#is just so funny and involved in the world . from fashion to music. they kind of failed making her a talk show host or w/e in the new series

[the1975attheirverybest]

How do you think Matty would treat his girlfriend after they had their first sex ? like right after or morning after you know

Oh, I think this would be like the biggest deal ever. Assuming this is someone he’s serious about/ wants a relationship with. Not just a hookup. He’d go ALL OUT. The night would be preceded by a dinner. Maybe they order in, or he cooks for her. No going out. Cuz, this night is just about the two of them having some important quality time together. No other distractions in the way.

He’s said in interviews that he’s good in the kitchen but forgets to have his fridge stocked regularly. So, I’d imagine that he makes a point to go food shopping the day before. He’ll get normal snacks like a bit of fruit and maybe some mixed nuts, etc. but if his gf happened to mention her favorite chocolate brand, or like, if she prefers dark chocolate or milk chocolate or whatever, he’ll be sure to grab all her fav things. He’ll also grab a bunch of travel size toiletries. Not just for the night, but for her to know that she has her own stuff in his bathroom permanently. He’ll insist this happens at his place not hers. Cuz he wants to be able to prep everything in advance which he can’t do if it’s at her place.

He wants her to feel at home around him. So it’s a sleepover. Meaning, no going home after. Immediately after sex, it’s, of course, cuddle time. No phones. His arms all over her. Kissing, squeezing her hands, fingers mindlessly tracing patterns into her skin while he catches his breath and whispers into her ear how amazing it all felt and how he’s waited for/ fantasized about this night for so long. Tells her she was absolutely worth the wait and he couldn’t be happier right now. She plays with his hair and he gets kind of emotional and melts at her touch cuz it feels like a new level of intimacy between them. A little bit later, of course, cuz this is still Matty, he wants a smoke. She puts on his shirt which she grabs from off the floor, and goes to join him. They make jokes about how cliche the post-sex smoke is. He says he suspects he’s just a deeply repressed old fashioned person at heart. She flirtily tells him that what he just did with her in that bed proves otherwise.

They freshen up etc and fall into a long, endless conversation. You know one of those late night chats that seem to span anything and everything. He tells her about his family, his work, memories from when the band first started. She tells him about all the places she’s been, her favorite books. At some point, though neither of them is sure how/when, the record player is going. Playing some obscure music in the background. They pillow right and dance to it.

He runs her a bath. Asking if she’d prefer to be alone or together. Wanting her to know that she can ask for space if she wants a moment. She gets why someone might. Being physically intimate with a partner for the first time is, after all, quite a big step. Sometimes one might want to process all of it. Not her though. Not this time. She’s still giddy from it all, and she’s hooked on Matty. After seeing him in a new light. Hearing the way his voice gets when he moans in pleasure, seeing the face he makes and the smile on his face when an orgasm hits him, she just wants more. So they get in the bath together and he keeps making her blush with the way his eyes twinkle when he looks at her. His laugh his boyish and loud and obnoxious and she thinks it’s her favorite sound in the entire world. he looks so free spirited and happy. He leans in to kiss her sweetly every now and then. He makes funny faces when submerging his body under water and teases her about all the girlie stuff women do during bath time (but he secretly absolutely loves it and wants to be involved of course).

He gets out of the bath moments before her to light a candle. She notices that the candle wasn’t there before, and gives him a hard time about how soft he is, and he blushes a lot. They nibble on the snacks he’d bought the day before, and fall asleep wayyy late, mid-conversation, with her arms wrapped around him and their legs tangled up together.

[electronickingdomfox]

"How Much for Just the Planet?" review

Novel from 1987, by John M. Ford. Well, this was certainly something... different. I knew beforehand that this was a farce, and that it had a far more comedic approach than the regular ST novel. The problem is that, for a satire, I didn't find it all that funny. This novel is a case of "love it or hate it" among fandom. And even though I wouldn't use such a strong word as "hate", and some bits were entertaining, overall the joke fell flat on me. My biggest complaint with it is that it tries too hard to be silly, and the characters and world didn't feel like Star Trek at all. The humor in episodes like The Trouble with Tribbles or A Piece of the Action worked because neither the characters nor the initial setting were silly; it was just the situation they were put in what got progressively more ridiculous and out of control. So when Kirk gets finally buried in a mountain of tribbles, this feels like the unavoidable and hilarious resolution of everything that's been going on, and not an instance of Kirk being suddenly stupid. Yet a lot of what happens in this novel is the result of characters doing silly things for the sake of it, whether it matches their personalities or not.

And then there's the world-building. Is this the future depicted in Star Trek? I wouldn't have guessed so. With technology and customs that simply copy the 20th century, there's nothing particularly original about the planet where the main chunk of the novel is set. Add to this the continous references to classic movies (I recognized Vincent Price's The Fall of the House of Usher, but most of the rest flew over my head), taxes, and old-fashioned capitalism, and this could be anywhere but the Federation. Actually, the parts set before they reach the planet are the ones that work best: Starfleet developing a new secret project in the form of a giant inflatable starship, as target practice; a malfunctioning computer that's turned shy and unsure of itself; a Vulcan affecting a super-logic appearance, while being incredibly sloppy and leaving traces of milkshake everywhere... Now THAT works. The vaudeville musical numbers (apparently inspired by Gillbert and Sullivan), or a pie fight... not so much. And look, I love the Marx Brothers movies, but I don't think that a novel is the best medium for that kind of visual humor, let alone a musical, when there isn't even music!

As for the characters... Well, McCoy is alright and has a few funny lines, even if just in a shallow depiction of his "grumpy country doctor" side. But the rest are barely recognizable. Spock is so-so, though he's almost absent in the story. And worst offender is Kirk, who's portrayed as a dumbass who'd get involved in a ridiculous plan to reunite two lovers, while in the middle of important diplomatic conversations. Also, any depiction of Kirk as a womanizer, who's reduced to babbling just because of a bit of cleavage, or said to look at a woman's butt every 15 minutes, is a big fat NO from me (the way I remember the series, it was the women who drooled after Kirk, not the other way around, sorry). The Klingons aren't particularly interesting either (despite this being the same author of the excellent Klingon novel "The Final Reflection"), and some of them just seem like regular dudes.

I'll try to present a very brief outline of the plot, though that's difficult with a story divided in multiple "vignettes" that follow independent situations. Spoilers under the cut:

A survey ship discovers a planet choke full of dilithium, but soon thereafter they're detected by a Klingon battlecruiser. The crew (comprised of just three persons) escapes in a pod towards the planet, hoping that the Klingons won't notice it, while the ship's computer is instructed to flee at warp speed. Sure enough, the crew arrives safely at the planet, though completely covered in milkshake from the malfunctioning pod's replicator. While the survey ship, controlled by the equally malfunctioning computer, lures the Klingons to the Enterprise (and its giant inflatable replica). As both the Federation and the Klingon Empire are now aware of the treasure of dilithium, and since neither can fight over it because of the Organian Treaty, they decide to settle the matter through diplomatic means: the party who can better convince the natives of the benefits of their respective governments, will get the planet and its dilithium.

The locals welcome both the Federation and Klingon embassies with a song (there are many, MANY songs) and a feast, and then lead them to their hotel. Though the private conversations between the planet's leader and his wife, reveal that they have some plan up their sleeve for the newcomers. After this, the Enterprise members pair up with several Klingons, and each group follows a different adventure. Scotty and Chekov get into a fight with their opponents, and try to resolve it over a golf match, before being involved in a sudden all-out war started by the natives. Uhura and a Klingon cinephile go out shopping, but after buying a small harp, they're targeted by shady individuals that kidnap them in succession, all of them in search of the mysterious item. It's a sort of parody of film noir and Hitchcock, but unless you're very familiar with the genre, most of the references will probably get lost. The funniest storyline is perhaps that of McCoy and Sulu, who get up in the middle of the night to search for a legendary treasure, mentioned by their hosts during the feast (well, McCoy gets dragged out of bed and just wants a coffee). They team up with a couple of Klingons, are captured in the fortress of an evil queen (who sings an evil song), and McCoy ends up hypoing a ton of guards through the jail bars to escape. Finally, Kirk, ambassador Charlotte, the Klingon captain and his female science officer, stay at the hotel and are approached by a couple of star-crossed lovers. The girl conspires with the women, to stage a fake assault by the legendary burglar "Black Cat", where "he" will kidnap the ambassador, so the girl's boyfriend can rescue her in front of everyone and impress her parents. Unbeknownst to them, the boyfriend devises the same plan, but using Kirk and the Klingon captain instead. So when the night arrives, there are two Black Cats trying to kidnap the ambassador, and all four characters get tangled up in a complicated and messy misunderstanding. Kirk and the other captain fall through the laundry chute several times, Kirk loses his clothes (and ponders for a moment the idea of wearing a red dress instead), the ambassador loses her clothes, the Klingon captain doesn't lose his clothes but gets drenched in the shower... Anyway, it's far too convoluted to detail here, and very easy to get lost while reading it.

In the middle of all these situations, there are brief appearances of the survey crew, who get repeatedly lost while searching for the city, and end up living like wilderness survivors. And the story of a couple of children who secretly beam up to the Enterprise and steal one of the inflatable prototypes.

At the end, all four groups converge suddenly in the feast hall, and it's revealed that their adventures were just theatric stagings organized by the natives, in an attempt to drive them away from their planet. The Federation and Klingons are forced to sign a treaty to share the dilithium resources. But both parties are so pissed at each other, that they start a battle royal with pies. Spock, meanwhile, has stayed the whole time in the Enterprise, so he missed all the bullshit fun.

Spirk Meter: 1/10*. Kirk and Spock are separated most of the novel, but when Kirk finally gets reunited with him, he starts repeating a heartfelt "Spock!" (and you know exactly the kind of face he's making at that moment).

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[iridescentis]

after finishing the part of the Sam and Cat video where the episodes are covered (past the 5hr mark) I have come to a realisation

If you choose to believe the iCarly reboot as the canon timeline of the universe and where the characters actually ended up, we have the answer as to what happened to Sam after we assume that Cat went to some kind of prison for what she did in the final episode.

After Carly returns from Italy, she goes to university in the US, I can't exactly remember where but she does mention that she went with Sam, and she bought her car with her. I doubt Sam actually went to uni as a student herself but it is referenced that the two of them were together during Carly's uni years. An unspecified amount of time after that, Sam joined a biker gang which she is still in to the present day.

Unfortunately it makes sense, unless Sam and Cat had some kind of off-screen disagreement or separation, there wouldn't really be a reason, other than wanting to be with Carly, for Sam to leave to go to uni of all places when she had spent the past 2 or so years doing whatever she wants, but if Cat is legitimately in prison or equivalent, then there's also little reason for her not to go. It gives Cat a pretty concrete ending, even if it isn't pleasant it makes sense that her character needs professional help before she adjusts to the world as an adult.

Personally, I always ignored the final episode because there isn't really any way to write around it unless you address Sam's disregard for Cat and Cat's concerning mental state (which I have seen a very well written interpretation of which made me cry), and I decided that Cat went to some form of music university at the same time Sam left to be with Carly at her university, so they parted ways in a very typical season finale fashion (graduation and a party followed by an emotional goodbye). Because to me that's the most pleasant and satisfying ending that doesn't feel too unrealistic or out of character; their characters aren't stuck together forever but there's potential for their paths to cross again.

I love thinking about how these characters ended up because the ending of Victorious and Sam and Cat is so vague you can pretty much make up anything and say it's canon-compliant - the future of all the characters appearing in the reboot has been canonically decided but other than Sam joining a biker gang, we don't have much else. My favourite headcanon is that Gibby opens Gibby's as an official restaurant and maybe Sam and/or Nevel are involved in running it in some capacity because it finishes Gibby's story off pretty nicely whilst giving a reason for him not being in the reboot (I have imagined that Bots goes bankrupt and he buys that building to open Gibby's just because that's funny to me)

I love all things post-canon, it's my favourite thing to speculate about with any form of media, and fully acknowledging how weird the canon ending of Sam & Cat actually is instead of ignoring it made this pretty interesting to think about

[no-psi-nan]

@jkgnggj I definitely ship it!! I am ringing a cowbell in the town square constantly extolling the virtues of Aikechi while the masses pointedly look the other way lmao.

I think what first got me thinking about Aikechi is that one artwork of the Psychickers polycule at the beach in black and white where Aiura kisses Akechi. I reblog it all the time and I always add it back to the queue lmao. Once I started thinking about their potential relationship, I started realizing how good it is and it all spiralled from there lol.

Basically I love everything about this ship lmao. They're both incomprehensible in different directions. They both have a strong drive to help people. They both are extremely perceptive in different ways. They're both extroverts who love gossip. They both reject the shame that society tries to force them to feel – Aiura for her rejection of traditional femininity & her sex-positivity, Akechi for his incontinence/disability and general disregard for taboo. Akechi would be a great partner to Aiura, attentive and romantic in a way she definitely hasn't experienced before (or else why would she have gone through so much effort to seek out her soul mate?). And Aiura would be a great partner to Akechi with her similar attentiveness, her greater people skills, and her powers. They would love to help people out together (especially trying to defeat death marks), they'd both enjoy trying new things together (like axe-throwing or trying out new fashion looks), and they'd both enjoy chilling and cuddling and watching YouTube poops / listening to music from around the world / parallel playing on their phones etc. They would just be such a disgustingly happy couple <3 The kind that is regularly commiting PDA crimes and are so annoying to talk to lmao. You know they're giving each other pet names and being too lovey dovey and referencing a billion inside jokes and it's just so cringe <3 I LOVE THAT FOR THEM!!!!!

All of my opinions for this ship are technically unpopular because the ship is unpopular lmao. I think one problem might be that Aiura is clearly allosexual with a high sex drive while Akechi seems pretty dang ace. I guess my unpopular opinion is that it would not be a problem in this particular case. LISTEN... In my experience, there are broadly 3 types of asexuals. Those that find sex repulsive, those that literally could not care less about sex, and those that find sex fascinating like on a conceptual level. I think that based on his noted interest in dick and general lack of shame about bodily functions, Akechi probably falls into the third category. In fact, I posit that to Akechi, sex is a game you can win, something which is both normal to want and possible to achieve. His powers of observation, natural curiosity/willingness to experiment, and patience make him ridiculously good at showing his partner(s) a great time, even though he himself is rarely interested in getting involved. It fits with his evil nice mastermind characterization to be able to "control" someone in that way, and it keeps the funniness of his character because who in the world would think MISTER PISS is actually a world-class lover?? Anyways, he can definitely satisfy Aiura, though I still generally like her to have other partners so the game remains fun for him and doesn't become tiresome. Power to the polycule, etc lmao.

Thanks for the ask, I'm SO brainrotted about them <333

[ Ask game ] <- still open for these!

[in-my-feels-probably]

Hi, I'm resending my 1.7k celebration ask.

I chose option 2

✨to participate in this one, just give me a fandom, any information you want to share about yourself, whether you want the ship to be platonic or romantic, any characters you want me to avoid, and i’ll get back to you as soon as i can with a ship and a blurb!✨

The fandom: The Hunger Games and TBOSAS fandom. A romantic ship please.

____

Here's a little about myself. My personailty in a few words might be sarcastic, funny, kind and impaitent. My MBTI personality type is INTP. My apparence is I'm a dark blonde, greenish blue eyes, curvy and tall. I wear a lot of black turtle necks and dark academia style clothes in general or at least I try to, I sometimes wear dresses and skirts. I'm a hopeless romantic at heart. I like the music of Adele, Taylor Swift and ABBA, but am partial to some other 70s bands since that is a time period I realky like. I enjoy learning about history and literature, also a bit of baking every now and then. I like books, music and old/new movies and tv shows.

If you can exclude from shipping me with the female characters.

Thank you if you so choose to write this🩷

hi!

thank you for participating :)

i ship you with finnick!

i think finnick likes people he can banter with. he doesn’t mind people that are more soft spoken or not necessarily a people person, but he really clicks with someone when he finds someone who can match his level of humor and wit. peeta is one of the only people capable of meeting his level, and he’d really appreciate having another person he could comfortably communicate with without having to feel separate from them. but as much as he’d appreciate the sarcastic and funny side of you, he’d appreciate the softer and kinder side of you too. as the war progressed, he’d need someone comforting and domestic in his day to day life. being able to understand his mood and knowing which version of yourself he needed you to be in the moment would be so nice for him.

finnick is SUCH a flirt. but at the end of the day, he’s a sucker for love. he’d fully believe in treating a girl right and doing things the old fashioned way, never afraid to spoil you or be affectionate with you whether you were in public or in private. he’d constantly be doing little things that would remind you how much he loved and cared for you.

i don’t know what it is about him that’s making me think this, but i just know he’d love your aesthetic. it’s put together purposefully and with style, and he’d appreciate anyone with taste. after being involved in the capitol for so long, he’d learn to appreciate the finer things in life. and while he’d resent it, he’d also grow to respect and love some aspects of it, including music and fashion. it would be a mutually shared interest.

while he’s a good people person and is athletic and would have hobbies associated with that, he’d also love private ones. he may not seem like the type, but hes definitely a bookworm. something about other worlds and languages would fascinate him, and hed find just about any genre valuable in its own way. it wouldn’t take him much to get him going on some tangent about what his latest read or watch was. and hed find it so endearing when you’d get excited and do the same to him, telling him all about the latest thing you picked up.

—

as used to life in the capitol as he is, it wouldn’t be the perfect life for him. hed want domesticity and a life with you more than anything, valuing the simple things in life. when memories of the war or his games would haunt him, he’d wake up next to you, instantly feeling around next to him to make sure you were still with him. he’d feel instant relief when his arm brushed against yours, taking a few moments to himself to catch his breath. maybe he’d read or think about the things he loves to calm him down for a little while. eventually, he’d be rolling back over trying to fall asleep so he wouldn’t wake you up. but his shuffling would wake you anyways, and you’d quietly get out of bed after he passed out again.

he’d find you a few hours later in the kitchen, a mixing bowl on the counter. youd be hunched over the counter with a recipe in your hands, flour covering your apron. he couldn’t help but smile, coming to stand behind you.

“what are you doing, sweetheart?” he’d smile, wrapping his arms around your shoulders.

you’d lean into him, letting him look over your shoulder to read the recipe. “making bread. peeta taught me how, but i can’t seem to remember the steps.”

finnick would snatch the paper from you, chuckling to himself as you rolled your eyes. he’d plop himself down onto the barstool, glancing over your ingredients to see how far you’d made it before he stepped in.

“i don’t think this is your calling, love,” he’d finally chuckle, pointing to a few discarded jars of spices. “aren’t those supposed to be in there?”

“they would’ve been if you hadn’t so rudely interrupted me,” you’d scold, but you both knew you were joking.

he’d smile, leaning back as he watched you work. eventually, he’d reach for the other apron and come to stand next to you, placing the recipe down on the table where you both could still read it.

“alright, what step are we on? looks like you desperately need my help.”

you’d playfully slap his arm, but your heart would warm as you’d hear him giggle and shuffle next to you before he slung an arm around your shoulders.

“seriously,” he’d grin, pointing to the paper. “what step are we on? less pouting, more baking, darling.”

—

thanks again for participating! sorry for the confusion with my inbox and having to wait for so long. i hope you enjoyed this :)

[christophimer]

Yet more morrowmin's

I just really like drawing him, his face is so 👁️u 👁️.

listening to my collection of 1920-40s music and ' you're the cream in my coffee' is the sort of thing he'd sing to himself also 'a bushel and a peck' - they're both romantic songs i guess? I picture him singing a lot of love songs. Not that he's romantic in any way (I wouldn't call him aro, more just he's basically incapable of actually caring about anyone who isn't his mother. He has no relationships of any kind really. not that he cares. )

he's born in the 1400ish so hes 400ish at the time i write him most (not that he's changed in any way from before that). he's done nothing with his life except be a vague nuisance (and occasional blight on thomas' life)- although to be fair he does work. the scariest thing about him is he'll randomly do difficult multiplication in his head out of nowhere.

He'll also just sometime faint. often in the middle of nowhere. he spends about half of his life in a really awful fever (it's him 'dying' but not being able to due to his mother's magic holding him together.) - he doesn't actually get out that much. He spends a lot of time shuffling weakly round his room and talking to himself. he doesn't really mind but he does prefers to be out (doing whatever he fancies doing in the moment).

I should probably draw him more ill sometimes i consider it a big part of his character.

It comes into play in quite a few things i have planned with him. such as the core premise of a story i have planed - stag,armed- where a noble lady called lacey finds him fainted on her sister-in-law's grounds (where she's staying) and takes pity on him. To which he insists he repays the favour as and when he chooses, which is mainly an excuse for him to stick around as he finds everything very entertaining. With lacey not wanting the rest of her wide family to know he's there (often in the house) as she married a wizard against her parents wishes as they were sure she'd end up involved with spirits etc (which is often bad). And morrowmin just finds the whole thing funny and yet again annoys someone by just exisiting.

As part of the story there's a moment where morrowmin disguises himself as human (with paint - his teeth and still shark like due to him not painting them, and not for verrrry long) so i was concepting what a human morrowmin might look like.

he's wearing 1760ish clothing (in the first one his hair is tied back as that's the fashion). ethnically in our world terms he'd be half greek (on his mother's side) so he'd have a more olively skin tone - although it's hard to decide on the exact shade for drawing :,) , it's just weird without his blue skin and duck hair.

He'd still be tall so at least he has that. His last name is Colt, which means a young male horse so i want to draw him with some horse symbols etc soon. It's also great to rhyme with.

And to end with - a very stupid thing that's been in my head for a while now.

Morrowmin just calling random telephone numbers/ trying to speak directly to the operator because he likes phoneing but nobody he know (really old spirits) has a phone.

maybe i'll post a few more snippets from 'gadding about' (musical thing) some time

[ultra-maha-us]

How Has Streetwear Changed The Fashion Industry

Streetwear has revolutionized the world of fashion and has become a lifestyle. In the seventies the word hip hop was a new genre and the cultural movement developed in New York City mostly among the African American and Latin Americans and then the word urban streetwear was born. However, before urban wear there were fashions that took on the characteristics of the hip hop genre. Then years later it became known as street wear because the younger generations especially the teenage set were drawn to the influence of the music and this type of fashion. There are many new genres of music c and people became divided when it came to music. There is punk rock, emo, heavy metal, pop, Goth, techno and more. Each genre comes with its own type of fashion and although similar they are different. All this fashion is considered today's urban wear.

The fact is that although urban wear is connected to the words music and fashion people became more involved in their own self expressions. It became more personal to people and affected their lives. It blended fashion and music together and revolutionized the fashion industry so that it is not all about just fashion. It is really a complete lifestyle where people can express themselves through streetwear clothing. Urban trendy clothes are the most worn style and fashion in today's society. It is worn by everyone especially people who live in cities and urban environments. It is also called street wear and can be worn casually in everyday apparel. These Urban clothing pieces can be worn anyway because the clothes are comfortable and wearable anytime. The brightly colour and baggy clothing are the most popular among the urban wear crowd. These pieces are usually brightly colored and baggy.

The baggy pieces are Streetwear for men and the slim tight jeans and sexy tees are for the women. These kinds of styles have become mainstream on the streetwear scene and are the ultimate in urban trendy clothing. The fashion needs of today youth is big business and the designers have been taking advantage of this fact. Many stars like Beyonce and Jay Z are role models for the younger youth. The items they wear like jewellery influence the market place and define what is in style. Street clothing is leaning into becoming more of a comfort style and it has the ability to take the world by storm. You can definitely see how urban streetwear affects the fashion industry. The youth started to express themselves loud and clear and it was all about how they were dressing. This was a way to get people's attention and you had a chance to voice your opinion through actions.

These acts were listened to by people all over. The people who wore these types of clothes were looked down on by the uppity class people. However, all of this has changed. Now all the classes are influenced by the same culture. There is now a circle of unity and welcoming in the world thanks to urban hip hop wear. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor the style is what brings you happiness and togetherness for everyone. No matter that, it can be a life changing experience for different groups. The most common types of streetwear clothing are huge accessories like the t-shirts, basket ball jerseys and more. The large leather jackets are the ones that define fashion and something that you need to take care of. Along with all the drama that has come along with the girth of urban hip hop the main ideas is the style. It is vivid and another way for someone to espesss themselves. In this way you will be taken a stand as to who you are as a persona and you will stand out in the crowd. The funny thing is that sometimes urban streetwear fashions from the past make it back into the present day, however some just disappear. There are those who have made fashion statements by their fashion. One such group are the bikers. They got stuck in a rut until someone made a wardrobe change. The fact is that streetwear will always change and make individuals stand out. This way you can make your stand and tell everyone the stand you are taking and what you believe in.

[radiocity]

The L Word: Lookbook ↳ 1.12, Looking Back

[lunarticxenia]

Moon Signs Pt. 2

Hi guys here’s part 2 of the moon sign series! After I post this, I’m going to be focusing more on answering your questions, I have a lot to answer. Thanks so much for all the support! Without further ado, here’s Libra through Pisces moons! 

🌵Libra Moon: You guys LOVE attention, and you don’t even try to hide it LMAO. One of my good friends is a Libra moon and he literally loves to say outlandish things just to get a reaction from us and to get attention from us if we’re not talking to him enough in a conversation. Libra moons also love relationships and if underdeveloped they may feel incomplete without one. They can also be very dependent on their partner for happiness as well. However, they are romantic and in love with love. They’re also extremely sensitive and are very feminine. Even in men, it gives them a more feminine touch to their personality. They also hold their morals in very high regard. They have their set morals and won’t change them for anything or anyone. They also tend to hate conflict and usually shy away from confrontation. They’re also too nice, WAYYYYYY too nice. You guys need to be more assertive LMAO. They’re also extremely optimistic and if they don’t believe in that particular way they at least try to be optimistic with others. They’re always reminding you the glass is half full. Also, Libra moons are mad clingy. Even with those they’re not dating LMAO. My Libra moon friend whenever I try to leave the FaceTime Call, he’s like “Don’t go... :(”. They just love to be around the ones they love. They’re also in love with beauty, and all things beautiful in the world. They’re lovers of music, art, film, and literature. Libra moons also have a softness in their eyes, I can’t describe it. This girl I used to like has a Libra moon and her eyes were just so soft. They’re also extremely indecisive, they tend to flip flop between who they wanna be and what they wanna do. They also aren’t shy when it comes to compliments, they will compliment TF out of you. They’re the best hype man. They also put others before themselves a lot, and can be very shy upon first meeting them. However once they feel comfortable around you they open up. One last thing, I feel like they tend to like anyone who’s nice to them...don’t attack me. LMAO.  

🌵Scorpio Moon: I feel like Scorpio moons have about ten different playlists relating to their emotions and still won’t open up to anyone about how they feel. Scorpio moons I feel have such intense emotions that they just don’t deal with them and they tend to implode after a while. I relate to them a lot in that respect tbh with my Sun square Moon, because that’s how I am. You guys are also super passionate and super creative. Every Scorpio moon I’ve met has been really creative in some way whether it be makeup, fashion style, or artwork. I’ve also noticed that this is a very alluring placement, there’s this intriguing way about them, and like Aries Moons, they have a fire in their eyes. Their gaze is INTENSE. They’re also very selective with who they let close to them, they don’t let just anybody in. They’re also very good at reading other people and seeing people’s true intentions. They have an extremely good intuition. If underdeveloped this can be used to manipulate other people, as well as being compulsive liars. Scorpio moons are also very protective over the ones they love. If you mess with anyone they care about, they will kill you. End of story. Also I feel like every Scorpio moon I’ve met has been through the wringer, like they’ve really had some hard experiences, it’s so sad to me. Scorpio moons are also extremely stubborn, remember this is a fixed sign. Scorpio moons ain’t playing, once they’ve settled on something, they’re not budging. Also, can we just say, masters at investigating people. These are the friends you want stalking your ex’s social media. They will find out everything. They’re also really good psychologists as well, almost all the Scorpio moons I’ve met are actually Psychology majors LMAO. They’re very good at finding the root causes of people’s issues. I also feel like Scorpio moons undergo a lot of transformations in their lives. I’ve known a Scorpio moon for about 10 years now and he’s undergone so many different transformations in his life. Mentally and physically. They’re also extremely sarcastic and have a tendency to be pessimistic. They’re also mad scary when angry. I’ve seen them angry before, as an Aries moon, even I get a little scared.... love y’all tho. 

🌵Sagittarius Moon: The funniest people ever. Sagittarius moons always have me laughing my ass off. Their sense of humor is very diverse. They tend to stick with sarcasm and like to say outlandish things to make people laugh. Also, I feel like Sagittarius moons tend to go for science/math oriented careers or at least have an interest in those subjects. I know four Sag moons, and they’re all in STEM it’s actually crazy. They’re also extremely blunt and honest, especially when it comes to people they don’t like LMAO. They make it very clear when they don’t like someone, it’s so funny. They’re also just so much fun, like they’re genuinely so much fun to hang out with. I feel like I’ve never not had a good time hanging out with a Sagittarius moon. I feel like Sag moons however tend to struggle with asserting themselves a lot of times, until they get really fed up.  They’re very much go with the flow kinda people, and this can be to their detriment especially with the ones they love, they don’t wanna rock the boat. However, they also make really good mediators and are good at settling arguments. They also really like to travel, and likely have traveled a lot. All the Sagittarius moons I know have traveled to at least 4+ countries. They love traveling the world, and I’ve also noticed move or want to move far away from their childhood home. They wanna explore everything the world has to offer. My cousin who’s a Sag moon left her parents’ house to move a few states away and my other friend who’s a Sag moon wants to move to the other side of the country. These individuals also tend to like foreign culture as well. I’ve noticed Sagittarius moons tend to like foreign music or foreign tv shows. I feel like they also tend to ignore their emotions when they get sad and just don’t like to deal with their emotions. They also don’t like to talk about how they feel and will brush sad things off because it’s just too upsetting for them. However, once the emotions boil over, just like their anger, they will blow up LMAO. I’ve also noticed that they’re really good at teaching people things? Like my Sag moon friend explained this Chemistry equation to me I couldn’t understand and I got it after 10 minutes. Natural teachers. 

🌵 Capricorn Moon: Guys, it’s okay to open up. You don’t have to pretend to be so strong all the time, you’re not weak for showing your emotions. Anyway, Cap moons have high expectations for people, and will not tolerate any bs from people. I seriously commend them for that. I feel like Cap moons struggle with how their points are being expressed, they can say one thing, but it’s seen as something else. While Capricorn moons may struggle with expressing their emotions, I haven’t found them to be closed off or cold when meeting them. Every Capricorn moon I’ve met has warmed up to me very quickly and have been super nice. I feel like they’re very friendly and once they have a conversation with you they’re really warm and kind. Also, they’re not afraid of anything?? Except for showing their feelings maybe. But like, they’re so open to trying new things like scary rollercoasters and aren’t afraid to fight for themselves if they have to. Also, super fucking ambitious. I wish I could be ambitious. These people will really have like three jobs, be in school, and tend to household responsibilities. I don’t know how you guys do it. Now everyone says Capricorn moons are just analytical and systematic when confronted with conflict, and I personally haven’t found that to be true. If they feel wronged?? Nah. They’re not going to be systematic or logical or anything. They will go off. As for personal challenges, yes they’ll be more analytical. But I feel like everyone boils down Cap moons to emotionless and machine-like nerds, which I find to be very untrue. Capricorn moons are very soft once they’re vulnerable with you, and genuinely feel like they’re bothering people when they show their emotions and feel weak for showing them. Also I’ve noticed that their mom is a big motivator for their success. Their moms always push them to do their best in work and school. If poorly aspected, they could feel too pressured by their moms to do well. Also, they’re so underrated for being funny. They have a really dry sense of humor and it’s well developed. I also feel like they get overlooked for putting others before themselves, when it comes to the people they love they’ll do anything for them. Brb gonna go give my Cap moon friends a hug. 

🌵Aquarius Moon: You guys are just so unique. There’s something unique about each and every Aquarius moon, whether it’s a quirk or a hobby. These people are literally the best to talk to. It’s so easy to have a conversation with them, they really can talk about anything. I’ve also noticed that Aquarius moons tend to be interested in astrology and tarot and things of that kind. Every Aquarius moon I’ve met has been really interested in it, and even involved in it. I feel like they also have big dreams, and have big plans for themselves. Aquarius moons also love to get lost in their music and tend to use it as an escape. This can be a problem because they tend to avoid dealing with their feelings. They also go between reacting to things really heavily vs not reacting at all. It just seems like it goes back and forth. They speak up with things are unjust however only to their friends or online. They just don’t like to deal with face to face conflict in that regard. They also give really great advice. My best friend is an Aquarius moon and she always gives me the best advice. She knows me better than I know myself tbh. I feel like Aquarius moons relish in being unique LMAO. I’m 99% sure they had an “I’m not like other girls” phase. I feel like this placement always tends to space out and daydream a lot. They also aren’t the types to just lash out at people, their anger is more subtle (unless they have other placements of course). I feel like Aquarius moons also have a lot of friends but they tend to have a small group of friends that they tend to be super super close with. They’re also...really charming? I don’t know what it is, but like every single one I’ve met has been really charming and likable. They also have a really goofy sense of humor and love to do wild shit to make people laugh. I feel like some downsides of Aquarius moons are that they tend to be too analytical and rationalize things too much, and they inadvertently invalidate other people’s feelings. Aquarius moons are also super open minded to all opinions. I have a friend who I tend to disagree with on certain issues but they’ve always been open to hearing my opinion. They also love to travel too. I’ve noticed that as well. 

🌵Pisces Moon: To think, I was almost one of you guys. No seriously I almost was, if I were born four hours earlier I would’ve been a Pisces moon LMAO. Anyhoo, Pisces moons are just so sweet. I don’t know how else to start, they literally are the sweetest people and give off this mystical type of aura. They’re very otherworldly. Also, these people daydream 24/7. They put Aquarius moons to shame in daydreaming. This girl I like is a Pisces moon and I always catch her daydreaming LMAO. They’re also extremely sensitive too and feel things so deeply. They try to hide how they feel from people, but you can see it in their eyes. I can always tell when my Pisces moon friend is upset just by the look in her eyes. They also tend to be introverted and it takes a while for them to warm up to someone. My co-worker is a Pisces moon and it took 2 weeks for her to finally start talking to me LMAO. They also have really vivid and wild dreams too. I feel like my Pisces moon friend is always telling me about some wild dream they had like that they were in a castle or in an ocean. They also can be really moody, they can be fine one second and then get really sad out of nowhere. Their emotions are like the ocean. I feel like another downside of Pisces Moons are that they can be very manipulative however this is really with any underdeveloped water moon/sun placement. I also feel like they tend to be escapists a lot. They don’t like to deal with reality a lot, and they see the best in everything and everyone even if it’s to their demise. They’re also super friendly and are nice to everyone they meet, even if they’re reserved they’re still very sweet. They’re also extremely creative too, I feel like every Pisces moon I’ve ever met has some sort of creative hobby. My co-worker who’s a Pisces moon is working on becoming a photographer and her stuff is AMAZING. I think that’s because they see the best in the world and the beauty in everything; and they know how to show that in their work so others can see the world like they do. They’re also super empathetic and are really good listeners. You can talk to them about anything and feel understood. :) 

So this wraps up my moon sign series! I hope you guys liked it! Again, don’t take offense these are just my opinions on each moon sign! Hope you guys enjoyed, and if you don’t see your moon sign here it’s likely in part one. 

[leonardhoee]

I was looking through Leonardo Da Vinci quotes when I stumbled upon this: “Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.”

I wanted to know what you think he means and just your opinion about it overall.

Hi! I am so sorry I have no clue how long ago you sent this ask but I was on a hiatus and just now decided to look through my ask box.😭 I hope you enjoy this because this quote is super interesting to me!

To start, I think his choice of wording is very interesting because at least to me the phrase "intellectual passion" can be interpreted in so many different ways. If we really pick it apart, the connotations surrounding the word intellectual, and the word passion are kind of opposites. The word "Intellect" makes you think of like academia and cold hard logic as a way to process the world around you right? But the word passion is more closely associated with sensuality and feeling and absorbing the world around you with kind of an unfiltered lens just because you feel so strongly for it. So if you're looking at it from a wording perspective, at first glance that quote makes no sense.

However, overall the quote actually reminds me of something I've noticed with some of my family friends who are highly "academic" for lack of a better term. It's like they've devoted themselves to intellect and basically seeing themselves as superior because of their higher education and more "intellectual careers". The thing about that is they have so many health problems and in general I have never seen them enjoy life or truly appreciate what's around them. Its like the people who look down on art or physicality because they see it as entertainment they are entitled to (or "less important" than their "intellectual jobs"). I think this might have been where Leo was trying to go with this because most of his philosophy involved being well rounded. He was physically fit, he explored spirituality and art and music and fashion.

It makes me think of the things he has said about food and how it should be enjoyed and savored rather than just seen as a required nourishment. Someone with that one track minded intellectual mindset would see it as a requirement to keep their bodies alive, but they have lost the sensual enjoyment that comes with enjoying good food. I hope that example makes sense.

"Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs." (The actual quote)

I think Leonardo was never really devoted to being known as a genius, like it was never about his reputation or doing these things solely for the sake of seeming intellectual. Honestly I don't think he cared at all about whether people thought he was a genius or not. I think the real reason he became known as a genius was because he had the freedom and the drive to quite literally do whatever he wanted. if he wanted to be a fashion designer he did that, if he wanted to engineer weapons he did that, if he wanted to paint or study astronomy or dissect cadavers stolen from graveyards he did that. There were no mental restrictions for him. Honestly this quote is funny to me because in that sense because sensuality and passion led him to intellect.

More than being a genius I think his greatest trait was just having a never ending sense of curiosity about everything. If you really think about it, he himself is the greatest example of intellectual passion in the rawest sense. Overall however, I see this more as a comment about intellectual elitism and now those people are missing out on the real beauty of life but that's just how I interpret it based on what I know about him and his beliefs. However from a different perspective I disagree with that quote because of how much of a perfect example he is of true intellectual passion. I hope that makes sense.

To be honest if people just adopted his mentality so many of us could be polymaths, it's really not that hard to do. I don't think he would want to be seen as someone that is like untouchable and above everyone. I think that's exactly what he'd hate, he loved helping people that were passionate about learning and he loved spreading his knowledge. I kind of blame the school system for why intellectual elitism is such a common thing right now and why the true meaning of intellectual passion has been lost but now I'm kind of going off on tangents about why I hate how education is being handled right now.

I'm just gonna end by putting some of my other favorite quotes here that represent his mindset and why I interpret the quote this way.

"Life without love is not life at all."

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

“For in truth great love is born of great knowledge of the thing loved.”

I could keep going with this so please reblog your thoughts!

[jonnnysuh]

could we get along with svt in real life?

A collaborative series by @vernonsnostrils and me (Nala)!

A/N: Lately Bee and I have been doing daily rankings for fun and we decided to share our very very specific and dumb insights with all of you. For this one we're ranking who we think could tolerate us......... <3 Warning: Dumb info ahead

NALA:

13.Wonwoo – looks scary. I also have a rbf so imagine us together omg. Everyone would think we’re vampires. No one would want to be friends with us so we’d only have each other.

12.Woozi – I feel like I know nothing about him :-( He’s an amazing musician, and does come off as a little tiny bit mischievous. I feel like Woozi is the type of guy I have every class with but then we graduate never saying a word to each other.

11. Jun – I think Jun is funny as hell but he’s so quiet. I’d want to be his friend but I wouldn’t know how to approach him. Everyone loves him tho so he has his pick of friends and it does not include me LMAO

10. Jeonghan – (this one kind of doesn't make sense bc he should be higher on the list,, but also?? i'm the one who made this list so fite me) but I think that me and him are pretty similar. We both have a side that’s devious and wants to create havoc but we’re also the mom friend that takes care of everyone and with that I feel like we’d butt heads/ be the designated parents which is EW I am 20 years old,, I'm no one's mommy YUCK.

9. Joshua – he’s also quiet but I know he has a good sense of humour!!!! Hypes up my bad ideas bc he’s not involved -- but he will be giving me a thumbs up in the sidelines. I feel like he’s the type to make me text the guy I have a crush on “Just do it. What do you have to lose?” UM my dignity??? Tf Josh.

8.DK – The human version of a “pick-me-up” He is so “no thoughts, head empty” and I am too. Let’s go cloud watching !!!!!!!!! Let’s pick flowers !!!! A good friend to text on a bad day bc he will literally tell you the most embarrassing thing that happened to him, and even though you’ve heard it before it’ll still make you laugh.

7. The8 – simple, really. He likes art and I love art. He likes fashion, I like fashion. I feel like we could talk shit together LMAO. He has the most specific roasts but they’re always on point. I need someone who’s a little bit mean in my life <3

6. Mingyu – I know I could bully him jokingly and he’d take it (bc he knows I’m joking) but it wouldn’t stop him from pouting a bit. I feel like he’d be scared of me at first LMAO. We both share the hobby of photography so my ideal day out with him is just wandering around with cameras and taking pics of things we think are beautiful. Also forcing each other to pose in front of a dirty brick wall bc “IT LOOKS COOL, TRUST ME.” “WAIT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO POSE THO” and then he’d literally have to mold me into a good pose bc I am Play-doh

5. Vernon – The calm to my crazy, convinces me not to beat someone’s ass. Walks into my room to say nothing else but “Spaghetti” and then leaves quietly. Doesn’t talk to me for 5 months but will send me a meme at 5am bc it reminded him of an inside joke we had. Live-texts his emotions to me while watching tv shows, and shares new conspiracy theories with me. He’s a little bit too chill, I need someone ready to fuck shit up.

4. S Coups – is reliable and gives good advice bc he’s also a ball of anxiety. Nags me to do the right thing. Messes with me a lot. Would stay on the phone with me if I was home alone and told him I heard a noise. Says “Calm down there’s no one there.” BUT he’d also say shit like “check under your bed”

3. Seungkwan– I feel like we’re just as annoying as each other. He has the biggest heart and is super encouraging and thoughtful. Half the time we’re joking around, and the other half we’re fighting. Very much love-hate. Capricorns and virgos are a superior duo. I said it.

2. Hoshi– all round good vibes. Chaos and Loudness matched. Doesn’t always have to be around a lot of people bc he creates the fun when it’s just us two. The kind of friend I practice flirting on and everyone’s like ??? “You’re in love with him” no bro I’m just bored… we just do this kind of shit and he is IMMUNE to my lovey antics by now.

1.Dino– We bully each other a lot but we also have each other’s backs. Definitely not ride or dies tho bc we will tell each other when the other fucked up. We are sarcastic dumb dumbs and that’s why we like each other. I feel like he would only tell me how much he cares about me on my birthday.

BEE:

13. mingyu – i literally don’t know what i would say to mingyu. “tall man” or “what up big boy.” i would be scared of him until someone taught me how not to be. like i gotta hang out with him in a group setting for three months straight until i can say hi to him when i enter a room. if i saw him i would simply just Not See Him.

12. wonwoo – like mingyu i don’t know if i’d have anything to say to him. him and mingyu both have popular high school boy personalities and that scares me.

11. josh – besides being californian, i don’t know if we’d have anything to talk about outside of in n out and traffic. he’s too pretty for me.

10. The8 – i feel like we’ve been over this for me. he’s too intellectual and polite i wouldn’t have much to say to him. but i feel like we could talk good shit about other people.

9. jun – i think i get along well with people with quiet funny personalities. like the kind where you don’t have to necessarily say anything but look at them and they’re telling you what they’re thinking. he knows that i know. so he kept reacting and looking at me. i think it’d take a while to develop a friendship though.

8. jeonghan – i wanna cause chaos with jeonghan. i want to do lots of things with jeonghan i feel like he would give me piggyback rides while sliding with his socks on the floor. he would tease me and i would be offended for five minutes while he pretends to tell me he’s sorry (he’s not).

7. dino – dino and i would be like twins building a sandcastle on the beach. that’s our vibe. like the kids you meet on vacation and play pirates with at the pool. relegated to the kids table kind of vibe.

6. scoups – he’s like the type to play catch with the stuffed animal in the room while we sit on the floor and chat. like he just arrived and is asking me about my day and picks it up from my bed and we throw it around while talking.

5. seungkwan – i think seungkwan and i could sit and talk outside on the patio when the stars are bright. like we could sit outside and stare out at the stars while i talk about my biggest dreams and don’t even need to see him to know that he thinks the world of me

4. hoshi – i see a lot of face masks. hoshi teaches me how to dance while they rest on our faces, but they keep sliding off because we’re laughing too hard. he has immaculate vibes, like the type to say “here for a good time not for a long time” but it’s an absolute lie because he’s there for both.

3. woozi – although i like to joke that he’s an evil little man, i think we could talk a lot about music and he would be very happy to teach me what he knows, and we’d spend a lot of time developing ideas and growing together.

2. vernon – he has the personality of my irl best friend, like a slightly chaotic aquarius who is horrendously hard to reach like 99% of the time. he’s the kind of guy who would try to make dinner but end up fucking it up so horribly that when i come in it’s like smoky and awful and the fire alarm is going off, so i have to air out the apartment and go get takeout and bring it home to my burned smelling apartment and eat it on the floor of the living room while binge watching a new netflix show.

1. dk – i just love the kind of joy and energy he radiates, like would be excited to do anything at all if it’s with me. would love to accompany me on any task if i just asked, like getting ice cream at 10pm and he’d know exactly what kind of flavor he’d get so it could accompany mine well when we inevitably switched halfway through the cone. saves the bottom of the cone, the chocolate tip, for me because he knows it’s my favorite.

[lolly-dolli]

Crossover episode in which Interview is canon in that it's ALSO about true events in the form of a docudrama made from an autobiography and Lestat is just straight up Some Guy Who Exists, and because vampires usually only care about human media according to the Roger Rabbit law of comedy none of the vampires really care. There's a cutaway gag during a talking head interview where Louis explains via voice over that it ended up failing as a docudrama as a shot of the end of the credits is shown saying "some events are dramaticized" that every human somehow missed, and Queen of the Damned is referenced as a Noodle Incident that killed any hope of trying again to reveal the novels as stealth autobiographies and maybe also alluding to and implying that the Great Fanfic Purges were due to some sort of ego meltdown on Lestat's part.

Guillermo (who has canonically at least seen the first movie, and I'd like to imagine has read the books) proceeds to find this VERY amusing because, as the Vampire Chronicles Vampires have vastly different origins to those in the WWDITS universe; and obviously none of the world-changing events from the book have actually happened here (as I'm in the middle of season 3 and quite enjoying his bastardization arc), he is the only person in the room besides the two guys who are visiting due to [insert funny council shenanigans here, IDK maybe they're getting divorced or un-divorced again and there's a lot of paperwork bullshit and Lestat invites himself into their mansion as Lestat is wont to do]. And because Guillermo is seemingly the only person here who realizes that everything post-interview is just self-insert fanfic, he proceeds to subtly call him out on his bullshit for to make him squirm.

Due to legal reasons there is a running joke in which the vampires keep mistakenly calling them Tom and Brad because None Of Them Know Who These Two Are and having to be corrected (minus Collin Robinson, who picks up on this bullshit and joins in on it for fun, and reveals that he too has seen the movie and then very awkwardly imitates a line from it in order to feed off the cameraman). Guillermo purposefully enables this.

Guillermo brings up that he's heard Lestat had a prominent musical career in the 80s but he's never had a chance to actually listen to any of his work, and asks if he can reccomend any songs for him to listen to. He purposefully does this while Lazslo and Nadja are in the room so that he can't hypnosis his way out of it and Lazslo will of course want to talk with a fellow musician (the word "musician" overenunciated in true Lazslo fashion) and asking if he wants to play some of his work later.

Louis leaves the room because he's tired of this bullshit and can't watch anymore and there's a b-plot where Nadja tries to help him reign in his idiot husband and, "stop being such a pathetic wet baby owl eating rats all of the time." She interrupts him when he says he actually doesn't do that anymore. She and him and the Nadja Doll end up having group therapy over mutual Idiot Man Who I Love problems, and Nadja especially bonds with him because, "your idiot husband turned a toddler to see what would happen? My idiot husband turned a baby!" the bonding becomes increasingly one-sided, however, when Nadja mentions that the baby is at least doing well for itself as a member of the vampiric council and when asked how Claudia is Louis is just like "well. Um. She's. Not around anymore." And Nadja assumes this as pathetic wet baby owl man speak for Claudia being estranged from them.

The climax involves Lestat being put on the spot in such a way that he cannot easily weasel his way out of it and Guillermo letting out a very small laugh which Nandoor picks up on, and upon Guillermo going "oh, nothing, I just feel kind of bad for him is all."

To which Nandoor responds with, "Tom Cruise does not need your pity, Guillermo," implying he not only was getting the names wrong despite having mediated in Vampire Divorce Or Un-Divorce court, but may have thought that Tom Cruise was actually in their home.

Guillermo has to try even harder to resist laughter.

The episode ends probably with some sort of violent chaos amongst the group as Guillermo looks to the camera with a very subtle, politely evil little smile for half a second and Louis in the background looking incredibly exhausted

[caterpellas]

munich nights • harry styles

summary: touring inseparably as best friends and musicians, yours and harry’s relationship takes a cruel turn in munich.

warnings: smut (oral m recieving) 

genre: bestfriend!harry, friends to lovers(?), angst, smut

pt 1/? (two is here)         word count: 4k

a/n: this is my first time writing in like a year so some feedback would be amazing, pls be kind and show some love to my crumby attempt lol

chapter playlist :D

harry.

he was sort of your anchor. unspoken, of course, that he had taken such a high profile role in your life. he didn’t need to know, to know. you were certain it worked in reverse, that you grounded him just like he did for you.

you’re not sure of the timestamp on the beginning of your friendship, sometime 3 years ago after mindlessly chatting in a shoreditch bar, at the sort of venue you were both cackling over after a couple of overpriced gin and tonics.

“i’m not sure why i came here, it really isn’t my scene,” you said after calming your laughter down.

“me neither. i’m not all that into £18 cocktails made with organic fruit juice,” he jested back, although you felt a hint of sadness in the next, “it makes me miss home.”

after that you clicked instantly.

you both bonded over being musicians; your styles contrasted entirely though. his band, who you met a few occasions later, were the antithesis to yours. mitch and sarah looked and sounded like they were fresh from a 70’s pop rock band, whilst your bassist and drummer, both twins, had buzzed heads and black dr martens on 24/7. the differences between you and him didn’t matter in the slightest. which is why, after 18 months of building the strongest friendship you’d had in your life, he asked you and your band to come on tour with him.

touring with your best friend and now biggest fan was the single greatest experience of your life. you would admit to the apprehension you first felt about opening for harry as your music wasn’t exactly in keeping with his genre- you were a little grungier then his soft style. i suppose the opposites between you is what enhanced everything about your relationship, musically and personally. in articles harry was always praised for his effeminate fashion choices, and since gaining some recognition as his opener, the articles were now mentioning how you dressed too, hyping up your more boyish, ‘can’t be bothered’ clothing taste you’d developed over your years in the band. your shoes were always chunky and platform, your top or bottoms usually oversized and always with the same thick chain around your neck. to some, your style seemed intimidating but it couldn’t be further from the truth. harry knew that best of all.

3 months into the tour now, you had made it to munich for the 1st night of your european portion of the tour. you and harry were sat next to one another on the plane, sharing an earpod each, playing music from your playlist titled “h”. you hadn’t been able to sleep on the overnight flight, after reading a particularly disturbing article about harry’s recent paparazzi shots. “harry styles’ player ways making a comeback?” it read, and pictured him with a couple models you’d met in new york together after going out for the night. you couldn’t place why but the article made you feel sick. you put it down to seeing such a close friend’s name slandered in the press, and you hoped he hadn’t read it yet. harry was often disheartened after reading the gossip people like to spread about him, occasionally involving you as well.

“you seem very deep in thought.” harry’s morning voice could be heard over the sound of steely dan in your ears. turning to him, one of his eye’s peering at you, you reply, “not really- just thinking about the set list.”

“you need to switch off your work brain sometimes,” he grins up at you, “have a little more fun! munich will be great, lots of beer to try.”

“of course that’s what you look forward to most. you know munich is filled with some beautiful architecture and history right?”

“that’s great and all, but you know what else they have?” harry questions you and you shake your head.

“oktoberfest.”

-

you arrived at your airbnb not long after- harry’s band and yours all preferred staying in a large house or apartment then some posh hotel that didn’t feel quite as welcoming. harry’s manager picked the place out, opting for a villa that sleeps 10 people, filled to the brim with oak panelling and a big fire place in the centre of the room. there was a hot tub outside that would probably never be used in your short stay there. the kitchen had a large island in the middle and a big aga keeping the place warm in the late september weather. his manager really outdid herself this time.

“this is place is so beautiful,” you still weren’t over all of the beautiful places this tour had taken you, the short time you’d been travelling had been a sensory overload.

“you’ll really like munich, y/n,” harry said yawning, grabbing both your shoulders from behind. his touch took your mind back to the article.

“harry,” you started, reluctantly turning to face him, “i know it’s none of my business who you, you know- fuck, but i was just wondering what happened with those models after i left?” harry’s calm expression never faltered as he answered, “me and camila kissed in the taxi but then i went back to the hotel. why?” you didn’t have the strength to answer honestly, and tell him it was because the thought of him having a threesome with two supermodels made you physically wretch, but you felt an obligation to give him a somewhat truthful answer.

“i saw an article about it, the paps caught a glimpse of it,” you white-lied. if you were going to be honest with yourself, the reason him with people like camila and gina bothered you so much is because of the way you compared yourself to them. you were overall confident, you were proud of your style and “gives no fucks” attitude you’d built up over the years, but these were literal models. women who were paid, like paid a lot, because they were beautiful. harry’s dating history has had a lot of women you could never measure up to be as good as and that was a real confidence breaker.

“well anyway, are you ready for tonight’s show? we were thinking it would be cool if you guys came on with us and...”

-

harry, as per usual, performed with all of his heart and soul and yet again amazed you. he had been doing this for three months, playing at least three shows a week and his energy levels were still unmatchable. you were back in your dressing room, taking off your stage clothes and putting on an almost identical outfit, wiping the sweat off your brow and upper lip. the monitor in your room played harry’s set, and you had to find any way you could to distract yourself from his performance before you ended up fantasising about the way his sweaty curls cling to his neck and how you wished he was sweating like that just for you, for an entirely different reason.

“thank you so much munich!” you hear harry’s accent through the small tv, and look up to see him panting and grinning, before running off stage. you had no idea why, but tonight there was a small amount of nervousness about you. since reading the article, you’ve had to address the gnawing idea that you could possibly have feelings for harry that were more than just your deep set friendship. would you act differently about the man you loved more than anyone in this world? you didn’t want things to change- they were perfect with him. he’d jest with you when you became too much of a perfectionist about your latest song, telling you to stop thinking so hard or you’ll have an aneurysm. if people commented on his style or yours, he’d laugh it off and tell everyone he’s “the woman in the relationship” sarcastically, and you’d be in awe at how he essentially said a huge “fuck you” to gender norms. he made you comfortable being you and you coveted his ability to be so happy being him. the thought of this bond being broken frightened you to your core. the knock at your door was a good signal for your thoughts to end.

“you coming y/n?” the group of you were all headed to a german beer bar, since harry was so eager to try the world famous pilsner. finding a large lounge space with sofas inside the bar, you all sat and ordered a round, celebrating a good night’s work.

“to the first night in europe,” you toasted, “cheers!” all your glasses clinked together and the nervous feeling started to fade finally. sat next to harry, you discussed the tour so far, he told a story about being in one direction and it reminded you of a hilarious story from when you were 15, when you used to listen to emo music and swore how much you hated one direction, and they all laughed at the irony. if you had told your 15 year old self this was where you’d be at 21, you’d have snorted and laughed till you cried. but life works out in strange ways and you wouldn’t change it for a second. a few drinks in and any of those nervous feelings about what harry was to you had evaporated like alcohol till you eventually had to remind yourself that whilst your hand was on harry’s knee, it meant nothing. and the way he leans forward to you as he laughed at your not-so-funny joke. but those reminders were getting weaker the more his touch started to linger after he went to go and grab his pint the same time you did.

“we really must stop meeting like this,” he jokes as your hand rubs against his for the 50th time that might and you laugh at him because your afraid if you don’t play it off as a joke you’ll lean over and kiss him. you find yourself in need of a distraction from his low buttoned shirt and endless black ink drawn across his chest that you can see in high definition when your this close to him.

“i’m going to get another round,” you exclaim dramatically, telling yourself more than the rest of the group. making your way over to the bar, you can feel harry’s vision bearing into your back as you lean against the counter to get service.

“another round of pilsners on the table’s tab please,” you ask as soberly as you can. you’re not off your face yet, but the alcohol is definitely present, surrounding the corners of your vision.

“i’d rather by you a drink.” a slightly german accent crowds your ears and you look over to see a man, not all that different to some of the guys in harry’s band, smirking at you.

nervous, you reply, “no you don’t need to do that we have a tab here.”

“i insist.” afraid to be impolite you quietly thank him, and turn back to the bar. you can’t even think of chatting to guy at a bar whilst the man you love is sat so close by. even though it’s not returned, the pain of giving him up to flirt with a stranger is too much to bare.

“so what brings you to a local’s bar like this one?”

“me and my friends are working here for the night.”

“just here for the night? such a shame,” his smile, although attempting to seem unthreatening, is making you uncomfortable. the bartender seems to be taking forever with your order.

“i’m staying in a hotel a few minutes away, come and join me and their bar for a real drink?” your heart was pounding. you rarely got hit on so you were a little out of practice on how to deal with persistent assholes like these ones.

“i can show you how the germans like to do it.” that was it- he’d gone too far and you were so embarrassed by this point you were too humiliated to even reply to him. your neck was getting hotter and you could feel your cheeks reddening.

“you okay?” harry’s voice took you out of your panic-stricken state, “you were taking a while.”

turning to harry and preparing to tell him how this man won’t get the message, the german creep pipes up, “she’s fine mate. we were just discussing a date.”

“listen mate, i suggest you back off. alright?” harry grabbed your hand, tightly, and guided you out of the bar.

“harry where are we going?” you could barely comprehend what had happened in the last five minutes to even realise he was hailing a taxi.

“back to the house. i’ll text the others.”

“harry i’m fine honestly it’s no-“

“who said i was fine? i wanted to leave and i thought maybe you did too.” he was angry, which wasn’t something you saw in harry often. he was a happy guy, and optimistic about most things in life.

“is this because of that guy?”

“of course it is y/n.”

“i’m sorry i didn’t realise he’d be an assho-“

“why’re you apologising?”

this shut you up. you didn’t know why. this wasn’t the first time a guy had been slightly predatory towards you and you doubted it would be the last. after the first couple times your in situations like this you tend to see yourself as the problem and not the guys doing it.

“i don’t know, harry.” you climbed into the cab together and harry gave them the address, seeming somewhat cooled off from earlier. your head was buzzing from the alcohol and the fact that harry had essentially rescued you from what could have been a scary situation.

“harry?”

“yeah, y/n?”

“why did you kiss camila?” alcohol had made you more outspoken and you asked the question that had been driving your nervous energy all night.

“why are you asking?”

a little more honestly then last time, you answered, “i’m just curious.” harry shifted in his chair, slightly unnerved by the question. his whole demeanour had shifted entirely from earlier. he was close and warm with you, the friend you’d become addicted to being with. now he was closed off and moody- a rare sight for anyone who knew him well. you could have picked a better time to ask the question, of course, but you had to know. you had other questions too, like why he was so angry right now, and why did he care that i was chatting with a guy at the bar, even if he was a creep.

“because she wanted to kiss me and i wanted to kiss her. the same reason most humans kiss,” there was a slight element of humour back in his voice now.

“and that was it?”

“yep.”

“hmm.” you tried to ponder this, but your attention span was limited when you were this inebriated. your thought process had quickly moved from harry’s sex life to harry in general and his outfit of the evening- a personal favourite. he’d worn white cream trousers with a vest top and an unbuttoned short sleeve shirt, along with the necklace you’d given him last christmas. you could see his two swallows peaking from the straps of his wife beater and your mind wandered to the thought of having your mouth against them. against all his tattoos, individually placing a kiss on each and everyone that you had grown to fall in love with.

you remembered the memory of harry coming with you to get your largest tattoo,  a greek statue on your upper arm.

“harry you know this isn’t the first one i’ve gotten?” you laugh at how hard he was clutching your hand in the chair next to your seat.

“i know but i’m so excited for you. i want you to know i’ll be sat here the whole time to hold your hand,” he squeezes your hand to emphasise his point.

“harry i’m getting another tattoo not going into life-altering surgery.”

but inside, you were squealing at his words.

“y/n?”

harry’s less chipper current voice took you out of your memory and back to the cab in munich.

“you’ve been staring at my chest for a couple minutes,” his brows were furrowed as he studied your face.

“i want to lick it.” if someone had asked you why you answered with that, you genuinely couldn’t give them a good answer. alcohol didn’t do much to you, except allow you to have fun, and lose any sense of a filter. now was a perfect example of the effects. harry’s eyes widened at your candour- and so did yours. his calm expression only faltered for a few seconds though, before it returned to his neutral, warm face.

“what else?”

“i-uh- what?”

“what else were you thinking about?” your heart was beating so loudly you were sure harry could feel it across in his seat. why was harry asking this? you didn’t want him to know about your thoughts- they were far too embarrassing and far too private.

“i was thinking about all your tattoos,” you confessed.

“i was thinking about yours too.” you thought about all of your tattoos and remembered the dog rose you had on the back of your thigh, as well as the koi carp on your hip bone.

“which ones?”

“the flowers and the fish.” you gulped, knowing he was thinking of your most risqué tattoos.

harry, unusually, was completely serious as he said, “i thought about licking yours too.” you didn’t know where you stood with harry now. you were sat in a taxi, having the conversation with him that you thought would never happen. he wants you the same way you want him. he may not want you the same way a nagging voice told you. he could just be looking for an easy fuck, and you thought to yourself that even if that was all he wanted, you’d still give yourself to him.

“harry-“

“maybe we shouldn’t talk anymore, yeah?” you felt like you could cry- how could he not want to talk, and you were on tour together? this was the most gut wrenching feeling to have him tell you not to talk anymore. harry studied your face as you lip began to quiver, “jesus y/n i meant about the current conversation. of course i want to keep talking to you, i love you- you know, like a friend.”

“like a friend?” you couldn’t ever begin to describe how your heart felt like it fell to the pit of your stomach whilst the acid slowly burnt it away. friends is it. harry isn’t yours to have and he never will be, he just had to remind you in words of this.

“well we’re both a little drunk and clearly turned on- maybe just this once it could be more than friends? just for tonight, i mean?” harry’s clear green eyes didn’t stop looking into yours, and he seemed, i’m not sure, hopeful? as if on cue, the taxi took you back to your villa which was warmly lit from inside and you felt a nervous excitement crawl up your arms and legs at what could possibly come next. harry gave the driver the cash and you dashed quickly to the door of the house, the cool september air cutting through you both dressed inappropriately for the time of year. it dawned on you that your outfit- a big vintage men’s shirt with your oldest and favourite pair of dr martens with sheer tights- wasn’t the wisest choice. harry fumbled with unlocking the door and opened it to find the fire lit and the lights dimmed. it was more romantic than either of you would ever mention out loud but it felt like the house was routing for you. you weren’t sure where harry wanted this to go next, the air beginning to stiffen and feel awkward.

turning to face him, you started, “harry i-“ his lips met yours in an instance and any of the awkwardness left in the room had been dissolved by harry’s soft kiss. he tasted good, despite the beer you’d both been drinking and had you not been intoxicated by the pilsner and harry’s gentle touch, you’d probably care about things like breath. harry grabbed you by the shoulders, much like he did earlier that same day, and guided you into the room further, finding the large sofa and pushing you onto it. falling back, you glanced up at his towering figure. harry was already tall, but his powerful presence added a less literal height to him, and his shadow looked over you. you couldn’t help but stare at him as he shrugged his shirt off his shoulders, exposing some of your favourite tattoos of his. you got to your knees so that you were closer to his body and you finally relaxed in his presence, touching all the places you’d dreamed about. your hands raked up his torso to his chest and his head leant down to kiss you again. his lips were perfect and seemed made to be against yours so tightly, and made for the crook of your neck as well as they kissed and sucked there too. the fire in the corner of your eyes illuminated the small amount of gold in harry’s hair and he looked as angelic as he always did in your dreams.

“am i better than him?” harry murmured against your neck. the question caught you off guard. he’d only known one other person you’d had a sexual relationship with since you two became friends and that was a sound tech from one of his old touring groups that you had a small fling with. him and harry never got along and harry even accused him of purposely messing his sound up during a performance once. harry has walked in on you giving him head in your dressing room once and it was incredibly awkward but you both moved past it.

“who are you talking about?”

“you know, that arsehole sound tech from the american tour. do i kiss you better than him?” you could hear the layers to his voice- he was asking with a confidence that you felt straight in your core, but there was another layer to it- insecurity.

“god yes,” you gushed, he had to at least know how he physically made you feel even if you can’t admit your feelings, “you kiss far better then he ever could.”

an idea came into your head at this, “in fact, i bet you’ll feel better in my mouth then he did.” harry jaw slacks slightly and you give him a shy smile. talking like this wasn’t something you ever tried when you were having sex, but harry made you want to be honest. it was the closest you could get to confessing your love to him, and you’d take what you could get from harry right now. stunned into silence, you continue to undress harry, removing his vest to expose his lean stomach and small trail of hair from his belly button, that you kissed all the way down. he let out a sharp breath as soon as you got to the top of his pubic bone, and you finally noticed just how hard harry already was. with a little fascination, you dared to take it to the next level and cupped his length through his trousers, causing harry to groan at the contact. he felt big in your small hand, you couldn’t wait to reveal him, impatiently struggling with his zipper.

“woah, y/n, slow down,” harry puts a finger under your chin and you look up under your lash at him, knelt below him. his smile is a classic harry smile and for a brief second this feels like more than a casual fuck.

“you’re still wearing too much clothing.” harry bends slightly to get to the bottom of your shirt and speedily pulls it over your head, revealing your black cotton bralet and tights. harry’s mouth watered at the sight of you in nothing but your underwear and boots, your long hair falling in messy waves around your minimally tattooed arms. your sure your black eyeliner is smudged and your gloss practically jin existent but harry’s eyes make you feel like he wants nothing more then to fuck you.

“that’s much better,” he smiles again at you, and you take that as a good cue to continue on his member. eagerly, your hands go straight back to his flies, rapidly undoing them and letting his loose fit trousers fall from his hips, exposing his form fitted boxers and you get a much better idea of just how big harry’s cock really was. without realising you mumble, “i want you in my mouth so bad,” under your breath.

“fuck say that again.”

looking under your lashes again, you repeat, “i want your cock in my mouth so bad.” harry groans as his eyes roll back, his words almost being enough without your touch. but your hand still went back to his dick, pulling it out from the restraint of his boxers. it was thick and bigger then you had been with before. without missing a beat, your hand pumped him a few times, and his hips reacted instantly. as if beckoning for your lips to surround his cock, his hips thrust towards you again, and you obliged, licking and then parting your wetted lips for the head of his dick. the pre-cum touched your tongue and it urged you to take more of him further, swiping your tongue on the underside as you push more in. harry moans, gripping your scruffy hair in his large hand, and had to restrain from pushing your mouth around his whole length. as your mouth got acquainted with him, you started to move up and down the length, as harry’s moans got higher and louder.

“y/n your mouth is fucking magic.” the praise went straight to your clit and your underwear was dampening at the knowledge of the dirty things your mouth was doing.

“can you- fuck- can you grab my balls?” you responded immediately and cupped them lightly whilst continuing to bob your head on his cock.

“didn’t know you could you use your mouth for such dirty things, y/n. do i fill you better then he did?”his jealousy fuelled you to go even quicker, this time switching up to concentrating on his swollen head, your tongue lapping against it feverishly, whilst your hand pumped the rest of him. the combination of your hand and mouth was enough to drive harry insane.

“you do so good y/n, i’m gonna cum soon okay?” you release him from your mouth, and keep stroking him, eager for him to orgasm. you couldn’t describe the desperation you had to see the way he looked as he climaxed. if you were to die after this, you knew you would die happy, if only to have seen harry in that state of euphoria that only you could bring him to.

“fuck y/n i’m gonna cum,” harry pants, his thighs tensing and his eyes glazing over. you aim him over your chest and feel his load fall all over your breasts, soaking your bralet as he lets out a breathy moan. his breathes are loud and aside from the fire crackling are the only noise filling the space of the living room. you let his now soft cock go and fall back onto the sofa, too tired to think about all of what just happened, the only thought on your mind is of harry’s moans on repeat. your chest is sticky but you’re too exhausted to care. harry has slowly crept over to sit next to you on the sofa, and you’re unspokenly thankful he hasn’t distanced himself afterwards.

“i need to clean you up.” harry disappears as quickly as he arrived and comes back with a warm flannel. wiping your chest, you watch his face as his brows furrow delicately on his forehead and his mouth is slightly crooked in concentration. you loved every single portion of his face, and suddenly it meant something different. you had seen his face at it’s most real and vulnerable and you had that memory forever.

unfortunately moments like the one you and harry had finally shared don’t last forever, and once harry’s done wiping your  breasts off, he leaves a kiss on your forehead, grabs his clothes and leaves you on the sofa.

[dragonsareourfuture]

Death Note as Stand-Up Comedians

Mello

- he’s allowed to complain about Near in front of an auditorium full of people as long as it’s in the form of a joke — of course he loves it.

- He has a lot of passion up on stage. The audience loves it because it makes them feel really immersed into the show.

- Mello has a tendency to get really loud when he gets really into a joke or bit, so the tech crew has gotten used to lowering the volume on his mic as the show progresses and he gets louder and louder.

- Mello has a harsh sense of humor, often using exaggerations and sarcasm to accentuate a point.

- He would tell stories from his time at Wammy’s house, mainly the chaos moments with Matt because the rest is pretty traumatizing for him.

- It’s his style that draws people in and his sense of humor that keeps them there. He has a very unique clothing style and, even when his managers suggested he dress down for the show as to not scare people away, he refused. He said that he would rather show who he is upfront and let the public decide whether or not to invest time in him than fake his personality for people he doesn’t know or give a shit about. They got the hint pretty quickly after that.

- He would sometimes do joined shows with Matt, which is quite interesting. Their dynamic works perfectly on stage and they even weave jokes that weren’t scripted into the show to keep each other on their toes.

Matt

- He’s a pretty chill guy, so I picture his sense of humor as pretty dry. Not in a bad way, of course. For instance, he tends to say the most hilarious things with a straight face and flat tone, which somehow makes the joke even funnier.

- He likes to involve the audience a lot, so gags where he (with permission) takes an audience member’s phone and reads their texts aloud are common. Somehow he can make jokes about the most mundane of text conversations and have the audience howling.

- Like I mentioned earlier, he and Mello’s contrasting senses of humor work for a perfect dynamic when performing, so shows where they’re together are the audience’s favorite. But even though Mello’s wild passion can take the spotlight at times, Matt is never overshadowed as they’re both sure to include the other in any bit or joke they do.

- For no reason at all I think Matt it great at imitations and impressions of different people. So, like when he’s doing a bit and speaking for someone else he can assign voices for everyone and the audience knows who he’s supposed to be speaking as in that moment. Usually these people are only known to him and Mello, so the audience can’t tell how exactly spot on he is. His impression of Near gets Mello wheezing, and his Mello impression gets the audience wheezing with Mello constantly claiming “I don’t sound like that, idiot!” With the audience shouting “YES YOU DO!”

L

- L’s sense of humor tends to require a specific taste, which is why he would probably be one of the least successful of the bunch.

- Don’t get me wrong, his sense of humor is adorable and one of the best aspects of Death Note in my opinion, but it comes in short and random bursts. He’d be talking about something serious and then crack a joke (“yEs tHat mUst Be dArK”), so it requires patience to really get to his sense of humor.

- The audience, I feel, wouldn’t have the patience to stick around and wait for his humor to surface.

- But L would have a cult following of a specific group of people that appreciate his talents.

- I’m picturing a show in which he starts off by talking about some cases, and transition to jokes from there. Due to his occupation, many jokes involve a darker sense of humor but also contain surprisingly innocent little remarks or comments. I can’t really explain it better, it makes sense in my head but I’m not too sure how to put it into words.

- Most of the show he keeps his straight face, but when he gets the audience going from something he said he can’t help but crack a little smile and chuckle into the mic pretty bashfully.

Near

- I’m sorry but Near doesn’t have too much of a sense of humor. But he does do or say some of the most hilarious shit on accident.

- It was actually Halle that convinced him to take up stand up comedy, as she got to spend tons of time just sitting and talking with him, cracking up at something Near said while he just stared at her in confusion.

- She had complete and total confidence that just plopping Near on stage and telling him to “just talk” would get the audience going, so she took him to a bar that did stand up comedy nights. Near absolutely killed it.

- Eventually he learns what the public finds funny through experimentation and tells those kinds of jokes more often, learning to perfect his craft. Through this method he is able to go from ‘accidentally funny’ to ‘intentionally hilarious’.

Light

- I wholeheartedly believe that Light has no sense of humor. Period.

- Sure, he’s accidentally funny sometimes but not enough to fake it ‘til he makes it like Near did.

- So he gets someone else to write his show for him. He’s just a pretty face, and the person who wrote his show is mentioned once or twice but who really cares about them? It’s Light who’s doing all the work, obviously. He’s the one getting sweaty up on stage.

- Honestly he barely has a sense of humor he’s probably just do it as a side thing for recognition or like most youtubers who write a book or start a podcast.

Matsuda

- Okay so, I definitely think that Matsuda would be one of the most successful stand up comedians out of all of them.

- He’s just so bubbly and kind and just genuinely a wonderful person so who could walk out of a show if his unsatisfied? No one. That’s who.

- My mans here has the opportunity to make so many self deprecating jokes due to how the task force treats him and how he’s just overall looked at as inferior to everyone he works with. And guess what? He doesn’t take that opportunity at all. He thinks self worth is the most important thing in the world and instead focuses his jokes around break room stories and observations of every day life.

- However if he ever does make a self deprecating joke, it’s never with any hatred towards himself. Like, he’ll joke about how his recklessness got him in trouble with Yotsuba, but instead of cursing the trait he has, he always expresses his hopes to get better and learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile the audience is dying at how he tells the story with so much energy and just— ...he’s wonderful.

- He just reminds me of John Mulaney when I picture a show of his.

- He’s pretty goofy by nature and you can tell that he’s enjoying himself up on stage, watching him laugh at his own jokes and beam at the audience with a smile so bright it could rival the spotlight shining down on him.

- He also really likes the attention, having been pushed to the side for so long.

- He’s just overall a really nice and positive guy while also being hilarious to listen to. 10/10.

Misa

- With her already existing music career and fashion career, people know her pretty well. Therefore, there is a HOARD of people waiting to see how she fairs at something so different from her previous career paths.

- And y’know what? Misa’s great at it.

- I’d like to imagine she’s out of her terrible relationship with Light in this au and realize how messed up he was, so I think she’d do a lot of clowning Light in her shows.

- She will kinda mix the comedy with valuable life lessons on relationships, so a lot of fans come up to her and thank her because they let their kids watch her shows and they’ve learned so much from her while being entertained for a good hour.

- Also her voice is so cute and pleasant to listen to I would gladly listen to her talk for a week let alone an hour.

- I imagine her style of show and humor to be along the lines of straight up ranting and just talking her heart out. You know that friend that can talk for hours but it’s okay because they make everything, even the most mundane things, sound dramatic and fun and lively? Yeah, that’s her.

[five-rivers]

Snow and Song Chapter 5

About five seconds after Danny registered the huge crowd of people gathered in the park (and why were they there?  Had there been some kind of event he forgot about?), it began to snow.   Danny looked around himself in alarm.  He was often insensitive to temperature changes (and a few other things, according to his sister), but it wasn’t nearly cold enough snow.  It was September.

He looked up.  There weren’t even any clouds.  

A snowflake, perfect and crystalline, stuck to his eyelash.  

Alright.  When something weird and unnatural started to happen in Amity Park, usually there was a ghost involved.  All Danny had to do was find the ghost causing it to… snow…

Oh.  Right. He was a ghost that could make snow.  

He was an idiot.  He hadn’t even noticed his core activating.  His cheeks flushed with cold.  This was so embarrassing.

Wincing, he looked back down at the crowd.  Only about a tenth of the people had phones in their hands, winking camera lenses pointed up at him, but that was more than enough.  He felt entirely too visible.  

… Which he could fix because he was a ghost, darn it, something that he kept forgetting about tonight.  Berating himself, he adjusted his visibility down to zero and flew away.  

Almost at once, all the birds took off, the sound of wings obscuring whatever the humans down below were saying.  

Danny didn’t stop until he got home, trailing snow all the while.  He was not looking forward to tomorrow, but for tonight, maybe, he could forget what had happened.  

He went human, phased off his clothes, laid down on his bed, closed his eyes, and started to-

“Maddie!” shouted Jack.  “The ghost-kid is on TV again!  He’s in the park!”

“Oh, good!  Go start up the GAV!  This time, we’ll catch him!  I’ll be with you in a minute!”

Danny let out the breath he had been holding since his dad startled him from his doze in a long sigh.  He resigned himself to being woken up at least once more that night.

.

.

.

The first rays of sunlight filtering through Danny’s window brought with them something that would have chilled Danny to the core if his core weren’t naturally frosty.  

Music.  

He peeled his eyes open slowly, grudgingly, because it was still September, and sunrise was still quite a bit before the time he had to get up in the morning.  Hoping he was hallucinating, he trudged over to the window and pulled back the curtains.

Ah, yes.  He hadn’t quite expected to find a bunch of cultists standing outside his house with a boombox, playing back a rather scratchy version of Tale as Old as Time, but, somehow, he was unsurprised to do so.  What exactly were they attempting to accomplish here?

One of the younger (about six years old) cultists waved up at him.  Resigned, Danny waved back, then let the curtain fall back down.  

He rubbed his eyes.  Normal teenagers didn’t have to deal with cults that worshiped them as a god.  Even that dude from Nazareth was a full adult before he got hit with the heavy stuff.  

(Yeah, because it wasn’t at all a sign of megalomania, mental instability, or good old-fashioned insanity to compare himself to that guy.)

(He didn’t want a cult, darn it.)

What did they want, anyway?

He got dressed and started downstairs.  To his horror (but again, not surprise) he heard more music emanating from the kitchen.  

“What are you guys doing?” Danny asked.  

“Oh, morning, Danno!” boomed Jack.

“Shh, shh,” said Maddie.  “We need to go over that last part again.  There are pancakes on the stove, sweetie.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Thanks. But, really, what are you doing?”

“Analyzing the sound patterns of Phantom’s voice!” said Jack.  “We missed it before, but he must have a low-level mind control power!  Just like that Rockstar ghost!”

“Sneaky post-human ectoplasm glob,” muttered Maddie. “That’s how he’s got so many people on his side.  He’s brainwashing them.  But don’t worry, sweetie.  As soon as we figure out how he’s doing it, we’ll be working on a cure!”

“Well,” said Danny, trying not to sound bitter. They had made him pancakes. “That’s news to me.”

.

.

.

Danny stepped out of the house and sighed in the general direction of the cult.  

As always, acknowledging them in any way shape or form proved to be a mistake.  They rushed at him.  

“Daniel Fenton,” intoned today’s leader, a man wearing robes colored in an approximation of Phantom’s suit.  His beard was… interesting.

“What?” asked Danny.  If only there was a way to skip through awkward conversations like this, like there was in video games.  But, no, life was like one, huge, un-skippable cutscene.  Tragic.

“Last night, our Lord Phantom gave us a message. A message, and a divine task.”

Danny was pretty sure he’d remember that.  “What task?” he asked, resigned.

“To spread his word through song!  And you, his prophet, his chosen, his blessed consort, shall reveal his intent upon the stage of the Casper High School Musical!”

“I’m begging you, call it anything but that.”

“We will do anything to make the Casper High School Musical go well!  We are at your command!”

“Please stop picketing my house and harassing me on the way to school.”

“We have fine members of our choir here to audition for you!  Please take word of their worthiness to our Lord Phantom.”

Several of the cultists began to sing.

“Danny!” called Jazz from the driveway.  “Stop feeding the cultists, or we’re going to be late for school!”

.

.

.

“So,” said Sam.  “The Ghost Watch feed blew up last night.”

“I know,” said Danny.  “I feel so stupid.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” said Tucker.  “But we really do have to put some time aside to test whether or not you really do have a pied piper ability.”

“I made it snow while I was singing,” said Danny.

“Ah.  We’ll have to look into that, too,” said Tucker, making a note on his PDA.  “Who wants to bet that the ‘Phan Club’ will try to incorporate last nights performance into the play somehow?”

“That’s not funny,” said Danny, closing his locker. “Guys, what if I accidently mind control the audience?  Or start a snowstorm inside?  The cultists are already on top of this.  They were outside my house this morning.”

“Again?” said Sam, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, again.”

“What did they want?”

“They seem to think that there’s going to be some kind of revelation in the play,” said Danny.  He caught the look in Sam’s eye.  “Sam.  No.”

“Sam, yes.”

“Cults are not a toy,” cautioned Danny.  

“Not the way you’re using them, they aren’t.”

“Seriously, Sam.  No matter how much you want to change the world, do not use a cult to do it. It never goes well.”

“Christianity started off as a cult.”

“And would you say that went well?  I’m asking you this as a Christian.”

“Are you a Christian?” asked Tucker. “I’ve never seen you in a church. Can you go in a church? Have we tested that?”

“I—What?  I’m not a demon, Tucker.  I went to church, uh…  Last Easter. I can totally go in a church.”

“You had to think of that for an awfully long time.”

“What about a synagogue?” asked Sam.  “Or a mosque?”

“I don’t know.  But you’d think that if I could go into a church, that’d mean I could go into the other ones.”

“But what if you couldn’t?” asked Sam.  “Would that mean that religion is more right than the others?”

“Or more wrong,” said Tucker, “since Danny is a good guy.”                                                                  

“I—” started Danny.

“PHANTOM!” screamed Wes from down the hall, interrupting whatever revelation Danny could potentially have had.

“Oh, great,” said Danny.  “I’m not Phantom, Weston!”

“Kids,” said Miss Lyn, poking her head into the hallway.  “Please don’t shout in the halls.  Class is about to start.”

“I have proof, this time!” crowed Wes.  “I have video.”

“Oh, no,” said Danny, with perfectly flat affect. “Are you here to harass me with yet another badly photoshopped, grainy, vertically filmed, twenty-second clip of me ‘transforming’ into Phantom like some kind of anime heroine?”

Wes reared back, face coloring and nostrils flaring.  

Danny would feel worse about what he had said, if half the videos in Wes’s last ‘Fenton is Phantom’ presentation hadn’t been exactly that.  Tucker had made several of them and stealthily dropped them in various chat rooms for Wes to find, as something halfway between a joke and an exercise in misdirection.  

As soon as Wes had included one of those in his presentation, it was doomed to be a laughingstock.  Again, Danny almost felt bad.  

“No!” said Wes.  He puffed his chest out.  “From Ghost Watch!”

“Uh huh.”

“I kind of feel like we’d be hearing about it from more than just you,” said Sam.  

“Yeah,” agreed Tucker.  “If the news decided Danny was Phantom’s dead twin or whatever, you’d think some of his groupies would be swarming.”  He pointed at a pair of Phan Club members who were having a sedate conversation near the water fountain.  “Where are the groupies, Wes?”

“Did you not learn your lesson from the beauty pageant?” asked Sam.  “Or Egypt?”

“I don’t know, didn’t you learn yours from Desiree?”

“Who’s learning what from Desiree?  Because you should ask her for a better naming sense.  I mean, you just copied.  Lame.”

“You’re talking to me about copying?  You vegans are the copiers!  Vegetable burgers, tofurkey, where does it end?”

“With the abolition of the cruelty of MEAT!”

At this point, most people would have started edging away from Sam and Tucker’s patented and infamous meat vs. veggies argument.  However, Wes had long since proven himself to be of sterner stuff, and Danny wanted to hear what he was on about.

“Guys,” he said, “guys, it’s not working.  He’s still here.”

Sam and Tucker turned back towards Wes.  “Bummer,” said Sam.  

“Yeah, Wes, why do you have to be such a bummer?” asked Tucker.  

“Let him speak,” said Danny, magnanimously, twirling his hand.  

Wes glowered.  “Well, now I don’t want to,” he said, mulishly.  

“Come on, Wes, what’s the video, don’t leave us in suspense!”

Wes attempted to glower harder but failed.  Grudgingly, he held up his phone, which did, indeed, play a video from Ghost Watch.  Danny watched himself singing for several long seconds before returning his gaze to Wes.

“I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove.”

“The song, you idiot!  It’s from Beauty and the Beast!  And I know the drama club gave you that music.”

“A movie that thousands of thousands of people have watched and know the music for?”

“That doesn’t matter!  You’re the only one who has any reason to sing it.”

“You mean, other than everyone else in the drama club?” asked Sam, bored.  

“Or anyone who likes Disney?” said Tucker.  

Wes opened his mouth to make some kind of riposte.

The warning bell rang.  

He closed his mouth.  “I’m watching you, Fenton!”

“You and everyone else,” muttered Danny as Wes retreated down the hallway, pointing at him.  

Why was everyone around him so ridiculous?

.

.

.

“We’re doing Snow White, not Beauty and the Beast!” howled Razor, baring his teeth at the hapless Phan Club member that had suggested adding ‘Tale as Old as Time’ to the song list.

“If you guys had taken that bet, I’d have so much money right now,” said Tucker.  

“Students, please,” said Mr. Lancer.  “We can’t have any actual copyrighted music in our play. Not without paying for it.  And I’m not negotiating with Disney.”  He looked into the distance.  “Not again.  Never again.”

Danny did not want to know the story behind that, but nevertheless, he had to ask… “Are you okay, Mr. Lancer?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Lancer.  “Thank you for asking.  In any case, my lovely drama students!  Today, we are going to do our first round of auditions!”

“But, sir, we haven’t finished the script, yet!” protested Mikey.

“Right you are!” said Mr. Lancer.  “But I have found that things go more smoothly when we have people already in the main roles.  There’s less… outright sabotage and script jockeying.”

“What does that even mean?” whispered Samhain (aka Kevin) loudly.  

“People trying to change the script to fit a certain person so that person gets the role,” said Paulina.  “Or exclude a certain person.  Which I would never do, Mr. Lancer.”

The covetous glare shot in Danny’s direction indicated that Paulina’s words might have been less than truthful.  

Mr. Lancer chuckled.  “I didn’t think you would, Miss Sanchez!”  He began writing on his whiteboard.  “Now, we already have our Prince Snow White, our Princess Charming, and our Evil Queen.”  He nodded at Paulina as he wrote the roles on the board.  “Now, we need our seven dwarves—”

“Ghosts!”

“Excuse me, yes, ghosts.  Thank you, Mr. Baxter.  Our Huntsman—”

“Or woman!”

“Yes, thank you, Miss Thunder,” said Mr. Lancer. “Huntsman, or Huntswoman.  And… Let’s see…  Snow White’s parents, for the prologue, Princess Charming’s retinue, and… I think that’s it.  Alright, let’s start with the ghosts.”

“Shouldn’t they have names?” asked Mia.  

“Well, sure,” said Mr. Lancer.  “But we can’t use the Disney names.  You’ll have to come up with your own.”

“Phantom!” screamed Paulina.

“Here we go,” said Danny, burying his head in his hands.  

“You want to bet that we’re going to wind up with your whole rogue’s gallery?” asked Tucker.  

“If you need money, Tucker,” said Sam, “you just have to ask.  Rates on my loans are very reasonable.”

“Isn’t usury against your religion?” asked Tucker.

“Nope,” said Sam.  “Not at all.”

“I am incredibly against this development,” said Danny.  “The cults are going to have a field day.”

“Ember!  Ember! Ember!”  Chanted the punk goth crowd, which had split off from the larger goth subgroup.

“I am somehow even more against this development,” muttered Danny.  “Mr. Lancer! I don’t think it’s a good idea to include a ghost who gets power from people saying her name!”

“Shut up, Fentonnage, what do you know about ghosts?”

“My parents study them.  I know a lot.  More than I ever even—”

Danny narrowly dodged the workbook Dash flung at him.

“Mr. Baxter!” scolded Mr. Lancer.  

Sadly, when everything shook out, Danny did not get his way.  One of the seven ghosts was named Ember and was going to be played by Star.  Because why not?

“At least the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady aren’t on the list,” said Sam.  

“But ‘Hamlet, father of Hamlet,’ is,” said Danny.  “Why does that bother me more than Ember?”

“Because you hate Shakespeare?”

“No, I don’t,” protested Danny.  “Shakespeare is a perfectly nice person.  I just don’t like how his writing is taught in schools.”

“You’re going to break Mr. Lancer’s heart saying stuff like that,” said Tucker.  

“He wrote love poems to boys.  Why do they skim over that?”

“Excellent point, Mr. Fenton!” exclaimed Mr. Lancer, who had somehow materialized behind them.  “Shakespeare was definitely bisexual.  I wi—”  The teacher stopped.  “Nope, can’t use that word.  It would be nice if the state let me teach it like that.  Along with the crossdressing.  School board won’t let me.”  He shook his head.  “Dale Baxter. Someday, someday he’ll lose an election. Eventually.”  He took a deep breath.  “Next time we meet, we’ll be doing auditions, okay?  I want you all to think about what parts you would like! And, Miss Gray, I’d like to have a word with you about your role in our production, alright?”

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

THE FORTY-FIVE: ST. VINCENT

Sleazy, gritty, grimy – these are the words used to describe the latest iteration of St. Vincent, Annie Clark’s alter ego. As she teases the release of her upcoming new album, ‘Daddy’s Home’, Eve Barlow finds out who’s wearing the trousers now.

Photos: Zackery Michael

Yellow may be the colour of gold, the hue of a perfect blonde or the shade of the sun, but when it’s too garish, yellow denotes the stain of sickness and the luridness of sleaze. On ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ – the first single from St. Vincent’s forthcoming sixth album ‘Daddy’s Home’ – Annie Clark basks in the palette of cheap 1970s yellows; a dirty, salacious yellow that even the most prudish of individuals find difficult to avert their gaze from. It’s a yellow that recalls the smell of cigarettes on fingers, the tape across tomorrow’s crime scene or the dull ache of bad penetration.

The video for the single, which dropped last Thursday, features Clark in a blonde wig and suit, channeling a John Cassavetes anti-heroine (think Gena Rowlands in Gloria) and ‘Fame’-era Bowie. She twists in front of too-bright disco lights. She roughs up her voice. She sings about the price we pay for searching for acceptance while being outcast from society. “So I went to the park just to watch the little children/ The mothers saw my heels and they said I wasn’t welcome,” she coos, and you immediately recognise the scene of a free woman threatening the post-nuclear families aspiring to innocence. Clark is here to pervert them.

She laughs. “That’s how I feel!” From her studio in Los Angeles, she begins quoting lyrics from Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Red House’. “It’s a blues song for 2021.” LA is a city Clark reluctantly only half calls home, and one that is opposed to her vastly preferred New York. “I don’t feel any romantic attachment to Los Angeles,” she says of the place she coined the song ‘Los Ageless’ about on 2017’s ‘Masseduction’ (“The Los Ageless hang out by the bar/ Burn the pages of unwritten memoirs”).“The best that could be said of LA is, ‘Yeah it’s nice.’ And it is! LA is easy and pleasant. But if you were a person the last thing you’d want someone to say about you is: ‘She’s nice!’”

On ‘Daddy’s Home’, Clark writes about a past derelict New York; a place Los Angeles would suffocate in. “The idea of New York, the art that came out of it, and my living there,” she says. “I’ve not given up my card. I don’t feel in any way ready to renounce my New York citizenship. I bought an apartment so I didn’t have to.” Her down-and-out New York is one a true masochist would love, and it’s sleazy in excess. Sleaze is usually the thing men flaunt at a woman’s expense. In 2021, the proverbial Daddy in the title is Clark. But there’s also a literal Daddy. He came home in the winter of 2019.

On the title track, Clark sings about “inmate 502”: her father. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in a $43m stock fraud scheme. He went away in May 2010. Clark reacted by writing her third breakthrough album ‘Strange Mercy’ in 2011; inspired not just by her father’s imprisonment but the effects it had on her life.“I mean it was rough stuff,” she says. “It was a fuck show. Absolutely terrible. Gut-wrenching. Like so many times in life, music saved me from all kinds of personal peril. I was angry. I was devastated. There’s a sort of dullness to incarceration where you don’t have any control. It’s like a thud at the basement of your being. So I wrote all about it,” she says.

Back then, she was aloof about meaning. In an interview we did that year, she called from a hotel rooftop in Phoenix and was fried from analytical questions. She excused her lack of desire to talk about ‘Strange Mercy’ as a means of protecting fans who could interpret it at will. Really she was protecting an audience closer to home. It’s clear now that the title track is about her father’s imprisonment (“Our father in exile/ For God only knows how many years”). Clark’s parents divorced when she was a child, and they have eight children in their mixed family, some of whom were very young when ‘Strange Mercy’ came out. She explains this discretion now as her method of sheltering them.

“I am protective of my family,” she says. “It didn’t feel safe to me. I disliked the fact that it was taken as malicious obfuscations. No.” Clark wanted to deal with the family drama in art but not in press. She managed to remain tight-lipped until she became the subject of a different intrusion. As St. Vincent’s star continued to rocket, Clark found herself in a relationship with British model Cara Delevingne from 2014 to 2016, and attracted celebrity tabloid attention. Details of her family’s past were exposed. The Daily Mail came knocking on her sister’s door in Texas, where Clark is from.

“Luckily I’m super tight with my family and the Daily Mail didn’t find anybody who was gonna sell me out,” she says. “They were looking for it. Clark girls are a fucking impenetrable force. We will cut a bitch.”

Four years later, Clark gets to own the narrative herself in the medium that’s most apt: music. “The story has evolved. I’ve evolved. People have grown up. I would rather be the one to tell my story,” she says, ruminating on the misfortune that this was robbed from her: a story that writes itself. “My father’s release from prison is a great starting point, right?” Between tours and whenever she could manage, Clark would go and visit him in prison and would be signing autographs in the visitation room for the inmates, who all followed her success with every album release, press clipping and late night TV spot. She joked to her sisters that she’d become the belle of the ball there. “I don’t have to make that up,” she says.

There’s an ease to Clark’s interview manner that hasn’t existed before. She seems ready not just to discuss her father’s story, but to own certain elements of herself. “Hell where can you run when the outlaw’s inside you,” she sings on the title track, alluding to her common traits with her father. “I’ve always had a relationship with my dad and a good one. We’re very similar,” she says. “The movies we like, the books, he liked fashion. He’s really funny, he’s a good time.” Her father’s release gave Clark and her brothers and sisters permission to joke. “The title, ‘Daddy’s Home’ makes me laugh. It sounds fucking pervy as hell. But it’s about a real father ten years later. I’m Daddy now!”

The question of who’s fathering who is a serious one, but it’s also not serious. Clark wears the idea of Daddy as a costume. She likes to play. She joins today’s Zoom in a pair of sunglasses wider than her face and a silk scarf framing her head. The sunglasses come off, and the scarf is a tool for distraction. She ties it above her forehead, attempts a neckerchief, eventually tosses it aside. Clark can only be earnest for so long before she seeks some mischief. She doesn’t like to stay in reality for extensive periods. “I like to create a world and then I get to live in it and be somebody new every two or three years,” she says. “Who wants to be themselves all the time?”

‘Daddy’s Home‘ began in New York at Electric Lady studios before COVID hit and was finished in her studio in LA. She worked on it with “my friend Jack” [Jack Antonoff, producer for Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Taylor Swift]. Antonoff and Clark worked on ‘Masseduction’ and found a winning formula, pushing Clark’s guitar-orientated electronic universe to its poppiest maximum, without compromising her idiosyncrasies. “We’re simpatico. He’s a dream,” she says. “He played the hell outta instruments on this record. He’s crushing it on drums, crushing it on Wurlitzer.” The pair let loose. They began with ‘The Holiday Party’, one of the warmest tracks Clark’s ever written. It’s as inviting as a winter fireplace, stoked by soulful horns, acoustic guitar and backing singers. “Every time they sang something I’d say, ‘Yeah but can you do it sleazier? Make your voice sound like you’ve been up for three days.” Clark speaks of an unspoken understanding with Antonoff as regards the vibe: “Familiar sounds. The opposite of my hands coming out of the speaker to choke you till you like it. This is not submission. Just inviting. I can tell a story in a different way.”

The entire record is familiar, giving the listener the satisfaction that they’ve heard the songs before but can’t quite place them. It’s a satisfying accompaniment to a pandemic that encouraged nostalgic listening. Clark was nostalgic too. She reverted to records she enjoyed with her father: Stevie Wonder’s catalogue from the 1970s (‘Songs In The Key Of Life’, ‘Innervisions’, ‘Talking Book’) and Steely Dan. “Not to be the dude at the record store but it’s specifically post-flower child idealism of the ’60s,” she explains. “It’s when it flipped into nihilism, which I much prefer. Pre disco, pre punk. That music is in me in a deep way. It’s in my ears.”

On ‘The Melting Of The Sun’ she has a delicious time creating a psychedelic Pink Floyd odyssey while exploring the path tread by her heroes Marilyn Monroe, Joni Mitchell, Joan Didion and Nina Simone. It’s a series of beautiful vignettes of brilliant women who were met with a hostile environment. Clark considers what they did to overcome that. “I’m thanking all these women for making it easier for me to do it. I hope I didn’t totally let them down.” Clark is often the only woman sharing a stage with rock luminaries such as Dave Grohl, Damon Albarn and David Byrne, and has appeared to have shattered a male-centric glass ceiling. She’s unsure she’s doing enough to redress the imbalance. “There are little things I can do and control,” she says of hiring women on her team. “God! Now I feel like I should do more. What should I do? It’s a big question. You know what I have seen a lot more from when I started to now? Girls playing guitar.”

If one woman reinvented the guitar in the past decade, it’s Clark. Behind her is a rack of them. The pandemic has taken her out of the wild in which she’s accustomed to tantalising audiences at night with her displays of riffing and heel-balancing. Instead, she’s chained to her desk. Her obsession with heels in the lyrics of ‘Daddy’s Home’ she reckons may be a reflection of her nights performing ‘Masseduction’ in thigh highs. “I made sure that nothing I wore was comfortable,” she recalls. “Everything was about stricture and structure and latex. I had to train all the time to make sure I could handle it.” Is she taking the heels off when live shows return? “Absofuckinglutely not.”

Clark is interested in the new generation. She’s recently tweeted about Arlo Parks and has become a big fan of Russian singer-songwriter Kate NV. “I’m obsessed with Russia,” she says. In a recent LA Times profile, she professed to a pandemic intellectual fixation on Stalin. “Yeah! I mean right now my computer is propped up on stuff. You are sitting on The Gulag Archipelago, The Best Short Stories Of Dostoyevsky andThe Plays Of Chekhov. I’m kinda in it.” The pop world interests Clark, too. She was credited with a co-write on Swift’s 2019 album ‘Lover’. At last year’s Grammys she performed a duet with Dua Lipa. It was one of the queerest performances the Grammys has ever aired. Clark interrupts.

“What about it seemed queer?!”

You know… The lip bite, for one!

“Wait. Did she bite her lip?”

No, you bit your lip.

“I did?!”

Everyone was talking about it. Come on, Annie.

“Serious? I…”

You both waltzed around each other with matching hairdos, making eyes…

“I have no memory of it.”

Frustrating as it may be in a world of too much information, Clark’s lack of willingness to overanalyse every creative decision she makes or participates in is something to treasure. “I want to be a writer who can write great songs,” she says. “I’m so glad I can play guitar and fuck around in the studio to my heart’s desire but it’s about what you can say. What’s a great song? What lyric is gonna rip your guts open. Just make great shit! That’s where I was with this record. That’s all I wanna do with my life.”

More than a decade into St. Vincent, Clark doesn’t reflect. She looks strictly forward. “I’m like a horse with blinders,” she says. She did make an exception to take stock lately when the phone rang. “I saw a +44 and that gets me excited,” she says. “Who could this be?” Well, who was it? “Paul McCartney,” she says, in disbelief. “Anything I’ve done, any mistake I’ve made, somehow it’s forgiven, assuaged. I did something right in my life if a fucking Beatle called me.”

Now there’s a get out of jail free card if ever she needed one.

Daddy’s Home by St. Vincent is out May 14, 2021.