concertine

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

It's Bothering me so much that Taylor Swift is so fake smart-girl coded, I need to say this:

I have a degree in both Philosophy and English Literature....

She used the term Soliloquy wrong in her song by using it to refer to people espousing nonsense while complaining in an echo-chamber about her.

Instead, a soliloquy is the most honest and introspective a character will ever be. Often the character will stand to the front center of the stage and, as if in a dream, speak openly to themselves (and in respect to the audience) lay out the truth, or the agony of whichever conflict haunts the plot. So, anyway she's just plain wrong in her usage of the term.

I am not giving a sanctimonious soliloquy. Miss Taylor Swift, you are wrong, and I am speaking honestly.

She finishes the lyric "sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see" and I just want to mention that a soliloquy requires an audience... so she does not know what she is talking about by saying that there is no audience for a soliloquy.

Also, for the record, I don't think Taylor Swift knows anything of substance about Aristotle. I, on the other hand, took a three-hour long oral exam over Aristotle's life work while out-of-my-mind-high on Dayquil and pain meds after a surgery. I got an "A", and, somehow, I lived through that, I doubt the validity of Swift's claims to know anything at all about philosophy. Especially, considering how all her songs are about as deep as a puddle.

She's completely lost her credibility.

The woman did not even finish High School in a traditional, well-rounded way. I think she read a handful of Joe's books and now thinks real highly of herself.

Edit: I don't mean to make fun of her for being dumb. I'm frustrated that she's "stepping on my lawn" and making her legion of fans think that she totally knows what she's talking about when it comes to literary references in her work or philosophy. It's obvious that she does not actually understand the concepts she attempts to engage with.

Her only real literary skill is name dropping actually talented writers or philosophers in her songs.

Edit 2: Since some people want to come on this post and tell me that I am being needlessly pedantic about her use of words. Go away. A soliloquy is an ancient literary form, one which transcends cultures and centuries, and I, as a scholar of English Literature, am in the position to say that Swift is speaking about the form incorrectly. She obviously did not even google the form, it's clear she has very little real acquaintance with half the literature concept or authors she names drops.

Sure, soliloquies can be unreliable (Hamlet's "To Be, or not to be" is the most obvious example). However, the fact of the matter is that soliloquy hinges on the Honesty of the character. Swift writing that it's actually the opposite of honesty proves to me that she has no real idea about the literary form.

[lucabyte]

HOWDY! *slams pile of papers on the desk* i have Inquiries. OKAY SO-

1.) i know the bridge between infurno and purrgatorio is Ali realizing they cant leave, so like, whats pawradisio???

2.) wtf happens ta Ali durin the 'age ???' section of their design timeline. what type cult stuff do they get involved w and how. its haunting me i needa know

3.) whats with the 3 year memory erasing thing in that one ali purrgatorio relationship chart. Really funny chart ive shared it w a few friends but also im staring intently at it like Huh What O_O

4.) what is mymk's final form? is it gonna be written, a comic, etc?

5.) got any music you associate w any mymk characters/ali? besides like, in canon reasons like Chrome more like any songs/artists/lyrics that remind u of anya em :0??

anyway yeah huge fan! also hope ur vacation's fun!

Hehe hi :)

1. We shall get there when we get there <3 my lips are sealed. Though I will say, there are further books by Dante one can animal-pun the titles of... Though they aren't part of the divine comedy..... (Alludes vaguely to plans that will inevitably take me years)

2. Okay so spoilers for Creature Feature, Ali's home setting (and @samhainian's thing) (because this is all a bit of an open secret) but Ali is, as I've alluded to previously, an Antagonist.

Creature Feature is a real world adjacent setting, set in our modern day, only with all manner of monsters and cryptids living secretly alongside humans. Ali lives in Wraithbrook, a hidden town populated primarily by monsters (albeit, most everyone still upholds a disguise, just in case). Being a (very) small town with an effectively captive population.... The post-high-school ennui tends to set in bad for people. Hope you enjoy the family businesses, kids.

So... This leaves the listless vulnerable. And boy is Ali a bit malleable. A trusted figure in their life takes advantage of this, part of an accellerationist group looking to break these confines, having singled them out as candidate for their most recent attempt to mold a magic user into a weapon to shatter the veil. And, well, if you've got a self-hating isolated guy who is predisposed to a bit of Catholicism already... Why not utilise the concept of the antichrist? They will be bringing a world together, in a way... And when you've been around as long as some immortal librarians have, doing a little bit of time dilation in the later stages of indoctrination isn't thaaaaat hard... Sooooo....

(But don't worry. They get better. Eventually. At least they look it. Everything is A-OK!!!)

(as for if purrgatorio is canon to this timeline....? Yes! But in a fucked up way! Can't make it too easy for the little guy....)

3. Okay so I was coy literally a sentence ago but yeah purrgatorio is set dead on like.. at the exact same time MYMK proper *should* start. Thus, it cannot exist at the same time as the main story... Ali's narrative powers keep them from being subsumed by the universe and just becoming a funny animal themselves.

But should a time come where Ali is *gone*, and the world is similar enough to the moments before they arrived? Well, the narrative can just pretend the time hasn't passed! Just, don't think too hard about your count of how many Halloweens and Christmasses you've had doesn't really line up....

(A normal person would simply name Purrgatorio noncanon, but hey, if Ali's whole thing is that they manipulate reality like a Narrative... Well. May as well use it! So once canon is over for both parties, things can start creeping back in. It's needlessly overcomplicated but I'm having fun)

4. Written with illustrations! An Online picture book, I suppose. I was initially damning myself to a comic, but after playing in the space with Purrgatorio, I realised I prefer prose. I'll probably write the thing in whole and then release it bit by bit as I work on the illustrations? I have a working outline as of right now and it's not a super long story lol. But its likely going to come after some practice with smaller projects like my reworking of Hazeclan and maybe Damonquest (name pending) (the latter featuring a cut main character of mymk lol)

So! ETA: a while. But we stay silly

5. OKAY.... so I can't link character playlists sadly since they don't exist (..... Yet.) and I'll stick primarily to our at present Purrgatorio cast.

I am like. Famously bad with identifying songs (<- usb stick full of songs on shuffle in the car as a kid) but I have been trying to put thought into this recently (my gold standard for this being my friend @teddymedley who's so good with character songs I did ask him for some vibe checks for this even)

So these are messy and some are like, inherited from earlier drafts of the characters so can be a bit off but I'll give a handful and their reasonings. (No links or embeds though I'm on mobile and Tumblr might eat my visibility if I do. I'll reply with some though)

[Ali Alighieri]

1. "Here comes the flood" by the Divine Comedy (self explanatory really, that animatic will exist someday I promise. This is THE big one to me, but @samhainian may have a different top spot opinion lol) Bonus: it has a demo version that also fucks supremely

2. "All the angels (demo)" by MCR. (Ali is not the MCR sibling, they're the P!ATD sibling. But I don't listen to panic lol)

3. "If you could save yourself you'd save us all" by Ween (peak "sorry what was that line just there?" song)

4. "In the meantime" by Spacehog (I like Spacehog. Everyone gets a spacehog song yaaay)

5. "Here comes the sun" cover by Ghost (not their style of music at ALL and you KNOW they're contrarian about the Beatles, but grim irony is such a vibe here)

[Chromium Mono]

1. "Manicure" by Lady Gaga (this is such a flippant "because I said so" choice lol)

2. "Let it grow" by Renaissance (this is such a nice cheesy song. I like to think of this as speaking to the actual nice loving guy chrome can be when he's not being a prickly bitch)

3. Kissing Ancaps by Patricia Taxxon (... GOD this song is way too cool or smart for chrome lol. It's a chrometab song to me because of the big words and cynicism. It's too modern and online for them but I'm attached to it... Also it contains a sample from let it grow)

4. "Run away with me" by Carly Rae Jepsen (more vibes based! Love some ms jepsen. But at least has a coherent theme wrt to eloping lol)

Bonus: oh god I really have to finish the voiceclaim video I was making. Premiere kept melting on me but I should probably let the world know chrome sounds like Donald Glover huh. The marshall lee to live action Simba pipeline.....

Bonus 2: @teddymedley suggested "Ratchet" by Bloc Party, with the phrasing "subject matter younger chrome sound older chrome" which I like!

[Tabitha Boss]

1. "Cable Rat King" by Gem Milsom (this one genuinely feels like a solid choice to me. It's polite and tentative and about depressive spirals, and is from the same album as the Number One Main Labyrinthine song, Pipes. That animatic will exist someday too I promise)

2. "This too shall pass" by OK GO (Preferably the brass band version. I think Tabitha would adore their videos, he'd be delighted by the moving parts and generally light tone. Also, Labyrinthine has a different "this too shall pass", being by Danny Schmidt)

3. "When will you die?" By TMBG (goofy song. But you get it.)

4. "Zeroes" by Spacehog (Spacehog again 👍)

Bonus: Jimmy buffet discography. He is living on island time baby

Bonus 2: @teddymedley assigned "Happy Hour" by Eels and I think the strange upbeat lethargic energy fits

[Lavender Wafeu]

Lavender is really funny because I honest to god don't think she listens to much music. This means I barely associate music with her apparently.

However @teddymedley did suggest "Black Rainbows" from Hawaii: Part 2, and I think that's better than any of my previous notes. Those previous notes being entirely the words "Little shop of horrors". She, Knives and Mafioso do also share an association with "Panda Hero" by Hachi but that's more visual to me?

I have however begun associating some Zelda OST tracks with her though... Hmmm....!

[Markus Felidae]

This poor bastard has shed and gained characterisation recently enough to have shook the MCR out of their system.... I don't have all that much for them.

Now. Hm. I think I'd have to go with some very on the nose musical tracks? My mind immediately goes to the opening track to Disney's Notre Dame, and maybe like, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer from Cats? These are such dreadful picks lol. Sorry buddy, characterisation overhaul syndrome. They probably also would listen to P!ATD same as Ali though so do with that what you will.

Bonus: in Markus' earliest iteration over 10 years ago..hrm. long story short, 121 guns is so fucking unfitting but it's lodged there forever lol

[Lupus Felidae]

Lupus is associated in my head with the kind of dub anime opening best codified by 4kids era Pokémon. Like the ideal song here is that one from Yugioh. "No matter what"? That kind of cheese and boyish power of friendship. "OK!!" From the JP endings of anipoke goes here too it's cute to me.

"I can go the distance" from Disney's Hercules is also up there for the same vibes. She's just silly and having fun!

Bonus: "Don't let's start" by TMBG is a Miao song to me, but in relation to her family. So it's also Lupus and Markus' by association.

[Ess Somil]

The idea of an ess playlist is hysterical to me. I feel like it's a Mother 3 battle theme in that man's head all the time. What's your time signature boy.

Anyway, "Numbers" by Neil Cicierega. Since it is overwhelming enough of a soundscape. Or just "Doctor Worm" by TMBG. For that they live in the soil.

.... And that's probably enough!!! This ask is very long now! Sorry it took a while to answer lmaooo. I've been very busy but it's been nice to chip away at during my downtime! Thank you so much for the questions :)

[anddreadful]

full thoughts on frank wildhorn’s dracula having re-watched it in its entirety for the first time in many years:

- I watched a recent upload of an (american) community theater production, specifically because a) its sound quality was surprisingly good and b) my recent interest is because a local theater is putting it on, so given the opportunity, I wanted to see whatever version of the show is currently available for north american licensing

- the production was charming but the community theater (technically dinner theater! I went on a google hunt to find the theater and it’s only two hours from me lmao) was community-ing so I can’t really write home about the acting. or the singing although mina had a nice voice

- the one place I will dunk on the production is how hilariously chaste mina and dracula were. the biting scene was notably stiff and un-suggestive of sex despite taking place on a bed. maybe one of the actors wasn’t comfortable with doing anything more, but they had only one kiss, and it was so late in the show and such a teeny little dry peck on the lips that I hollered. at that point just don’t do it and pretend theirs is an ~intellectual connection or something

- dracula did do a creepy hair-petting thing to both renfield and Mina that I was a big fan of

- “if loving you keeps me alive, then how can leaving me be right?” is such a funny lyric. dirtbag manipulative boyfriend dracula

- I knew not all the songs were on the studio cast recording, but I had forgotten HOW MANY songs aren’t on it. where is How Do You Choose? If I Could Fly? It’s Over????? I had fully forgotten there was a life after life reprise. I was obsessed with the studio cast recording in high school and I know all those songs by heart (except for a perfect life because I think it’s bad) and now i’m like. why was I gatekept from so many of the songs!! why is there no professional english recording of Its Over!! answer me frank!!!!!

- this is not a new thought per se but a) I so love that all the suitors are present and themselves b) this show squanders them. jack has no personality whatsoever (I would trade TWO mina ballads for a jack song please I beg), arthur gets needlessly dunked on, and quincey is delightful and incredible and also narratively extraneous given that he doesn’t kill dracula or die at the end

- on that note, though, I cannot believe they included quincey being the first person to promise mina to kill her if the time comes in a book-accurate version of that scene. even the 1992 version doesn’t do that!!!! and this is basically just an adaptation of that movie!!!!! is this the ONLY dracula adaptation to include that detail? it’s a top five book moment for me so I very literally love to see it

- I understand that we had to beef up van helsing as a character SOMEHOW but was a dead wife song really the best we could come up with

- there are too many sad slow songs in this show for what it’s trying to accomplish! some of them immediately on top of each other! and some of the songs distinctly go on for just one too many verses 😭

- does the mina/ dracula romance make any sense? no. does the show make any effort whatsoever to make it? no. am I into it anyway? yeah. fuck it. I have terrible taste and so i think dracula as a disembodied voice like HI? HELLO? DON’T IGNORE ME? and mina being like “unfortunately, i’m into it” rocks

- “She Devil, Nosferatu” and “the lady in white” from that other dracula concept album are both so superior to “undead one, surrender” I almost feel bad for Frank and co there, but “the master’s song”, “life after life”, and “deep in the darkest night” still fucking slap

- the train hypnotism scene was soooo good except for the part where mina did dracula’s accent. not sure if that’s standard but I wish we hadn’t done that

- i’m not THAT well versed in musical theater as an art form and also all art is derivative etc but i do know that wildhorn has been historically criticized for derivativeness and…… yeah! you can tell where he mimics sondheim, and it doesn’t work because you can’t casually mimic sondheim and get out alive. i can’t think of the moment but there was some bit of music I could have sworn was out of Phantom, and it’s obviously a big general inspiration. not to be Boss Baby Guy but I see a lot of Les Mis DNA in it too (what is It’s Over if not The Confrontation in a goth hat)

- the dialogue between songs is serviceable at absolute best, and it’s a shame that it’s so consistently sacrificed at the altar of moving the plot the fuck along. for the most part, only mina and dracula meaningfully connect via song, so it would be nice to use the dialogue to flesh out relationships more often. lucy and mina being besties is a highlight!!!

- ultimately i had a blast but it must needs be said: the show is not good. the best possible execution of “literally just the novel dracula but dracula and mina are having a secret tragic love affair” is probably what we get in the 1992 dracula movie, and if there’s a way to translate that to stage well, it’s not this shallow, silly speedrun. but again. this trash is my trash. the painted cardboard castle of bad dracula adaptations is where i live.

- I actually think it would be really interesting to be involved in a production only because to make these characters function in terms of acting, I think you’d have to invent and extrapolate a lot in terms of motivation and characterization to supplement the text. which would be fun for me, a person who thinks about versions of dracula characters all the time already

[isntthatwrite]

i love you in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital 8th house x 12th house trine

death meets purgatory. what needs to end lives long enough to drive you to insanity.....

TRYING SOMETHING NEW HERE FOR THIS POST!! HERE IS A MOODBOARD I CREATED

i had an aperol spritz after work the other day and heard Hum Hallelujah a few sips in, which of course prompted an astro deep dive on Fall Out Boy. i started with pete, as the primary writer for most of their songs. pete wentz, aka peter wentz III (noting the generational baggage of when a name is passed down), with his tightest chart aspect being a moon conjunct pluto (can't be entirely sure sans birth time, but i'm running odds on this being at least a very significant aspect in his chart) carries family baggage that he cannot seem to put down. perhaps cannot even be articulated, and even if it could, we do not all need to know! not my business but i sure do know it's there. he and patrick stump have really interesting chart contacts - often describing their creative process as argumentative and combative yet stunningly aligned. for the astrology heads- stump has at least 1 yod (2 depending on birth time), both loosely touching a piece of wentz's chart and both are pretty influenced by taurus/venus/scorpio/pluto aspects/oppositions. the divine plan is merciful for having them join forces as musicians and creating a space to transmute all that energy. hope the divine plan also leaks either/both of their birth times. joe is a virgo and andy is a gemini - lotssss of mercurial energy in this cohort - coming together to share a message/communicate ideas. i could accidentally get several paragraphs in to analyzing the group's synastry but i need to bring myself back to the original point.

i think something fall out boy as a group really did the best at (particularly in the first few albums), largely led by wentz's lyrics, is depicting karmic relationship. ever debated, continually denied, widely attempted to be explained, never replicated but often repeated - many are familiar with the notion of things like "love at first sight", immediately falling for someone upon meeting, fated encounters, Feeling A Spark, whatever you want to call it. if you subscribe to past lives (they of course have a song called Past Life) as a framework, this is your bread and butter. it's very romantic to those who haven't experienced it, and to many who have experienced it without identifying it for what it was. love stories and fairytales and the like operate off a similar notion - love is something that finds us and wraps us up and takes us away somewhere beautiful. there is nothing to work on or build, it is love because it just magically shows up one day. everyone else who had to work so hard for it was just wrong. they didn't know love like i do! but do you actually notice the trajectory of most of these Magical Fairy Princess Swept Off Your Feet relationships? some mercifully learn their lessons and break their patterns, but the vast majority are simply driven to madness by the heightened and inexplicable emotion. it's a very solitary experience, and the closest thing you have as a witness is the person that brought it all on and they will surely not be able to ground you. you feel both like you understand everyone in the world who has gone insane at the hands of love and also like you're the only person to have ever suffered in the greater history of the world. no one knows agony like i know agony and i can prove it, but i can never explain it. romeo and juliet sounded needlessly dramatic until you have one of these.

to loop astrology back in- in this discussion, i am particularly thinking about the grand trine formed between the 4th/8th/12th houses. a picture (worth 1000 words) (yes i drew it)

i'm focusing largely on the trine between the 8th house and the 12th house here, but i feel it's necessary to acknowledge that this grand trine configuration is formed and the energy loop closes when the 4th house is brought in. as physics teaches us, triangles are the most stable/strongest shape, and any piece of this trine alone becomes much less durable. the energy is most stable and freely flowing when all three can connect. the 8th house deals with death, rebirth, change, transformation, shadow self, intimacy/sex, inheritances/debts/loans and the 12th house deals with spirituality, solitude, karma, healing (lots to do with mental health/addiction), closing of cycles, reflection, undoing, what is unconscious and hidden, anything purgatorial and reflective. they have a clearly reciprocal relationship - the hidden dark demons we try to put away but tug on us for attention. the apparitions will find you and don't particularly care if you had a long day.

the 4th house is about home, roots/foundations, family, parents (siblings are more 3rd house) inner life. dying, sex, being born, family - (regrettably) can’t have one without the others! 4H and 8H without 12H, 4H and 12H without 8H, 8H and 12H without 4H are all clearly out of balance, but when we can connect all 3 and develop conscious awareness of our raising and generational patterns and inherited attitudes/beliefs/material circumstances and process the hardships, we typically have a much better grasp on our own sanity/stability. these are the parts of us most likely stuffed in the closet or under the bed that we hope to avoid looking at, but they eat away at us if we don't make space for them. and one day, we'll meet someone who opens that closet door immediately when you first meet.

karmic relationships tend to hit one (or all!) of these houses pretty hard and force you to reckon with whichever theme associated. mental health, family dynamics, subconscious feelings about yourself, so on. to me, it's kind of as witchy or non-witchy as you seek to make it - relationships change us! experiencing connection with others perpetually awakens us to different parts of ourselves and calls into question how we've managed and coped thus far in life. our minds adore pattern recognition (for better or for worse) and sometimes we lose sight of whether this strong feeling is love or just that recognizably painful thing again. sometimes, we meet someone who is somehow immediately capable of reflecting all of our biggest wounds back to us, and we somehow reach first for the word "love".

we romanticize what hurts. we perversely love the agony. we poke the bruise so repeatedly that it never heals. the pain/pleasure dichotomy blurs and we can no longer distinguish who lives where. as is inherent to anyone who dares call themselves "pop-punk", each member of fall out boy covers their angle on dramatized angst and pain. at times, while watching interviews, i found myself wondering if it was ethical for these guys to have been famous. shame that part of the bargain with creating art that reaches others is that you have to share it with people. to be a creative is to encourage the spectacle. fans create mythologies, and at the end of the day, i don't know any of these people. i'm just a guy who was a preteen when they were first getting famous. a guy who got a kick out of hearing lyrics more dramatic than my own mind would generate at that point in time. NUMEROUS other bands/musicians and artists do a beautiful job depicting karmic relationship, i'm just beginning where the after work drink took me.

for the hell of it. listing out some of my favorite lyrics from 2000s era fall out boy that pertain to these themes. non exhaustive but i am putting a bunch

I only keep myself this sick in the head because i know how the words get you

My mind is a safe, and if I keep it in we all get rich, my body is an orphanage, we take everyone in

If home is where the heart is, then we're all just fucked

The only thing I haven't done yet is die / And it's me and my plus one at the afterlife

Wouldn't you rather be a widow than a divorcee?

I could write it better than you ever felt it

I thought i loved you, but it was just how you looked in the light

I love you in the same way, there's a chapel in a hospital / One foot in your bedroom and one foot out the door

They say quitters never win / But we walk the plank on a sinking ship

Her nose runs ruby red, Death's in a double bed Singing songs that could only catch the ear of the desperate

And I cast a spell over the west to make you think of me / The same way I think of you / This is a love song in my own way

The ribbon on my wrist says, "Do not open before Christmas"

You only hold me up like this / 'Cause you don't know who I really am / Sometimes I just want to know what it's like to be you

This is the way they'd love / If they knew how misery loved me

I only want sympathy in the form of you Crawling into bed with me

So wear me like a locket around your throat I'll weigh you down, I'll watch you choke You look so good in blue

And the poets are just kids who didn't make it 

Now talking's just a waste of breath / And living's just a waste of death / And why put a new address / On the same old loneliness?

[hyperxenometamorph]

square peg through a round hole

i am SO tired being limited to being what people can understand. i am NOT some super compressed jpeg of what people can perceive. i am WEIRD. i am UNCOMFORTABLE. i am COMPLEX. i am ENDLESS. i am INACCESSIBLE. i am INCOMPREHENSIBLE like some sort of eldritch being that cannot be perceived lest you seek complete self-destruction. any perception you have of me is like shoving a square peg through a round hole because you'll always end up shaving a lot of important data off of the edges in order to form an easily understandable image in your mind of who/what i am. you could spend your entire life trying to know me inside and out through every possible metric and measure and get nowhere close to truly knowing me, and in this endeavor you would needlessly waste away your entire life and sense of self just trying to make room in your brain for me. i do not believe that identity is some singular entity regardless of the idea that it does or does not change over time. identity is a silhouette triangulated by an virtually infinite number of disparate datapoints that all connect, intersect, and interact in their own macro and micro level ecosystems, each idea with its own life and complex relationship with every other. i have a feeling that, whether you believe it or see it the same way i do, you're also probably a lot like that. you could be the most simple and accessible person from the outside, and even to yourself, but that has just as much beautiful complexity and chaos behind it as i have behind myself. to use an analogy, we can look at our solar system and find it easily understandable in the way that it works and how each part of it works together to form the whole, and at another that seems almost impossible to understand, but in both there are an unfathomable number of different microcosmic factors and variables that lead to those parts working or not working and coming together to form a larger whole. we're like these solar systems.

i am fully aware that i sound completely MANIC and PRETENTIOUS and like one of those MANIFESTOS that SCHIZOPHRENIC PHILOSOPHY PHDS write before trying to be the next UNABOMBER. you're probably wondering "why is this stupid idiot head probably writing the lyrics to the next death grips album instead of touching grass?" and to that i say WHY NOT? i simultaneously CARE A LOT and DO NOT CARE AT ALL. also YES i TOOK my VYVANSE as PRESCRIBED by my DOCTOR. WHY DO YOU ASK?

[kyupidos]

12/16/23’s delivery 🏹✉️ twisted wonderland

and out of the red,ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ,ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ ;; summary. ‘a wintery weekend at ramshackle, you ask to spend the afternoon with them, they agree.’

characters. scarabia , pomefiore : jamil viper , epel felmier ;; romantic . 🖇️ tags. reader is gender neutral ( you/your ), reader is yuu, romantic fluff

📡 _a/n. asmo try not to base titles off of lyrics from his fav songs challenge level impossible.!.!.! ( mostly characterization practice cuz i don’t write for these two often sob sob.. )

j. viper

— a warm, delicious looking meal is what jamil prepares for you in ramshackle’s kitchen as light snow coats the dorm’s courtyard outside. humming a light tune as he serves you, you sighed playfully, hitting his shoulder ( with little force ) to tell him that you very well could’ve done it yourself. he digresses though, you deciding to needlessly make it up by promising to do the same for him next time you spend time together like this. though he tries to refuse at first, he smiles, albeit accompanied by a sigh of unsureness when he realizes you’re a bit too stubborn to let it go. he’s thankful, though, that you take the time he spent for you so seriously in that way.

— the things jamil prepares for you on snowy days like this always fill you with a sense of warmth. whether it be because of those meals he prepares, the way he politely covers you with a blanket when you’re sitting together on the couch, or even just the genuine and handsome smile he gives you as he watches you enjoy his food with a sparkle in your eyes. he’s positively in love with you, so prepare for more gifts like this, especially on winter days like these ones. your eyes met with all sorts of appetizing hot lunches he made just to care for you, the one he so proudly calls his love.

e. felmier

— prepare a heavy jacket and snow boots for today, as epel excitedly takes you by the hand and out to ramshackle’s courtyard. carelessly, but equally lovingly so twirling you around as you venture through the snow. roughhousing just a bit, ready to do whatever snowy activities you’re willing to participate in. whether you’re into making a snowman or snow angels, maybe a snowball fight if you’re up for it. or, an activity he specializes in, find a particularly piled up high area of snow, pack it together to form a makeshift mini hill. being more of a gentle hill it’ll be more of a calming pleasant ride, but still fun enough for the both of you.

— then after some considerable amount of time having fun outside, he takes kindly to the way you serve up some hot cocoa for the both of you when you finally come back to ramshackle’s warm interior again. the warmth you bring into his life so naturally, it makes him feel giddy inside, doing things like this with you. so to compliment your hot cocoa, be ready for his delicious apple pie, it won’t disappoint. epel truly hopes to spend more days like these with you, so maybe take him up on his offer once or twice when he chooses to invite you out sometime to participate in activities like this again.

[echoesfromtheabyss]

Watch Something I Can Never Have on YouTube Music

2005, September 22, I held a gun to my head while this song played in a loop.

The dedication was... well, a combination of my mother, whom I had thoroughly and needlessly betrayed. And my god, whom I wished to take me away.

I pulled the trigger. The bullet jammed in the chamber.

Close to twenty years later. My mom has forgiven me better than I've forgiven myself. I talk to her nearly every day.

My relationship with my god has changed. I'm not as zealous as I used to be. I don't even mention Her in conversation. I keep that to myself.

I can listen to this song. Recite every lyric. Feel every cut.

I often question why that bullet jammed. I never tried to take myself out again after that, but my loathing has not subsided. It has simply taken other forms.

[pretty-toastie]

wow more rambling literary critique?? from me??

i have opinions and nowhere else to put them so deal with it. i swear i'll write some poetry or some long form prose soon-ish.

anyway! i'm currently obsessed with a couple things

one: the Baby Queen lyric "I scream at you in poetry" from Dover Beach it just. it hits so hard. it punches above its weight. i can't describe why but it is the kind of phrase that i would read in prose and go "oh, this author is going on my list of inspirations." it's the way i want to write. to do my best to explain my feelings about this stupid six word song lyric---it feels as though it very clearly succinctly describes an emotion that is intensely relatable and at the same time completely foreign. it is trying desperately to communicate with someone, and having it come out beautiful and obscured---wonderful to hear, difficult to understand. it is the powerlessness of being unable to communicate more clearly, the desperation of trying to get your point across and watching helplessly as it is caught up and tossed aside in the midst of flowery words and elegant metaphors. It just. hits hard.

TWO: fucking Lucy Caldwell. again. one of my creative writing classmates had a line in her workshop story (which i'm supposed to be reading rn shhhhh) that sent me directly back to Here We Are and i had to go back and reread my favorite lines and i just---

"All love stories are the same story: the moment that, that moment when, the moment we."

(sorry this is a whole ass passage but y'all i CANNOT with this story i just have to get this out here my gay lil heart can't handle this all on my own) "Angie looked at me. The expression in her eyes was almost amused. Then, ignoring the nervous giggles and whispered bravado of the others, she took a step forward and reached out for the cigarette. Her fingers grazed mine as they took it from me. She held it for a moment, then let it fall to the ground, crushed it with her heel. She looked me in the eye the whole time. I felt heat surge to my face. 'You don't smoke,' she said, and then she said my name."

like holy fuck what i wouldn't give to write a sapphic scene that good.

ALSO. for those of you who really love reading my rambles. i just. want to break down specifically what i love about her writing? because it's these really specific things, and i do some of them in my own writing and they're things i've seen Nina LaCour do, and i just have so much love for them as stylistic elements of prose.

so first: "She held it for a moment, then let it fall to the ground, crushed it with her heel." this. this fucking sentence. this list without the word "and". I DO THIS. I LOVE THIS. GIVE ME LISTS WITHOUT THE WORD "AND". i don't know why but they feel so much more human and emotional and raw. it's so good. and also Nina LaCour does it.

second: "'You don't smoke,' she said, and then she said my name." it's harder to explain what i like so much about this line, but again i think it's a sort of breaking-the-rules of standard prose. it's particularly "and then she said my name." that gets me---we NEVER LEARN THE NARRATORS NAME IN THIS STORY. also i can't get over that sort of comma separated dialogue nonsense. it's something i adore.

and finally, wrapping up this needlessly long post: "Her fingers grazed mine as they took it from me." it's just so succinct. like you already know what that means. you can probably feel what it would feel like. it doesn't need to be more elegant, it doesn't need to be a more complex structure. it's just a statement of fact, and at the same time it tells you so much.

[into-september]

AND THEN FINALLY I SAW -

If S5 is going to have Adrien realise his feelings for Marinette because the S4 bs “made him realise Ladybug’s not perfect” then I’m sorry but

DO YOU REALISE 

THAT YOU SPENT THREE SEASONS

TELLING A STORY

WHERE ADRIEN REPEATEDLY FACED DISAPPOINTMENT IN LADYBUG

WHERE HE SAW HER AT HER LOWEST

WHERE HE QUESTIONED HER DECISIONS

WHERE HE WAS ANGRY WITH HER

WHERE SHE WASN’T, IN FACT, EVERTHING HE COULD DREAM OF

AND HE STILL THOUGHT THAT SHE WAS PERFECT?

-

if you’re going to try and tell me

that “Kuro Neko” 

was the breaking point that made him fall out of love with her

after all the rest of it

that the boy who from the very beginning 

thought that she was perfect in all her imperfections 

fell out of love with her over that

do you realise

how much of the appeal is that he loves her imperfection

that he knows that people are fallible

that Ladybug is, too

because the boy whose life is a public performance of perfection

knows better than anyone

that perfection doesn’t exist

 - 

do you realise

how much of the appeal was the contrast 

to the girl who swooned over his fabricated images

covered her room in professionally photoshopped pictures of him

from the performance that made him miserable

that projects to the world an image that does not correspond 

to the real self he never tries to hide

the girl who fell in love with that sincerity

but in her love failed to tell the difference between what is real and what is factitious

and so she is blind to his imperfections

unlike him, who saw her real and imperfect self

do you realise

that your story was always for her to realise

for her to learn to see past the image

for her to recognise him

not the teen idol not the model not the son of her idol not the boy in the ads not the classmate whose fabulous life she needed a hundred and three episodes to realise he didn’t find fabulous at all

not even the super hero, who she always saw clearer anyway

 - 

do you really mean to tell me that your moral will be

that this boy’s love could not survive disappointment

that friendship survived partnership survived loyalty survived

but love didn’t

because the boy who is a prisoner to his father’s demand for perfection

couldn’t love that

which refused to be what he wished it would be?

-

nota bene I belong to the “Adrien’s been in love with Marinette all along and just never realised” club, and YOU KNOW. Have him give up on Ladybug ever returning his feelings, have him pursue Marinette for the same reason he did Kagami - lovely! Carry on, throw a party! But have him fall out of love with Ladybug because she had other friends than him?

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Hiya - I saw a post recently stating lyrics from ‘Too Many People’ are definitive proof that Paul was aware of a romantic undercurrent to his relationship with John, and I was wondering what your thoughts on that are.

These are the lyrics: “That was your last mistake / I find my love awake and waiting to be / Now what can be done for you / She's waiting for me”

Hi there! Thanks for your question. So you know me — I rarely deal in absolutes except when it comes to professing my devotion to Taylor Swift.

I've seen the post in question and I'd say I don't agree that it's definitive proof, while I acknowledge that it isn't a reach to come to that conclusion based on those lines. I do however think it shows that Paul was most probably aware that John harboured some kind of jealousy towards his relationship with Linda. Maybe he didn't understand it to be specifically of a sexual nature — which is also why I think possibly Too Many People hurt John more than Paul had ever intended for it. I actually think even if Paul came to understand that John had some form of sexual feelings for him, his general behaviour (his insecurity about John even considering him a friend, the way he compares himself to Yoko) gives me the impression, that he didn't really come to understand the depth of John's feelings for him.

But I do have a hard time believing he wouldn't've at least sensed John's entitlement towards him, even if he wasn't quite clued into the reasons for it, with lyrics like that. Like, Paul often writes lyrics without much intent I think but I hear "Now what can be done for you? She's waiting for me." and I do think "come on."

I find that moment in the song really interesting because Paul and Yoko have talked about competing for John and John has compared them to each other, but to my knowledge this is the only time anyone involved came close to acknowledging that perhaps John was competing with Linda in some sense. John definitely made it kind of obvious, with how needlessly cruel he was when talking about her and their relationship, but yeah, this, I believe, is the closest anyone ever came to addressing that part of the love-constellation they had going on.

[thisadhdlife]

Gold In The Valley, by MitiS: A Lyrical Breakdown of how this song makes me fee. (Because why TF not?)

So, let’s start with the obvious question first: Why? Why Am I doing this? Because the song makes me tear up and cry every time I hear it. I’ve heard if on/off for 3 days now, almost. So, I’d like to analyze my feelings through writing about it.

Why post a lyrical analysis on this blog? Because it’s my blog. Duh. I’ll post whatever I want, especially if I feel it relates to ADHD and/or the experience (emotional or otherwise) around it in some way/shape/form.

*~*~*

Oh you never know Who you're talking to What things they've been through So just please be kind It was hard to say It's sunshine or rain When somebody's smile Could be hiding pain

This hits hard. Reminds me of that quote from Plato, “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle“. For 30+ years of my life, I wasn’t even aware that I was in a constant battle with my ADHD. It’s only now, that the battle is over, and the war has been WON that I realize just how much suffering, just how much pain, and anguish I’d been enduring without even realizing it. Now you might ask, “how can you win against ADHD?” ~ But the fact that I know it’s ADHD, the fact that I can get help, the fact that I can access and use medication. That’s WINNING. You can’t tackle a problem/issue that you don’t know is there, right? So, yeah. I for sure consider the battle won.

But it's hard to pretend Forever and keep it inside And we're all in this world together And no one should hide

I always felt alienated. Like I was stupider than everyone else. Like I was somehow less-than, you know? It hit me like a ton of bricks the first time I took my medication... just how easy being human is for everyone else. I know, sounds strange when I put it like that. But it’s true. I always felt like an alien inside my own skin. I guess that’s what ADHD Alien talks about and depicts in their work... thing is, until I took my medication, I just DIDN’T KNOW how different everyone else’s experience of the world truly is. I mean, if it’s THIS EASY for you to put down your phone and focus on your work, to focus on boring things that don’t interest you... OF COURSE you’ll think that anyone else who can’t do it with the same ease is just lazy. It’s not OK, but, at the same time... I finally understood the perspective of all the people in my life who had been trying to get me to do better, to somehow “motivate” me in all the wrong ways. They were doing the best in the way they knew how, and it’s not their fault. Taking the medication, I think, more than anything allowed me to empathize with others on a level I’d never been able to before and it allowed me to forgive everyone in one instant. They tried their best to get me to do stuff, to get my life together. It’s not their fault they didn’t know... so, forgive them. Educate them, maybe if they’re open to it. And move forward boldly and without fear.

Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Keep it inside

Keep it inside Keep it inside

Keep it inside

For most of my life, I’ve either been made to feel stupid, or I felt stupid myself. It didn’t matter that I somehow got through college and got a degree. Or somehow managed to finish an MA in Psychology. I always felt stupid. Always felt like I just got lucky somehow. I believe the term for it is “imposter syndrome”. And for the longest time, I felt like anything and everything I was able to do in my life was because I got lucky. Because SO MANY TIMES in my life... anything I touch, turns to ash. Anything I try... just doesn’t work out. It doesn’t. So, when it does work out once-in-a-blue-moon... I feel like it must’ve been luck. Surely, I couldn’t be smart enough, or hard-working enough to have achieved whatever it is that I achieved. Right? RIGHT!? That’s what this lyric reminds me of. The “gold” in this context is my intelligence, ability to work hard, and actually achieve something of worth. But every time I find gold in the gold-mine we call life... I just keep telling myself “there’s no gold here, you just got lucky. Take it, and move on. You won’t find more.”

I don’t even know if that makes sense, but that’s how it feels. Like... just be thankful for what you have, and don’t try to do anything more because you’ll end up failing. For the longest time... in fact, as far back as I can remember, that has been my experience of life. But, I’m working actively to change that. I have help, I have support, and I don’t intend to waste my time living in the past forever.

What we put out into the air Comes back to us Flowing through us Know it isn't too hard to care Kindness moves us Hate is useless And I think we can do better One heart at a time

This is the part that always makes me tear up the most. This is the part that I relate to the most post-treatment, and post-diagnosis. I felt... for the first time in my life... validated. That I wasn’t just some washed-up, has-been, lazy, morally-defective waste of a human being with no prospects in life. From the doctor who believed me when I told her the nature and the peculiar condition of my suffering, to the counselor who didn’t make me feel ashamed for choosing to take stimulant medication to manage my condition.

There will always be non-believers and nay-sayers. We, who suffer from this peculiar condition called ADHD, probably know a few. But that doesn’t mean we can’t move forward without them. In my own case, my own parents don’t believe that anything like ADHD even exists. At best, it’s a ploy to sell more medication by big-pharma. And yet... I can personally attest to the fact that the condition is real. The medication works for me more than any amount of diet/exercise/meditation has ever worked... and I’m about as dependent on the medication as I am on the prescription glasses I wear in order to be able to see.

The medication took the “fog” of ADHD away. It made time REAL. It allowed me to visualize and plan, and prioritize almost instantly. And for the first time ever... I could feel, and see, and use the intellect I always knew I had. I’m not stupid, I don’t think I’ve ever been stupid, or lazy. And the medication finally gave me the ability to grasp that fully. Give me clarity. I KNOW I CAN DO BETTER. And I will. My mission in life is clear: Help those who suffer from undiagnosed ADHD in any way/shape/form I can by becoming a Clinical Psychologist. I want to make sure that no one has to suffer unnecessarily and needlessly the way I suffered. That is my drive. That’s my reason for existing. This... pain. This... anguish... that I didn’t even know I was going through until the first day I tried the medication. Nobody deserves this. Nobody deserves to feel this way. And If I have anything to say/do about it... less people in this world will. That’s what the “one heart at a time” part in this lyric reinforces for me.

Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Gold lies in the valleys And all I have Keep it inside

I know that the ADHD will never be cured, or fixed, or be forever gone. Like Type 1 Diabetes, there is no cure. Only management. So, manage it I shall. Would I wish this on anyone else? No. But if this is the way I was meant to be... then I won’t fight it. I’ll embrace it. I’ll use all the tools available to me to focus and channel this gift (or curse, whatever you want to call it) and direct it to help as many people I can. I’ll do everything I can to touch as many lives as I can.

*~*~*

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you for reading. It means a lot.

I love you all. Listen to the song!

Stay safe out there. <3

Take care of yourself, ADHD fam.

[potahun]

Some more Qin Shen Shen moment translations (part 4/?)

Link to other translations so far

-Pretty much all the cuts in Ep. 9

a. Episode 9: Zhou Hua Jian is on stage, patting his face with a tissue after his and Yi Qiao’s performance, and Li Keqin basically decides to throw Zhou Shen under the bus. 

ZS, talking discreetly to LKQ about ZHJ: Why does he consistently carry those tissues to absorb facial oil? haha 

LKQ: *lightbulb moment* ...Ask him in a moment.

ZS: !...I don’t want to. Haha *cutely, with his arms in a cross* No! 

(...)

LKQ, raising his hand (to ZHJ): Wait a second, just to ask... Earlier, when you finished singing, the young singer next to me had a question he wanted to ask you.  (ZS, pointing at LKQ in disbelief: EEEEYYY )

ZS, helpless but goes with it (to ZHJ): Uhhh....It’s teacher Keqin who asked me to ask this...... Why do you consistently carry those tissues to absorb oil or to wipe sweat? 

ZHJ, being a great sport: ?? Why wouldn’t I carry them? *laughs*

LKQ (to ZS): That’s just how senior singers are!

ZS: Oh. Alright! (to ZHJ) It’s teacher Keqin who asked me to ask this. Sorry elder brother Hua Jian. *bows*

ZHJ, playing along: Not at all. Not at all! You’re asking for the brand of the tissues, aren’t you?

ZS, panicking while LKQ is cracking up next door: Aaah...?? *uneasy laughter* (ZHJ, still playing: Or is it the price??) Yes - uh, the brand! Y-y-you can just tell me backstage. 

ZHJ, still laughing: No problem, no problem.

ZS, barely recovering, but grabbing LKQ’s shoulder while LKQ looks like he’s having a blast: Is this how you throw people under the bus?? Is it??? (LKQ leans into ZS’s part of the sofa, still enjoying himself too much)

b. Episode 9: Football cut, Li Keqin had told Zhou Shen that if he could shoot the ball into the goal, he could choose the song. If not, Li Keqin would choose. The result’s not surprising.

LKQ, each of them sitting on a football: I’d like a song with a lot of long notes.

ZS: A lot of long notes right? *thinks*

LKQ: Actually, I used to have this song called “Great Concert Hall” *demonstrates a little* But I’m scared that you’ll have to sing in Cantonese again -- it feels like each time, I’m bullying you. *snorts*

ZS, kickstarting broadcasting mode: Not at all. Why would everyone else think that you’re bullying me? They’ll just think that you’re giving me an opportunity to practice my Cantonese. *impish smile*

LKQ, patting ZS on the shoulder: Good kid. (Both crack up)

They talk about Han Hong’s “Tian Liang Le” and its sad backstory and ZS does a K.O on Li Keqin with his “my every song are my children” line. (already translated)

LKQ: What else is there?

ZS: *sings a little bit of “That Sea” / “Na Pian Hai”* (LKQ: Ohhhh! )

LKQ: *sings along* Eh, this song is really good. (ZS: It is a really good song.) But if we really decide to sing this one....we might have to make some changes to it.

ZS: Truth be told, if it’s a duet, it will already be a little differen-- eh? At the end, wasn’t it supposed to be you choosing the song? Why am I giving so many ideas?

LKQ: Eeeh, we’re a teaam... (ZS: Aaaahh) Okaayy *snaps fingers* (ZS: As expected of senior singeeers *snaps fingers with him* Role model artists are just differennnt) LKQ: It’s like you and your every song being your childreeenn. (Both start laughing again) 

c. Episode 9: During Qin Shen Shen’s performance, Li Keqin’s earphone monitor fell during his high note and was basically hanging behind his butt for the rest of the song. At the end of the song, the MC points it out:

MC: Elder brother Keqin, had you realised that it fell?

LKQ, no shame whatsoever: Yeah. *clears throat* 

ZS, very impish: Haha!

LKQ: So I was scared that this...this young person here *designates ZS* (ZS: You’re young too.) ...would feel embarrassed, so I...tried to give it my maximum. 

 ZS, using the polite form of “you”: Ah, no, no, no. Please do not say that. I am scared. *still laughs* 

Fun fact:  Li Keqin’s earphone monitor fell in Zhou Shen’s presence not once, not twice, but three times: once here, once in Episode 12, and one time during their 2020 New Year’s concert event (Ye Lang Disco) after which Li Keqin probably couldn’t hear the music anymore and looked like he had to find his rhythm back by reading Zhou Shen’s lips.

d. Episode 9: Backstage room. Even though they’d introduced what they’d sing as “That Sea”, what they sang is actually a combination of “That Sea” and another song called “Listen to the Sea” ( “Ting Hai”). Li Keqin explains.

LKQ: Actually, I think those two songs’ lyrics overlap quite a bit. So...I thought, if we could mix them together, it could give a bit of a ....... *wiggles silently while looking at ZS*

ZS (to the camera), translating: ...a nice surprise!

LKQ: A nice surprise! Yes!

e. Episode 9, after each group wished Li Keqin happy birthday using their own musical way. 

MC (to LKQ): So the show’s staff team doesn’t really have a birthday present for you, but we’ve found a very special song and through this song, we’d like to ask you a question, is that ok? *the staff puts on a song*

LKQ, thinking briefly before nodding: Mm.

MC: Elder brother Keqin, this song is very meaningful to you. 

LKQ: Of course. I used this song to enter a competition (T/N: the competition thanks to which he debuted).

MC: 34 years ago... (LKQ makes a face) you used this song to win a singing competition.

LKQ: Yes, at 2 years old. 

ZS laughs. LKQ, next to him: ;;;;;;;;;;;

Li Keqin then explains how, at the time he won the competition, he had signed up for college (he was actually 18) and told his parents to give him 2 years, if after 2 years there were still ppl willing to sell his CDs, he’d stay in the industry etc. etc. 

f. Episode 9: Easter egg at the end of the episode, i.e. Zhou Shen rallies the other participants one by one and organises a bday surprise for Li Keqin. 

ZS (visiting ZHJ): Hello teacher Hua Jian.

ZHJ, while asking ZS to sit: Eeehh! Hello little Zhou (ZS: Hello, big Zhou) Old Zhou finally meets small Zhou.

Zhou Shen explains that he wants to do a bday surprise for Li Keqin. Zhou Hua Jian replies that he’ll think of a few lines to sing to him, including writing a few lyrics, which Zhou Shen finds to be great. 

ZS, bullshitting: Then...Then the day after tomorrow is my birthday, can you also write a song for me? (both crack up)

ZHJ: Let’s talk about that tomorrow. (Both crack up again) So, now that I’m already going to put in work for him *grabs ZS’s arm* what are you guys singing tonight? *laughs*

ZS: Ahh! *slides away on his chair* We’ll sing whatever you’ll sing!!

ZHJ: Hey, no need to slide away on your chair like that! (ZS slides away even more)

--

(Later, when Zhou Shen visits Ren Xianqi) RXQ: So, what you’re saying is that you’d like to give him a “surprise” (said in English). 

ZS: Yes. 

RXQ: How do you want to do it? Splash him with cake?

ZS, laughing: That’s not a “surprise”, that’s a “shock” (also said in English).

--

Zhou Shen then says he also needs the younger singers’ help and visits Ayanga first. They say hello and start acting needlessly formal.

ZS, in an uncharacteristically deep tone: May I ask if this is gentleman Ayanga?

AYG, in the same tone: It is.

ZS: I am gentleman Zhou Shen. 

AYG: Please sit.

ZS, shaking his hand, still acting formal: Tonight, I need your help for something. 

AYG, playing along: Tell me.

ZS: Tomorrow....*switches to mischievous whisper* ...is teacher Li Keqin’s birthday!!

AYG: Then what do you have?  Do you have cake? *laughs*

ZS: Of course. A birthday surprise should of course have birthday cake.

AYG: Is it those cakes that have multiple levels and are really high?

ZS: Full of peaches.  (ZS cracks up and looks at the camera) No need to broadcast this (T/N: Not too sure, but I think there’s an inference with peaches and old people?)  Anyways, I’ll count on your cooperation, Ga Zi Ge. (AYG: Of course! Such a good thing) See you later, gentleman Ayanga.

AYG: Ay. Ms. Zhou Shen-- (ZS, holding him down: Don’t stand up.) 

Zhou Shen then realises what he said and hits him while Ayanga laughs. Zhou Shen finally visits Xiao Zhan.

XZ: What do you need me to do? 

ZS: Push the cake trolley!

XZ: No problem, I’m the best at pushing cake trolleys! 

ZS: Ah, really? Then ok, thank you. *shakes his hand*

XZ: Ah, that’s it? Whoa, this surprise is pretty easy to do!

--

For the surprise itself, Zhou Shen hides behind the sofa in the backstage room where all of the senior singers will come sit & chat. He lies down with a confetti cracker and his gift for Li Keqin. The seniors come in and start chatting about things, including their younger singer partners. Ren Xianqi mentions that whenever people see him and Liu Yuning together, they find Ren Xianqi’s legs really short (because Liu Yuning is super tall), and Li Keqin picks up:

LKQ: Well, my partner is not easy to work with either!

ZS, hidden behind the chair: ????? *narrows his eyes*

LKQ (to the others): You (RXQ) said just now that after working with yours, you found out that your legs are very short. Well, me? After working with mine, I suddenly found out my key is very low! 

Zhou Shen laughs silently behind the sofa, while the seniors agree.

RXQ: Right, Zhou Shen’s singing key is really high. 

LKQ: Yeah, my key is like here, and his is there! *demonstrates the gap with his hands*

ZHJ: That...that, we all know already. Doesn’t he have any other small problems/bad points? (RXQ: Right, any other small....?)

LKQ: ...No. No, he doesn’t. Appearance-wise, we match quite well. It’s very nice. 

ZHJ: *chortles* He makes your legs look long. 

All the seniors laugh, and Zhou Shen feigns being hurt behind the sofa, rolling his eyes. 

ZHJ: He really doesn’t? Not even a small problem?

LKQ: No, no. I find him very fun. He just doesn’t like sports. So I’ve asked him, what do you usually do at home? And he told me... “I lie down at home”. That’s it! (ZS is covering his mouth behind the sofa) So each episode, I take him out to play a sport. (RXQ, interested: Eh? ) Yeah! Yeah, yeah. For the 2nd episode, we played badminton, and yesterday, we played football.

ZHJ: Oh, no wonder, no wonder -- I think he grew taller! (all the seniors laugh, and ZS also laughs behind the sofa) That fast!

Zhou Shen finally makes the confetti cracker explode, scaring all the seniors. Li Keqin is in complete ????????? mode while Zhou Hua Jian is already dying of laughter at seeing Zhou Shen come out from behind the sofa. Li Keqin finally sees Zhou Shen and jumps to his feet:

ZS, vaguely threatening: Teacher Keqin~ 

LKQ, dying of laughter but also cowering: Eiyo, yo, eiyo, ey... Whoa! You’ve been hiding there for this long?? 

RXQ: You want to scare us to death?

ZS: From the beginning, I’ve marked down each and every single one of the bad points that you’ve raised about us young singers. (ZHJ laughs) I shall transmit them to the others one by one. But especially you *grabs LKQ’s arm* What you said was exceptionally truthful. 

LKQ, opening his mouth like a goldfish: Thank God I praised you a tiny little bit in the beginning, huh? Otherwise I’d be done for, huh? *makes space for ZS on the sofa* Sit, sit, sit...

The other young singers finally come in with the cake and more confetti crackers, thus completing the surprise.

Episode 9 bonus, not a QSS moment, but the others’ comments on their performance: 

FYQ, on behalf of him and Ayanga: Really, really really. This definitely needs written notes. (...) These two have already collaborated multiple times; there’s plenty of chemistry. And especially Zhou Shen...his voice is multi-layered, it keeps piling upwards...... Li Keqin’s voice is SO stable! You sang these songs of yours, changing back and forth, it made us really enjoy it... *remembers his killer line* The score will definitely be high. (T/N: he says that line for every group throughout ep. 9) 

ZHJ (about FYQ): It sounds a lot like a report on the situation of the stocks market. 

ZHJ, on behalf of him and Yi Qiao (about LKQ and ZS): I feel like this group, from ep. 1 onwards, they’ve kept levelling up (...) We will work hard too. In the future, when we grow up, we’ll definitely learn from you. *laughs* 

AC, on behalf of her and Xiao Zhan: Oh, I was closing my eyes earlier on and thinking ‘where did this girl come from? Her singing is so beautiful! (ZS looks to the side, embarrassed) (...) Especially, these two, they have a kind of...It’s like, when we used to do acting in the past, the director would tell us that acting is like a ball game, if one side’s ball falls to the ground, the scene won’t look good. This scene (referring to Qin Shen Shen) looks really good.

RXQ, on behalf of him and Liu Yuning: I think it’s really pleasing to the eye. Especially the stage design, and those two looking like they’re looking at each other across the sea, and then slowly, slowly getting back together. It makes you feel the sea waves coming and surrounding you. *appreciative sound* Good. *thumbs up*

[lucyoftheabyss48]

Thoughts on Promare Part 1: Galo and Lio’s Relationship

I rewatched Promare recently, so I thought I’d write a piece on it. (Read Part 2 here )

I want to try to explain why Galo and Lio work so well together, even though Galo himself described their partnership as “oil and water.” And it’s true. They’re opposites, practically living in separate worlds. Lio’s the leader of the terrorist group Mad Burnish. Galo’s a firefighter, tasked with putting out the Burnish’s fires and capturing them. They’re natural enemies, natural rivals. They’re on different sides. They certainly start out this way. But by the end of the film, they find common ground and fight together. Let’s take a look at how they got there. 

This was also inspired by the song Inferno from the Promare OST, so I’ve incorporated some lyrics throughout, which will explain why the song fits in so well with the movie.

“All my life been hoping for a happy life for me”

Lio and the Mad Burnish have a creed, that they wouldn’t kill needlessly. They wouldn’t kill innocent people. They would just fight to create a safe place for the Burnish who were being captured and exploited by Kray Foresight. So, early on, it’s established that Lio is someone who cares about other people — that he isn’t so bad, even if he is a terrorist group leader.

When the truth that the flames were sentient aliens who had a natural inclination to burn everything and destroy the earth came out, Lio was shocked. He wondered aloud, “Then what have we been (fighting for)?”

I’m implying the fighting for part, because he actually just trails off there. But the main point here is that he’s questioning what he and the rest of Mad Burnish have been doing all this time.

Remember, he cares about people, so much that he wouldn’t kill the people who lived in ignorance and prejudice towards the Burnish. He wouldn’t even kill the people who jailed him and his fellow Burnish. Not hurting people is what Lio is all about. It just so happened that he had fire powers that spoke to him in his mind, saying that they wanted to burn. Resisting it was impossible. To burn meant to live, for him.

But the very flames that he felt were a natural and essential part of him would end up destroying the Earth, and all the people on it that he cared so much for.

“Trails of Fire… They’d lead me to you”

Lio burned and fought as the Mad Burnish leader because it seemed natural to him, as natural as breathing. But when he realized that it may have just been the will of alien creatures inside of him, he began to question himself and his actions up until then.

He began to question his place. He didn’t feel like he belonged with his fire alien race. But he didn’t have a place among humans either. So he experienced a loss of identity and purpose.

But Lio wasn't in this alone.

When Galo crashed into Lio in his rampaging, revenge-driven dragon form and trapped him inside the ship Aina was driving, Lio was very visibly thrown off guard when Galo said, “I understand how you feel. I was betrayed by Kray too.”

The last time they’d met was in the cave, and Galo had apologized for assuming Burnish didn’t need to eat, for thinking they weren’t human. He had even said that he thought Burnish could live normal lives with the other humans.  

Lio was the leader of the Burnish, furthest from a normal human being, the largest outcast of human society. But here was Galo — a human, a fire fighter, a hero with a medal for capturing the big boss — agreeing that yes, Lio is human, and yes, he does deserve a place to belong. And Lio wanted to believe him. But at the time of the cave scene, Galo was still ignorant of Kray’s crimes.

Then he sat handcuffed in that cave alone and in the dark. He watched powerless, as a Burnish woman died and disappeared without trace into ash. He found out Lio hadn’t been lying about Kray. He was thrown into prison. He pounded his fists on his cell door and cried. Everything he’d known had been a lie, and the person who’d led him there had only wanted him to die.

Next we see him, he’s sitting stone faced as far from the door as possible.

Then when Galo hears — senses — Lio rampaging outside, when Lio’s flames break down the cell walls and Galo looks out and sees him there, of course he notices the trail of flaming tears Lio is shedding. Of course he understands. Because he’s the same.

He was betrayed too.

But when he said that, he meant more than just that. He meant, “I know now, what you’re going through. I know, and I will be here for you.” Galo had lost his place in society too— branded as a terrorist and jailed by his hero. He meant that they were equals, that they were in the same boat, so they shouldn’t be fighting each other, but fighting together.

“You guys are smiling at me, and you inspire”

Although they once stood on opposing sides, Galo and Lio learned to respect each other despite their differences. And I think the biggest reason why they were able to do so, was because they essentially told each other, “Your convictions are right. You can be proud about that.”

Lio never wanted to hurt people. He just lost a place to belong the day he became a Burnish, and he’s been looking for “the place that he lost” all this time. He’ll do anything to get equality for his fellow Burnish, but he’ll never kill anyone for it.

Galo had a hero to look up to. He tries not to be prejudiced, as evidenced with how angry he was that the innocent pizza cook was arrested before he ever even committed any crimes, just because he was a Burnish. He admits when he’s wrong, like when he found out Burnish ate and grieved over lost friends, just like normal humans.

But all that he was, was because of Kray. Yet Kray was doing horrible things. Kray had lied to him, and led him down this path of being a firefighter, the same path Kray himself had gone down, in hopes that Galo would just die on the field. Kray was exploiting the Burnish to save himself. Galo couldn’t believe that his savior and hero was actually doing something so terrible. He felt betrayed.

But he saw Lio suffering, on the verge of breaking his code of not killing people. So Galo rushed in and reminded Lio of that, because Lio’s conviction was something Galo could admire. In a moment of weakness, hurt and alone in that cell, Galo looked up and he saw Lio in the same place. He couldn’t leave that alone. Lio was supposed to be the strong one, set in his beliefs and values, just like Galo once thought Kray was.

Just like Galo himself wanted to be.

“I know I can be the man that I should be.”

So Galo saved Lio, and told him to keep on burning, because he had the “pride of the Burnish” to uphold. And likewise, Lio told Galo his firefighting soul was needed to save this world. It wasn’t Kray’s influence, or Kray’s teachings to him, but Galo’s own values, his own burning firefighter’s soul that was needed.

They found each other’s strength in their values respectable, admirable, and inspirational — but they could also rely on the other in their darkest hours. Despite their differences, this is where they are the same, and that’s why they can work together so well.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

Sleep Tight For Me...I’m Gone

Lately I’ve been writing these Better Days Are A Toenail Away™️ posts in Microsoft Word, selecting all and changing the font to Garamond, which is so readable and beautiful, and posting the Word docs, paragraphs by paragraph, inside these Tumblr drafts. It makes things look nice, to my old fashioned sensibilities, but fixing errors is a time-consuming and needlessly convoluted four-step process.

First, I have to copy, then delete the paragraph containing the error. Then I open the doc. and paste the error-ridden paragraph back into Word. After I find and fix the error, I need to save it and copy and paste it back into the post. It's time-consuming because I’m not just copying a paragraph. As you can see from more recent post, what I copied looked more like a photograph of the paragraph, not the words themselves written in Tumblr’s default font Arial. For an example of this, see below. I like the way it looks like old newspaper clippings. I posted an article about how my fent dealer John Smith kept getting robbed, and had resorted to putting a machete in front of his front door as a way of preventing this, a lever of sorts, which is plainly visible in the video I posted,

So today I’ve given up on trying to make my posts look like books or zines, and have given into the Tumblr font, which is about as pretty as a horse with his snout shot off.

There are two much longer posts I’m working on right now, one about Nirvana and one about Soundgarden, respectively, and how both bands were very unlike their public perception, but those posts are taking a lot of work so I’m putting them on the backburner because today is some dumbass corporation’s day where it tries to synthesize mental health and profit and the end result is as baldly capitalist and clumsy as you would expect. 

I’m not gonna name the company, or repeat their stupid fucking slogan. As far as I can tell (which isn't very far), talking about my trauma has never made me feel better. And in fact it has sometimes made me feel worse, because in telling you what hurts and scares me, I’ve given a part of myself away that I can’t get back. When you’re like me, and you’ve lost everything multiple times, sometimes the only form of power you have is how you choose, or do not choose, to tell your story. And in a world where everybody wants to tell “their truth,” silence is power. 

You don’t get to know me, sorry. I’m not gonna hand you my life, both my bad and good experiences, and conclude: “Welp, that’s why I’m so fucked up. Case closed.” 

Honestly, I used to be a little confused, or miffed that my former partner (who is an amazing person btw, in every respect) almost never spoke about some of the traumatic things she’d experienced in her past. I took it as a sign that she either didn’t trust me, or she didn’t think I would be a sympathetic listener, or the mere fact of my gender precluded her from sharing because I couldn’t truly understand what it was she had gone through. It’s not like I ever asked her to talk about it, but I did say, once or twice, “hey if you ever wanna talk about that stuff, I’m around.” She never took me up on it, and I let it go. 

But as I watched her, and saw her life unfold, over the years we spent together, I began to realize I wasn’t exactly in any position to be telling her how to live her life or how to be mentally healthy. After all, she has found success in a number of avenues, both creative and occupational, and I’ve found neither. I'm not saying the fact that she didn't talk much about her trauma is the reason for her success. I'm saying that she's forged a better path through life than I have, and maybe I should take a cue from that.

She never told me what to do, per se. It was more like living by example. But because I’m pretty dense, and a severe addict, our time together actually sorta reminds me now of that Cornell lyric from his first record: She’s going to change the world. But she can’t change me.

I have certainly found that talking about how shitty my life is only makes me feel more shitty, not free, or unburdened, or better. If you wanna talk about your problems, and you find it helpful, more power to you. Just don’t wait for a corporation to tell you it’s okay to not be okay. 

When Chris Cornell died I was so shocked. Of all the grunge icons he seemed the most stable, and he'd survived the rise and fall of two major label rock bands. If anyone had survived the media machine that chewed up and spat out Staley, Cobain, and to a lesser extent Andrew Wood and Shannon Hoon, it was Cornell. He would be the last guy to support hashtag activism like #StarbucksMyLifeSucks. Chris Cornell actually loved to fuck with the best laid plans of corporate rats. Molson once had a few promotional concerts in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, called Molson Canadian Rocks Arctic, with both Hole and Soundgarden playing to a crowd of flown-in grunge fans and bemused locals. But the whole anti-corporate thing grunge was known for actually came through when Courtney Love told the crowd she “use[d] Molson Canadian to douche.” Lol. Here’s a photo of Love arriving in Tuktoyatuk.

Cornell told the same people “so we’re here because of some beer company? Labatt’s?” Both artists’ jabs are funny. Cornell’s was a bit more subtle, but that’s what Cornell was like. 

So today’s post is about Chris Cornell’s suicide, more specifically the media’s reaction to it. For whatever reason, when Cornell died, every single news outlet, from CNN to Fox to CBC, posted “Black Hole Sun,” as if it’s the only song he ever fucking wrote, or – and this is far worse – the only song he wrote that’s worth hearing. The problem with this is more than twofold or threefold. It's fucking hydraheaded. 

Not only is “Black Hole Sun” a mediocre piece of music, it’s a complete misrepresentation of Soundgarden’s sound. 

Now, I’m a huge fan of the A.V. Club series HateSong, in which public figures gleefully talk shit about the one song they hate more than any other song in the world. The Max Bemis (Say Anything) one where he talks about Nirvana’s “Rape Me” as a terrible rewrite of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is terrific, but comedian Anthony Jeselnik’s HateSong takes “Black Hole Sun” apart, and I love it. I think the best line is: I think the more I hear it, the worse it gets. AVC: After the song became a huge hit, Chris Cornell said that he’d written it in about 15 minutes. AJ: I totally believe that. I don’t believe that Soundgarden likes that song. Like, I remember Eminem once said that he knew his song “My Name Is” was going to be a huge hit because the first time he heard it he was annoyed. It’s something about an annoying song that just grabs onto people. But I don’t think that anyone likes “Black Hole Sun.” I’ve never heard of anyone who likes it. I don’t understand why it gets played so much. It’s become a summer jam, and it’s not a summer song at all. Jeselnik is right that Soundgarden didn’t think much of the song. Guitarist Kim Thayil wasn’t kidding when he disparagingly called it the “Dream On” of their live show. And Cornell himself, known for a meticulous approach to his songwriting, had admitted that with “Black Hole Sun”was “probably the closest to me just playing with words for words’ sake, of anything I’ve written. I guess it worked for a lot of people who heard it, but I have no idea how you'd begin to take that one literally.” I mean it’s obvious from the opening lines that Cornell is just playing with words and how they sound: in my eyes/indisposed/in disguises no one knows What songs would have been more appropriate for Cornell’s untimely death? Glad you asked! Cuz there’s like…fucking at least ten that would have been better. I’m not tryna be one of those “the deep album cuts are better maaaaaan,” but with Soundgarden, it happens to be true. With some bands, the single are their best work. With other bands, the singles are the hors d’oeuvres for the entrees. So what deep cuts would have celebrated Cornell’s death a bit better? Well, to begin with, Superunknown’s strange and stately closer “Like Suicide” would have worked, for obvious reasons.

“Tighter and Tighter,” a song that is actually about the moment of death and what it might feel like, is one of my all-time fav Soundgarden songs. Not only is it a creepy and prescient prediction of what Cornell’s death by hanging himself may have felt like, it’s opening line is a good description of the personification of death: Shadow face/Blowing smoke and talking wind

Another sample lyric: “A sucking holy wind will take me from this bed tonight/and bloody wits another hits me and I have to say goodbye/sleep tight for me, I’m gone/and I hope it’s  a sweet ride/here for me tonight/cuz I’m feel I’m going/feel I’m slowing down.” 

The morning after Cornell’s death hit the news my buddy and bandmate James told me that en route to work his phone, which was playing music randomly through his car speakers, landed on “Tighter and Tighter” and he had to pull over because he was tearing up. 

“Fell On Black Days” is another song about depression and mortality. Cornell had the following to say about the song: “Fell on Black Days” was like this ongoing fear I’ve had for years ... It's a feeling that everyone gets. You're happy with your life, everything’s going well, things are exciting—when all of a sudden you realize you’re unhappy in the extreme, to the point of being really, really scared. There's no particular event you can pin the feeling down to, it's just that you realize one day that everything in your life is fucked! 

Now, if that’s not a cogent and even-tempered explanation of suicidal thoughts, what is? Why else would Cornell have admitted to being “really really scared” by his depression unless he knew what that depression could ultimately leasd to? Here’s some lyrics to “Fell on Black Days.” Dig the high literary use of “whomsoever” and “whatsoever.” Whatsoever I’ve feared has come to life Whatsoever I fought off became my life Just when every day seemed to greet me with a smile sunspots have faded and now I’m doing time cuz I fell on black days

Whomsoever I’ve cured I’ve sickened now Whomsoever I’ve cradled...I put you down I’m a searchlight soul they say but I can’t see it in the night I’m only faking when I get it right I sure don’t mind a change but I fell on black days how would I know that this could be my fate?

Eagle-eared listeners might think this version different from the album version. They are right. The rendition in the video was recorded live off the floor @ Bad Animals, the Seattle studio owned by Heart, where Soundgarden would record Down on the Upside. 

“Boot Camp” is a scary meditation about loss of agency that for years was tied with Zeppelin’s “I'm Gonna Crawl” for Creepiest Song to Cap a Discography, until Soundgarden reunited and released King Animal.

“Taree” is about ghost light, influencing events after dying and features Cornell’s most exhausted, convincing “yeah” @ 2:57.

“Applebite” is a Matt Cameron-penned ponderous clunker about Adam’s original expulsion from Eden. Doomy and death-laden.

“Let Me Drown” is a song about letting someone die.

“The Day I Tried To Live” is frequently cited as Soundgarden’s finest achievement, its odd time signature somehow sounds straight, thanks to Matt Cameron’s brilliant time keeping.

“4th of July” is a song about a post apocalyptic urban landscape, where the speaker isn’t sure whether he is seeing fireworks or bombs. 

“Limo Wreck” is a cool death song and has an eerie 9-11 prediction. “Building the towers belongs to the sky/when the whole thing comes crashing down don’t ask me why.” 

ANY of the above songs would have been better than that fucking asinine dirge-like major key fuckaround that has somehow not just become Soundgarden's signature song...but their ONLY song. 

Does nobody remember Johnny Cash covering “Rusty Cage?” 

“Outshined?”

“Burden In My Hand?”

“Blow Up The Outside World?”

Did none of these other songs get stuck in the electric head? (The electric head is Rob Zombie’s term for the technologically advanced culture we have found ourselves enmeshed in, or imprisoned by. It was the subtitle for White Zombie’s 1995 hit album Astro-Creep 2000: Songs of Love, Destruction, and other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head.)

For my money (which ain’t much honey), the song that best fits both Cornell’s artistic integrity and the sad circumstances of his suicide is “Tighter and Tighter.” I once wrote a whole article on the way artists use “yeah” as a placeholder or as a way to convey emotion when words themselves aren’t adequate. Dig that tired, world-weary exhausted “yeah” at 5:35 of “Tighter & Tighter.”

Or the creepy line going into the first chorus: remember this...remember everything’s just black or burning sun. Not that I agree with such a bleak worldview. It’s a writer’s line. And Randy Bachman has said, “when you’re a writer, you’d step over your own mother.” That’s the Cornell I want to remember. Not that he would step over his own mother. By all accounts he was a committed family man. I mean, I want to remember the Cornell who created strange atmospheric sonic worlds, who explored the dark side that sadly, eventually won out. His otherworldly beautiful music is what I choose to remember about Chris Cornell, not his estate tastelessly exploiting “Black Hole Sun” by using a line from the song to title a posthumous Cornell album of covers No One Sings Like You Anymore. Sigh.

First Cornell’s widow said this was “Chris’s last album.” Okay. What about the Soundgarden songs he recorded vocals for before he died? Kim Thayil was pretty diplomatic about it when asked recently. Cornell did record vocal tracks for the follow up to King Animal.

Kim Thayil: “Given our love for Chris, I do not see us reconfiguring without him.”

But he makes it clear in this interview that Cornell’s widow Vicky has those tracks and won’t release them to the band. Maybe because she blames the band for Chris dying that night? She’s not wrong to believe that they would have known, and seen, what kind of shape Cornell was in, at least at the venue, maybe not later at the hotel.

Kim Thayil: “It’s entirely possible that a new Soundgarden album will be released. Certainly. All it would need is to take the audio files that are available. I tighten up the guitars. Ben does the bass. We get the producers we want to make it sound like a Soundgarden record.”

Interviewer: “Is there an obstacle stopping that?”

Kim Thayil: “There shouldn’t be. There really isn’t. Other than the fact that we don’t have those files.”

Interviewer: “They’re not under your auspices?”

Kim Thayil: “Right. It would be ridiculous if [the record wasn’t made]. But these are difficult things. Partnerships and...property.”

You’re just gonna keep those wav files? And why title his covers album Volume 1 if it’s his “last album?”

Oh right. $$$

No one does sing like Cornell, but is “Black Hole Sun” really the best thing he ever did? The best song he ever sang? Should an album of covers be the last thing he gives to the world?

The only honest answer is no.

Sleep tight Chris. You’re gone.

[rcmclachlan]

[good omens fic] the sum of our ambition, crowley/aziraphale

“I’m going to discorporate.”

Each breath he needlessly drew was like hellfire, consuming everything from the tiniest capillaries in his alveoli to entire swathes of fascia, and there was an odd sort of static rumbling in his ears, like radio interference or the sound he heard whenever the sidewalk preacher that hung around St. James’s Park told passersby with visible tattoos they were going to hell. Clutching his belly, he moaned. “You must help me.”

Crowley didn’t so much as glance his way. Well, he might’ve. Not that Aziraphale could tell through the sunglasses. “How am I meant to do that, exactly?”

“Fix it or I’m going to die, Crowley!"

With a sigh, Crowley reached over. But instead of placing a hand over Aziraphale’s distended belly and granting the gift of bone-melting relief by miracling away the bloat, he flicked the radio on.

Aziraphale groaned. "Are you honestly going to make me listen to bebop in my last moments?”

“No one actually forced you to eat a fourth helping of bread pudding, you know,” Crowley said in what was probably meant to be a reasonable tone, but the distinct lack of sympathy in his voice and the accompanying eye roll undercut it entirely. “You always do this, and then I have to listen to you moan about it the whole way home.”

His poor heart, already working overtime to keep up with the thankless task of digestion, gave a traitorous thud. But much like the aforementioned bowls of bread pudding that Aziraphale packed away, he did the same with the implication of Crowley calling the bookshop home.

“I can’t help it,” Aziraphale lied. “Can’t you do this for me?”

“You do it.”

“No, it looks bad if I, you know, overindulge and then miracle it away. That’s not proper. Please? Just this once?”

Crowley snorted. “Nope. That’s how habits form. You say it’s just this once, but I already know the next time we pass a new cupcake bakery or frozen yogurt pop-up, it’s gonna be all, ‘Oh, I think I’ll just have a little taste, won’t spoil my dinner, I promise,’ and then you end the evening by putting me off my nightcap with your whining.”

“That was a terrible impression of me.” It wasn’t. “Fine, but the next time you’re in a similar position I’m going to remember your heartlessness.”

“Remember all you like, angel, because I’ll not be the one in a situation like this, ever. Overindulgence isn’t my sin of choice.”

Blast it all but he was right, and Crowley settled back in his seat with a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth until it was sharp enough to cut through Aziraphale’s sullen silence. “Let the bebop take your mind off your gluttonous ways.”

After the debut of Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered in 1941, all other music became bebop.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It’s just that nothing else could possibly compare to the sheer emotion, relief, and love in the lyrics; the syrupy and wistful thrum of the base; the trickling of piano keys like tears in a spring rain.

“You’re a beast,” Aziraphale muttered and, with a grumble, began scrolling through stations until he landed on one at random.

He closed his eyes and let the frenetic tension of the violins scrape down the back of his neck. It took a few moments, but they slipped into the background and he relaxed into hi-hats and the oddly familiar plucking of the guitar. For reasons he couldn’t quite name, he tasted cardamom and cumin on the back of his tongue, felt the distinctive syncopation in his bones that should have been jarring but somehow wasn’t, which was by and large a new feeling and one he delighted in. But it was the words that struck a golden cord within him.

A stone’s throw from Jerusalem, I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight. And though a million stars were shining, My heart was lost on a distant planet That whirls around the April moon Whirling in an arc of sadness. I’m lost without you. I’m lost without you.

It was like hearing Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered for the first time again. Despite the rumble of the Bentley beneath him, he was sitting in row 12, seat 8 in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, but instead of Vera’s sheer, unabashed joy over her new relationship with Joey, the man singing poured a tale of longing and loneliness out of Crowley’s radio. He pleaded with Aziraphale to end his suffering and reunite him with the one he would have given entire kingdoms for, would have challenged the stars for, if only for a moment’s peace.

Aziraphale sighed with a lovely ache that soothed his belly, even as the words opened chasms in his heart. How awful, to wander so far and for so long, searching, and be thwarted at every turn. It was devastatingly beautiful.

He snuck a glance at Crowley, whose fingers were so white on the wheel that they looked like bone. He didn’t want to say anything, but on principle had to give credit where it was due. Grudgingly, and so low as to hopefully not be heard over the music because he honestly couldn’t take the crowing, Aziraphale said, “This is actually quite good.”

“Of course it’s good,” Crowley agreed. His frown softened, just a very little. “It’s one of mine.”

Aziraphale blinked. “How do you tempt a musician into making music?”

“You don’t. It’s not quite what I envisioned when I wrote it, especially with the drums and the little tinkling sounds in the background. Still don’t know what those are called. But it didn’t turn out half bad.”

He sat up so fast that he was almost certain he ripped a seam in his trousers. “You wrote this. You, Crowley—did you really?”

Crowley shrugged, but there was an affectation of pride in his voice, a little hiss of sin as he said, “Was in a hall, looking for some people to tempt with a little bit of the snowy stuff—”

“The what?”

“Cocaine, Aziraphale.”

Temptation was one thing, but doing it to get them hooked on something as devastating as drugs was a little beyond the pale. “You didn’t!”

“It was 1991, angel, of course I did. Anyway, they were playing a song that reminded me of some…thing, and I was a bit, uh—”

“Inspired?”

Crowley ignored him, which meant yes. “Wrote it down on a napkin, then next thing I know it’s on every radio station that year.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale laughed, delighted. “I had no idea you were so—”

“Finish that sentence and I will kick you out of this car. I won’t even slow down.” Crowley’s mouth twitched, but it wasn’t in good humor, and it may have been a trick of the streetlamps on the dark road but it almost looked as if his cheeks were flushed. “Change the channel. We’ll listen to something better.”

“Are you embarrassed, Crowley? You are! Whatever for? It’s a beautiful song! It reminds me of walking through Noricum in its heyday.”

Crowley sunk a little in his seat, teeth bared. His knuckles were white on the wheel. “You’re tucking and rolling out of here, Aziraphale, I swear to Go–Sat–someone.”

“Hush now,” he said, then reached over and turned the volume knob up until the singer’s bombast and odd vocality stuffed the Bentley full of high C’s. “I’m basking in your talent.”

And from the dark secluded valleys I heard the ancient songs of sadness But every step I thought of you Every footstep only you And every star a grain of sand The leavings of a dried up ocean Tell me, how much longer? How much longer?

“Oh, Crowley, one would almost think you were utterly heartsick when you wrote this.” Goodness, the man wasn’t begging for Aziraphale’s help in finding his lost love—Aziraphale was the lost love. It was somehow so much more than Vera’s springtime fancy with Joey; it was the kind of love for which epic tales were written and entire kingdoms shaken to ruin. Crowley had such a way with words if he could make Aziraphale feel like this. “It’s as though he’s singing to me and me alone.”

Whatever Crowley said in response was mostly drowned out by the music, but it sounded almost like “That a fact?”

The volume lowered slightly without either one of them reaching out to touch the knob, and it allowed him to hear Crowley say, “Do you remember the day Claudius came to rule? The party they threw? Way less crazy than some emperors I could name, but still a bit out of control. Found you on the outskirts, eating lokma as if someone were going to take it from you.”

They’d been delicious little daydreams soaked in honey, probably one of the best desserts he’d had that year, but he stood at the kiosk and watched the festivities alone. Hadn’t he?

“I don't… You were there?”

“And the dancing, of course, can’t forget that. They loved dancing. Everyone got in on it, and the square was so full you could barely move without elbowing someone in the gut.”

A vague wash of color and a sound like laughter flared brightly for a moment and then went dark, a firework fizzling in his mind. And, oh, there was the fuzzy sensation of an arm slung around the small of his back to draw him close, and he’d never felt so cherished, and then it whirled away on the wings of a lyre. He reached for it again, but couldn’t quite grasp it, no matter how many times he tried. His fingers kept sliding off.

“Crowley, I can't… I can’t grab hold of it,” he said. Something swelled and contracted, and it was worse than ingesting every bowl of pudding in London—he didn’t feel full at all. Instead, it flew back in the opposite direction, leaving him heaving, completely empty, hollowed out, devoid.

Robbed.  

“There was… we… Crowley, what did we—”

They say a city in the desert lies, The vanity of an ancient king, But the city lies in broken pieces, Where the wind howls and the vultures sing.

“I’d never seen you laugh so hard,” Crowley mused, and though he faced forward and was hopefully watching the road, he was also twenty-three hundred miles and years away. An odd smile curled his mouth. It drew all the light in the car to it, consumed it whole. The inverse of a star. “I thought you might lose all the lokma you’d eaten, but I couldn’t stop trying to make you laugh. It was the most obscene thing I’d ever seen.”

These are the works of man; This is the sum of our ambition.

Underneath them, the Bentley jumped from its sedate speed of 80mph to what felt like just this side of the speed of sound. Aziraphale’s heart rattled the bars of its cage, but not from fear. At least, not from fear of the car.

“We—”

“You kept kicking your legs and knocking into people. I think you started a fight and I’m almost certain I finished it. We danced until we could barely stand. And then we kept going until someone said something about rites and rituals and broke out the wine.”

The wine? 

Yes, the wine. Of course. 

It had been red, undiluted, thick enough to be suffocating, and he had coughed himself drunk. It clung to his teeth, left them as fuzzy as the memory he was trying to make come into focus, and he closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the Bentley’s headrest to chase the feeling of sticky fingers rubbing his lips, dipping in to press to his tongue, followed by the soft, panting catch of a mouth against his. Those hands, stained crimson, had clutched at his cheeks, his arms, his thighs, and he’d opened for every touch, every murmured word, exultant and blasphemous, but what had been said and why couldn’t he remember—

And I have never in my life Felt more alone than I do now Although I claim dominions over all I see It means nothing to me

He shuddered in the seat and opened his eyes to find they were idling outside the bookshop, the radio gone silent. The only sound was Aziraphale’s labored breathing, wrecked as if he had just been kissed within an inch of his existence.

But Crowley still sat unruffled, unmoved, in the driver’s seat. The only thing that gave him away was his grip on the wheel—so tight his hands were shaking.

“That wasn’t... it wasn’t the kind of wine just anyone would have drunk. They would have cut it with water. That they didn’t... it was special wine. Ceremonial,” Aziraphale whispered, and the truth of it slid out from the shadows.

The smile on Crowley’s face looked like an open wound, but he said nothing.

In the hollows of his eyelids, tears pricked hot. “What happened?”

“Sandalphon,” Crowley said, uncharacteristically gentle. “A few hours later, Sandalphon happened.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, just to feel the scorched trails on his cheeks, to savor the exquisite pain at the thought of Sandalphon’s sanctimonious grin upon finding them. He’d always been the worst of the lot. Of course they sent him.

“I was given until daybreak to leave. And the next time I saw you, you offered to split oysters with me.” Crowley tilted his head back against his seat and sighed. “And that was all.”

They didn’t even do that much. Crowley had been in a rotten mood, would barely look at him save for his little slip-up about temptation, and eventually Aziraphale had taken the hint (and his wine) and gone elsewhere. Ate the oysters alone. They’d tasted like ash. He didn’t try them again until almost eight hundred years later when he was sure he could stomach them.

He had so many experiences tucked away from his time on the Mortal Plane, but it never occurred to him that he might be missing one. That it might have been taken from him entirely.

That he was the root cause of someone’s suffering. Not just someone. The one.

Aziraphale nearly jumped out of his seat at the snap of Crowley’s fingers and the resulting click of the doors unlocking. He stared blankly at the little metal tee of the lock standing at attention. It took his addled brain a moment to realize what it meant.

“Last stop,” Crowley said, and the door swung open.

It was an out. A giant glob of Tipp-Ex to wipe it all away. If Aziraphale got out of the car now, they would never speak of this again. Certainly it would be tense and awkward for the first few decades, with the inconvenient knowledge of the night and its confession fresh in their minds, but time had a way of pushing forward and smoothing old bumps down. After all, Noricum was ancient history, and their union would have been annulled when the province was divvied up. There was absolutely nothing tying them to what happened at Claudius’s ascension celebration. Eventually, they would claw their way back from this. 

Eventually, it would all be just fine.

“The song,” he blurted. A bit of spittle flew from between his teeth on the sibilant.

Crowley didn’t even look at him, just kept staring straight ahead. “Seemed to be a safe bet you’d never hear it. Sorry about that.”

“I-I think I have a wireless somewhere. The bits of the song I got to hear were astonishing, and I’d like to hear the whole thing,” Aziraphale said softly. “All of it, Crowley.”

He was bored with being just fine. He wanted the words knitted into his bones, the melody forever in his head. He wanted those hot, sticky hands on him. He wanted the overindulgences, discomfort and all.

“That is, if you're… amenable.”

The silence yawned between them, and for a fraught moment it seemed as though Crowley would simply look away and bid him goodnight, but then something sparked slow and bright in the corners of Crowley’s lips. For all the world it looked like hope.

“This may not be that shocking to hear, all considered, but... I am.” And though you hold the keys to ruin Of everything I see, With every prison blown to dust, My enemies walk free. Though all my kingdoms turn to sand And fall into the sea, I’m mad about you. I’m mad about you. (x)

[goldenworldsabound]

1,5,7 and 11 for any f/o you'd like?? :3

VIBE CHECK

Auron Time

1) If your f/o drew you, how would they draw you? The pose, the style, the coloring?

Hm. I think he’d want to do everything he could to convey how much he loves me in that. The attention to detail would be amazing. I would be smiling, doing something mundane probably like reading, not aware that he was taking note of that moment to draw it later. Details down to the curve of my eyelashes, the pink on my cheeks, the way every last hair falls into place. I’m not sure he’d ever have the courage to show it to me if he did draw such a thing.

I can imagine he tries to sketch me and I actually have no idea, but he’s never satisfied with it and hides the attempts away.

If any color, it would be light colors, kind of the style where you leave white around the lines, like highlights? And muted pastels.

5) How does your f/o get your attention when they need you?

Auron is not very good at directly asking for help all of the time. Depends what he needs my attention for.

Affection is desired? He’s just gonna sit near me and not say anything but might look at me more than he would otherwise KJFWEHFJW he’s bad at this, I have to notice, which I definitely don’t always. He might start sighing if I’m not noticing :p

Help with chores or something he’ll just be pretty direct, might even just like grab my hand and bring me to whatever thing needs doing. grabs hand drags me to the sink “it’s your turn to do the dishes and it’s been 2 days, please do them.”

If it’s something kind of emotionally serious he’ll probably try to ask for help without asking for help. Like...he really struggles with asking directly. If he’s upset he bottles that up and even if he wants to...talk or be comforted he’s not necessarily going to be able to say so directly. So he’ll kind of dance around it when can feel like it’s being needlessly cryptic. He gets better about it over time but it can a struggle for the both of us.

7) What song would your f/o say reminds them of you?

Am I Alive - From Indian Lakes

And I need you to reassure me I'm alive

The lyrics aren’t a perfect match, but the sentiment, that I am what grounds him to being alive, is one that he can’t let go of. I was the reason he stayed, and I was the reason that he was fully brought back to life. And the vibes of the song just...feel right.

11) If they have any form of social media what is their username? 

He really won’t have much social media even in a modern au but like. Hm. This is hard. Something mysterious sounding. Maybe a little bitter. 🤔 But...hm. I’m torn on the one hand like his NAME right he’s just gonna be like bam my name easy. But I also feel like he covers himself up so he probably wouldn’t use his name. KatanaWielder. Hm. I do feel sure he’d want to avoid any unseemly numbers in his username though. If he’s feeling like poking fun something like exLegendaryGuardian but I feel certain he’d get annoyed by people being like NO U R A LEGEND and change it eventually so. IDK. I’m THONKING.