the other looked to a home on the too-far horizon.

Alex hadn't ever felt comfortable with someone so quickly, and it was rare for attraction to last for her. Romantically, her endeavours in London always fell a little flat, and she generally ended up on dates with other Australians. Or Kiwis.

Harry went against what she'd experienced before; he made eye contact, and he was attentive in conversations, he remembered little things and threads between her stories that made Alex feel heard and seen. He teased when she swore too much and asked questions when he didn't know something.

So, when Harry lay the picnic rug for them on the grass, only to discover it was covered in muddy paw prints and hair, she enjoyed the opportunity to laugh at him, and to be comforted by the nerves he rarely showed as he kicked the back of the rug in haste trying to clean it off. He lay it back down and sheepishly admitted it was usually for saving his sister's dog from messing up the back seats of his car when Harry dog-sat for her.

He looked flustered and thrown, and Alex thought it was perfect.

"Do you think Paul's face is permanently going to look like that?" Harry asked, waiting for her to glance over at him before doing his best rendition of Paul's smug expression. She laughed as Harry went back to pulling out the provisions he'd brought with him; snacks and water, a book for Alex to borrow, his film camera and then finally, a small, cardboard box from a bakery in East London he was anxious to give her. Alex put down the coffees they'd brought with them from The Daily Dose (Harry was proudly calling his a long black now) as Harry handed her what he hoped would be his silver bullet.

He glanced back up at her where she was standing to the side, taking in the park around them. He was glad he seemed to have taken her to somewhere new. This was his favourite place in London. Before Harry picked her up, Alex swapped her work clothes for a blue and white dress with just two thin straps up over her shoulders. Harry couldn't keep his eyes from settling on the freckles over her collarbones, he was utterly entranced by the newly exposed skin. She only got more attractive to him, although as he nearly spilled the honey almonds everywhere, he was sure the catalogue of moments where he looked like an idiot in front of her only grew.

"It's his universe stuff again," she adjusted the sunglasses on her nose, and shut her eyes beneath her glasses, tuning into the feeling of warmth from the sun around them. She was thinking about how the heat in London felt utterly different from the summers at home. The summer she'd give anything for right now, along with the feeling of home. In summer London got warm, but it didn't swelter like she craved. It was a crisp, clean warmness that she felt safe basking in. At home, weeks of heat started to feel suffocating and heavy.

"Does he still think I'm your cosmic event?" Harry asked after a quiet moment, thinking of Paul's declaration from a few days before. The two hearts leaned in closer, Harry's holding a hand out to Alex's.

Alex hummed out a sound that could go either way, turning around to see if she could help Harry setting up at all, "He also thinks Brad and Jen are going to get back together."

Harry squinted up at her, trying to appear unbothered as he patted the rug in invitation, "Could still happen though, right?"

Taking the few steps to the edge of the rug, she looked at him, taking in the way his bottom lip was pulled between his teeth. Was he talking about the celebrity couple or … "Maybe?"

It wasn't a conversation for their first date though, so Harry diverted it, "I'm still holding out hope for Ross and Rachel, to be honest."

When they were settled in their spot on the side of the hill, the expanse of parkland in front of them, Harry stretched his legs out lazily in front of him, watching as Alex lowered herself down and crossed hers in a pretzel sit beside him. He was hyper-aware of the spot on the side of his left thigh Alex's knee lightly pressed up against. Neither of them moved away from the other.

Slowly, Alex turned her attention back to the box, "What's this?"

"Open it," Harry smiled, "I got you something."

Alex felt her cheeks heat as he watched her fold back the top to reveal what was sitting inside.

Lamingtons.

Harry brought her lamingtons.

"How did you know about these?" Alex marvelled.

"I Googled 'How to get an Australian to fall for you', and this was Step One."

Alex felt her cheeks warm further and saw Harry notice it, "That's not something you can Google, surely."

He grinned back at her, itchy on the inside somehow and tingling all over, "I think at this point, you can Google literally anything."

Alex picked one up and held it between her fingers, struggling to take in the gesture of it. As she chewed through her first, tentative bite she thought of making the small cakes in her grandmother's kitchen during school holidays. They were such a nostalgic food, one that Alex hadn't thought about for a long time. As soon as Harry opened the box though, she was back to being ten-years-old, her feet sticking to the lino of her grandparent's kitchen while all her cousins, sandy and pink from the beach, fought over the plate while being scolded for flinging coconut pieces up the walls.

She took another bite of the lamington and a sip of her tea.

"These are bloody good," Harry's voice was muffled by his mouthful of chocolate, coconut sponge.

Alex laughed at him, "They're one of my favourites."

Harry's face lit up instantly, he'd hit the mark perfectly. He took the next step tentatively, "I really like you, Alex."

"I really like you too," Alex looked up at him, finding the words surprisingly easy to conjure despite the fact hearing them from Harry drilled a shaking fear through her. Her feelings all clicked into place a little too quickly with his, or so it seemed. She didn't know how to square the want for him with her need to leave, to get home. Nothing in her was as sure as the longing for Australia.

His gaze on her was expressionless, but not in an unsettling way, Harry was merely watching her, and Alex found herself calming, and settling into the moment. In fact, she watched him right back, as if hunting for the next piece in whatever puzzle they'd started together.

An exacerbated laugh let her lips eventually, and Harry's expression changed to silently question what was going through her head.

She was grinning at him from her spot beside him, hair framing her face as the sky behind them warmed with the sunset, "Doesn't this feel a little surreal?"

Harry could put his finger on the shared feeling immediately, "Feels like we've done this before, doesn't it?"

She nodded, "What was Step Two?" Alex asked him.

&&&

It rained.

Which, in hindsight, Harry should have made provisions for. It started lightly, and he and Alex stopped talking and looked at each other in shock. She held out her palm to the sky and started laughing while they both waited to see whether it was a passing sun shower or something that would settle in.

Only a few minutes later, they were scrambling into Harry's car almost completely drenched through. Alex hadn't stopped laughing, which Harry took to be a good thing, and it was contagious because he found himself with a sore stomach from his own laughter as well.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed out, wiping the hair from his forehead.

"When it rains, it pours here, doesn't it," Alex held herself in an upright position leaning forward to avoid her warm, wet skin sticking to Harry's seats. Her arms hung in the air in front of her as Alex collected the water droplets along her arms with her fingers.

"Don't worry about the car," Harry read her manoeuvring, swallowing away the wave of lust that swept through him at the sight of her singlet stuck to her body and the damp sheen of her skin. "Are you okay?"

"Yep, I'm good," she grinned over at him, hair stuck to her temples and neck, looking invigorated by the decimation of Harry's perfectly planned afternoon, not put out by it, "You don't have an old gym towel kicking out back there, do you?" She gestured to the back seat.

Harry's face screwed up, "No, and even if I did, I would not be offering you a used gym towel!"

"Usually, that would reassure me."

"I've got clean ones at home," Harry started slowly, "It's just around the corner …"

Alex vacillated between being terrified Harry liked her just as much as she liked him, and berating herself for the feeling.

A smile was splitting his face as he waited for his response, Alex envied the ease behind his charm, "Let's go."

&&&

Alex instantly loved his house.

It was clean and warm and understated. As Harry led her, he named the room as he went. Alex tried equally to take every inch in and tattoo it to the inside of her skull, trawling it for details and lessons about Harry, while at the same time trying desperately not to appear too nosy or eager.

Her dress was wet and uncomfortably stuck skin to her as they went.

There was an awkward moment when Harry left her in his laundry with a bathrobe and instructions to take off her wet clothes while he ran upstairs to do the same. A few minutes later, (during which Alex agonised over whether to take off her underwear or not) Harry quietly knocked on the door and said Alex's name as he came in with a fresh outfit and an armful of his own for the washing machine.

When they got to the kitchen, he offered to put the kettle on, and Harry's movement prompted her to notice an appliance sitting tucked away in the corner on the bench.

"What's that!"

Harry turned around at the sound of her cry, he'd been trying to breathe through thoughts of Alex wrapped in his robe which was somehow setting off a loud (horny) alarm in him, "What? What's what?"

"That!" Alex went towards him, a look of horror on her face as she stared at the espresso machine he barely used anymore, "Harry! What the hell is this?"

"Oh," he rested his hip against the bench and crossed his arms over his chest, "That?"

Alex bumped his shoulder with the heel of her hand, "You don't need to buy coffee every day, look at this beauty."

Harry felt her thigh pressed against his. He didn't move away from the touch. Instead, he let his palm find the small of her back while she ran her fingertips over the top of the silver machine in front of them, "I think you know why I do, actually, need to buy coffee every day."

Watching her in profile, Harry saw her lips quirked in understanding, although Alex tried to hide it.

When she was quiet for a few beats too long, Harry prompted her, "Alex?"

"It's Paul's clairvoyant services, isn't it?"

"It's really not," Harry laughed, "Although it was impressive he guessed my favourite Friends character based off my coffee order."

Alex rolled her eyes, "It was a lucky guess."

Harry laughed and leaned closer to her, angling himself so they were face to face and he could hear the unsteadiness of her breathing, "I go every day to see you," he tells her simply.

"I know," she pressed her lips together and flexed her fingers out from the fists they'd been squeezed in. "I'm glad you do."

"But you can come over and use this anytime you want," Harry said of his machine. His nose was so close to Alex's it almost itched.

He knew to kiss her then as if he'd lived it before or it was a moment that happened in another life, and something in Harry remembered it. Hearts reached out for each other and fell together in the centre as Harry's lips pressed to Alex's, there was a sigh of souls as if two pieces of time clicked together perfectly.

After not even a minute of having Harry's mouth against hers, Alex felt breathless, his chest pressing into the bulkiness of the bathrobe around her. She laughed at something her body understood, but she didn't yet, leaning away from Harry to take a breath and finding his lips greedy to keep her there.

"Harry, Harry, stop," Alex finally put her hands on him, fingers curving over the top of his shoulders and squeezing lightly.

He was breathless in front of her as well, faces together and lips upturned, "Yes?"

"This is insane, we shouldn't… This … This is insane." She laughed, her head moving back and forth.

Harry's brows furrowed, but the smile stayed across the rest of his face, "What is? Why is it insane?"

Alex wasn't enjoying stopping it, "I'm sorry, I don't—Don't you think starting something is a bad idea?"

His head tilted to one side, "I happen to think it's an excellent idea, actually."

"It's insane," her heart wasn't in the protest though.

"It's not," He argued back gently, sensing Alex stepping through something in her head. Something that Harry probably needed stepping through as well, "This happens."

"It does?"

"Two people meeting by chance and both being crazy for each other from the start? Yes."

"But this year …"

He grinned, swaying and holding her eyes with his, "Just agree and say you're crazy for me, Alex."

Alex half-rolled her eyes as she accepted the kiss coming her way, chaste and sweet, "I mean, the world is ending, Harry—

—If the world is ending," he gave her a look, "Then this is the best time, this is the time to just take your shot. What have you got to lose?"

Alex couldn't force herself into the same blind faith, "Nothing's for certain anymore."

Harry's gaze softened, "Nothing except how you feel, nothing except the person right in front of you, right now."

The person in front of her wasn't someone Alex was looking for at all.

"What's going to happen?" Alex asked, sounding young and unsure. Her fingers reached for Harry's, and she linked herself to him silently.

Harry replied honestly, "I don't know, but I want to find out."

&&&

505 'Oh, when you look at me like that, my darling, what did you expect?'

She woke with Harry's hand resting heavily across her ribs.

It took Alex's brain only a few seconds before her eyes flew open, and she reached aimlessly for her phone, "Shit."

4:12am.

Shit, she thought, brain drunk on sleep as her chest lit up with panic.

Alex wasn't of right mind, and so her attempt to slip out from Harry's bed and skip across the room for her belongings was met by staunch resistance from him. Immediately at her movement, his grip tightened in his sleep, and Harry's body leaned closer to her, his arm extending further around Alex's torso as his face contorted in a frown.

"Harry," she said more urgently, his bedroom dark and still around them, "I have to go."

Those words turned the lights on in his head, and Harry's eyes opened in the darkness, "What?"

It was four weeks since the first time she had been to his house but the night before was the first time Alex stayed over on a weeknight. (Weekends had almost exclusively been spent together) She didn't remember falling asleep. Things got heated after dinner and a movie on Harry's sofa and two orgasms later exhausted, so it seems, they broke the weeknight rule.

Alex wriggled away with the slight loosening of Harry's hold, "I have to go," she repeated.

Harry raised his head up to look for the time, "No, it's 4am, Al, no."

"We fell asleep," Alex covered his wrist with her hand and pulled it up with the duvet and started to kick her legs out. "I have to go home first before work."

"Why?" Harry asked, sitting up and squinting in the darkness to see where she was moving. He didn't understand why Alex never took advantage of the fact he lived closer to her job than she did.

"I don't have work clothes here."

"Alex," his arm lunged towards where the last of her was slipping out of his reach. Harry got a hold of her elbow and gently tugged it towards him, Alex's movement stopped, and he heard a quiet sigh come from her lips, "We'll find you something to wear here."

"Harry," she protested. Wearing a man's clothes only worked in movies, Alex had boobs and hips and wasn't any part of her that wished for the hit to her self esteem trying any of his clothes would provide.

"Alex."

"You won't have anything that will work for me."

Fit, fit was the word she meant.

Harry groaned, still barely able to think straight from being woken from the deepest sleep, "It's four o'clock in the morning, Alex, what were you going to do, get an Uber across London for a t-shirt and jeans? I'll give you a shirt, and you can wear the jeans you wore yesterday."

"I need black jeans for work."

"Paul won't care, and I'll drive you too," Harry thought it pertinent to try sweetening the deal, although he thought it went without saying. His next words came out more firmly, "I'm not letting you leave at 4am, come back go bed."

Alex obeyed, but she felt betrayed by her mind for giving in mostly due to sleepiness. Harry's chest was warm, and with the duvet back around her, she lay awake with the sound of his deep breathing as he slept on. It didn't take long for tears to prickle her eyes and a thick hotness to coat the back of her throat. Here she was in the arms of a man who'd completely taken her life by surprise, yet Alex had an overwhelming yearning for a place on the other side of the world.

Every time she spoke to her sister about the baby or heard from her brother and his fiancé about their wedding, the fire inside her raged with a frustrated and fierce calling for home.

How could she be so desperate to leave while at the same time feel like she had everything to lose in going? She sensed her life had come to be ruled by two separate timers: one counting down to the moment she got on a flight back home, and the other simultaneously counting down her time with Harry. One timer ticking down to something she wanted so much, but it also signified her losing something she had no idea she would get.

Shit, she thought.

&&&

Harry thought it was funny how Alex thought Paul didn't know they were seeing each other.

When he dropped her off at work that morning, she was adamant they go early, and he was not to pull up outside The Daily Dose. Harry had a right mind to call up his mum and apologise for all the times he or his sister asked her to do something similar dropping them off to school.

Alex was wearing the jeans she wore to his house on Saturday—and again on Sunday, evidentially she wasn't bothered wearing them twice in one weekend—and a long-sleeve t-shirt of his from somewhere along the line. It was a teal green Harry had not been keen on in the slightest until he saw Alex in it. She knotted it with a hair tie at her waist to fix it being too long on her. (Harry hadn't said he told her so)

"Do you want to stay over again tonight?" He asked, the engine running as he leant to peer around the street corner towards where the cafe was, "Are you sure I can't just drive you around to the front?

She shook her head at his second question, and then answered his first, "And run into the same clothing problem again?"

Harry smirked and ran his eyes across her chest, thinking of the moments immediately after he saw her wearing his shirt and how he promptly removed it from her, "I don't recall there being any problem."

"Harry!"

"We've broken the weeknight rule now, it's moot," he bargained. Trying not to think about the fact that at any moment, she could get the phone call or email that would mean he'd lose her. Harry wanted nothing more for her than for Alex to have certainty about getting back to her family in Australia, but that didn't mean the selfish half of him wasn't greedy for all the time he could get. "We can go and pick up some stuff from your place, I'll come to pick you up at three."

"You're relentless," she was halfway out, her leg out the car door as she gathered her handbag from the floor.

Harry grinned at her, "Sure am! Now, c'mere," he curled his finger at her, leaning his elbow onto the middle console.

Alex leant forward and kissed him, for all her resistence she couldn't help her next question, "Will you come in later this morning for a coffee?"

"Of course," his palm squeezed her forearm, "Have a good day."

He sat and watched her skip down the street and around the corner through the windscreen, smiling like a fool to himself. The phone number Harry dialled next was automatic, he didn't even think twice about how early it was.

"Good morning, my wonderful, son," his mother answered warmly.

"Morning, mum," Harry checked the traffic behind him and turned out onto the road. "How are you?"

"I'm good, my dear, what a treat to hear from you first thing. What's news from London?"

His whole life, he'd heard people say 'when you know, you know'…

"I've met the woman I'm going to marry, mum."

Well, Harry knew.

&&&

Sixteen 'Time. Suddenly, we got no time'

Two weeks later, on a Tuesday, Harry received the kind of phone call he'd do well to avoid ever getting again.

It had just gone 10pm, which was late for Alex to be awake on a work night.

Harry was spread out on the armchair in his bedroom where he'd been reading for the few hours after dinner. His bed beckoned, but he was trying to get through the final few chapters of his book.

Seeing his girlfriend's name flash up on his phone brought a smile to his face.

"Hey you," he answered, sure that she'd be on the other end of the call, bored or frustrated at not being able to sleep. It immediately became clear though, from the first sound Harry heard from her down the line, that something was very wrong. He listened to a shaky intake of breath and something like a whimper from her, "Alex? What's wrong?"

She pressed her hand into her chest to steady herself, "Can I come over?"

Harry was on his feet, "Yes, yes, of course. I can come to get you, where are you?"

"I'm already in an Uber," she said quietly.

"Are you alright? What's happened," Harry urged again, racing down the stairs from the top storey of his house, turning on all the lights as he went, "Alex?"

It was silly how upset she was, Alex couldn't stop the devastation she felt though, "Jess has gone into labour."

Harry stilled, his heartbreaking for her, "Oh, Alex, babe, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," she breathed out, shakily, "I just don't want to be alone right now."

"Is everything okay, I mean, this is early, right?"

"Jess is fine," Alex relayed, "It's just early."

Fifteen minutes later, Harry got a text saying her Uber was about to turn onto his street. He left the front door wide open and went down to meet her on the curb. He watched the headlights of a dark sedan slowly creep towards him, feeling a heavy dread inside him.

She's not supposed to be here for this, he thought to himself. It wasn't fair.

He thought of the conversations they'd already had about what would happen when Alex got notice of her flight back home. It was all Harry wanted for her, despite the fact it would mean living with his heart outside his body. Despite the fact it would put everything up in the air for him. He was determined to have her in his life, just as he was determined to do nothing but blindly encourage and support her return home.

Alex emerged from the back passenger door, saying a sincere thank you to the driver.

"Hey," Harry greeted her, pleased to see an overnight bag hanging off her shoulder.

"Hi," she stepped up to him and straight into his open arms, squeezing herself as tightly as she could against his chest.

&&&

His leg was numb, but Harry wasn't in any hurry to move.

He and Alex were wedged into the corner of his sofa, her lying between his legs with her torso across his, one of his legs propped up on the back cushion while the other wrapped around her hip on the other side.

It had been a little over an hour since she arrived, and Alex was waiting for a phone call confirming the birth of her sister's baby. The two of them had been quietly chatting back and forth while a quiet album played in the background, Alex teary and struggling while Harry did everything he could do soothe her through the waiting. But there was no feeling better, there was no magical way to fix it for her. Alex was as far away as humanly possible from her family at precisely the time she wanted to be with them. Instead of meeting her niece or nephew in person, Alex would be hearing about them from a phone call.

Harry felt the vibration coming from Alex's phone at the same moment she did. She sniffed against his chest and flipped it over where the screen was lit up with an incoming FaceTime. Harry's hands fell away from where they'd been crossed over her back, he watched Alex sit up between his legs and run her sleeve under her eyes.

"It's my brother-in-law," she told him, surprising Harry when she swiped to accept the video call.

The week before, when Harry told his mum about Alex, it was the first time his family had heard of her. And in the time since, Alex admitted her siblings already knew about him. Still, Harry wasn't sure how much they knew of him, and he didn't feel the need or want to insert himself into such an important family moment. Still, Alex wasn't moving away from him or making it seem at like she wanted to be alone for the call. Harry stayed where he was, looking up at Alex and observing her interaction silently from his spot.

"Alex!" The booming voice of her sister's husband filled Harry's warm, London living room.

She held the phone out in front of her face, face splitting into a colossal smile Harry wished he could bottle, "Matt, how is she? What's going on?"

"Jess is great," Matt told her, the white hospital wall behind him giving nothing away, "She did amazing. And we've got a little boy, Alex. He's perfect, you … You can't imagine how perfect."

Tears leaked out of her eyes instantly, "A boy!"

"A little man," he confirmed joyfully, blind with the love of a new parent.

Harry squeezed Alex's hip, feeling emotional himself. Wishing like anything Alex wasn't doing this over a phone screen. She mopped up her tears with the sleeve of her jumper.

"Show me him, where is he?" Alex was desperate to see her nephew, "Where's Jess?"

"She sent me out here to call you, we don't have great reception in the room," Matt explained. "As soon as she's up and moving, she'll call you herself."

"Oh, okay," Alex tried not to sound too disappointed.

Matt knew her well enough to sense it though, "It's alright, Alex. She's desperate to speak to you, Jess wants to be the one to introduce you to him. He's not looking his best at the moment now, anyway," Matt laughed, "They're kinda misshapen when they come out."

"I'm so happy," Alex said happily. "How are you?"

"Me!" Matt laughed, "I'm great. Your sister is a bloody legend. We miss you though."

"I miss you guys, too, more than ever."

Harry looked away from her face, focusing on the black TV screen across the room.

"You'll be back soon though," Matt was upbeat.

"I can't believe you're a dad!" Alex cried out happily, "I'm going to have to start writing down all the corrupt and illegal things I've witnessed you do, so I can turn your kid against you when they're older."

Matt laughed, "Ah, you fucker. I hope they never let you back in then."

&&&

"I'm such a wanker," Harry said into the blackness of his bedroom, sometime after 1am that evening.

Alex was lying beside him, stretched out across his bed with her legs kicked out on top of the bedding. They had the window open, letting in the warm summer air. It was making Alex feel like she could be at home, in a humid Sydney night.

"Why are you a wanker, Harry?"

"All this time, I've been silently glad you missed your flight back in May… Because it meant I got to mee yout. But after tonight, I—I'm such a dick for being happy about that. You should be with your family right now."

Harry wondered how Alex's usual optimism would measure up to his confession. He'd not seen such emotion from her tonight, her ability to snap her way out of negativity up until that point had been nobel. But she was devastated when he answered his phone earlier in the night, and part of Harry was surprised she wanted to be with him at all at the moment. Surely nothing in London could feel good when she longed so desperately for somewhere else.

"You're not a wanker, Harry."

"Well, I feel like one."

"Were you supposed to be in London right now?"

"Sorry?" He asked.

"If this year had gone how you planned," Alex explained, "Would you have been in London right now? Or in May?"

He thought for a moment, "No, I would have been on tour somewhere. Wasn't going to be in London much this year."

Harry had stopped measuring life by where he was meant to be a few months before, it was driving him mad.

Alex rolled over on her side and pulled Harry's arm against her chest, "Do you want me to say I'm glad your tour got cancelled so we had the chance to meet, to make you feel better?"

"Yes, actually," Harry smiled.

"So glad you've basically lost a year of work, don't know what I would have done without my new piece of London arse."

The next sound was her squeal of surprise when Harry launched himself on top of her, burrying his scratchy cheeks into the hollow of her neck and digging his fingers into her soft sides.

&&&

The next day, Alex got the email.

Notification of Repatriation Flight - London (Heathrow) to Sydney

&&&

Silent Readers: Click here Act 4, And love blooms in hearts not fields - coming soon!

+++

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[hatchetfieldtheories]

Return to Hatchetfield-Town - TGWDLM Part 2

Oh my god, we’re back again. Brothers, sisters, everybody sing – wait no

It’s TGWDLM part 2! Today we talk about coffee, those police siren sounds and we begin looking into Hidgens… god help us.  It also features a new theory I haven’t actually posted on the blog yet.

Also, please let me know if you’re enjoying these. They do take a lot of time, but they are a lot of fun to put together.

Part 1 | Part 3

Reality is falling apart as I stand here today… I guess it’s time for a coffee break

This is how I have entered every Starbucks I have ever been to.

Hey Starkid, when can we get a full version of the Black Coffee song?  

Has it been established yet whether Nora and Zoey had already been infected when they were teaching Emma the new tip song.  If yes, why did they just teach Emma the tip song and not infect her?  Just to embarrass her mid-song when she didn’t know the rest of the dance?  Or…

Thomas Sanders Voice – Theory Time

So at the end of Part 1, I established that the Hive had picked Paul to be their Hero, their star, way, way, early on at the start of their apotheosis.  Once we move into Let It Out/ Inevitable I’ll talk about this more, but basically – there is a reason they want Paul to survive the start of the show.  There is a reason the infected (and later McNamara) keep pressing him on what he wants. They need him to want something, so that they can get what they want, because that’s how the Worrisome Wombles (LiB) work.  They want him to want to destroy them, so he can be with Emma – that’s his drive. They’re very aware that without a want, they may not be able to manipulate him to do what they need.

Therefore it’s very possible that if Nora and Zoey had been infected early on, yet hadn’t infected Emma, it was because they were sure Emma would be the “thing” that Paul wants – they want their star of the show and they think they know who they can use to get it. /End of theory

Promise me you’ll think about the implications.

@abiimaryy​  can I just post your one post  that perfectly encapsulates that Starkid definitely did not think about the implications of that line when they wrote it? We’ve all long gone past the point of no return.

“Cup of Roasted Coffee” is track 4 on Now That’s What I Call Coffee. “Poisoned Coffee” is the album hidden track that you must play 20 minutes of silence to find.  Is this an old person reference now?

I also fully believe the coffee shop patrons were already beginning to be infected when the song began. Sure they were poisoned and their coffee contained the blue goo but the “in-time coffee cup dancing” and exaggerated synchronous sips is just too on the nose.  Their infections begun, they just needed that dose of poisoned coffee to kill them off to fully take them over.

At this point the Hive are still not particularly violent – ignoring the fact they kill three men with poisoned coffee in broad daylight.  

The cat is clearly not a secret Eldritch being

There’s nothing I love more than a fourth wall break, and Starkid have regularly establish fourth walls do not exist in their universes.  I can’t decide which is more telling of some kind of Hatchetfield link with the audience, Jon and Lauren wandering through the alley, or Joey giving the audience member an apple.   There is a wonderful theory that the audience is part of the B&W which @wolvesandvoices​  put into words here: x

“I didn’t think about the implications!” – me thinking back to that time 12 years ago when I discovered something called Harry Potter the musical by someone called Starkid. They were a funny group of people – wonder what they’re all doing now.

Paul’s work friends one by one popping out of the trash cans is hilarious, but its notable again that Mr Davidson was infecting people in his office – Bill notes that people kept coming out singing.  On my first watch I didn’t really take note of this, and just assumed Paul got out of the office before Mr Davidson could infect him, but taking into account the theories mentioned above and previously, this line just reaffirms that the Hive do not yet want Paul infected.

Who is the latte hottay? Answers on a postcard.

These aren’t spirit fingers... THESE are spirit fingers

Ted really doesn’t fully grasp the severity of what is happening around him.  The police are singing at you Ted, I don’t think they’re too fussed about your ID.  

I don’t really have much to say about Show Me Your Hands – it doesn’t really add much to theory fodder until the end.  That’s not to say I don’t love it, its one of my top songs in the show (tho I think all of the songs are in my top songs… I’m very indecisive). Shout out to Mariah’s dry delivery of “the cat is dead” and Robert’s siren noises.  My sincere hope is that in a future Hatchetfield production there is a need for a siren sound effect, and it is just a recording of Robert.

Charlotte touched the brain. The blue brain.  The brain covered in goo.  Pokey’s blue goo.  I’m sure that’s fine and has no ramifications later in the show.  

It is at this moment on my first watch that I realised how much Charlotte’s voice in this show sounds like Judy Garland.  

Oh Hidgens. He’s finally arrived.  Does he need an introduction?  From what I have seen from a lot of posts as people discover TGWDLM, a lot of people know about Hidgens before they even know what the show is about.  Which you know what, fair.  I’m sure Hidgens would be thrilled to discover his legacy.  I feel like it’s obvious, but I am assuming Robert intended Hidgens to sound like Doc from Back to the Future? Hmmm, a kooky “academic” who has an accident and ends up with a vision of something that could change the world.  Great Scott!

Hidgens, my dear, please don’t gesture to yourself while holding a gun.

Ok, so Hidgens theorised this exact scenario thirty years ago. I believe it has been established this happened when he was struck by lightning.  Now, lightning is used a LOT in Hatchetfield shows, and I did mention briefly here, that it could possibly be a play on the trope that in books and movies, the “creature comes alive” from a bolt of lightning.  Certainly the meteor is accompanied by a storm, which does make me believe that Hidgens was granted the vision by someone from the Black and White. Theories:

Pokey sent him the vision because he knew that it would entice Hidgens eventually due to his love of musical theatre. 

Webby sent him the vision in the misplaced hope that he would work on finding a solution

I also found a tweet by Nick which states that initially Hidgens was supposed to talk about the 1518 Dancing Plague which honestly – what does this mean.  Was this plague originally intended to be an early attempt by Pokey to infect the world?

Hidgens touched the brain. The blue brain.  The brain covered in goo.  Pokey’s blue goo.  I’m sure that’s fine and has no ramifications later in the show.  

I posted  a while back about the concept that Hidgens actually got infected early in the show, which has further implications for the likes of Charlotte also, but for now I’ll just post this really succinct theory by @westcoastbroadway​: x

Hatchetfield High Homework:

What other songs would feature on Now That’s What I Call Coffee?

Consider an AU where Prof Hidgens and Doc Brown are swapped.  How different would TGWDLM and Back to the Future be?

Once again, follow the wonderful people mentioned in the post.

See you in part 3 for Charlotte Theories and sad Bill time.

[secretobsessionstuff]

Infection

Here is the Dakota infection fic that I mentioned before! There is emeto in this because I can't resist.

Content Warning: Description of infected wound, blood, vomiting

-------------------------

The smell of grilled sausages greeted Dakota before he opened his eyes. They were having a real fire-cooked breakfast that morning because Blair insisted on making the most of their camping trip. It didn’t matter that there were muffins in the car; they were in the great outdoors, and they would act like it, gosh darn it!

Madix and Riley appeared to only have gotten half the message because they were fine with roasted hotdogs, but not so eager to leave their phones in the cars. At least there was good music coming from the speakers. Ah Ariana Grande—the sound of nature.

It took Dakota’s groggy mind a second to remember that he spent the night in a tent, but his achy muscles soon reminded him. Actually, his whole body hurt as if he ran up and down a hill all day yesterday.

Oh wait, he did do that.

The four of them had walked to the lake where they found a rope swing attached to the biggest tree. It was the perfect spot for launching themselves into the water because of the hill that the tree grew from. So, they spent the day running back and forth between the water and the rope.

Their perfect camping grounds were hardly a secret, but that was okay because it meant someone provided them with a rope swing. Unfortunately, it also meant that the ground was littered with metal and glass from disrespectful campers. They picked up as mush as they could find before doing flips off the rope.

Apparently, they didn’t have the best eye for trash because Dakota’s foot found a piece of a glass bottle that they missed. He had been coming back from the water, soaking wet with the biggest grin on his face, ready to jump again, when the glass shard cut into the bottom of his foot. Now Dakota, like the campers who littered in the first place, had been quite drunk. He felt the pain, certainly, but he soon forgot about it when the water washed the blood away. Until he got back to the campsite where he covered the cut with a bandage, he walked around with his skin torn open.

Dakota didn’t know it, but that cut was what made him wake up with the sickest stomach, and it was the cut that would eventually make him collapse during a hike. Well, not the cut, but what got into it.

The bandage was still on his foot when he woke that morning to the smell of breakfast being cooked. The smell turned his upset stomach, forcing him to crawl out of the tent.

Everyone was already awake, meaning he must have slept in if Riley was up before him. Blair was kneeling by the fire, turning the sausages as they cooked. Madix and Riley were sitting in their camp chairs around the fire, munching on peanuts. Chipmunks joined them for breakfast as well. The little animals scurried to where Riley held his hand open. When Dakota zipped open the tent, his friends all looked his way.

“Morning, baby!” Blair called. Her hair was in a messy bun that Dakota knew for sure wasn’t done deliberately. She looked sunny and wonderful.

“How did you two sleep?” Madix asked while shooting a glance at Riley. “Hopefully, nobody invaded your sleeping bag in the night.”

“Hey, I told you I got cold.” Riley countered. “And I heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like a bear.”

“And I told you there are no bear sightings in this forest.”

“Fine, it was a fox then.”

“What does—”

Dakota didn’t listen to his friend’s playful banter. It was a lovely morning with lovely company, but he wasn’t feeling so lovely. Everything from his head to his feet hurt, and one foot hurt more than the other. It almost felt like he had the flu, with burning eyes and aching muscles.

What made the morning even lovelier was seeing Blair so smiley. That at least helped how he was feeling. God, he really hoped he wasn’t getting the flu in the middle of the forest.

“I slept okay,” Blair said as she placed the sausages on a paper plate, “How about you, Kota? You’re waking up pretty late.”

Dakota couldn’t remember anything disrupting his sleep, but the fatigue in his bones made him question his answer. “I slept fine, but I feel weird.”

“Weird how?” Madix asked, accepting a plate from Blair.

“I don’t know. A little sick.”

“Well, you look sunburnt,” Riley said. “It’s probably from the heat.”

“Maybe.” Dakota shrugged and crossed his arms over his middle. The smell of the food was getting to him bad. It churned his stomach, reminding him of the reason he crawled out of the tent. He really didn’t want to worry Blair and take the smile away from her face, but he could feel the need to puke getting stronger. His mouth filled with saliva, and not because he was hungry.

While his friends ate, he pulled himself out of the chair and began walking away. He had to get far enough away so he wouldn’t upset Riley. Running wasn’t an option he discovered, as he needed to keep weight off his injured foot.

Dakota barely got twenty feet away from the fire before bending over with his hands on his knees. He only needed to burp once. The belch dislodged something in his stomach and suddenly he was retching up last night’s dinner onto the ground.

“Oh shit.” He heard Madix say. He didn’t know what Riley was doing, whether he was running away or covering his ears, but he felt bad either way. He hoped Riley was running away because he wasn’t close to being done.

By the time the second gush rushed up his throat, Blair was by his side. She patted his back as mostly-digested burgers and smores splattered at their feet. “Easy, babe.”

Dakota didn’t take it easy. He didn’t know how. He threw up everything in his stomach without stopping. He was hot and sweaty when he finished. Rather than feeling light-headed, he felt the opposite. His head pounded as if someone were trying to shove a million cotton balls in through his ears.

“Sorry,” he said simply while wiping his mouth. “That happened fast.”

Blair was still rubbing his back. “Are you hungover or something?”

“I don’t know.” This felt different from a hangover. He wanted to let his legs go out from under him. He wanted to lie down forever. He also didn’t want to stop Blair from having a good day.

“Are you okay? What do you need?” she asked, like he knew she would. She started leading him back to the tent with a comforting hand on his shoulder.

He let out a groan as he entered the tent. “I need to go back to sleep. I’m fucking exhausted.”

From outside, he heard Madix and Riley come back to the site. Madix poked his head into the tent. “Hangover or heat exhaustion, that is the question.”

“I’m sorry, Mads. I’m so sorry.” Dakota said with his hand over his eyes.

“Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t help it.” Madix looked back, probably checking on Riley. “Now, did you drink too much, or do I need to worry about heat stroke?”

God, no, Dakota thought to himself. Madix would undoubtedly make them pack up their tents if he had heat stroke. He didn’t think he was sick from drinking, but he wasn’t about to end their trip so soon. “I’m probably hungover. I just need to sleep it off.”

“Are you sure, baby?” Blair cooed while running her hand through his hair. “You don’t look good.”

“Listen, you guys go to the lake this morning while I rest, and I’ll be good to go on the hike this afternoon.”

Blair put two water bottles by his pillow. “You have to promise to drink lots of water.”

“I will, I promise.”

His friends eventually agreed to leave him in the tent to rest. Everyone wanted him to get better so that he could enjoy himself later.

Everything will be fine; it isn’t heat stroke. Dakota’s groggy mind replayed this sentence until he fell asleep.

He was right about it not being heat stroke, but wrong about the other thing.

…

Rustling in the nearby bushes woke Dakota from his nap. Checking his phone, he realized that he slept for nearly four hours. He let his head fall back onto his damp pillow. The nausea was slightly better, but everything else was worse. Every part of his body was throbbing in pain so maybe that’s why he didn’t bother to check the heat emanating up his ankle. Besides, there was enough heat on his forehead to roast that night’s marshmallows. The water bottles that Blair gave him were still full and now warm. He was sweating out every ounce of fluid left in his body, but the thought of filling stomach with liquid made him want to zip himself up into his sleeping bag and use it as a casket.

The rustling got louder and was accompanied by voices. It was his friends returning from the lake. For some reason Dakota suddenly thought that chugging the water bottles would make everyone happy. It would ease Blair’s worries about him being sick, and maybe it would even give him the energy to get up. And he wanted to get up so bad, so that’s what he did. He quickly found clothes in his duffel bag that would be good for hiking.

The water sloshed in his stomach as he greeted his friends around the firepit. He braced himself on the back of a chair and put a smile on his face.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Blair asked. She got up on her tiptoes—a sign for Dakota to bend down so she could kiss him.

“Better. I think a hike will be good for me.” Said no one ever who just finished puking their guts up. Dakota just said it, but he was a liar.

Apparently, he was a good liar. “Yay!” Blair exclaimed while swapping her flip flops for running shoes.

It wasn’t long before the group was ready for their hike. It was an uphill hike. Yippee, Dakota thought. It also wasn’t long before he started to fall behind in the marching order. Blair led the charge with Riley. The two of them played twenty questions while leading the way. Madix fell back as well. Dakota wasn’t being very subtle in his suffering. He knew that Madix was keeping an eye on him.

He huffed his way up the trail, feeling worse with every step. Feeling even worse with every other step as his right foot momentarily held his weight. He was back to being nauseous and dizzy, and feeling like the sky switched places with the earth. With how blurred his vision was, Dakota was surprised that he didn't trip. Maybe it would be okay to trip. It would give him a second to rest on the ground.

Aw hell, he didn’t need an excuse to rest.

Dakota called out to Madix in a weak voice. Luckily, Madix heard him even when a coughing fit broke up his request to stop. The coughing turned into gagging and forced Dakota back into the position from that morning with his hands on his knees. It was the sound of him gagging that made Madix call out to Riley and Blair, telling them to keep walking. He and Dakota would catch up soon.

Madix carefully stepped around protruding branches to reach his friend. “Why don’t you sit down.” He gestured to a group of large rocks on the side of the trail. Well, he picked a good place to stop.

Dakota held up a finger and then heaved up the water that sloshed and gurgled in his belly. It didn’t take many retches before the water was gone, leaving only bile left to throw up. One harsh retch had him toppling to the ground where he finished being sick on his hands and knees.

“Jesus, Kota,” Madix said while helping him up. “What, are we back in our undergrad?” He meant it as a joke; a throwback to the dorm room hangovers that made even water impossible to keep down. Madix’s easy expression turned serious when Dakota sat on the rock with his head in his hands. He looked bad. Far too sweaty for how little they walked. And something else seemed wrong. Madix put his hand on Dakota’s shoulder. “Hey, are you shaking?”

Dakota was indeed shaking. Shivering in the summer heat. “This is gonna sound ridiculous, but I’m cold.”

Madix frowned. He moved the hand that was on Dakota’s shoulder to the back of his neck. His skin was burning hot and slick with sweat. That wouldn’t have been too weird, but it was the shivering that worried Madix. “I think you have a fever. Something is making you sick and it isn’t the booze.”

Dakota was hardly listening. Everything hurt. He didn’t have the energy to theorize with Madix about what was making him feel like garbage. The ache in his head and his stomach was nothing compared to the throbbing inside his shoe.

“Dakota, are you hearing me? I want to take you back to the campsite.”

The boy didn’t move. He didn’t say anything as he bit his tongue in pain.

“Dakota?”

The shaking of his shoulders managed to pull him out of trance. “Sorry, sorry it’s my foot. It’s killing me.” He couldn’t take the pain anymore and kicked off his shoe. “I cut it the other day and it still hurts like hell.”

“Let me see,” Madix said, moving off the rock to get a better look. Immediately, the red and yellowish stain on Dakota’s sock made him worried.

Once Dakota took off the sock and the bandage, Madix recoiled with a hand over his mouth. “Oh God, fuck, why didn’t you say anything?” The smell hit Madix first. It wasn’t as bad as some wounds that he’d seen at the hospital, but it still caught him off the guard.

The cut was deep enough to warrant stitches, but the biggest problem was the yellow pus leaking from it. The entire bottom of his foot was red and swollen. After getting over the sight of the cut, Madix started thinking about how painful it must be to walk on.

“Is it bad?” Dakota asked, though he already knew the answer from the look on Madix’s face.

“Yeah, it’s bad. It’s infected.”

“Can you fix it?”

Madix shifted on his knees, trying to see the cut from a better angle. “If you showed it to me before it got this bad, then maybe, but not now. You need to go to the hospital.”

“Shit,” Dakota mumbled as he carefully put his sock and shoe back on.

Madix helped Dakota up and let him lean on him. “Shit is right. God, why do you make me worry so much?”

“It’s gonna make Blair worry too.” She was going to be even more upset than Madix. He hated being the reason she was upset. And it wasn’t even because he cut the trip short, but because he didn’t take better care of himself. “If only I weren’t so lovable.”

“Ha, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Madix said breathlessly. It was a lot harder to hike when a whole person was hanging off your arm. “See, all the appeal was stored in your foot, and now we’ll have to cut it off.”

Shockingly, Madix was being facetious. There would be no foot chopping that day, or any day. There might be a scolding from Blair but that was it. The cleaning of the wound would hurt less than the look of concern that Blair would wear. It was that look that would eventually make Dakota paranoid about treating every single cut, no matter how small. He could never see that look again.

[boredout305]

Kid Congo Powers Interview

Kid Congo Powers was a founding member of the Gun Club. He also played with The Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Powers currently fronts Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds and recently completed a memoir, Some New Kind of Kick.

           The following interview focuses on Some New Kind of Kick. In the book Powers recounts growing up in La Puente—a working-class, largely Latino city in Los Angeles County—in the 1960s, as well as his familial, professional and personal relationships. He describes the LA glam-rock scene (Powers was a frequenter of Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco), the interim period between glam and punk embodied by the Capitol Records swap meet, as well as LA’s first-wave, late-1970s punk scene.

           Well written, edited and awash with amazing photos, Some New Kind of Kick will appeal to fans of underground music as well as those interested in 1960-1980s Los Angeles (think Claude Bessy and Mike Davis). The book will be available from In the Red Records, their first venture into book publishing, soon.

Interview by Ryan Leach   

Kid Congo with the Pink Monkey Birds.

Ryan: Some New Kind of Kick reminded me of the New York Night Train oral histories you had compiled about 15 years ago. Was that the genesis of your book?

Kid: That was the genesis. You pinpointed it. Those pieces were done with Jonathan Toubin. It was a very early podcast. Jonathan wanted to do an audio version of my story for his website, New York Night Train. We did that back in the early 2000s. After we had completed those I left New York and moved to Washington D.C. I thought, “I have the outline for a book here.” Jonathan had created a discography and a timeline. I figured, “It’ll be great and really easy. We’ll just fill in some of the blanks and it’ll be done.” Here we are 15 years later.

Ryan: It was well worth it. It reads well. And I love the photographs. The photo of you as a kid with Frankenstein is amazing.

Kid: I’m glad you liked it. You’re the first person not involved in it that I’ve spoken with.  

Ryan: As someone from Los Angeles I enjoyed reading about your father’s life and work as a union welder in the 1960s. My grandfather was a union truck driver and my father is a cabinetmaker. My dad’s cousins worked at the General Motors Van Nuys Assembly plant. In a way you captured an old industrial blue-collar working class that’s nowhere near as robust as it once was in Los Angeles. It reminded of Mike Davis’ writings on the subject.

Kid: I haven’t lived in LA for so long that I didn’t realize it doesn’t exist anymore. I felt the times. It was a reflection on my experiences and my family’s experiences. It was very working class. My dad was proud to be a union member. It served him very well. He and my mother were set up for the rest of their lives. I grew up with a sense that he earned an honest living. My parents always told me not to be embarrassed by what you did for work. People would ask me, “What’s your book about? What’s the thrust of it?” As I was writing it, I was like, “I don’t know. I’ll find out when it’s done.” What you mentioned was an aspect of that.

           When I started the book and all throughout the writing I had gone to different writers’ workshops. We’d review each other’s work. It was a bunch of people who didn’t know me, didn’t know about music—at least the music I make. I just wanted to see if there was a story there. People were relating to what I was writing, which gave me the confidence to keep going.

Ryan: Some New Kind of Kick is different from Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s autobiography, Go Tell the Mountain. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but think of Pierce’s work as I read yours. Was Go Tell the Mountain on your mind as you were writing?

Kid: When I was writing about Jeffrey—it was my version of the story. It was about my relationship with him. I wasn’t thinking about his autobiography much at all. His autobiography is very different than mine. Nevertheless, there are some similarities. But his book flew off into flights of prose and fantasy. I tried to stay away from the stories that were already out there. The thing that’s interesting about Jeffrey is that everyone has a completely different story to tell about him. Everyone’s relationship with him was different.

Ryan: It’s a spectrum that’s completely filled in.

Kid: Exactly. One of the most significant relationships I’ve had in my life was with Jeffrey. Meeting him changed my life. It was an enduring relationship. It was important for me to tell my story of Jeffrey.

Ryan: The early part of your book covers growing up in La Puente and having older sisters who caught the El Monte Legion Stadium scene—groups like Thee Midniters. You told me years ago that you and Jeffrey were thinking about those days during the writing and recording of Mother Juno (1987).

Kid: That’s definitely true. Growing up in that area is another thing Jeffrey and I bonded over. We were music hounds at a young age. We talked a lot about La Puente, El Monte and San Gabriel Valley’s culture. We were able to pinpoint sounds we heard growing up there—music playing out of cars and oldies mixed in with Jimi Hendrix and Santana. That was the sound of San Gabriel Valley. It wasn’t all lowrider music. We were drawn to that mix of things. I remember “Yellow Eyes” off Mother Juno was our tribute to the San Gabriel Valley sound.

Ryan: You describe the Capitol Records Swap Meet in Some New Kind of Kick. In the pre-punk/Back Door Man days that was an important meet-up spot whose significance remains underappreciated.

Kid: The Capitol Records Swap Meet was a once-a-month event and hangout. It was a congregation of record collectors and music fans. You’d see the same people there over and over again. It was a community. Somehow everyone who was a diehard music fan knew about it. You could find bootlegs there. It went from glam to more of a Back Door Man-influenced vibe which was the harder-edged Detroit stuff—The Stooges and the MC5. You went there looking for oddities and rare records. I was barely a record collector back then. It’s where I discovered a lot of music. You had to be a pretty dedicated music fan to get up at 6 AM to go there, especially if you were a teenager.

Ryan: I enjoyed reading about your experiences as a young gay man in the 1970s. You’d frequent Rodney’s English Disco; I didn’t know you were so close to The Screamers. While not downplaying the prejudices gay men faced in the 1970s, it seemed fortuitous that these places and people existed for you in that post-Stonewall period.

Kid: Yeah. I was obviously drawn to The Screamers for a variety of reasons. It was a funny time. People didn’t really discuss being gay. People knew we were gay. I knew you were gay; you knew I was gay. But the fact that we never openly discussed it was very strange. Part of that was protection. It also had to do with the punk ethos of labels being taboo. I don’t think that The Screamers were very politicized back then and neither was I. We were just going wild. I was super young and still discovering things. I had that glam-rock door to go through. It was much more of a fantasy world than anything based in reality. But it allowed queerness. It struck a chord with me and it was a tribe. However, I did discover later on that glam rock was more of a pose than a sexual revolution.

           With some people in the punk scene like The Screamers and Gorilla Rose—they came from a background in drag and cabaret. I didn’t even know that when I met them. I found it out later on. They were already very experienced. They had an amazing camp aesthetic. I learned a lot about films and music through them. They were so advanced. It was all very serendipitous. I think my whole life has been serendipitous, floating from one thing to another.  

Ryan: You were in West Berlin when the Berlin Wall was breached in November 1989. “Here’s another historical event. I’m sure Kid Congo is on the scene.”

Kid: I know! The FBI must have a dossier on me. I was in New York on 9/11 too.

Ryan: A person who appears frequently in your book is your cousin Theresa who was tragically murdered. I take it her death remains a cold case.

Kid: Cold case. Her death changed my entire life. It was all very innocent before she died. That stopped everything. It was a real source of trauma. All progress up until that point went on hold until I got jolted out of it. I eventually decided to experience everything I could because life is short. That trauma fueled a lot of bad things, a lot of self-destructive impulses. It was my main demon that chased me throughout my early adult life. It was good to write about it. It’s still there and that’s probably because her murder remains unsolved. I have no resolution with it. I was hoping the book would give me some closure. We’ll see if it does.

Ryan: Theresa was an important person in your life that you wanted people to know about. You champion her.

Kid: I wanted to pay tribute to her. She changed my life. I had her confidence. I was at a crossroads at that point in my life, dealing with my sexuality. I wanted people to know about Theresa beyond my family. My editor Chris Campion really pulled that one out of me. It was a story that I told, but he said, “There’s so much more to this.” I replied, “No! Don’t make me do it.” I had a lot of stories, but it was great having Chris there to pull them together to create one big story. My original concept for the book was a coming-of-age story. Although it still is, I was originally going to stop before I even joined the Gun Club (in 1979). It was probably because I didn’t want to look at some of the things that happened afterwards. It was very good for my music. Every time I got uncomfortable, I’d go, “Oh, I’ve got to make a record and go on tour for a year and not think about this.” A lot of it was too scary to even think about. But the more I did it, the less scary it became and the more a story emerged. I had a very different book in mind than the one I completed. I’m glad I was pushed in that direction and that I was willing to be pushed. I wanted to tell these stories, but it was difficult.

Ryan: Of course, there are lighter parts in your book. There are wonderful, infamous characters like Bradly Field who make appearances.

Kid: Bradly Field was also a queer punker. He was the partner of Kristian Hoffman of The Mumps. I met Kristian in Los Angeles. We all knew Lance Loud of The Mumps because he had starred in An American Life (1973) which was the first reality TV show. It aired on PBS. I was a fan of The Mumps. Bradly came out to LA with Kristian for an elongated stay during a Mumps recording session. Of course, Bradly and I hit it off when we met. Bradly was a drummer—he played a single drum and a cracked symbol—in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Bradly was a real character. He was kind of a Peter Lorre, misanthropic miscreant. Bradly was charming while abrasively horrible at the same time. We were friends and I always remained on Bradly’s good side so there was never a problem.

           Bradly had invited me and some punkers to New York. He said that if we ever made it out there that we could stay with him. He probably had no idea we’d show up a month later. Bradly Field was an important person for me to know—an unashamedly gay, crazy person. He was a madman. I had very little interest in living a typical life. That includes a typical gay life. Bradly was just a great gay artist I met in New York when I was super young. He was also the tour manager of The Cramps at one point. You can imagine what that was like. Out of Lux and Ivy’s perverse nature they unleashed him on people.

Ryan: He was the right guy to have in your corner if the club didn’t pay you.  

Kid: Exactly. Who was going to say “no” to Bradly?

Ryan: You mention an early Gun Club track called “Body and Soul” that I’m unfamiliar with. I know you have a rehearsal tape of the original Creeping Ritual/Gun Club lineup (Kid Congo Powers, Don Snowden, Brad Dunning and Jeffrey Lee Pierce). Are any of these unreleased tracks on that tape?

Kid: No. Although I do have tapes, there’s no Creeping Ritual material on them. I spoke with Brad (Dunning) and he has tapes too. We both agreed that they’re unlistenable. They’re so terrible. Nevertheless, I’m going to have them digitized and I’ll take another listen to them. “Body and Soul” is an early Creeping Ritual song. At the time we thought, “Oh, this sounds like a Mink DeVille song.” At least in our minds it did. To the best of my ability I did record an approximation of “Body and Soul” on the Congo Norvell record Abnormals Anonymous (1997). I sort of reimagined it. That song was the beginning of things for me with Jeffrey. It wasn’t a clear path when we started The Gun Club. We didn’t say, “Oh, we’re going to be a blues-mixed-with-punk band.” It was a lot of toying around. It had to do with finding a style. Jeffrey had a lot of ideas. We also had musical limitations to consider. We were trying to turn it into something cohesive. There was a lot of reggae influence at the beginning. Jeffrey was a visionary who wanted to make the Gun Club work. Of course, to us he was a really advanced musician. We thought (bassist) Don Snowden was the greatest too. What’s funny is that I saw Don in Valencia, Spain, where he lives now. He came to one of our (Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds) shows a few years ago. He said, “Oh, I didn’t know how to play!”

Ryan: “I knew scales.”

Kid: Exactly. It was all perception. But we were ambitious and tenacious. We were certain we could make something really good out of what we had. That was it. We knew we had good taste in music. That was enough for us to continue on.

Ryan: I knew about The Cramps’ struggles with IRS Records and Miles Copeland. However, it took on a new meaning reading your book. Joining The Cramps started with a real high for you, recording Psychedelic Jungle (1981), and then stagnation occurred due to contractual conflicts.

Kid: There was excitement, success and activity for about a year or two. And then absolutely nothing. As I discuss in my book—and you can ask anyone who was in The Cramps—communication was not a big priority for Lux and Ivy. I was left to my own devices for a while. We were building, building, building and then it stopped. I wasn’t privy to what was going on. I knew they were depressed about it. The mood shifted. It was great recording Psychedelic Jungle and touring the world. The crowds were great everywhere we went. It was at that point that I started getting heavy into drugs. The time off left me with a lot of time to get into trouble. It was my first taste of any kind of success or notoriety. I’m not embarrassed to say that I fell into that trip: “Oh, you know who I am and I have all these musician friends now.” It was the gilded ‘80s. Things were quite decadent then. There was a lot of hard drug use. It wasn’t highly frowned upon to abuse those types of drugs in our circle. What was the reputation of The Gun Club? The drunkest, drug-addled band around. So there was a lot of support to go in that direction. Who knew it was going to go so downhill? We weren’t paying attention to consequences. Consequences be damned. So the drugs sapped a lot of energy out of it too.

           I recorded the one studio album (Psychedelic Jungle) with The Cramps and a live album (Smell of Female). The live record was good and fun, but it was a means to an end. It was recorded to get out of a contract. The Cramps were always going to do it their way. Lux and Ivy weren’t going to follow anyone’s rules. I don’t know why people expected them to. To this day, I wonder why people want more. I mean, they gave you everything. People ask me, “When is Ivy going to play again?” I tell them, “She’s done enough. She paid her dues. The music was great.”

Ryan: I think after 30-something years of touring, she’s earned her union card.

Kid: Exactly. She’s done her union work.

Ryan: In your book you discuss West Berlin in the late 1980s. That was a strange period of extreme highs and lows. During that time you were playing with the Bad Seeds, working with people like Wim Wenders (in Wings of Desire) and witnessed the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the GDR. Nevertheless, it was a very dark period marred by substance abuse. Luckily, you came out of it unscathed. As you recount, some people didn’t.

Kid: It was a period of extremes. In my mind, for years, I rewrote that scene. I would say, “Berlin was great”—and it was, that part was true—and then I’d read interviews with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey and they’d say, “Oh, the Tender Prey (1988) period was just the worst. It’s hard to even talk about it.” And I was like, “It was great! What are you talking about?” Then when I started writing about it, I was like, “Oh, fuck! It really wasn’t the best time.” I had been so focused on the good things and not the bad things. Prior to writing my book, I really hadn’t thought about how incredibly dark it was. That was a good thing for me to work out. Some very bad things happened to people around me. But while that was happening, it was a real peak for me as a musician. Some of the greatest work I was involved with was being done then. And yet I still chose to self-destruct. It was a case of right place, right time. But it was not necessarily what I thought it was.  

Ryan: Digressing back a bit, when we would chat years back I would ask you where you were at with this project. You seemed to be warming up to it as time went on. And I finally found a copy of the group’s album in Sydney, Australia, a year ago. I’m talking about Fur Bible (1985).

Kid: Oh, you got it?

Ryan: I did.

Kid: In Australia?

Ryan: Yes. It was part of my carry-on luggage.

Kid: I’m sure I can pinpoint the person who sold it to you.

Ryan: Are you coming around to that material now? I like the record.

Kid: Oh, yeah. I hated it for so long. People would say to me, “Oh, the Fur Bible record is great.” I’d respond, “No. It can’t possibly be great. I’m not going to listen to it again, so don’t even try me.” Eventually, I did listen to it and I thought, “Oh, this is pretty good.” I came around to it. I like it.

Ryan: You’ve made the transition!

Kid: I feel warmly about it. I like all of the people involved with it. That was kind of a bad time too. It was that post-Gun Club period. I felt like I had tried something unsuccessful with Fur Bible. I had a little bit of shame about that. Everything else I had been involved with had been successful, in my eyes. People liked everything else and people didn’t really like Fur Bible. It was a sleeper.

Ryan: It is.  

Kid: There’s nothing wrong with it. It was the first time I had put my voice on a record and it just irritated the hell out of me. It was a first step for me.

Ryan: You close your book with a heartfelt tribute to Jeffrey Lee Pierce. You wonder how your life would’ve turned out had you not met Jeffrey outside of that Pere Ubu show in 1979. Excluding family, I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone who’s had that sort of impact on my life.

Kid: As I was getting near the end of the book I was trying to figure out what it was about. A lot of it was about Jeffrey. Everything that moved me into becoming a musician and the life I lived after that was because of him. It was all because he said, “Here’s a guitar. You’re going to learn how to play it.” He had that confidence that I could do it. It was a mentorship. He would say, “You’re going to do this and you’re going to be great at it.” I was like, “Okay.” Jeffrey was the closest thing I had to a brother. We could have our arguments and disagreements, but in the end it didn’t matter. What mattered was our bond. Writing it down made it all clearer to me. His death sent me into a tailspin. I was entering the unknown. Jeffrey was like a cord that I had been hanging onto for so long and it was gone. I was more interested in writing about my relationship with him than about the music of the Gun Club. A lot of people loved Jeffrey. But there were others who said they loved him with disclaimers. I wanted to write something about Jeffrey without the disclaimers. That seemed like an important task—to honor him in a truthful manner.

Ryan: I’m glad that you did that. Jeffrey has his detractors, but they all seem to say something along the lines of “the guy still had the most indefatigable spirit and drive of any person I’ve ever known.”

Kid: That’s what drove everyone crazy!

Ryan: This book took you 15 years to finish. Completing it has to feel cathartic.  

Kid: I don’t know. Maybe it will when I see the printed book. When I was living in New York there was no time for reflection. I started it after I left New York, but it was at such a slow pace. It was done piecemeal. I wanted to give up at times. I had a lot of self-doubt. And like I said, I’d just go on tour for a year and take a long break. The pandemic made me finally put it to bed. I couldn’t jump up and go away on tour anymore. It feels great to have it done. When I read it through after the final edit I was actually shocked. I was moved by it. It was a feeling of accomplishment. It’s a different feeling than what you get with music. Looking at it as one story has been an eye-opener for me. I thought to myself, “How did I do all of that?”

           I see the book as the story of a music fan. I think most musicians start out as fans. Why would you do it otherwise? I never stopped being a fan. All of the opportunities that came my way were because I was a fan.

[mimik-u]

“The Future” Thoughts:

Okay, ngl, I’ve been putting this watch off because I wasn’t quite ready to end the show, but 😭😭😭 y’know, that’s part of the series’s overarching thesis in a way. Things end, but life goes on and changes all the same.

So let’s do this. Let’s finish Future.

AUGHDHHDHDHS. The exercise callback!!

Djddjdjskeksjjs, Lion transporting directly onto the boombox and breaking it.

“They’ve been so protective of me these last few months since my meltdown.” 🥺

Cookie cats! The Crewniverse is already pulling out all the nostalgia stops. (Lmao, do y’all remember that meme where it was like Episode 1: Steven summons his mom’s shield by eating ice cream. And then Episode X: Steven discovers his mom was a war criminal. EIORIDDJDJDJ.)

Pearl delicately eating a bite of Cookie Cat and going scrumptious dieidjdjsjsjs.

THE GEMS SINGING COOKIE CAT AND THEN GARNET DEADPAN SAYING, “He left his family behind.” JESUS

Because I’m assuming she sees what Steven’s future holds in that very moment.

Steven anticipates the Gems to make a huge fuss of protest, but Pearl proffers an understated, “When are you leaving?”

“Uh, tomorrow!” “Oh, so soon! Well, all human adolescents need to seize their independence eventually. I’m so happy for you.” JSISJSSJ

The gems proffer their well wishes and walk away, leaving a bewildered Steven. They’re affecting a casualness that they absolutely don’t feel to try and be supportive to Steven, but it’s not exactly what he wanted. 🥺

OWOEFJDJJSSJ, PERIDOT AND LAPIS’S EXPRESSIONS AS BISMUTH FRETS.

“Listen to me, Steven! You can’t run away from yourself. Wherever you go, you’ll be there—trust me, I know.” The delivery on this is so funny, but also, yikes!! JEJDJDJS.

Peridot crying. 🥺 “Where am I going to find a Steven as good as you, huh? I like this one so much.”

AWH, STEVEN GIVING PERI ONE OF HIS SHIRTS!! I think this is a really subtle callback to “Catch and Release” when she asked what a shirt was, lmao

OH, MY GOD!! THAT ART SET FOR LAPIS!!!!!

AUGH THE ORIGINAL CRYSTAL GEM FLAG BC ONCE UPON A TIME, BISMUTH WAS INSECURE ABOUT REALLY BEING A CG AFTER WHAT SHE’D DONE. AUGSHHDHDHSHSHSHSHS

This world doesn’t deserve Steven Universe omg

“You make me so proud to be a Crystal Gem.” I love Bismuth with my whole ass heart

“I’m going to use my tears to make a watercolor painting of you.” KWOEOFIDKDJJDDJJDJSJSNSNSNJS.

Where’s that spongebob tears of sweater meme when u need it

JASPER JUST BULLDOZING THROUGH THE WALL ROROROCOFIEJJSJSJS

Okay, as much as I love Jasper breaking through the wall again just to make an exit, I really wish we could have seen a bit more of both Steven and Jasper processing the accidental shattering. Hhhhhhh, maybe in a comic someday lmao

“Whoa, even Jasper’s more upset than my own family.” 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Amethyst trying to deflect by being all rambunctious and mischievous. 😭😭😭😭😭

Golf Quest Mini is that game Steven played the first time he went into Rose’s room, wasn’t it?

Pearl playing the bass 🥺🥺 I mentioned this in my movie write up, but I really love this new bond she has with Greg over music.

And Pearl doing a good job of deflecting, too. Hhhhhhhehshshhshshs, y’all. 😭😭😭😭

“Well, bust my britches. It’s Steven Universe.”

AWH, THE WEDDING SCRAPBOOK

“And I hope that one day, you can help me plan my own.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Steven crying as Garnet warps away has me emo. Y’allllllllll. Have a proper emotional reaction, pl e a s e

I know it’s coming. I know that’s the purpose of this episode, but oh my. Go d 😭😭😭 My poor boy.

The emptiness of his room now that he’s almost done packing. 😭😭😭

“You’re allowed to have feelings, even petty ones. They love you, kiddo. They’re probably just trying to be supportive.” 😭

Ugh, I love Greg Universe.

HHHHHHHH, GREG MOVING INTO THE BEACH HOUSE. THE KERRY MOONBEAM POSTER SUVH SMSNJSJSSJJSS

“I guess the Gems are going to swap one Universe for another.” There’s definitely a double meaning in this sentence. 😭

“It makes a kinda karmic sense that I just can’t resist.” 😭😭😭😭

Connverse kiss. 🥺

STRVEN YEETING THE BACK FUCK UP EKEOOEODJDKSOWISSIWOODOCOSOWKEMSKKSSKSN

“What’s wrong with you, guys?! Aren’t you sad I’m leaving?!”

THERE WE GO @ THE GEMS BURSTING INTO BIG ASS TEARS.

“Pearl agrees.” KWOEOFOFOIDIEKDIIDDIIDJSIDIDISIE

Oh, god okay. Them crying and hugging each other is all I needed from this episode 😭

“In fact, I’ve already planned over 363 versions of it.” KWKEKDJDJDS

“And we are a part of all of them. Wherever you end up, we will visit you to talk, to listen, to be there, whenever you need us. We love you, Steven.” I’M EMO 😭😭😭😭😭

I’m so glad that Dee Dee Magno Hall gets one more sob cry in 😭😭

THE TOWNIES SND THEIR GOODBYE BANNER AUSHSHJSHSHS

And Steven drives off into the distance as the sky glitters brilliantly above him.

His future is bright, full of stars.

This series—all of it—fundamentally changed my life. Thank you, Rebecca Sugar, and thank you, Crewniverse.

As thank you all so much for coming on this journey with me as I’ve wrapped up Future. It’s been amazing. 🖤

Final Ep. Thoughts: Kdeoksjdjsjs, this one really needed to be thirty minutes long, but my god, did they pull off a perfect last few minutes. 

Final Future Thoughts: I might write more on this later, but overall, not only do I think Future was an amazing installment in the series, but it was essential for the incredible work it did in showing the consequences of deep, lasting childhood trauma. That’s not a storyline you often see in media, especially as laid bare as the Crewniverse did with Steven’s story. I think it was a little rushed at times—I would have loved to see some more fallout from the bigger arcs (the shattering/Greg and Steven’s fight/more of Steven’s recovery), but I absolutely understand that the Crewniverse was working with time constraints. It’s an imperfect work, but as our very own Greg Universe said, if every porkchop were perfect... then we wouldn’t have hot dogs.

[inkyfishesii]

Ghosts ask 40 and 28 for Fanny and Thomas

Thank you for asking!! This got long, so under the cut!

28. Top 5 headcanons for [insert character name here]?

For Fanny:

There was a groundsman (other than the one that George banged) that she really had her eye on in life, but she was saving herself for the time her husband finally gave her the time of day (lol), so she never gave in, but there were plenty of ~charged moments~ in the stables, and she's always regretted it.

She had one child - a boy - and that was "enough" for her husband, so they stopped there. But she really wanted a girl, and she's secretly so happy that Alison is the last Button, because now in her head she thinks that her girl child would have been just like Alison - just as kind and warm and charming - although she'd never admit wanting that.

Whenever there were children in the house after her death, she would always stand awkwardly as Mary and Kitty "played" with them - looking down her nose at them - but secretly yearn that she could just hitch up her skirt and sit down on the floor and play with their little pudgy hands (but she couldn't, it would be indecent, not proper).

She always asks Alison for a "decent" novel to read, but as soon as no one's looking, she's reading Kitty's romantic smut instead >.> Eventually Alison twigs and gives her something more saucy, and Fanny is outraged at her publicly but then asks if there's anything else from the same author...

Most likely to write smut. She's effectively already fantastied about every combination of everyone in the house.

For Thomas:

Thomas would have actually been an incredibly good actor. Once, to help out a friend, he trod the boards for a while, and thanks to good memorisation and a penchant for the dramatic, the troupe wanted him to join for good. But they didn't let him write any of his own lines, so he refused.

His relationship with Isabelle was only a flitting momentary thing - kind of like how in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is moon-eyed over some other girl in the beginning of the play, but because of his tragic death it's assumed R&J were soulmates. He constantly fell in love / pursued / was rebuffed. Just with Isabelle it ended in his death.

He has some sort of ghostly power he hasn't discovered yet. He could just about effect a radio transmission, to make the static on a radio if tuned to a dead channel change, go higher or lower pitched. If he worked at it, he could make something almost like music.

He's a fully paid up member of the bisexual disaster squad, but never had the opportunity to explore. Loves certain parts of Greek literature, though >.>

Out of all the ghosts, he took the longest to accept he was dead. Probably at least a month. It was just too unfathomable that his mark on the earth was never truly made!

40. If you could do some kind of historical swap (i.e. place a ghost in a different period from their own), who would you choose and what period are they from now?

I would shift Julian forward just 10 more years to get "new Labour" Julian, because he'd essentially be the same person, but without all the significant homophobia. Just you know... the normal homophobia >.>

[thorne93]

History Repeats (Part 11)

Prompt: Life’s hard, right? Well throw in a not so great job, a broken heart, and chasing a pipe dream in LA. But could someone come along to make all the bad shit disappear? Or is he just another heartbreak waiting around the bend?

Warnings: language, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, angst/heartbreak, adult themes (??)

Word Count: 1818

Note: Aesthetic made by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo because she’s absolutely amazing Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo . Brainstorming from @carryonmyswansong​

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

“Hayden,” you said jovially as he covered your eyes, “where are we going?” you demanded playfully.

“Just a few more steps, please,” he requested, just behind you. 

A week had passed since Hayden had asked you out, trying to find a day that your schedules lined up. Now he’d had you blindfolded since you left the house, and when you got out of the car, he had you walking, covering your eyes with his hands now.

You thought you could hear water, you could hear people chatting, you could hear birds, you could hear...something hitting something, like wood on wood. 

You had no idea where you were. Your best guess was a pier. Maybe he was taking you fishing. 

“Okay, open,” Hayden quietly said and you slowly opened your eyes, the sunlight stinging at first as you looked around. You were at some sort of dock, with several gondolas.

“What is this?” you asked, looking at your surroundings with question. 

“Come on,” he said with a shy smile as he gestured for you to follow him, holding out his hand. “It’s a gondola ride,” he informed. “I thought instead of the typical dinner date, since we eat dinner all the time together, this might be a little more...fun.”

“I’ve never been on a boat before,” you softly murmured.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” he noted. “I’ll be there, not that that’s much comfort,” he teased. 

You scrunched your nose at him as he pulled you along to the rental booth, stating he had a reservation. After confirming all the details, they got your boat setup, a gondolier joining you. 

“After this, I thought we could grab lunch at a really small out of the way place I have in mind, if that’s okay with you?” he asked, seeming a little nervous.

Grinning at him, you nodded. “Of course, whatever you want.”

The two of you drifted for a little bit before the inevitable conversation started. You had started with talking about a couple of things you’d seen in the news, giving your opinion on it. Hayden agreed mostly with your views, offering questions or comments here and there. After a while, the conversation had steered from new to embarrassing moments that you’d had. You had recounted a time of being hotel manager that you’d walked in on a couple in a rather...explicit scene. 

“Oh my God,” Hayden said while laughing heartily. “You didn’t. Didn’t you knock?”

“I did! I thought I heard them say ‘Come in’ but I was mistaken. They had said, ‘Come on’...” you said, your cheeks blazing as you covered your face with your hands, laughing from the tale. 

“Not sure if that’s as bad as me walking in on Natalie during dress change for Star Wars,” he commented.

Your face went into shock as your mouth formed an O. “Oh no. Oh god. How did that happen?! You’re not serious. You’re messing with me,” you accused. 

He shook his head as he bit his bottom lip, chuckling. “Nope, not joking. It was, uh, it was...we were getting changed for one of the scenes. I thought I’d stop by to ask her her opinion on one of our next scenes. Her door was cracked open so I thought it was okay -- because she typically cracked the door when she was reading lines. I walked in and she was only halfway dressed.”

“Oh no!” you said, laughing. “Was she mad?”

Hayden shook his head. “No. She actually thought it was funny. I didn’t see anything but her back, but it still made it awkward for me for a while. She said that she thought she’d shut her door. The two of us eventually had a good laugh about it, but I thought I was a deadman when i opened that door.”

“Oh, aw,” you cooed sympathetically with a laugh. 

The two of you continued your sweet, blissful ride, swapping humiliating stories, reminiscing about hilarious childhood memories. The ride was so fun and light, the two of you laughing as you continued talking, learning about one another, and for you, falling more in love with him. Hayden truly was so sweet, level headed, down to earth, and yet, he had so many reasons that he could be totally full of himself. 

A few times, he asked you to elaborate or explain more about yourself, seemingly enthralled in your boring, mediocre life. The ride came to an end after a while, the two of you thanking your gondolier as you climbed out. He drove you over to a quaint cafe that was actually situated back in an alley. You had to go between two buildings, past a gorgeous courtyard, and then into the actual cafe. The two of you ordered and went back out to the courtyard and sat in the shade, continuing your conversation, learning all about each other.

The two of you touched a little on your personal lives. He told you about his parents, his sisters, diving into their relationship, and you loved and admired how highly he spoke of them. He was proud and impressed by all their accomplishments and it was wonderful to see that in a man. A huge turn off for you was someone who didn’t like their family. You offered up some about yourself as well, going into your childhood, your home life. 

At first, you weren’t sure that dating would be different from being friends, but quickly, you realized it was. Questions went from “What do you want for dinner?” to “What was your favorite meal growing up?” It felt backwards, to live together, to get used to each other domestically, and then start dating and learning about each other. But in one way, it got the worst part of the relationship out of the way. You weren’t learning about him in his everyday life, the two of you were trying to learn about each other, treading the waters to see if you had chemistry, anything to bond you two. 

Sure, as friends, as roommates, it was a pretty good time, but you’d seen before where friendships work, but the romance didn’t. In this case, you were praying that wasn’t true. And thus far, it proved not to be a problem. The two of you not finding anything you would consider a red flag or a deal breaker.

All too soon, the date was over and the two of you went back home to go back to living life as you had. You had some errands to run, as did Hayden, in different areas all over the city so you went your separate ways, the entire time mulling over the date, feeling giddy, excited and hopeful for the whole thing.

----------------------------------

A few days after your date, you were working your normal shift. Getting lost in paperwork, you were standing at the check in counter, the lobby completely empty, and you began to sing without thinking. Seeing as it was rather late, and you didn’t expect anyone to come around, you were humming a few bars of your own song when a man approached the counter, but you didn’t hear him. 

Not paying much attention, you continued singing when the man finally cleared his throat.

“Excuse me,” he softly said, making you jump.

You looked up and apologized, seeing a heavy set, middle-aged man leaning with one arm on the counter. 

“Oh, sir, I’m so sorry,” you apologized quickly, getting red-faced. 

“Not a problem. You have a good set of pipes on you,” he said, and you thanked him. “Typically, I don’t do this, but your voice...I’d like to work with you.” He pulled out his wallet and handed you a business card. “I’m Trey Corzon.”

“Trey Corzon?” you asked, fangirling and starstruck. Trey was one of the biggest names in music right now. The hottest names were popping up, and his name was all over them as the producer. 

“I’m a music producer. I was wondering if you’d like to give me a call sometime? Maybe we can work out some time in a booth. If you’d like,” he offered.

“I would love to,” you nearly shrieked.

“Do you have any demos?”

“Uh, yes, actually! I’ve got one with four tracks. Give me just a second and I’ll go get them,” you said just before you ran off to your office, grabbed the demo you kept on hand and raced back to him. “They’re a little rough, but I really think in the right hands, it could be something pretty special.” 

He took it from you and smiled. “Thanks. I’ll give it a listen. What’s your name?”

“I’m Y/F/N,” you said slowly, to make sure he heard all of it and remembered it as he shook your hand. “It’s an honor to meet you.” 

“Likewise, I’m sure,” he kindly said. “Well, hey, I gotta get running. Need to meet one of my artists at a release party. I’m gonna give this a listen in the next few days. Give me a ring, and we’ll set up something.”

“I will,” you promised, about to burst. 

“Thanks, have a good night.” 

The two of you waved as you waited until he was fully gone to do a small happy dance. You pulled out your phone and texted Hayden, telling him you had some great news.

--------------

Your shift finally ended and you nearly raced out of the hotel, throwing yourself into your car to speed home. As soon as you got in, Hayden’s face lit up.

“So what’s this great news?” he asked as he got up from the couch.

“I got discovered!” you nearly shouted, excitement in your face, voice, and body as you nearly jumped with glee. 

“You did? That’s fantastic!” he said as he ran over to you, sweeping you into his arms and spinning you around. When he sat you down, he cupped your face, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and brought his lips to yours, fervently. A congratulatory kiss. 

The kiss was swift, sweet, and punctuated with heat. When he let you go, you were breathless.

“Wow. I should get discovered more often,” you noted with bliss, your eyes still closed as he still cupped your face. He kissed your forehead and offered you to sit on the couch while he reheated leftovers for you. You told him all about it, how big of a deal it was, how excited you were. 

He seemed genuinely thrilled for you, unlike Jason, who constantly told you it was a pipe dream. The two of you talked for a little while longer, you getting entirely giddy about the idea of being a singer. Eventually, the two of you needed to go to bed though, so you bid each other a goodnight and parted ways, but for the first time in a while, you felt good about the future.

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

Forever Tag:

@essie1876​

@magpiegirl80​

@letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​

@marvel-imagines-yes-please​

@missinstantgratification​

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Hayden Christensen:

@coldlilheart​

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History Repeats:

@multifandomblog315​

[sylvermidnight]

Rusame’s Rival Waltz

I never intended this to be this long but I couldn’t stand splitting it into parts. So here’s a rusame one shot based on their relationship over time, and a waltz. Lovers to enemies to lovers.

1811 St. Petersburg Russia~

His hand grips his glass just a little too tightly. If he had not been wearing gloves one may have seen that his knuckles had gone as white as his face. Alfred F. Jones had never felt so out of place in all his life and he’d been in some odd situations. Parties like this just weren’t...His scene. They never had been despite how desperately Arthur had tried.

But with his first official ambassador having arrived in Russia two years prior, he didn’t have much of a choice. John Quincy Adams had managed to meet the Russian personification before him and that was just the slightest bit disrespectful. So here he stood, against the wall dressed in finery he felt much too uncomfortable in, swaying slightly to the sound of the music. He had to admit the Winter Palace was...More than he’d expected, almost intimidatingly so. As was his elusive host. He’d only met the man once for the customary greetings. He still didn’t have the man’s human name and he knew he was unlikely to get it. Despite how long and hard he’d fought he still wasn’t exactly an equal. Not yet.

Over the din of music and conversation he hears someone call his name, he takes a drink. He’d recognize that voice anywhere waking or sleeping. The British Empire had located him at last.

“America- Don’t ignore me boy I’m speaking to you!” His glass hits the table, almost shattering. He would have to remember to mind his strength, he’d been growing a lot lately. But something about his ex-caretaker’s presence burned him up inside. Angered him beyond reason. But just as he opens his mouth to speak, to give some snippy fiery remark, he feels a gentle arm wrap around his waist from behind and he’s pulled forward out into the center of the room.

The dance floor. Once the world stops spinning and confusion leaves him he understands that’s where he is and that someone had pulled him there. Which means- He looks up to discover his surprise partner and his heart stutters. Russia looks down at him with the strangest warmest smile. He’s amused clearly and something in Alfred feels offended yet intrigued. It’s so far from the belittling laughter and smiles of the others. His eyes despite being cold in color and nature appear warm in that moment.

“I assumed you could use the assistance.” The man clarifies placing his hand against his waist to lead him in a waltz. Alfred struggles here, used to leading, not being led. He nearly trips over his own feet but regains himself in enough time not to make a fool of them both. 

“I could have handled him. It’s just Britain. Nothing I haven’t experienced before.” He didn’t want to appear weak. Not in front of the man he wanted as his ally. Not in front of someone he was admittedly eager to impress. 

“That’s true, but I doubt you would have wanted to. With all kindness he can be quite a pain.” Before Alfred had time to think of a response he was being led in a spin and eventually an actual twirl and then all hope of furthering that conversation came to an end. He even began to enjoy himself just a little bit, and that was a first. He’d never really liked dancing before, he was clumsy and awkward. But this felt right...Perhaps even natural. And even though he knows he shouldn’t, that in their world it would be seen as disrespectful, he looked up and he smiled.

Perhaps that’s what did them both in. That smile, the gentle hand against Alfred’s waist tightening just so slightly. The way Russia’s eyes showed a pure form of awe and surprise, and the way Alfred’s shown with stars. When the smile was returned something was sealed between them. A mischievous look passed Russia’s eyes and though it doesn’t break the moment he decides now would be an excellent time to dip his partner just to feel his grip on him tighten in surprise. Seeing if he could shock that daring bravery right out of this little upstart of a nation. But he doesn’t, and when Alfred comes back up his grin has widened even further, assuring that yes, they were both quite entranced.

The night progresses in this fashion. Eventually the dance dissolves into something with a little more showmanship. Something Alfred claims is popular at his home, adding more dips and spins than perhaps either of them could keep up with. But with breathless laughter and warm smiles shared neither of them cared. It came to an end all too quickly, one of Alfred’s men coming to gently inform him they must leave that very night. The moment stirred but did not break as the young nation looked up at his host. A quiet confirmation. They would see each other again. They would experience yet again this purest form of happiness and they would vow to know each other better. They simply must.

And so before Alfred could slip away Russia pressed him close to his chest one last time to finish their dance. “Ivan Braginsky,” he says in the softest of tones. For Alfred’s ears only. “I thought you would be curious.”

A human name was a high honor. One of trust and respect. To have earned it in one night was not a small accomplishment. But Alfred simply smiles coyly and slips from his grasp. “Write to me. Then I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

And he leaves Ivan there, with the image of stars and a million questions.

1955 Geneva Switzerland~

What was the point of all this? He didn’t even know. His head is pounding, his drink just isn’t strong enough. He needs to get out of here and find something stronger. Perhaps snag one of his allies on the way out to go with him. He didn’t really like hitting the bars alone; it made him feel pathetic. Alfred’s eyes scan the party lain out before him. It wasn’t anything special really. It didn’t hold a candle to anything they had held back in the day, but Switzerland had tried his best.

He had heard that Eisenhower and Khrushchev were going to attempt a civil meeting and he’d taken it upon himself to try and put this together as a celebration. Of what though? It wasn’t as if things were going to get better. Alfred had even insisted upon this to Eisenhower’s face. But the man didn’t listen. When had they stopped respecting him? And when had he pulled his flask from his pocket? And-

An all too familiar touch on his arm. Not gentle but forceful and pulling. He drops the flask but the metallic clang is hidden by the sound of the music and so are his cries of protest. Once steady on his feet he looks up into Ivan’s bright violet eyes. He’s probably drunk. But it doesn’t matter. So is Alfred. He sets his face into a grimace and once again tries to pull away again but Ivan is unrelenting in his silent insistence of a waltz. So Alfred goes along to get along. For now.

“What are you doing Braginsky you’re going to make a scene!” He hissed as the other twirls him around with the practiced ease of a lover. To distract him surely.

“What does it look like Jones? Is it a crime to wish a dance from you these days? Once upon a time I needn’t even ask.” That was true. But that was thin and this is now and America could not be seen being pulled around the dance floor by Russia which is why Alfred pulled away to swap their roles. If only for a moment.

“You know damn well why. I don’t even want to look at you let alone dance with you. You might spread something just by breathing on me.” He says aggressively dipping the man in his arms. He was lucky he was strong or that would have toppled them both. But he was older now and better on his feet. Or so he thought until Ivan came up and brought him into a lift that landed him distracted and once again being led.

“We both know that’s not true Солнце(1). If it was you wouldn’t be here now. You have the strength to walk away, and I the decency to if you truly asked it of me.” Alfred hated to admit he was right. Something in him felt alive again from the simplest contact. The rush of the music and the familiarity of the dance. And Ivan...He had missed him but he would never admit that to himself or anyone else.

And that’s why he decided he wasn’t going to make this easy on the other. Even without leading he pulled the Russian into dips and twirls. Thrusting all his weight and trust into the other. If Alfred fell they both would and in this state he was willing to risk his own reputation to bring him down too. Because he couldn’t stand this, this feeling. Like his heart was being torn from his chest. Like that first dance all those years ago soft and sweet but now forbidden and that longing turned him into some unrecognizable thing. Something he was so certain Ivan couldn’t love, and he was sure that’s why he had left. To bigger and better things leaving him behind.

The heat in their steps was obvious. But love also. It was clearly a battle, anyone looking could see that. But there was love there as well. Neither let the other fall and they blended together with well thought out practice and prediction. Neither actually hurt each other physically but they knew what they were during. Pouring accelerant on an open flame. Awakening and denying old feelings they knew had to be kept locked away and tearing them apart in the process. Funny. No one really realized this sort of destruction. No one really realized the state they were in. 

With a final dip the dance comes to an end and they stay there a moment catching their breath. Or perhaps reveling in this last moment in each other’s arms. Alfred closes his eyes and he can imagine a place centuries ago now. Warm and safe where the world wasn’t out to get him and love was a reality and not a fantasy. It was nice but it wasn’t real. So when he straightens his eyes are cold and though Ivan can still see the stars they seem so far away now. He worries he cannot reach them.

“Nice try Braginsky. But we both know this changes nothing.” His voice is cold but his heart strains. He will not leave for the bar. He will head to his hotel room alone and he will try to forget using any means he can find.

And Ivan just smiles “Not yet Милый(2). But perhaps soon. If we are truly lucky.”

Alfred walks away and he does not look back. If he looked back he would shatter and he feared he’d never be able to pick up the pieces again.

-----------------

1- Sunshine

2- Darling

[drproximo]

Original Versions of Songs You Didn’t Know were Covers

Originally published for Geeks and Beats, August 2017.

https://www.geeksandbeats.com/2017/08/songs-didnt-know-covers/

I love a well-done cover song, and I especially love a well-done cover that deviates from the original. There’s something endlessly fascinating about how two different people can arrange such dramatically different interpretations of the same source material. What makes this especially fun is when you discover that a song you’ve been enjoying for years is itself a reinterpretation. Sometimes it even goes a step further, and a song that you knew as a cover turns out to be a cover of a cover. Researching this list became a much more involved “rabbit hole” than I ever anticipated, and I am delighted to share my findings with you. I’m confident that, like me, you’ll have more than a few “whoa, I didn’t know that!” moments. 

Bruce Springsteen – Blinded by the Light

When a WatchMojo video got me digging into this awhile back, this was the one that surprised me most. This is one of those songs that I feel like I’ve been aware of for as long as I’ve cared about music. So it was a bit of a shock to discover in my 40s that, not only is it a cover, but it was originally by The Boss. There are differences in the arrangement and the lyrics, but the Manfred Mann version is generally considered the definitive rendition. 

Tina Turner – Don’t Turn Around

While “Blinded by the Light” was the big surprise on my first dive into this topic, this next one blew me away even moreso. Ace of Base’s third most successful single was originally a Tina Turner song, the B-side of her 1986 single “Typical Male”. Bonnie Tyler, whose repertoire of covers is expansive and impressive, also did her own interpretation on 1988’s Hide Your Heart. 

I’ve Got My Mind Set On You – James Ray 

Time for a little history about “Weird Al” Yankovic. In 1988, Al released his album Even Worse. The title had two meanings. First of all, the lead single was “Fat”, a parody of Michael Jackson’s “Bad”, and the album cover was also a direct parody of Jackson’s Bad cover. In other words, since Jackson was declaring himself to be “Bad”, Al decided he was “Even Worse”. Second, all of the other parodies were of covers that had recently been hit singles, by Tiffany, Billy Idol, Los Lobos, and George Harrison.

The last one was the one that surprised me. Harrison’s most solid 80s hit was actually a cover. I owned 45s of the originals of all the others, but I had never heard James Ray’s original of “I’ve Got My Mind Set On You” (which Al turned into “(This Song’s Just) Six Words Long“). 

The Tide is High – The Paragons 

One of Blondie’s most distinctive qualities was, and still is, a blending of several sounds and moods. As such, this reggae ditty, which was their third #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, didn’t raise many eyebrows. So, few at the time knew that it was a cover of a 1966 rocksteady song by The Paragons. Although, the fact that the gender-swap screwed up the rhyme scheme could have been a clue. 

Torn – Ednaswap 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OoEdfB7l18

This one’s a little weird. Shortly after Natalie Imbruglia had her breakthrough hit with “Torn” in 1997, there was a short-lived minor controversy. Apparently, some people were upset when they found out that Imbruglia didn’t write the song. It was a cover of a 1995 song by a relatively unknown alternative act called Ednaswap. Nobody claimed had that she wrote the song, however, and there was nothing new about singers having a cover be their first hit. So the “controversy” was quickly reduced to a footnote, whose most prominent documentation is a mention on Pop-Up Video.

 Adding to the weirdness, Ednaswap’s “original” wasn’t technically the first recording of the song. Two years before they got around to releasing it, a Danish translation,“Brændt” (“Burned”), was released by Lis Sørensen. 

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Robert Hazard 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aLNwOxPsjg

I almost didn’t include this one because, quite frankly, the original is awful. And, let’s be real, there’s something creepy about a guy breathily singing about what girls want. Thankfully, Hazard’s recording never got past the demo stage, so I’ll choose to consider Lauper’s version “technically a cover but sort of not really”. 

Downtown Train – Tom Waits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLtZKkCIVmI

If you asked a random sampling of people around you, there’s a good chance that many of them wouldn’t be able to name a Tom Waits song. On the other hand, it’s almost a guarantee that they’re familiar with at least one of his songs, but covered by someone else. The Eagles, Alison Krauss, Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Springsteen, and The Ramones are among the many big names to contribute to this. Heck, actress Scarlett Johansson recorded an entire album of Tom Waits songs (it was kind of awful, but I digress). 

One of the most successful Waits covers is Rod Stewart’s “Downtown Train”. The original was a standout track and minorly-successful single from Waits’ 1985 masterpiece Rain Dogs. Stewart’s 1991 cover starts off with a similarly restrained sound, but gradually swells into a much “bigger”, almost celebratory sound. 

Piece of My Heart – Erma Franklin 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0QAxIKf8G4

First off, the more well-known recording, with Janis Joplin on vocals, is properly credited to her band Big Brother and the Holding Company. Second, covers generally draw from that 1968 version, but the original was by Erma Franklin (Aretha Franklin’s older sister). Faith Hill’s 1994 atrocity seemed to be an attempt to destroy the song’s legacy, but Melissa Etheridge managed to restore it a little bit in 2005, even though it was a clumsy attempt at a comeback for Etheridge.

The First Cut is the Deepest – P.P. Arnold 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1-g5VG2pWg

This is one of my favourites. With many of the entries on this list, it’s fun to play the original for someone and watch their face as they slowly realize what they’re hearing. P.P. Arnold’s original recording of “The First Cut is the Deepest” (written by Cat Stevens) also happens to be a fantastic song in its own right. 

In 1977, Rod Stewart (him again?) released what most would consider the definitive version, and in 2003 Sheryl Crow covered it as one of two new songs recorded for her best-of collection. 

Nothing Compares 2 U – The Family 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZlzN0Gtpp8

In the 80s, there were a lot of Prince side projects and spin-offs. Morris Day and The Time may be the most memorable, with their mega-hit “Jungle Love“. Wendy & Lisa, Vanity 6, and Apollonia 5 also enjoyed a little time in the spotlight. One of the lesser-known projects, however, was The Family. The Family was often tasked with bringing life to songs that Prince wrote but wasn’t interested in doing himself. So even if you knew that Prince wrote Sinéad O’Connor’s 1990 breakthrough hit “Nothing Compares 2 U“, you might not have known that The Family had recorded it 5 years prior. 

Prince would eventually record a live version as a duet with Rosie Gaines, which was included on the various iterations of his 1993 compilation The Hits. Also included on this compilation were Prince’s originals of “I Feel 4 U” (covered by Chaka Khan in 1984), and “When U Were Mine” (covered by Cyndi Lauper in 1983). 

Killing Me Softly – Lori Lieberman 

In 1996, the Fugees released their breakthrough mega-hit, “Killing Me Softly“. Not everyone knew it was a cover of a 1973 Roberta Flack song, but many did. Even fewer knew, however, that Flack’s rendition was itself a cover. The original, by Lori Lieberman in 1972, was a soft acoustic rendition of a poem. “His song” was Don McLean’s “Empty Chairs”. 

The first cover could have turned out quite differently; according to Wikipedia: 

Helen Reddy has said she was sent the song, but “the demo… sat on my turntable for months without being played because I didn’t like the title”. 

Roberta Flack’s successful 1973 cover is still soft, but with some defining chord changes, and a slightly more soulful sound.

Further mutating the tune, The Fugees laid down their hip-hop version in 1996, to much acclaim. 

If you poke around YouTube looking for versions of this song, you’ll probably find about a dozen copies of a crooner version credited to Frank Sinatra. It does kind of sound like The Chairman, but he never actually recorded it. That’s Perry Como, from his 1973 album And I Love You So. 

Some Guys Have All The Luck – Persuaders 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3NWbvFsBVo

First released in 1973 by R&B group The Persuaders, Rod Stewart’s cover of “Some Guys Have All the Luck” served as one of the important hits of his 80s comeback (and his third time appearing on this list, what is it with this guy and covers?) In between those two versions, Robert Palmer also recorded his own version, with significantly altered lyrics and arrangement. Palmer’s version is probably the strangest, kind of a gritty new wave thing, reminiscent of Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien“. 

There have been several other covers, including a gender swapped country version. Of special note is Maxi Priest’s 1987 rendition, which (mostly) returned to the original lyrics and arrangement, but with Maxi’s signature “reggae fusion” sound. 

Tainted Love – Gloria Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSehtaY6k1U

When Marilyn Manson covered “Tainted Love” in 2001 for the Not Another Teen Movie soundtrack, it was fairly common knowledge that he was covering a Soft Cell song. Soft Cell’s 1981 arrangement, however, was not the original. American soul singer Gloria Jones’ Motown-influenced version was a B-side for “My Bad Boy’s Comin’ Home”, which failed to make a lasting impression domestically. Jones herself, however, had very much made an impression in England, where she was dubbed the “Northern Queen of Soul”. 

Eventually the song entered the radar of the synth-pop duo Soft Cell. Their 1981 version became their only major hit in North America, and one of the defining songs of the 80s. 

Side notes and honorable mentions: 

You might already knew that The Isley Brothers recorded “Twist and Shout” a year before The Beatles, but did you know that a group called The Top Notes recorded it a year before that? 

“I Love Rock n Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, arguably one of the most ubiquitous and recognized songs of the modern era, was originally released by The Arrows in 1975. 

Animotion’s “Obsession”, unofficial theme song of the fashion world for more than 30 years, was originally recorded by Michael Des Barres & Holly Knight.

Madonna’s “Ray of Light” was adapted from “Sepheryn” by Curtiss Maldoon, though it’s not a direct cover. 

Led Zeppelin have a storied history of borrowing, adapting, and straight-up stealing. A cursory Google search will provide many articles and videos discussing this, but the two examples which I think best fit the theme are “Dazed and Confused”, originally by Jake Holmes, and “Stairway to Heaven”, adapted from “Taurus” by Spirit. 

Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” was adapted from “Crescent City Blues“, written by Gordon Jenkins and sung by Beverly Mahr. Also, more than half the songs on Cash’s 5 American Recordings albums are reinterpretations of a diverse selection of songs.

[dreamnants]

(I wanted to say thanks for the folks who’ve been taking an interest in my dumb swap AU and helping me develop it more especially with Zuke!

For some reason, I forgot to mention my AU’s name is Chiaroscuro Reflections.

As a small thank you, I decided to sit down and try actually writing something set in the AU. This is my take on what happens after the auditions and leading into the DJSS. There are things I want to improve on, but if I don’t post it, I probably never will.

Hope you enjoy~)

"It was rigged, I tell you!"

"May, I was hoping we could discuss the audition after our meal?"

"But you agree with me, Nadia! It was complete bulldozer! BULLDOZER!" Mayday protested, ignoring the looks their table was getting from the few other customers from how loud Mayday was.

Nadia only sighed as she carefully cut another bite-sized piece of her half finished burger.

"Indeed I do, but..." Nadia waved her knife in Mayday's general direction."I wanted to enjoy a meal not being reminded what transpired an hour ago?"

"Yeah, yeah, but it just...NRGH!" With that, Mayday took a sip of her strawberry milkshake in a vain attempt to quell her frustration. At least it was soothing to her throat from her yelling.

As if knowing Mayday wasn't going to shut up about their disastrous audition result, Nadia shook her head and carefully put down her plastic cutlery to non-verbally show she was paying attention.

"Well, if I must say something to make you feel better, I heavily disagree with Tatiana's opinion about you having no future in show business. You are one of the most passionate artists I've ever met. Sure...I did call you pedestrian at one point, but...I have long changed my opinion on that."

Mayday managed to crack a small smile at that. "Awww, thanks, buddy."

Nadia rolled her eyes playfully as Mayday finished off her milkshake with a loud slurp.

"Come to think of it, have we taken a look at the footage of our audition?" The older woman pursed her lips slightly, a bit of her contained irritation slipping out before it returned to a neutral one. "Even if it is associated with a bitter memory, it still is our first appearance on television."

Mayday perked up in realization."Oh shoot! You're right. I think they might have uploaded it on the internet by now..." Mayday put down the empty cup to pull out her phone. After a few moment of scrolling around, Mayday smiled as she found the footage."And...here it is!"

Mayday lifted her arm with the phone up while Nadia carefully moved the tray to the side so she could lean her upper body to look at the small screen.

"Okay, so it was still unfair we got rejected, but man, at least they got some really good shots of us!"

"Indeed."

The good mood between them quickly faded when the shot changed angles to feature them from the front, giving them a good view of behind them. There, the Qwasa meter filled as they performed until the meter stopped at just below full capacity.

Both band mates stared, pausing the video at the blinking red light.

"Wait, what?!"

"That..."

"Nadia! We filled the Qwasa to almost full capacity!"

"Come to think of it, it was strange they did not tell us how well we powered the Qwasa before they gave us their judgement..."

"This was totally rigged! How could they scrap us when we outperformed all the other contestants!?"

"I cannot believe they got away with such...ignorance," The understatement of the words laced in Nadia's usually elegant tone was forced, as if she was trying hard to not let her anger slip."But what point would they have to reject us?"

As if the universe was conspiring against the two, a familiar voice caught their attention.

"People of Vinyl City, this is Tatiana.”

Through the speakers littering the city, the words echoed throughout that both could hear them from inside.”

"In light of the recent abysmal performance of a certain duo that we all had the unfortunate pleasure of having to sit through, I would like to announce that rock music is hereby banned from future Lights Up auditions."

The words cut through Mayday like a knife. She wasn’t sure what Nadia was thinking

"For a better prospect at winning, we suggest that you stick to what works: EDM."

"Remember, we strive through...ORDER. Order leads to progress in Vinyl City."

"That is all, have a pleasant evening."

The ordinary closing words contrasted the magnitude of Tatiana's decree, seeming as Tatiana was closing a traffic report, not banning an entire music genre.

Tatiana had just banned rock from Vinyl City.

As it dawned on Mayday on what exactly this meant in the light of their unanimous rejection, and the anger began to swell once the numb shock wore off, her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of something crumpling, followed by a splashing sound soon accompanied by a cold jolt on her neck. She turned to the source of the noise to discover it came from her band mate crushing the water cup in her hand. The twisted vessel of hollow paper and Nadia's right hand was dripping wet from the contents erupting from her death grip, but Nadia didn't seem to notice or even care she'd splashed water over their table and herself.

Her green eyes were glowing with burning fury that made them glow even in the cheap lighting of the burger joint, her lips twisted into a sneer that bared her teeth. Even though Mayday was not the target of her ire, she wouldn't deny being unnerved by the sight. This wasn't her first time being exposed to Nadia's unbridled anger, but it always caught her off guard when it happened.

As if the floodgates had opened and her true frustration finally exposed through the cracks, the best way to describe such a sight was Nadia simply erupted.

"THOSE....THOSE...PEDESTRIANS!" Yelling in a volume contrasting her usual calm and elegant one, she slammed the fist still gripping the unfortunate victim of her angry clenching on the table, causing the guitarist to jolt up in surprise and the tray to bounce slightly. "They had the gall to reject us under clear bias," Another pound on the table, catching the attention of the establishment. "...and NOW they decide to ban an entire genre of music on a whim based on their belief we played horribly?!" Nadia finally let go of the crushed cup, now twisted horribly into a shape that reminded Mayday of a banana. "They either are blind, deaf, or perhaps both to claim WE offended people with our music! If anything, THEY were the only ones offended by us wanting to play a supposedly outdated genre!"

Finally remembering she was also supposed to be angry, Mayday exploded herself. "I know?! Can you believe it?! We need to do something!"

"What do you propose we do about this then? Because I certainly have some suggestions if you do not!"  Her mouth was still in a scowl, her eyes still burning, face contorted with anger barely contained.

"I don't know right now, but I know there's always something you can-"

And for the second time tonight, Mayday's train of thought was promptly interrupted, this time by the lights suddenly flickering before completely shrouding the entire joint in darkness. From a quick look outside from their window, it was the same for the rest of Vinyl City.

"Mayday, do you sometimes wonder if the universe conspires against someone?"

"Maybe."

A minute later, the corner of Mayday's eye caught a sign outside flickering back to life. The NSR logo displaying among the relative darkness still covering the city. In fact, on closer look, the lights on in the darkness were all the NSR store signs.

"This..this can't right..." Mayday heard Nadia's voice, disbelief with a tint of indignation lingering in her words. "Are you saying...that NSR only supplies the backup power to their artists?"

Mayday only stared, a voice in her head screaming in anger. For the audition. The banning of rock. And now the blackout?

"May?"

Jolting to her feet, Mayday grabbed her guitar and slung it over her shoulder as she rushed outside. She vaguely registered Nadia calling out to her, but she wasn't listening, scrambling through the darkened Vinyl City.

The only other noise she eventually registered was the sound of Nadia's footsteps chasing after her.

[1000-directions]

rbb because it gave me a heart attack #trauma and also ughhHhhHhhhh bc mood

lolllllll people in marvel fandom do NOT understand how some of us suffer when they abbreviate their reverse big bang as rbb!!!

this was the original draft of my winterhawk reverse big bang where clint is a musician and bucky is a trust fund kid who ends up joining the army or something and they’re boyfriends and then they break up and eventually get back together and it’s told partly in flashbacks and it was just getting TOO complicated to write and felt joyless and was making me completely miserable, so i threw it out after 2500 words and wrote winterhawk punks in love instead, which was the correct choice.

i will never finish it, but here is what i’ve got in case anyone is interested:

There are a lot of different things Clint could have done with his life.

Well, no. That’s a bit of an exaggeration.

But there are several things Clint could have done with his life. Multiple things. More than one thing.

But he doesn’t think any of those other things would have ever made him as happy and crazy and pissed-off and satisfied as singing does.

Whenever anyone asks, he’s very careful to call himself a writer. A composer. A creator. A musician. Like the making of the thing is the part that motivates him. Like performing is just an afterthought. Like singing is just something he has to do so the music makes sense. Because he knows he’s not a great singer. He’s passable. He can keep a beat and hit all the notes in his limited range, and he gets just enough inflection and passion into the words to make people feel a thing, sometimes.

He’s good at the writing. He’s good at the deceptively simple arrangements. His voice is the least he has to offer, and he knows it, and it feels kind of foolish and indulgent to especially savor the part that he’s objectively the worst at. But Christ, he loves doing it, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

*

The two of them had ditched work early, saving up all their smoke breaks until it was suddenly 2:40, and the manager had no choice but to cut them loose. And even though they had permission, it felt like getting away with something, and Clint twisted his fingers into Bucky’s grasp as they ran down the sidewalk together. Clint darted recklessly into the intersection, and Bucky jerked him back at the last second as a truck came barrelling past, honking furiously at the two of them. And it was so close to being bad, but it was fine, fine, fine, and Clint laughed as Bucky shook his head, and Clint linked his arms around Bucky’s neck and kissed him right there in the middle of the street.

They were twenty, and they were in love. And nothing was serious but that.

It was a hot summer at the shore, and they were living in a shitty beach house with three other friends. They spent their mornings and afternoons scooping ice cream at a popular local shop that was more famous than good. And then at night, they’d go drinking at the scummier bars that were a little more lax on carding, or they’d build a bonfire on the beach and drink Yuenglings purchased with Clint’s really good fake ID. And inevitably, someone would have an acoustic guitar, and someone would start shouting out requests, and they’d get drunker and noisier as the night went on.

And then Clint would grab Bucky’s hand with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and they’d strip down to nothing and run into the ocean in the dark, screaming down the moon. And then they’d huddle together in one towel, letting the fire dry their hair until it was curly and crispy. And then they’d all stomp out the fire and gather up the red Solo cups, and Bucky and Clint would push their two futons together into one rickety big bed, and they would fall asleep in each others’ arms, salty and sandy and worn out.

Bucky woke up early most days to go for a run. He was in the Army Reserves, and he had to stay in shape, and Clint certainly wasn’t complaining about what the workouts did for his boyfriend’s physique. Clint was starting at technical school in the fall, studying to be an audio mixer. Things would be changing soon, but not just then.

That summer, time was lazy and endless. Bucky would come back from his run and lay his sweaty body down on top of Clint’s, kissing him awake, and they’d rub off against each other until they both came. Or they’d dart away from their friends in the middle of dinner, running up to their room and barely getting the door locked before Clint was shoving down Bucky’s pants to get his mouth on his cock.

And some nights, they were painstakingly tender, just kissing for what felt like hours before they even took their clothes off. Bucky liked things a little rough, and Clint liked things a little sweet, and they’d found something in the middle that was perfect for both of them.

“Just fucking hold me down and make me feel it, Clint,” Bucky would say sometimes, and Clint would kiss his jaw and tug his hair a little and fuck into him harder until Bucky was crying out beneath him.

It was their first summer, and everything was perfect.

*

At thirty, Clint is starting to fall into the sorts of routines that a younger version of himself would have detested.

Even worse...he kinda likes it.

But there’s just something soothing and comforting about knowing what’s ahead. Sure, it’s romantic to think about being a starving artist, but the reality of it wasn’t so sexy. Turns out that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. And sometimes in the music industry, you don’t get paid even when you do work. So Clint works his ass off. All the time. He’s still riding a bubble, and he’s gonna ride the hell out of it until it breaks.

He wakes up, and he makes coffee. He fills his travel mug, and he and Lucky take a lazy walk through the park. Clint listens to the birds chirp, and he slurps his coffee, and he hides behind his sunglasses and doesn’t make eye contact with any of his well-meaning neighbors. Too early for that shit.

He goes back home, and Lucky inevitably fucks off somewhere to nap while Clint stretches. He’d tried meditation, but he can’t bear being quite that alone with his own thoughts. He can be alone with his body, though. He runs through his muscle groups, mindfully and thoughtfully working out the best way to stretch his sternocleidomastoid or his serratus anterior. He likes how he feels afterwards, all loose and wiggly, and it puts him in a good frame of mind for a morning listening session.

He has a second cup of coffee in his sunroom while he listens to the playback from the previous day. He combs through voicenotes and reads old journals, idly recalling stories about himself. He doesn’t create anything just yet. He listens with an open mind. And then he listens a second time, and he absorbs, and he makes notes about what he likes or how something could be different.

And then he sets a timer for forty minutes while he has lunch in front of the TV, and he fucks around on his email for a bit, and sometimes if he eats real fast he jerks off. And sometimes if he’s been seeing someone, he texts them, catches up, makes plans for later. Sometimes he plays video games. Sometimes he remembers to water his plants.

(Mostly, he jerks off.)

And then it’s back to work in the afternoon. More coffee. More listening, but this time with editing, rerecording, rewriting. He creates new voicenotes. He jots down new lyrics. He thinks about things he wants to talk about someday that he’s not ready to talk about now.

And then in the late afternoon, he ventures out of the house again. He goes to a cafe, or he grabs some more coffee, or he goes to the bank or the grocery store or the mall. And he exists among people, the way his therapist told him to. And he smiles at three strangers, and he overhears people’s conversations, and he reminds himself that there is an entire universe outside his head, just like there’s an entire universe inside of it.

And then he goes home, makes dinner, jerks off, swaps his coffee for whiskey, waits until he gets really, really tired, and then…

Then he fucking sings.

*

They got the band name from one of the weird, macabre love poems that Clint was always painstakingly copying down into his notebooks, trying to record the bits of weird beauty he saw in the world that mirrored the strangeness he sensed inside of himself. He felt less alone to see strangeness in others.

My darling, I will love you until the winter hawk cleans my bones And in her desperation, she will discover that my flesh only tastes of you

“It’s so gross,” Bucky had said with a curious sort of awe, and Clint felt so vulnerable in the silence that followed, because it was gross, but it was important to him.

Clint wanted to be so fucking in love that it chewed him up. He wanted love to shred him with her talons. And he could imagine himself getting there with Bucky. He thought they could be epic. He was still holding back some secret parts of himself, but if he let those go, he thought he could love Bucky so hard that it consumed him and he finally, finally lost himself.

And Bucky kept staring at the words scrawled in Clint’s notebook, traced his fingertip over the blue ink, following the same pattern Clint’s pen had taken as he’d lovingly copied down the words. And there was a furrow in his brow as he read and reread, and just as Clint thought he might explode from the anticipation, Bucky looked up at him with a small smile.

“I get it, I think,” he said slowly. “The desperation, I mean.”

“Yeah?” Clint wasn’t sure he was even breathing anymore, he was so close to losing it.

“The way a predator becomes a scavenger,” Bucky said thoughtfully, and there it was, that nerdy side of Bucky that Clint loved so fiercely. “Taking the scraps if that’s the only choice you have. Being just...so hungry.” He ran his thumb over Clint’s wrist, and Clint shivered.

“Hungry how?” he managed to croak out.

“Feel like I could just eat you up sometimes,” Bucky murmured. “When I first met you, I didn’t think you even liked me at all.”

“I did, though,” Clint protested weakly. “I was crazy about you from that first time I saw you.”

“I didn’t know it,” Bucky said. “Didn’t even know if I really liked boys or not, but I wanted you, and it felt like….” He frowned and looked at his thumb slowing arcing over Clint’s skin. “Felt like it didn’t even matter if you liked me back. Just me liking you was so much. And I would have eaten any scrap of anything you gave me, baby.”

“And now?” Clint asked, and his heart was an out-of-control metronome.

“Same thing now,” Bucky said, chewing on his lip. “Any bit of you I could have. I’d eat up all you gave me and I’d starve for more before I wanted a single damn bite of anyone else.”

“I love you,” Clint had whispered then, the first time he’d said those words out loud to anyone.

“I love you, too,” Bucky had replied, a hopeful smile breaking across his face and scrunching up his eyes, and Clint was so terrified and relieved and happy that he could barely stand it.

They pushed their mouths together and tried to kiss, but neither of them could stop grinning long enough to make it work.

*

Clint goes to therapy once a month. He takes his Lexapro every night. He has a notebook full of therapy homework, and he makes lists of his accomplishments and his failures, and when he goes to therapy, he shows up with an agenda. He is working to fix multiple parts of his life. He makes progress in different areas, a step on one path, a leap on another, a little stumble here. He’s an amoeba, and his pseudopods creep towards his goals, engulfing and consuming one after the other, slow and steady.

Get a dog? Check.

Learn how to cook healthy(ish) meals? Check.

Spend more time outside? Check.

Stop being so hateful towards myself? Check(ish).

Learn how to have sex with someone without falling in love with him? Check.

Learn how to have sex with someone without immediately thinking of Bucky afterwards?

Well.

It’s a work in progress.

*

Something flashbacky about being deaf

*

Clint’s newest album is called Mono Songs for a Stereo World, and all he’s finished so far is the title and the concept.

He connected with Tony Stark at SxSW last year and drunkenly talked his ear off about his idea to create songs for people with hearing conditions, mixed specifically to accommodate their abilities. He’d woken up the next morning with a raging hangover and a three minute voicemail from Tony describing the prototype software he’d slapped together. And now they’re...not exactly partners, but Clint comes up with ideas, and Tony turns them into reality.

And now Clint has all the technology he needs to create a fully customizable digital album. Fans will be directed to a website that tests their hearing, determines what wavelengths they can detect at which volumes, and then Tony’s tech will generate a downloadable version of Clint’s album that sits perfectly within their range of hearing. It works flawlessly. They’re probably not going to make much money off of it, but Clint’s been working his whole life towards something like this, and he can’t believe how close he finally is.

So all he needs to do is, like. Find some inspiration somewhere and write ten to twelve songs and then record all of them and mix them once and then feed them into Tony’s algorithm and re-mix the songs and then do maybe 40 test mixes on each one.

Simple, really.

*

It was easy for the two of them to form a band. Clint was always writing his weird poetry, and Bucky loved it. Loved the sound of his voice wrapping around the shapes of his words. And Bucky was good enough with a guitar, and it was just one more way for them to be together. It just made sense.

They called the band Winterhawk, and sure, Clint probably always took it a little more seriously than Bucky did, but that was Clint. He threw himself into everything like that back then, reckless and headstrong and passionate and unafraid. He loved Bucky so much, and he loved the band so much, and Bucky loved him and the band, too. Maybe just a little less, but still plenty enough for Clint.

Summer ended, and they found a reasonably priced studio apartment in the city. Bucky paid most of the rent, but he had a trust fund he was still working his way through before his parents disinherited him, plus he made great tips bartending.

wip title game

[frumfrumfroo]

What are your favorite movies and TV shows outside of SW? I’m looking for new things to watch since SW was so disappointing

My tastes are pretty eclectic, so I will stick to just things that are either similar to sw or are in the reylo-esque romance wheelhouse and have happy endings:

Chuck. It is a goofy, light-hearted action-adventure show with extremely endearing characters and a very prominent central romance (seriously, heavy romance and there is a lot of payoff for it, you will be FED- it's kind of slow burn but also shockingly NOT slow burn, they are deep into it pretty much immediately). The main couple is the classic Stoic Badass gradually softened by an innocent they have to protect who is a liability in battle but full of the Power of Heart. Chuck is The Heart btw. He is of that vanishingly rare male Beauty (of B&tB) type. He's incredibly generous and open, Sarah is prickly and closed-off. It is Quality. Very much a gender-swap of your typical cliche anime couple lol. I would recommend stopping at the mid-season finale in season 4, because it's downhill from there. The beginning of season 3 is very rough, but it's definitely worth it to stay for the back half, imo. There are several great endings to choose from before things go to shit, so we don't need to talk about the finale. Probably the most tonally similar to SW thing possible without being high/space fantasy. More humour, more silly, but definitely has a spiritual kinship. Has the best THE BEST 'secret revealed' scenes I have ever seen in anything. If you're into that and were hoping for that in ep IX, you need to watch Chuck.

The Shop Around the Corner. 1940 romance/drama film. You've Got Mail is a remake of it. Jimmy Stewart being profoundly adorable, Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz), various amusing side characters, and an absolutely deathless double blind 'secretly in love with the workplace nemesis' plot that can and probably has been a great reylo AU.

Mirromask. Fantasy/coming-of-age film. Touted as a 'spiritual successor' to Labyrinth by the filmmakers (one of whom is Neil Gaiman) and let me tell you, that is extremely apt. Beautiful, magical, laden with symbolism and Mask Discourse, and has a great ship. I quote it regularly.

Speaking of which, I'm sure you've seen Labyrinth? If you haven't seen Labyrinth, drop everything and watch Labyrinth.

Legend (the Ridley Scott director's cut, not the theatrical cut). Sumptuous fairy tale, runs on proper fairy tale logic, stunning to look at and overall captivating. Tim Curry. Tim Curry as a lonely tragic lord of darkness who tries to seduce the heroine and has drippingly overwrought monologues.

Howl's Moving Castle. Fairy tale adventure/romance film. Beautifully animated, has the ending you want.

The Silence of the Lambs. Thriller/drama film. Actual masterpiece. Use it as a gateway drug to read the books and rejoice that Clannibal is canon and it is spectacular. Just SotL and Hannibal, you don't need to read the other two. Stan Clarice Starling and revel in that ending. Most triumphant 'villain'/heroine ship of all time (he is not technically a villain but for shorthand's sake).

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Terry Gilliam 1988 fantasy/adventure film. THE TRIUMPH OF IDEALISM OVER CYNICS I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW HEALING IT WAS TO WATCH AFTER THE TROS BULLSHIT HIT. Jonathan Pryce's spiritual villain is basically Chris Terrio and it is cathartic to see imagination and sentiment conquer him.

Sabrina. 1995 romance film. Modern fairy tale with Harrison Ford. Rejecting what you thought you wanted all your life for the thing you actually need, growing up but still believing in magic, beautiful character development across all the leads. Could be (and is irrc) a fantastic reylo AU.

The Scarlet Pimpernel. 1934 adventure film. High romance, secret identities, play-acting, people who aren't at all what they appear to be, falling in love with your own spouse, Big Heroism, guile and wit and audacity. It makes me do little kicks like a happy baby. This is one of the 3-5 films constantly tied for my favourite film of all time. There is a good quality rip free on youtube. Watch it and fall in love with Leslie Howard (this is possibly my favourite acting performance of all time).

Oh, related note. Pygmalion 1938 or My Fair Lady. (The musical is based on this film and borrows from it heavily, including its much more romantic ending compared to the original play.)

The Mummy. 1999 action/adventure/romance film. Very tonally similar to sw. A fucking great time, A+ characters.

EVER AFTER. 1998 romance film. The flawless and perfect and best ever Cinderella adaptation. This is the most satisfying film in history, maybe, the ending is so good it is amazing it exists. Also, it has Richard O'Brien being slimy. Huge selling point. Grapples with identity and stewardship, is brilliant.

Fruits Basket. drama/romance anime. I haven't watched the new version yet, but it's following the manga so I know the story. The original anime didn't do the whole plot (because they caught up with the source material) but it's wonderful and I still recommend it. The central ship is (spoiler.........) a B&tB type where we eventually discover the main love interest both feels like a figurative monster and turns into a literal monster. He has an incredible speech about his relationship with people's fear, it makes me weep. I called the endgame from the first episode and always thought it was obvious, but there is a red herring love triangle dynamic. It's really not annoying, though, because it is a red herring. (I hate love triangles)

I am Dragon. Russian monster romance film. Beautiful, simple fable with a really great heroine.

Jane Eyre. 1943 Gothic Romance film. It's Jane Eyre, byronic hero x sensible heroine love story with much atmosphere and Gothic drama. I stan this version because I am an Orson Welles fangirl and I'm also not convinced it can be improved upon. Elizabeth Taylor's film debut btw.

Hellboy. 2004 action/adventure/romance film. Defying destiny, reconciling identity, monster romance. The complete package and a great time. Tonally similar to SW and probably thematically closest to it out of this whole list. Don't watch the sequel.

Beauty and the Beast 1987 tv series. Exactly what it says on the tin. Deals with the classic B&tB themes, but in a different way. He's not cursed and will never transform into an ordinary man. The first season is very episodic and 'case of the week', but the second season gets more into character drama. It's dated, but if you give it a chance you can get past some of the cheese factor and it's really a unique experience. Its concerns are SO atypical that it feels like something fandom would make rather than a mainstream network show. It was so massively, insanely popular with women at the time that a record of Vincent (the beast) reading poetry topped the album charts. Also Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Stop at season two. Point of interest: George RR Martin wrote for this show.

Stargate (the movie not the series) sci-fi fantasy about a nerdy guy who accidentally a hero.

Possession. 2009... mystery/supernatural/romance. Okay. This is a whole thing. Lee Pace and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It's based on a Korean film I've never been able to find for some reason, but being Hollywood they ruined the romanticism and nuance of the original in the theatrical cut to make a shitty punative ending. However. If you buy it on dvd and go to the alternate ending (which follows the original story) with around 20 minutes left (scene after Lee Pace's character wakes from a bad dream-go to deleted scenes and select the alternate ending), you will get a very, very interesting character study/thriller/redemption about sincerity within deception, compassion, and a major question about second chances with a positive answer. It's kind of dark and kind of astonishingly idealistic at the same time. The heroine makes a very powerful choice, twice over. It's fascinating. If you're into the conflicted and uncertain period in reylo, the part where he is most ambiguous, and you wanted more of that and much darker shades to it, you might be really into this. Also, it should be noted, there is a MASSIVE height difference and they show it off. The film is flawed (and the seams show on the Hollywood rewrite) but idk, it's fascinating. Shocking to me that they even got to shoot the original ending. It is pretty balls to the wall with its themes on forgiveness.

I would recommend getting into kdramas because there is a wealth of female-gaze tropey amazing content, but always check the ending before getting invested. My all-time fave is the 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, but it's not sw related at all lmao. It has a happy ending with all the elements you'd want, but it's not satisfying in execution, so that's it's major flaw and I find that pretty common with kdramas. One that is maybe more relevant is My Love from Another Star, which has a hero who is a little bit like Ben in personality. The heroine isn't my favourite, though. It does have a decent ending.

Oh yeah- brain fart. Kurosawa films and classic westerns were both very influential on SW. Or you can combine both and watch The Magnificent Seven.