#it's so weird and boy can I say this was weirdly cathartic to write about

[ihaveseentruebravery]

So yeah, Liam was on talks, so of course I wrote stuff...

Somebody may have already talked about this, but there's something I really appreciate about Liam. I really, genuinely, appreciate that he's not afraid to explore grief. Like, I don't even mean how well he acted in Campaign One with regards to that. But that as a player, he decided to create Caleb. This got long yo, rest is under the cut. 

I often wonder what led Liam to creating this scared little guy, but I will always appreciate it. Because Caleb is an incredibly thorough study not just of 'sadness', but of grief. I believe I've said this before, but Caleb and Nott first stood out to me because both of their players actively handicapped themselves within the game mechanics. Yasha drew my attention as well, but it was harder to pin her down wrt analysis. Caleb's and Nott's handicaps though? Those were clearly, directly related to PTSD. 

To break it down further, grief is a funny thing, that people react differently to. Some people are stuck in a state of depression/bargaining about it (Caleb). Some accept it (to a degree), but do so in an unhealthy way (Nott). And some get stuck in a cycle of anger and depression (Yasha). And others still, have many other ways of coping, not coping, sliding through the cycle slowly, or cycling through it rapidly (exhaustively). Honestly, without Nott and Yasha as foils, I don't know that I'd understand Caleb as well as I do. 

Really, I only relate to Caleb's grieving as much as I do, rather than to Nott and Yasha's, because of who he lost, and how he's now lost himself within that grief. What Ikithon did to him, that he was forced to be complicit in, was also a far shorter period of 'torment' than the following fifteen years. What Ikithon did (that so many of us trauma survivors relate to) was strip his agency as he tormented him. And the resulting 'break' landed him in an asylum. 

When you spend a decade not being called your own name, and spend that time not even being aware of that, that changes you fundamentally. When you spend years at a time in neglect and isolation, after escaping said asylum, because of a so-called penance fueled by grief and fear and rage, that changes you fundamentally. Ikithon had already warped Caleb, but how much of this story would change if Caleb hadn't landed in the asylum? What if something else had happened? What if Caleb's break resulted in a different consequence? 

Liam deliberately set up Caleb's story to force Caleb to not directly confront his trauma and the perpetrators. He deliberately made Caleb both child-like in his grief (the fogginess of the in-between time and the memory problems make it seem so recent still, compounded by the isolation&neglect), and a mature adult in his shame and his fury (the power he so desperately seeks and his ruthless tactics to anything in his way). That dichotomy is unbelievably relatable, to an extent that I'm not even sure I could adequately express why. 

Caleb certainly isn't alone in being someone I relate to, tbh. Nott is a creature of purpose, and is so driven to get back to her family and to be who she used to be. Yasha has her devoted remembrance and her rage. Those are incredibly relatable, and it's why I couldn't pick a favorite between these three as characters.

On an unrelated, but tangentially relevant note: I'm so fucking glad Nott and Caleb met in that jail cell. Caleb abso-fuckin-lutely needed a wake-up call. He was going through the motions, stuck in in a self-fulfilling guilt-ridden cycle. And damn, Caleb wouldn't be nearly as understandable without Nott as a foil. Characters that deep into their own grief, cannot make healthy connections with others. So thank TPTB that Nott is able, despite her own past problems with this, to have an easier time of developing relationships with others. Because scared little Caleb needed the fuckin help. 

Like, this may seem obvious, but I believe it needs saying. Trying to reach out and make a friend, make a genuine honest connection, when you've experienced such a deep fucking loss as what Caleb did, is unbelievably exhausting, depending on how you yourself can handle your grief. You're so goddamned scared all the time that whatever you do won't matter, because how long until you lose this one too?

How long til this family member, or this relative, or this new 'friend' is lost to you too? You're always, almost subconsciously, shutting out that connection. It's as a defense mechanism, but of course you like this person. This person is wonderful, they make you laugh, but... but....but how long do you have left with them? 

Liam as a player?? Fuckin shit dude. He'll just barrel on through all these big scary feelings and stuff, just absolutely unafraid to face it and probs make his friends cry on the way. Like good job dude, damn, but also...How does he put all of that into one single expression? A single turn of phrase? Liam when he said that thing tonight about, '...now he (Caleb) thinks he has... fffFFriiieeeENDS?' 

Like damn dude, fucking relatable. Being so lost in your own grief like that....yep. But still, that he knows, even though the situation needs so much recontextualization now, that he'll do he whatever he can to help Nott, and knows absolutely that he loves Nott? Yeah. I get it. 

You don't gotta be hit with a brick, even lost in your own grief as you are, to realize that people all around you will still make you love them. That's how people are, even when you're lost as deep as that. They love you, so of course you love them too. 

[gunkreads]

My girlfriend's reaction to Rand being, and I quote, "a little bitch" to Moiraine in episode 2 tells me that's an interesting writing decision for the show. They seem to be leaning heavily into "Mat will repress things, Perrin will let them eat at him as he mourns, and Rand will release them in cathartic outbursts" which is absolutely an acceleration of their book character arcs, but so far an acceptable one. They're making Rand look less like an actual major player in the story and more like some guy who wants more of a say than he's getting (i.e. an asshole) and if, like me, you're in the Rand al'Thor Did Nothing Wrong club, this decision is a little tense. I don't like it that much.

I don't like him SCREAMING at Moiraine to stop. I absolutely get it from an in-universe standpoint; he just watched his dad almost die from a Trolloc attack and when he went to get help, half the town was dead or injured. He then just kind of... left? With this sketchy ass witch who's really rude and definitely killed that ferryman? But as a Rand apologist I liked his more nagging character in the book. He's not shouting, he's just constantly whining about how weird and sketchy all this is because he's scared out of his mind, but he's not ANGRY. Seemed like a weird choice to have our golden boy be both wrong and a dick after we've spent an episode and a half pretty fairly establishing that you, the watcher, can 100% trust Moiraine.

Speaking of Moiraine, I'm conflicted on the decision to make her more trustworthy to the viewer. Most of what it does, for me, is make the Emond's crew seem bitchier for not trusting her. We know she's chill for the most part, we saw her off the bat in the pilot. Any discerning viewer will understand why the Emond's crew doesn't trust her that much, but weirdly enough it's Mat that has the most rational viewpoint on it. "The woman can shoot fireballs out of her hands. Let's try to stay on her good side"

All things considered I like the show and I'm glad I can finally share it with other people in my life, but I'm having to bite my tongue watching it because of all the things that are different in butterfly-effect ways. Where's Perrin's internal monologue about the axe? Where's the boys' and Nynaeve's well-founded mistrust of Moiraine? Where's Rand's identity crisis about being adopted? All this shit is IMPORTANT and I understand the time and info-per-second constraints of a show but man some of this is gonna take a lot to pull off later.

[minor-solemnity]

What's your favorite character from the golden trio era?

Oooh idk possibly this is an unpopular opinion - at least it was when I was like, properly in the fandom rather than where I am now which is firmly on the sidelines with my hands over my ears and ignoring everything that I don't like - but Cho Chang. This is probably in part because she got so much undeserved hatred (thank u fandom and author racism) and I am predisposed to like characters that people don't like.

I find her character so heartbreakingly real in a way that I think is entirely accidental on JKR's part. I don't think JK can write women. (Plz don't hate me for that, but like, it's true.) Everything interesting about the characters we are meant to like gets sanded down and ignored in the later books - Hermione's whole thing is like, book smart but not emotionally intelligent, she wants to be right and have people know she's right more than she cares about their feelings. She thinks rules are important until they apply to her. She is ruthless and vindictive and petty. These are interesting character traits that just get completely dropped in the later books. By the time book 6 ends and book 7 starts Hermione is 'wife' and 'mother' and it's kinda sad.

I digress.

Cho's boyfriend is murdered. Cho is understandably upset and heartbroken and sad af. She tries to find comfort in Harry because Harry was there, Harry must understand. Harry can help her process. Their ways of dealing with trauma are completely opposite to each other. Cho seeks emotional vulnerability and closeness from the boy who, of all people, will understand. Harry's way of processing trauma is to ignore it. It happened, it sucks, I will never speak of it again (until all my unprocessed emotions come spilling out and I end up lashing out and getting angry). Those two ways of dealing with trauma are not going to work well together. Harry is honestly a dick towards her - she's his fantasy. She's not a real person to him. When that fantasy comes crashing down he behaves pretty awfully towards her. And if you're reading critically, you come away thinking yeah, Cho's a whiny crybaby who doesn't get Harry at all. What a bitch. When in reality, it's more like - Cho is seriously fucked up and is trying to come to terms with her grief and seek comfort in someone who she thought would get it.

Imagine being like, 16 and being isolated and sad and so fundamentally misunderstood. Imagine being 18 and your friends are dead and the boy you liked is still dead and the other boy you thought you might like is a hero and the only thing you're really known for is the mess that is your grief. Imagine that the popular consensus is that your grief is something to be ridiculed.

I tend to pick and chose which parts of the extended canon I believe in, but I believe in Cho moving to America and getting hitched to an American muggle dude. (Moving to America is probably my own headcanon actually). What would motivate her to move across the world? Grief? Wonderlust? Anger? I imagine it's all three. Idk if this is a relatable feeling to a lot of people, but I get it. I have a constant itch under my skin that tells me to move on whenever a place starts to feel too much like home. To leave. To escape. Nowhere feels like home because home is a collection of broken things. It's a hall of funhouse mirrors - the wires in your brain get mixed up. Comfort and safety become synonymous with 'i will fuck this up' and 'i don't deserve this' and 'everyone will leave'.

I want so many things for Cho. I want her name to make sense. I want her to be seen as something other than 'pretty' and 'sad'. I want her in Boston slamming Sam Adams by Sam Adams grave because she finds it funny. I want her in Boston, learning to drive a car (stick-shift because the driving instructor had made a comment about how automatics are easier to learn and she is tired of people seeing her as something weak and unable). I want her road-raging and I want her to drive across the country because why the fuck not. I want her in New York and the city is so frantic and no one looks at her and she feels so small and the lights are so bright and she thinks maybe she could disappear here and no one would ever know. I want her to find a group of women rollerskating and maybe they invite her to their roller derby group. It isn't flying, but it's fast and aggressive and she's never allowed herself to be aggressive like this before. She's not allowed herself to be angry like this before. No one else has allowed her to be angry like this before.

I want her to go to California and to go to Angel Island and I want her to understand that there have been people like her before. That she is not alone in this feeling. I want her to meet a dude who's studying for an MBA - he doesn't know who she is. Doesn't know what she is. She's just this cute girl who drinks Sam Adams even tho that's a Boston thing and they're in San Diego. He's probably a frat boy. I want him to be a frat boy who takes his degree too seriously and wakes up at like 5 because he's also a gym rat. He takes her to his boxing class. She probably cries during and hey that's okay - she has a lot of shit to work through, he can tell. He doesn't ask about it. Just says her accent is cute. Maybe she starts taking night classes, maybe she doesn't. She's weirdly technologically illiterate - she sends him postcards even though they live in the same city. She says its because her school didn't let them have phones. She's never seen a Tarintino film and that's just like... not cool. They watch True Romance on his shitty box TV in his room in his frat house and she laughs (she laughs like the violence is cathartic) when Alabama completely destroys Virgil. He looks at her and she shrugs and says 'I get it.'

She says that's she's leaving soon - doesn't know where. Probably isn't coming back and again that's... not cool. She's weird about some stuff. Won't talk about home - won't say where she's from. He should be fine with it because like, it's not as if this is anything serious and his life is pretty clearly planned out. Get an MBA, work in some start-up tech company - the internet is a thing now and god, there's money to be made. He thinks maybe that she should like, stay but she also seems like the kind of person who doesn't know how to stop running. And look, he's doing an MBA. He rushed his frat. He goes to boxing every morning without fail. He's determined. He's not good at letting the things he wants go. But he lets her go because she doesn't want to stay. One night afterwards, his frat bro says, philosophical because they're crossfaded, that maybe she can't stay. Maybe she won't let herself stay. And that... That sounds about right.

So he waits. He waits and he gets postcards with no return address - in Seattle, she tries ice hockey. In Miami, she tries surfing. He almost gets on a plane to Cincinnati because she got into a fight with some dude who made his girlfriend cry in public. Apparently, she knocked him out with a punch just the way he showed her to. It feels weirdly romantic.

I want her to write a postcard to him when she's sitting in a bar in Las Vegas and I want her to include a return address. I want him on the first flight out, because fuck his classes? She included a return address. He asks her if she's ever going to go home and she looks at him and says, 'What? To San Diego?'

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

So I’ve started listening to Daniel Kitson’s stand-up shows because I’ve heard several people call him a genius and wanted to see if they were right (turns out, yep, they were). One of those people was Stewart Lee, which carried weight because as far as I can tell Stewart Lee seems to hate everyone. In most cases that hatred is laced with quite a bit of irony and in real life he’s probably just a nice man who hangs out with cats and Bridget Christie, but in public, he does hate basically everyone. So I was intrigued by the fact that even his public persona was willing to sing the praises of this one particular comedian, one about whom I’ve heard a bunch of other comedians say very good things as well.

There are some obvious similarities between Stewart Lee’s whole thing and Daniel Kitson’s whole thing, like the misanthropy and meta self-awareness built into the act. But there are far more differences than there are similarities, like how Daniel Kitson’s stuff, based on the little I’ve heard so far, seems much more introspective and honest and it uses the irony and contempt for the audience as more of a heavy garnish than a default state.

The point of this post is one thing they have in common, which I find way too enjoyable. You know those comedians who brag about how comedy lets them say the taboo things that people aren’t allowed to say in real life? Well interestingly, these men have both found a way to do that, but with something besides bigotry! Specifically, they do that with being pretentious, both generally and about specific forms of Art they like. There’s one feeling that I’ve gotten from both listening to Stewart Lee and listening to Daniel Kitson, which is that they make me realize how much miss being unrestrictedly pretentious about music and just in general. It’s vicariously cathartic to hear them do it.

…I’ve just finished writing this post, and it got quite long, so I’ve come back here to add the “keep reading” link. Below is me going on for a long time about music I like and why I have historically been pretentious about it, but then tried hard to stop being pretentious about it, and that makes it really enjoyable for me to hear comedians be pretentious in a way that I try not to be anymore. Actually I think I’ve just summarized the entire post in that one sentence, so there’s really no need for anyone to read the rest of it now.

When I was a kid, I knew my folk music was not what the other kids listened to, and they thought it was weird if it ever came up, which it almost never did. Music was such a tiny part of the grand scheme of things that made me weird, what with the undiagnosed autism, the visible OCD-like compulsions that I was less able to control around others back then, the fact that I spent years in and out of doctor’s offices to figure out why I could speak fine at home and but could almost never speak at school, the having no friends thing, the occasional panic attacks and the way my body sometimes shut down – all of these things meant there were very few situations in which I shared my music taste, and on the list of reasons why I didn’t fit in with my peers, music taste was really not an issue.

I think in my own mind, I sort of integrated music into the larger network of things that made me unlike the other children. Other kids understood how to talk to each other, and how friendships worked, and how to follow class proceedings without having their brains go off so far into their own worlds that they became unresponsive, and how to find partners for group projects, and also they listened to the Backstreet Boys. All those things were on about the same level of “other” to me. I weirdly feel like I probably would have been bullied in school for my dress sense (tomboy until well past the age when little girls are expected to outgrow it, at the moment I'm 31 and I'll let you know when the outgrowing happens) and music taste, but I was too far outside the normal social stratosphere for that. When I got bullied, it was for far more intrinsic traits than my non-mainstream interests.

As a teenager I started to become more functional; I developed some friendships and a life outside the little world of my books and computer and CDs. My music taste didn’t change much though, or at least I didn’t drop anything from it. I’ve never really dropped anything from my music taste. My earliest memory of having a favourite song was when I was four years old and liked dancing to Forty Days and Forty Nights by The Rankin Family, and that song is still in my music collection, I played it last week. Over the years I’ve added stuff to my music taste, expanded into country and some types of rock, but never outgrew my childhood music because my childhood music wasn’t aimed at children. As a teenager, I understood that my music taste was a bit weird, but all my friends were either fellow nerds with their own unusual interests, or at least they had no issue with me being that, so it was fine. I didn’t feel like I was better or worse than them for it. I didn’t really get into being pretentious or deliberately anti-pretentious about music until after high school.

When I was a kid, it was sort of a cool novelty. I’d go to folk festivals with my parents and get my favourite singers to sign their CDs, and these traditional folk singers would express surprise at a ten-year-old wearing a t-shirt with their name on it. When I became a teenager I think I stood out even more, because sometimes little kids get dragged to folk festivals by their parents. What you almost never see there is a teenager, someone old enough to make their own choices about what to do with their summer days and nights, but much too young for folk festivals. I’ve been to multiple shows in which I’m pretty sure my dad was the second youngest person there.

I remember when I was a teenager at folk festivals, my dad sometimes told me, “You know, this can’t last. Look around us. Everyone is too old.” He told me that when he was young, everyone at folk festivals was a little older than him. He’d kept going to them throughout his life, bringing me once I was born, and the rest of the crowd continued to be made up of people who were a little older than him. Once he was in his fifties, that meant the rest of the people in the crowd were mostly in their sixties or older, and within a couple of decades, they’d all be too old to go see live music.

About a decade ago, I started seeing this affect things in strange and shitty ways. Folk festivals across the country were losing revenue. Some folded, others adapted, and I’m not sure which is worse. The adaptation came in the form of courting a younger audience, which they mainly did by bringing in acts that were not folk music, I guess deciding that the cruel hand of the market couldn’t destroy the spirit of the folk festival if the festivals themselves destroyed it first. My hometown folk festival was one of the worst offenders, and I stopped going to it a few years before COVID. I didn’t boycott it out of principle or whatever, I just stopped seeing anyone I liked in the lineup. While a folk festival can be good even without any familiar acts, as the atmosphere is nice and you can discover new stuff, the music and atmosphere I like are not there anymore at my hometown folk festival. My dad and I still go to a few folk festivals a year, or we did until COVID, but we travel to neighbouring towns for them. There are still lots of good small festivals around us, which could survive even with lower turnout, so they didn’t have to change so much.

2012, the summer I was 21 years old, was a big turning point for my hometown folk festival. It was the first year they brought in enough non-folk acts to change the essential feel of the festival. There was still music I liked there, but it wasn’t the same. They brought in indie rock bands, I guess on the pretense that indie rock is interchangeable with folk music, which it fucking isn’t. Even more weirdly, they took some of the actual folk acts that played the festival that year (and there were some of those, it would be a few years before they stopped bringing in anyone I liked altogether), and advertised them as “indie rock”, presumably to make them appeal to young people more. This didn’t have any material effect on me because I still got to see the bands I liked, but it did annoy me. Why did we have to pretend to be too cool for folk music at a folk festival? This was supposed to be the place where my weird music was celebrated, not covered up with a cooler label. I hold a grudge against anything calling itself “indie rock” to this day because of that, even though I realize that’s entirely unfair and lots of indie rock is good music.

They did a bunch of stuff to my hometown folk festival in 2012. They moved it to a new location, which was easier to reach but closer to the city centre so it no longer felt like such an escape. They advertised it on pop music radio as, not quite in these exact words but basically in these exact words, “Not your grandmother’s folk festival.” Which is bullshit, because my grandmother likes music too and should get to enjoy it. I remember an article in the local newspaper with the headline “A New Age For Folk Fest”, and it contained the line: “Once the domain of a grey-haired demographic in sensible shoes, the 2012 folk festival is poised to attract a whole new generation of music fans.” That one line pissed me off so fucking much. The young people have everything! All the music venues, all the festivals, all the cultural events cater to the cool stuff that young people like! Why do they have to also take this one thing from the old fogies in sensible shoes? Where are the old fogies supposed to go now? What the fuck is wrong with wearing shoes that don’t hurt your feet, at any time in life, but especially if you’re spending all day out at a festival trying to enjoy music? These were thoughts that I had, accompanied with genuinely passionate anger, at the age of 21. Which I realize is a bit weird.

I went to a few more years of that folk festival until its soul finally drained away enough so I gave up on it. In those last few years, you could feel this stark divide between the old folk festival people and the new ones. You could tell who the new ones were because they were getting drunk and shouting things. They shouted at the music they liked, which was annoying. They shouted at the music they didn’t like, which was worse, because that was both annoying often very rude. The moment I decided I was done with that festival was when I was sitting behind a bunch of drunk shirtless guys in their twenties who yelled racist shit at an Indigenous folk band that was on stage, telling them to take their “whale music” out of there. Fortunately we were too far back from the stage for the performers to hear, but it was still awful.

Of course, the other way you could recognize the “new” folk festival people was that they were several decades younger than the “old” folk festival people. This was frustrating because I was also several decades younger than the “old” folk festival people, and I did not want to be lumped in with the rest of those assholes. I made a point of trying to really mark myself as Not Like The Other Twenty-Somethings, I wanted the older people to know that I, like them, actually belonged there. And I, like them, was annoyed about this invasion. I wore the hell out of my sensible shoes, and my t-shirts and caps from previous years at the folk festival, and I kept my head down and silently apologized to the decent people around me for my entire generation.

I guess that would be the peak of me being “pretentious” about music. I hated the young and cool fans almost as much as I hated the young and cool bands, taking my precious escape from the regular world and dragging the regular world into it. I wanted it to be clear that I wasn’t like them. I was here before them, and I was here for the folk music. Fuck those new people and their popular music. Fuck all those people at my festival. They don’t appreciate this for what it is! They don’t understand this! They’re not here for the right reasons, they don’t look forward to this all year, they just want a fun day out! They never closed their eyes as a child with no friends and a profound sense of isolation from the world, heard The Songsmith by Bruce Guthro played, for the first time, not while alone in their bedroom but in a field surrounded by others who love that same beautiful song in the same beautiful way, and realized they did reside on the same plane of existence as other humans after all! Fuck all the people who try to attend folk festivals if they never did not grow up cherishing that experience every summer! They don’t know this music, they don’t understand it, they don’t deserve it.

I held those views fairly uncritically for a few years, alongside some views I’ve written about before, on how country music has been absolutely gutted by “mainstream country”, and I put that in quotes because “mainstream country” actually just means “pop music that gets marketed as country”. And fuck those people too. Fuck the people who make that awful soulless music, and fuck the people who listen to it, especially if those people think they’re listening to country.

I used to complain about that stuff a lot. Then at some point in my mid-twenties, in some sort of effort to, I don’t know, be a better person or something, I tried to change the way I saw it. It’s fine if people want to make music that isn’t for me. It’s fine if people enjoy music that I don’t enjoy, or enjoy music in ways I don’t enjoy it. It’s all part of the rich cultural mosaic of the world. Even mass-market pop music is part of culture and deserves to be credited as such, because who’s to say what gets to count as “real music” or “art”? Who gets to define terms like “authenticity” in music? Why should anyone get to assign greater value to some forms of music than others? Everyone has their own tastes and that’s fine and I’m going to be a good non-judgmental person who understands that.

Alongside that, I was in my early twenties when the “hipster” thing became a big thing that everyone talked about (it was a thing for a while before that, but I was in my early twenties when I really noticed it), and I became aware for the first time that I could look like an asshole just for having my music tastes. There were a few years when if people wanted to paint a picture of someone who’s an asshole about music, they’d say this person gets asked what they’re listening to and replies, “You’ve probably never heard of it.” This created a dilemma for me, because that frequently was my answer when people asked me what I was listening to. Not because I was trying to seem better than them, but because… you probably haven’t ever heard of it, and you’re just asking to be polite, and you presumably don’t want to hear  a whole explanation of what it is. If I said, “I’m listening to John Allan Cameron, he’s a fiddler and folk singer from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia”, then people would think I was showing off about my non-mainstream music tastes. If I said, “You’ve probably never heard of it”, apparently that was a problem too.

So in my mid-twenties, I tried to counteract that by becoming aggressively non-judgmental. If the subject of music ever came up, I would sort of apologize for my taste, explaining that this is just the music my dad raised me on, I’m not trying to seem cool or whatever. I mean you probably haven’t heard of this, but that’s not your fault, and it’s not a problem, and I definitely don’t think I’m better than you. I bet you like lots of good stuff that I haven’t heard of either. I can be open-minded and see the value in pop music. Is that non-pretentious enough?

That is mostly where I’m at these days. I try to be less angry than I used to be about music, because it’s only fucking music, and there are many better things to be angry about than that. I try to be a good non-judgmental person, because I genuinely want to be a good person, and I genuinely think judging other people for something that doesn’t harm others is shitty.

And this brings me way back around to the thing I’ve heard twice in the last month, when I watched Stewart Lee’s show and now as I listen to Daniel Kitson: the catharsis of hearing someone say all the stuff I try not to say or even think anymore. I try to no longer be a pretentious judgmental person who thinks anyone with music taste that’s more mainstream than mine sucks. But I can definitely enjoy listening to someone else be that person.

Maybe this is the same feeling that racist/sexist/[insert other type of bigotry here] assholes get when they listen to the comedians who “use comedy to say the things you’re not allowed to say in polite society”. They think all these awful things about minorities, and most of the time, they have to suppress those thoughts because they want to seem like a good person. But it’s a wonderful relief to see a comedian say all the stuff they’re thinking, defying the politically correct society that tries to silence their views. They assume everyone is the same as they are, is secretly thinking those bigoted things but repressing their thoughts, so they assume backlash against these comedians is just people being scared of the truth. While I hear those comedians and think, “Nope, I really wasn’t thinking any of that on any level, you’re just an asshole.”

However, I have heard Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson say so many things that I think deep down but know I’d be a complete asshole if I went around saying them. They go further than I did even back when I was 21, and it’s great. All of Stewart Lee’s bits about how he hates it when the audience laughs at the wrong thing, because they’re not smart enough to understand the deeper and more intelligent joke. He’s being ironic and the whole point is that he’s in character as an asshole, but that character lets him get away with saying the secret asshole-ish thoughts that we all have and try to pretend we don’t. His character gives him the excuse to do that, and he chooses to not use that as an excuse to be a bigot! He just talks shit to his audience about how they don’t understand art properly.

Daniel Kitson has had some similar bits in the 2.5 shows I’ve heard from him so far. How people who don’t understand art properly suck, and he doesn’t want to appeal to people who suck. He talks about this not just in relation to the art he makes, but also to the art he likes. He had a bit about how if someone he knows to be an asshole likes a band he also likes, he has to prove he likes that band in a deeper and better way than the asshole does, because he doesn’t want to have anything in common with an asshole.

I’ve just listened to Daniel Kitson do a whole routine about how saw a musician he loved play in a big venue, and then saw a band he liked play in a smaller venue, and he preferred the show in the smaller venue, even though he didn’t love that band as much. Because the show by the guy he loved was ruined by the crowd full of too many people who didn’t understand it. Anyone who could turn up to this show and talk through it didn’t understand it they way he did, they didn’t deserve to be there, he couldn’t enjoy his beloved music as much if he had to share it with those assholes.

This was followed by a quote that I had to stop and write down, and after I wrote it down, I wrote this whole long post about why that quote and the music-based bit that preceded it resonated with me: “I don’t see it as being needlessly contrary to opt out of mainstream success, I genuinely don’t. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like it if it was just needless contrarianism, I like contrarianism. I like lots of things that are just dismissed out of hand as being sort of innately, demonstrably, inarguable bad things. I like contrarianism, I like sentiment, I like pretention. I like contrarianism, because quite often, acts of seemingly needless contrarianism are actually acts of great emotional or ideological courage.”

To be very clear, I’m not saying that quote applies to me, because I genuinely, even very deep down, do not think being into folk music is some act of ideological courage. I just really liked the quote, and it followed a bit that resonated with me a lot about being a pretentious music fan who hates other music fans. I liked hearing someone express the idea that: You know what? Maybe I don’t want to try really hard to avoid seeming contrary or pretentious! Maybe being pretentious is fine! Maybe it’s good! Maybe we should all be more pretentious! Maybe it is good to say sometimes we should assign higher value to stuff with deeper meaning behind it and to people who actually try to understand it! Fuck you!

See, Daniel Kitson has managed to say the controversial thing that his audience wishes they had the guts to say, and it wasn’t even the N word! It doesn’t always need to be the N word, controversial comedians. You can just call large swaths of music fans dicks and be done with it.

And that’s why I kind of hesitate to make a post about messages I’ve taken away from listening to Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson, because by the rules I’ve just set up, there are so many people who actually know about Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson, who’d be entirely justified in telling me: “You spent most of your Britcom time watching a bunch of panel shows. You’ve watched Stewart Lee’s TV show and heard 2.5 Daniel Kitson shows, that’s barely scratched the surface of what there is to know about those comedians, so you can’t go writing posts about what you think they mean. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And I like that. I would like to live in a world where we all agree that if someone said that to me, they’d be right. I like the idea that people who really know about and love something want to protect it from people who don’t fucking know anything about it.

Edit: After I posted this I put the show back on, and he talks for a bit about other things, but then returns to the subject with a wonderful quote that I need to write down and add to this post: “I like pretention. I like art that takes itself slightly more seriously than most people think it should take itself, because most people are fuckwits who squint at art, hoping to see tits. And I like art that makes it tricky for fuckwits to see tits. Put that on my tombstone.”

[hootpoop12]

Ok, Meat route feelings:

Ok, this is...by FAR the superior route just saying. Not. That that is saying much seeing what the candy route was but every time I fall into despair over this I just grit my teeth and think about how parts of meat weren’t terrible pfft

-Lets get the johnrezi out of the way cause that’s kinda my thing. So. Good shit pfft I will admit I was little worried that Calliope and mainly Dirk could have tampered with them a bit but I’m pretty sure for the most part they didn’t? Dirk kinda made John feel weird post coital which kinda pissed me off but other than that. Them feelings 100% legit. These two people genuinely love each other. In both routes John’s thought would ALWAYS drift back to Terezi and Terezi’s only comfort was having John’s body with her after it all. Their romance is both cathartic because they are two MISERABLE people who only have each other to understand their feelings and fucking tragic because in candy all he had was a picture and in meat they had a physical confirmation of their feelings only for it to be voyeur’d and then ripped away by fucking John’s death. If there is more to come- I can only image there is- Terezi and Vriska will hopefully somehow team up and look for a way to revive John. Even If their romance was fleeting like 95% ship in Homestuck their support and care for one another is fucking REAL. It was straight UP the only real thing in Candy and I will fight others who say differently. 

-John going back in time to round everyone up felt weird. For the first time they all really felt like children and them all fighting lord english? WOW. Ouch. Especially Dave?? This Dave was the last to go and in the most brutal fucking way?? Kid had to watch Rose and Jade die and still fought pretty well, though. which goes to show Dave is a fucked up dude but when it comes to shit that needs to get done he can hold his own. Thaaaaaats why Adult Dave in both epilogues kinda grated on me a little? Not to fucking say UGH Dave is now more healed and stable this sucks!! I’m more saying there’s a lot of fics that whumpify Dave into a soft boi who too pure for this world and it slightly reminds me of it. That’s probably more of me just being to attached to MY view and headcanons of Dave, though, and maybe I need to let that go a little? 

-Davekat finally fucking happened. Ten years is too long of a slow burn for me I’m sorry lmao seriously I sound like Dirk when I say this but I really thought they sac’d up during the meteor and were already in a relationship. Dave’s whole conversation with John on the lilypad.......literally sounded like he was in a relationship with Karkat.......what the hell, honestly...........I’m glad it was on Dave’s own volition rather than’s Dirk’s gross as fuck pushing at least.

-That brings us to Dirk. The man who has been making my stomach church whenever I remember. My feelings about him are...............fucking complicated. I’ve been reblogging and bitching about him being “ruined” or whatever but.......That really is the simplified version of what I’ve been thinking. I think.....He’s been corrupted by his aspect or he’s just taking this heel “must be the new villain” too seriously. Like, I fucking despise it when people go off and say Bro was corrupted by Cal or Gamzee was corrupted by literally anything cause those two are just fucking trash, I’m sorry. I think I’m mostly upset by Dirk more than anything because his WHOLE thing was that he was a controlling dude with the potential to become an atrocious man and that he was starting to really take control of his path and work his way into becoming a better person. His talk with Jane on his sacrificial slab? His talk with Dave on the roof..........His heart aspect had begun to bring all his splinters together for his ultimate self and when the majority of your splinters carry a very sociopathic personality..............Man, there was literally no hope for him ever, huh? Literally none. The theme of working towards a better version of yourself is MEANINGLESS if your name is Dirk Strider. A character who struggles with depression, suicide, and absolute self loathing and his only path is this. Become the monster he was always terrified to become. Like I’m straight up about to cry writing this holy shit. Dirk is one of my favorite characters of all time- my FIRST favorite character when reading the comic- one of my MAIN reasons for reading it because I heard there was a canon gay character and I needed that in that time of my life. What almost hurts just as much as Dirk being a good guy and forcefully having this fate thrust upon him is that Roxy, the person Dirk cared about the most,.........Like............misgendering them. and being incredibly flippant and rude about trans stuff.......I can’t even begin to describe how much it hurt to read the character you looked up so much fucking being terrible about something that means so much to you. I’m agender and it just hurt is all I’m saying. This leads back to the bizarre issue of Dirk also being sexist and using gay in a strangely duragatory way. Like, Dirk grew up not really putting values on labels so for him to be weirdly transphobic does lead back to the ideas of this being a corrupted Dirk or him just playing the role of a villain. I do believe there is still the old Dirk we know in there, however, as even now Dirk states he could NOT hurt Dave. So some hope?

-Jake. I’m pretty sure Hussie fucking hates the dude like holy shit lmao......lmao in the least funniest way..............In both route Jake is jerked around like a plaything, having his personality dampened by the oppressive narrative. The one time we see Jake have repreive from such a shitty fate is when he’s talking to davekat about the election. That was the single moment we saw the curtain fall and the “intelligence” reenter the dude. I know this is like the “fanon” version of Jake. Every single character has fallen to that: whumpified Dave, puppet master dirk, bitchy mean jane, ect but litereally reading about him coming back to himself fucking HURT. Him being made to be obsessed with Dirk was so fucking gross I was cringing the entire time. The last few months I’ve been slowly accepting DirkJake back into my heart and this just fucking SHATTERED that warmth holy shit. Jake’s struggles with non-consensual bullshit is really starting to wear me down I just want him to be happy and RESPECTED. 

-Alrighty heavy stuff out of the way I will say this: I read candy first and at the end where Alt!Calliope is speaking to Aradia I had almost no goddamn idea what the fuck she was talking about. I even started to get kinda angry cause Homestuck tends to not take itself TOO seriously? There are some philosopical mind melting shit to read and consider but never too much where it’s incomprehensible to me? So when I finished candy I was like alright. Hussie just wanted to jerk himself off. whatever. Then I read meat and was like. OH. This.......this is actually fantastically interesting I can do this meta bullshit! and despite everything I just said about Dirk..........I fucking MISSED reading in his voice and it caught me off guard SO much which is what I love about Homestuck. There were a lot of tip offs but the one that really stood out to me before finding out was the Jake and Jane makeout. It kept going back to Dirk and I was very surprised by that? Jake sounded like he was over Dirk and yet here he was......unable to stop thinking about it? Shit makes. SO much sense I definitely am gonna reread it to look for other stuff, too. The tug of war via the narrative was incrediably entertaining as well.....Dirk is like a super sensitve incel now (caliborn would be proud) so it was hilarious to see him lose grip of it to Calliope. UGH I’m a little guilty to say it but I’m such a slut for anything Dirk I’m also KINDA looking forward to see where this goes and enjoying him being a villain A LITTLE. I know I sound wish washy but hey sometimes feelings contradict!

[iheartseo]

ghosting out || luke hemmings

requested: no

word count: 3.4k+

synopsis: too young & too dumb to know things like love, but when you get into an ‘we almost dated’ relationship, you can’t help but learn a few things about the other person. all of the little things that luke just hopes the next guy will love and cherish like how he should’ve.

a/n: this is my first piece of writing after not being active for like over a year! so i am so sorry if things are a little bit rusty and i am so sorry if i took way too long to get into the angsty bit. this was inspired by ‘ghost of you’, this poem? text post? and this movie scene.

credits to the photo owner. i just cropped it down.

masterlist // writing prompt list

Music was playing to fill in all of the little empty gaps of silence in between all of the chatter that was happening around the room. People crowded almost every single inch of space yet there was still enough room to move about freely. Laughter and smiles were on majority of people’s faces whilst drinks ranging from a champagne flute to a light cocktail in their hands. It was a weird ‘listening’/album release party for the new 5 Seconds of Summer album considering no one was listening to the album itself, more like mingling, though that didn’t mean no one was paying attention. 

As the boys were walking around, saying hi to potential business partners and future songwriters for even the next album, it couldn’t help but be weirdly overwhelming for one of the boys. Luke finished off one of his drinks that was designed and inspired specifically by the album; the Valentine cocktail. He respectfully nodded his head as he finished off one conversation with a stranger that he feels like he should remember their name, but by the end of the night, he wasn’t even going to bother. 

 The blonde man walked over to one of the couches provided by the venue, running his fingers through his hair and rubbing his face to try and keep himself awake. He groaned softly, wanting nothing more than to just go home and sleep as evident from his tired eyes. 

 “You alright?” 

 Luke turned his head and found Ashton sitting on the arm of the couch, patting his shoulder as a sign of comfort but also slight worry. Luke gave the drummer a small smile, nodding his head and waving him off. “Yeah yeah, don’t worry. I’m fine. I’m just a little tired that’s all.” 

Ashton nodded his head as well before gently squeezing the guitarist’s shoulder. “Well don’t worry, the party is going to end soon. Let me know if you need anything okay?” The younger one smiled once more as he nodded his head again. “Yeah don’t worry, Ash. I will.” 

With the drummer walking off, Luke let out another sigh and just decided to lean back in his spot and scroll through his phone to pass the time. As he quickly liked random photos that were appearing on his instagram feed, he hears his name being called. He looked up and his eyes widen at the sight of her standing just a few feet away from him. 

She somehow managed to look the same and yet even more amazing from when they last saw each other. A wide smile appeared on his face as he quickly got up and walked over to her, embracing her in his arms. “Holy shit, hey.” He greeted, chuckling softly. 

The girl wrapped her arms back around him and giggled softly, happy to see the man after a period of not seeing his face. She pulled away from their embrace, smiling up at him. “It’s so good seeing you again! Congrats on the album, I listened to it earlier and it sounded absolutely amazing.” 

Luke couldn’t help but blush at her compliments. He could never really take compliments well, especially when they came from her. It might just be his own humble nature or just him not always 100% believing in his own creative abilities, but it was nice to hear his work being appreciated and actually valued.

“Thanks (Y/N). I honestly didn’t even know that you were coming.” 

“Oh, Michael invited me.” 

“… Did he now?” 

Luke looked up from her and conveniently saw Michael not to far away from him, but too far to actually have a conversation with him. Michael looked up and saw Luke and (Y/N) standing together to which he proceeded to give the taller blonde a sympathetic smile. Luke pulled a face of annoyance and mouthed ‘why?!’ towards the other, only to be replied with Michael shrugging his shoulders and signalling that Luke shouldn’t be focusing on (Y/N) and not on him. 

Luke clenching his fists before quickly looking back down at the woman in front of him and gave her an awkward laugh, before she noticed anything. “It’s great to see you again. It’s been a while.” He said with a small genuine smile. ‘I am going to kill, Michael after this.’ He thought to himself.

“Yeah, it has been a while. Like a year or two?” 

“Wow, how time flies.” 

“It sure does.”

It was weird having small talk with her when before, they would use to have conversations that would span over countless hours and covering almost countless topics that either held meaning or were just pure conversation fillers that lead to funny moments and sayings. To be standing in front of her and having a normal conversation with her was incredibly cathartic; emotional, overwhelming and yet so comforting at the same time. In a strange way, Luke missed that about her, or at least just even being around her. 

“You still writing?” he asked with curiosity. “Actually, I am. Kind of interning for a music label and like working out my own song writing style.” Luke’s smile grew bigger, feeling somewhat proud of her for taking the chance to further pursue her dream. “Hey that’s amazing, congratulations.” 

Just before (Y/N) could say anything, Luke’s smile flatten as a random guy appeared by (Y/N)’s side and kissed the temple of her head, just how he use to back in the days. She turned her head and smiled at the guy, giving him a quick peck ‘hello’. 

“Oh, Luke. This is Jason, a guy that I am seeing. Jase, this is Luke.” 

“Oh... Hey man.” He leaned over and respectfully shook the other male’s hand, though he couldn’t help but feel a little bit upset at the fact that she moved on. 

“Oh, Luke! Hey! I heard so much about you! (Y/N) is so lucky to have such a good friend like you in her life.” Luke bit his lower lip, hearing that term ‘friend’ as a term to describe (Y/N) and Luke’s relationship. Though Jason wasn’t completely wrong, he wasn’t completely right too. They were friends… are friends, but they did have a moment where they weren’t completely just friends.

He remembered almost every second of their time together as they both danced around the line that spilt between friendship and relationship and to say that they were together would be false, though saying that there was nothing there at all would also be false. That weird position of ‘we almost dated’ was complicated and left both of them, or at least Luke, so many questions that were left unanswered and so many ‘what if’ scenarios that will forever torment him till the day he dies. 

“Yeah well, I am the lucky one to even have her in my life.” Now it was (Y/N)’s time to blush, especially with Luke’s eyes looking at her with such intensity that only she knew the underlying meaning to his words. Clearing her throat awkwardly, she turned her head and looked at the man that was standing by his side.

“Hey I’m gonna go to the bathroom for a little bit, you two boys chat.” 

Both of the men watched her make her way to the ladies bathroom until they were both left alone. Both letting out an awkward laugh, Luke showed Jason to the couches where both of them could sit and ‘chat’, as she had previously put it. 

“So… how did you meet (Y/N)?” Luke asked, slightly dreading the details of their new blossoming relationship. 

After a while, (Y/N) appeared out of the loo and started to look for both Luke and Jason, hoping that she could continue catching up with the blonde rockstar. Returning to the spot that she left them both at, she was disappointed to only find Jason sitting down at the couches. Furrowing her eyebrows, she sat down next to Jason. 

“Hey where did Luke go?” 

“Oh, he decided to go home. Said something about being really tired and all. But we did talk about you though.” 

A look of confusion fell upon her face, hearing about their boy’s topic of conversation. 

“Me? What did you guys say? Good things I hope?” 

“Of course, love. Only ever good things about you.” Jason chuckled, placing his hand on her thigh as a sign of endearment. “Though I can tell that Luke really does care about you. Weirdly enough, I guess he is a little bit protective of you, cause he kinda gave me a list of rules to follow if I were to stay with you and wanted to get serious with you.” 

(Y/N) jerked her head back in surprise as her confusion continued to grow. “Rules? What rules? I’m a person not a toy.” She said, getting defensive over why Luke would say such a thing, especially to a guy that she was currently seeing and interested in. To a certain degree, she was offended. Was Luke holding a grudge against her? Was he trying to ruin her future happiness?

“Babe, I know you’re not. I don’t know why he told me. I guess, maybe to help me not screw up as much?” She let out a sigh, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Okay fine, what did he say about me?” 

“Well, Rule 1) Don’t ask her to be feminine. She will defy almost every single stereotype that you grew up with and learnt about women and if you try and get to fulfil it, it’s not going to be pretty. …” 

Luke’s POV 

“Rule 2) Don’t let her drink over three glasses of anything. (Y/N) is honestly the biggest lightweight I have ever met, and as small as she is, she will get aggressive and possibly beat someone when drunk.” Luke advised, chuckling softly at the memories back when Luke and her would go out partying and the amount of times Luke had to carry an intoxicated (Y/N) over his shoulder or give her a piggyback ride back to his apartment. 

“Rule 3) When you go to any café, don’t order a coke or any juices. Drink coffee instead. She has this weird thing where the only thing you should drink at a café is coffee, and if you wanted to drink a coke, you should’ve gone to McDonalds.” Luke remembered one of the first few times that Luke and her had gone out together and even though Luke wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, (Y/N) forced him to be a coffee drinker. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why he has gotten to dependant on the caffeine, because of her influence. 

“Rule 4) If she hits you, act like it hurts and when it does actually hurt, act like it doesn’t.” The amount of times (Y/N) has hit Luke’s chest or pushed him away in any sort of fight whether it was playful, sober or intoxicated, she always managed to find a way to hit him. At first, he found it incredibly annoying that she always had to hit him, especially since in his eyes, it made her seem like a child throwing a tantrum, but he just learnt that (Y/N) wasn’t that vocal about her feelings. “She’s weird in the sense that, she doesn’t know how to voice her emotions, that’s why she will hit you. But don’t be offended by it. It’s just her.” Luke added, giving Jason a weak smile. 

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that. (Y/N) doesn’t really like to talk, does she?” “No, trust me, she does. She will talk your ear off; you just have to be patient with her. “ Luke sighed, looking down at his hands as he continued. 

“Rule 5) Her favourite song is Robot by The Sam Willows, which by the way, listen to The Sam Willows. They are her favourite band and even if you don’t like them, if you don’t try, you’re done for. When she is having a break down, hold her in your arms, kiss her forehead and tell her to breathe whilst you hum Robot under your breath. Show her that you are there, no matter what.” 

“Rule 6) Make sure you learn fencing and squash, especially squash. I have no idea who plays that game other than middle aged men, but don’t be fooled. (Y/N) will seriously kick your ass at it and it won’t be fun.” Luke said, letting out an airy laugh as he shook his head. “My god, dude, the amount of times I got my ass handed to me by her whenever we played.” He chuckled, looking at Jason. 

“Okay this might be weird but don’t be alarmed but, Rule 7) be prepared to go to jail sometimes. She will put you through so many journeys and adventures that somehow; you will be the one who ends up in a holding cell and not her.” Luke saw the horrified look on Jason’s face, making Luke chuckle again. 

“Hey, man, don’t worry. She will bail you out, no matter what. I think she gets a weird kick out of. Letting you out, though that does come with a warning that she is not afraid to let you sleep in a holding cell for a night or two.” Instantly, Luke remembered when somehow on a night out when he was trying to look after (Y/N) at a nearby motel, Luke got arrested because other visitors grew suspicious of a ‘too sober’ man making a sudden booking with a passed out girl on his shoulder. After spending a night in a jail cell, Luke remembered from that moment on to book a hotel room before hand, just in case. 

“Rule 8) If she says she’ll kill you, don’t take it lightly. (Y/N) is the strongest and most stubborn person I have ever met. She is definitely a character who can certainly hold her own. Don’t try and assert your dominance over her because trust me, it will be the worst decision of your life. And besides, it will make you feel better.” 

“Rule 9) If her feet hurt, exchange shoes with her. It does not matter if she is wearing heels or flats, change shoes with her, even if that means you will have to go bare foot.” Luke remembered the countless nights out where if (Y/N) wasn’t drunk and passed out that she would complain so much about how her feet would hurt in her heels but she would refuse to walk barefoot around town as she didn’t want to see tragic, so the next best thing would be for Luke to go barefoot whilst she wore his shoes. The first few times, Luke felt completely embarrassed, but as time went on, he grew to learn that he would do anything for her, even walk in heels for her. 

“And finally, you should already know this but she is a writer. Not because she is good at it, but I mean, she is, but she doesn’t think she is. (Y/N) only really writes cause she thinks it’s just a time filling hobby. Encourage her to write, whether it will be a random song, a random story paragraph or a poem. No matter what, always encourage her to write. Even though she doesn’t know how to vocalise her feelings, she definitely knows how to put her feelings from pen to paper. She will draw you into her world or art and poetry and immortalise you among the stars that she creates in her own mind. You will never die, which also means that if you can’t ever figure her out, read her writing. She’s good. Really fucken good.” 

Luke gulped, swallowing down the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat after talking and mentally reminiscing so much about (Y/N) in his brain. He looked at Jason who seemed to be taking Luke’s advice genuinely all in. “You seem like a really nice guy, Jason. Treat (Y/N) well because she deserves the universe.” 

Feeling himself get emotionally drained, Luke cleared his throat and gave Jason a small smile. “It’s getting late and I should probably go. Tell (Y/N) that it was nice seeing her again. I’ll see you around.” 

The blonde singer got up from his spot and immediately b-lined it to the exit, avoiding his band members in his path. It’s been a while since Luke has felt this emotional, especially over (Y/N) and it was suddenly overwhelming him. Now he definitely wanted to go home and sleep. 

Quickly calling an Uber back to his place, Luke sighed, sitting in the back seat as he just watched all of the neon lights of Hollywood fly by. Giving his Uber drive a quick smile and a nod thank you, Luke got out of the car and quickly made his way inside his home. The faster he could just get out of his party clothes, have a nice shower, the faster that he could go to bed and sleep the night away and also sleep away even running into (Y/N) and her new boyfriend. Luke made a mental note to kill Michael in the morning. 

The blonde turned on his shower, feeling that he deserved a nice hot shower to wash away the awkwardness and the tension that seemed to grow inside of him after tonight’s events. As the water cascaded over his hair and his body, Luke didn’t realise how much (Y/N) still had effected him even after a year or two of not seeing each other. It was like her ghost was still there following him, but he grew so immune to it that he didn’t realise that she would still be there with him until she actually was standing right there in front of him. 

When they were ‘together’ Luke wasn’t that much younger than her and yet after being with her and going through all of the twist and turns of a ‘maybe’ relationship, it somehow hurt him the most whilst teaching him the most. He somehow managed to know every aspect about her, every little detail and yet he could never crack the one where she would let him actually be with her, or maybe that was Luke’s own fault, believing that being at the height of his career, he shouldn’t be in anything serious. Or maybe they were both just too dumb to realise that letting each other go would be one of the hardest things either one of them would have to go through. 

As Luke relaxed during his hot shower, he could hear someone constantly ringing his doorbell and knocking on his front door. The more the knocks echoed, the more Luke thought that whoever was behind that door was ready to kick it down. Furrowing his eyebrows, he quickly got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, annoyed that someone was acting as if it was an emergency to see him at this hour. 

Luke opened the door, ready to yell at his night visitor before he realised that it was (Y/N) standing on the other side. 

“(Y/N)… ummm… what are you doing here?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. Did you really tell Jason all of that about me?” 

“… yes.” 

“Why?” 

“… because he deserves to know what kind of girl he is up against. A person who is so smart and so wonderful that whoever meets you will never be the same because you’re not like the rest. Because, he is a nice guy who shouldn’t feel the pain of losing you like I did.” 

Tears slowly filled her eyes as she looked at the man standing in front of her. As if it was a natural reflex, she hit his chest, shaking her head. “You’re so annoying when you read me like that.” 

Flinching slightly at the hit, Luke chuckled softly, looking at her, feeling awfully nostalgic at that little hit from her. “It’s cause you let me read you. You let me in.” 

 She let out a shaky breath, shaking her head once more. (Y/N) quickly stepped forward and held Luke’s face in her hands as she brought him down to kiss her in the middle of his doorway. The kiss was short but sweet and everything amazing in between. It was the spark that lit up Luke’s stomach feeling something as soft as her lips against his. 

“My god, you’re annoying.” 

“I know…” 

“Don’t you ghost out on me ever again.” 

“Okay.”

tag list: @lukesuwu @ashtonsunshine @5sos3stan @babylon-cal @thiccassluke @lukes-sunglasses @valentine-luke @dankpunks @tothemoonmikey @ghostoflu @calumincolor @cashtontrash

[mint-sm]

LOS CAMPESINOS! REVIEW/ANALYSIS: Sick Scenes

Note: I haven’t found a full album post video and some of the songs aren’t available on Youtube for me to cite like with my other reviews, sadly. Listen to it on Spotify or something lol

---

So... that was a long time, wasn’t it? Not just the gap between my last review, but between albums. There was a four-year gap between “Sick Scenes” and the band’s last album, “No Blues,” a product that I could see some appeal in but was personally unsatisfied with, but I was still eager to hear another record from them. Unfortunately, we had to wait this long gap, since things have changed, and simply put: the band has grown up.

Not necessarily in just a literal or maturity-level sense, but the fact that the world we’ve been living in has kind of grown unkind to everyone in the last few years. Not only has the music scene the band was affiliated with been changing to something else that’s -- for the lack of better words -- kinda boring, and not only has it also become less profitable, with the band resigning to day jobs for a while (thank God for commemorative football jersey sales!), but this has been a long stretch of time where everyone’s gone much more weary, especially as the world starts bombarding you with crappiness.

Worrying about a quarter-life crisis, fighting physical and mental illnesses, watching all the things from your youth slowly crumble away while past generations trivialize and demean your current problems, watching all your current interests go to shit, and also becoming increasingly uneasy with how crappy and seemingly suicidal the world at large has become, especially with the US presidential election, the Brexit vote, and most importantly, Euro 2016 being largely terrible.

I bring this up because it finally seems to provide the backing for something I desperately missed from “No Blues”: Context. I’ve went over the musical issues I had with “No Blues” a bit more in-depth in my review of it, but lyrically and thematically, there was just a sort of vagueness and a lack of a definite focus that also really turned me off from liking it very much. “Sick Scenes,” however, feels like it’s much more of a return to form in that finally, we do have a more concrete approach to the album, in that we actually know what went behind its philosophy, and now there’s actually more to latch onto and relate to other than vaguely pretty, overly-precise and clean production.

ALL THESE / SICK SCENES PLAYED OUT IN MY MEMORY / WAKE UP / I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING HONESTLY /

The album has actually toned down a lot of that overly pristine mixing and production of “No Blues,” and there’s actually a lot more grit, texture as well as tightness to it. It’s not “Romance Is Boring”-levels noisy, but there is a certain rawness and thump to a lot of the instrumentation again; one standout thing is the snares and kicks like from the song “Sad Suppers,” which feel a bit more crackly, but also god-loads tighter, and in a way that actually has a sort of “dirty” quality to it that I’m a huge fan of for this type of music.

“Sick Scenes” has also been a step-up compositionally as well. The melodies feel a lot catchier, with many of the bangers feeling a lot faster and more driving than those in “No Blues,” and they tend to have a consistent or growing momentum to them that actually feel powerful. “Renato Dall’Ara (2008)” is an awesome opening track because of this, starting off with like these awesome “spiralling-down” backup vocals, a really catchy chorus and more definitive sonic evolution as it goes on, it’s just great (as of this writing, there’s now word this song’s getting a music video next week! Can’t wait!)

THEY WOULD PLAY MY REQUESTS AT THE GUESTLIST’S BEHEST / ANY DISCO ALL ACROSS TOWN / BUT THINGS CHANGE, NOW STELLA’S A LAGER / AND BOY SHE IS ALWAYS DOWNED /

Los Camp have even much improved most of their slower ballads, or at least their sort of “breather” tracks, which now actually have a lot more going for them musically and lyrically. “5 Flucloxacillin” and “The Fall of Home” are especially surprising since basically, praise heaven almighty, GARETH CAN ACTUALLY SING! Like I don’t know what the hell happened in these last 4 years, but holy god Gareth can actually pull of being gentle and melodic, and in a way that actually conveys a lot of emotion and isn’t boring, especially with the subject matter.

Like I said, “Sick Scenes” feels like much more of a step up from “No Blues” and even “Hello Sadness” in that it definitely feels more about actual definite things, but a lot of the mentalities that I did think could’ve made both of those two albums much more interesting than they ended up being are still present here. It took me a while to figure out what made it so different, but I think the early days of “Hold on Now, Youngster…” fell more along the lines of being more actively emotional and visceral, trying to thump these feelings of weirdly upbeat melancholia into your head, whereas things like “No Blues” and this album seem to want to treat it more playfully, look at it with contemplation and humility, trying to find a dryer sense of subtle wittiness to it.

In that sense, “Sick Scenes” feels like it’s sort of blending the best of both worlds by approaching the focused definition, viscerality and sound of the “Youngster” days, but mixing it with a much more self-reflective and mature philosophical method. It’s a reasonable approach for the album considering its subject matter and consistent sense of fond nostalgia, and while it does tread a bit more of older ground as a result, it feels a lot more comprehensive and less overly stuffed or boring, while giving a bit of a wink back to the days of old. Hell, “Renato Dall’Ara (2008)” seems to directly reference “Youngster,” not just with the general feel and attitude (and it’s snarky as hell and I love it), but also that title (hint hint, the “2008” in the title is NOT referencing the Renato Dall'Ara).

PICTURED READING KARL MARX BESIDE HIS PARENTS’ POOL / FACING RIDICULE HE BLEATED / “THAT DOESN’T MAKE ME RICH, NO WAY, / IT’S ONLY OUTDOOR AND IT ISN’T HEATED” /

Unfortunately, a bit of a strike against this more grown-up-approach is that it means some parts of the album fall into the same trap as with “No Blues,” in that sometimes the lyrics can get a little too witty for their own good, and can get a little too obsessed with esoteric referential wordplay rather than actual content or coherence. “For Whom the Belly Tolls” (couldn’t find a video for this) to me feels like one of the weaker links on the album, in that the music isn’t particularly dynamic nor all that catchy for me, and would be ultimately rather unremarkable if not for that spontaneous choral bridge at the halfway point... which to be honest, transitions AWESOMELY.

Also, there are just some occasionally “No Blues”-esque deadpan moments on this album, which again, I can totally find appreciation for, but for me tend to end up kind of samey-sounding and a little boring, especially later on the album with “A Litany/Heart Swells,” or “Got Stendhal’s.” I dunno what to really say about these tbh, not only do they just kinda get repetitive after a bit, but they also feel like retreads to stuff Los Camp’s already done before, like with the “Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time” from “Doomed” or “What Death Leaves Behind” from “No Blues.”

However, with all that said, just about every other song on the album has something to offer as I’d expect from Los Camp’s standards, in that the music and subject matters feel diverse and intricate, eliciting conflicting yet consistent feels, and I do mean “feels,” since while this album is mostly much more vibrant than these last few albums, it’s actually still very gloomy and impending at times. Honestly, while that cover art above is still that popular pastel-y pink color that I kinda hate, it actually does feel rather indicative of the album in a good way: This kind of vacant, slacking and tired, nearly zombie-like person that’s so utterly fed up with how life and the world is playing out that they just want to lay there in the middle of a supermarket like an idiot who’s been up all night thinking about how shitty the world is. It’s indicative, interesting, kinda bleak, but also really funny.

(IT SEEMS UNFAIR) TO BE A ROTTEN HORN OF PLENTY! / (IT SEEMS UNFAIR) TO BE CADAVER FOR A CURSE! / (IT SEEMS UNFAIR) TO BE AN OVERFLOW FOR EMPTY! / (IT SEEMS UNFAIR) TO TRY YOUR BEST BUT FEEL THE WORST! /

Tracks like “I Broke Up in Amarante” and “A Slow, Slow Death” manage to encapsulate a lot of complete and utter frustration in an incredibly bombastic and grand veneer. Even though they do feel like they’re about completely different EXACT subjects (which I’m pretty sure are the aforementioned Euro 2016 and Brexit, respectively), they manage to feel oddly cathartic, but in a weird, kind of restrained but still natural-feeling way. There are also a lot of references in the songs like with “No Blues,” but overall it doesn’t feel as overbearing with these tracks, since the lyrics feel like perfectly comprehensible metaphors as is, and I find them pretty charming and relatable, as well as accessible.

“Here’s to the Fourth Time” (couldn’t find a link for this one) is also pretty humorous but also kind of awesome, and it honestly feels like the closest the album gets to “Romance is Boring”’s sound. The melodies are pretty poppy and catchy and have like this sort of just “grooving” and textured flow and feel to them that I love, and the last third of this song goes onto like this really noisy but badass-sounding breakdown with looped drums, distorted guitars and vocals, but in addition to that, the lyrics manage to be probably the most charming on the record, in that obviously the situation is cringey as hell (it’s about sex, and sex in a Los Camp song can never end well) but also kind of awkwardly hilarious and sympathetic, especially given the context the bandmates, now being 30-something-year-olds contemplating their quarter-life crises.

“5 Flucloxacillin” and “The Fall of Home,” once again, do feel the most indicative of that mentality of “I’m so fucking done with this place”-ness, but they approach it in such unique ways to what you’d expect from typical Los Camp fare. “5 Flucloxacillin” is kind of like this livelier indie rock ballad, with again, Gareth’s great vocals, but it’s surprisingly more “mellow” than “gentle”: the vocals are smooth and lively, but there does sound like a bit of deep-seated resentment hidden as the lyrics go into the frustration and bitterness that one would have with taking a lot of medications for things like acne or depression, and growing up in a world of utter chaos while being shittalked to by the people who made it that way whilst undermining your problems, and how even though years have passed and you probably should’ve grown out of them… you still haven’t.

(Hint hint! This song is about baby-boomers being assholes! Do you like this song yet?)

AM I A PIGGY BANK OF OBSOLETE CURRENCY? / AN ORDER OF MERIT FROM COUNTRY KNOWN FOR TYRANNY? / ANOTHER BLISTER PACK POPS, BUT I STILL FEEL MUCH THE SAME / THIRTY-ONE AND DEPRESSION IS A YOUNG MAN'S GAME /

“The Fall of Home” takes a much more intimate approach to these subjects in a way that feels rather basic, but gut-wrenching. It’s a guitar ballad, and while this could’ve easily been boring, it just sounds so nice, with like these great piano and violin accompaniments, and Gareth’s gentle, almost kind of fragile-sounding but beautiful singing, basically listing all the miserable losses of everything you once loved, locally and nationally, going down to shit by simple virtue of time having passed by and the present not being kind to them. It manages to be the simplest, but most poignant track on the entire album, and is honestly probably one of Los Camp’s newest classics.

BATTERY DIES ON YOUR MONTHLY CALL / BUDGET CUT AT YOUR PRIMARY SCHOOL / ANOTHER FAMILY FRIEND FELL SICK / GAVE THE FASCISTS A THOUSAND TICKS /

The ending track, “Hung Empty,” is alright. It’s got some great flow to it and a very catchy chorus hook, and it ends in a way only Los Camp can really get away with, valiantly shouting “Feels like I've been waiting on it, nearly all my life, but what, if this is it now, what if this is how we die!?” in a way that almost feels defiant or daring. It’s a creditable finisher, but at the same time it kind of feels… expected, you know? It feels like a typical Los Camp finisher, but it’s also just kinda basic. It’s actually kind of a microcosm of the entire album for me: it’s good! But some parts of it feel like they’ve been done before.

Like I’ve said, this album does feel like a much more pleasing return to form for the band’s earlier works but approached with a more grown-up, more exposed-to-the-world and vaguely “doomed” mindset, and for the most part, it’s very compelling! It’s got some great songs, and its feel feels a lot more definite and impactful than their last albums, it’s just that there’s a bit of crows feet here and there, and it kinda feels like even with the new perspectives it explores, some of it feels a little by-the-numbers at this point.

Not in a ruinous way, but I hope that for next album they do go even more adventurous than they did here. Again, I do think they already made a good effort; I was going to give this more of a 3.5/5, but after being given more time to appreciate the little intricacies of this album and realizing where a lot of it is coming from, it’s grown on me pretty well, it’s just I kinda wanna see more in the future, y’know? Who knows? Maybe they actually will, and I’m kind of excited by that prospect. We’re just going to have to wait and see.

Maybe if they manage to sell another thousand more of those “Doomed” football jerseys. I don’t care much about football, but goddamn I kinda want one anyway.

LC!4LYF (4/5)

FAVES: “Renato Dall’Ara (2008)”, “Sad Suppers”, “I Broke Up in Amarante”, “The Fall of Home”, “5 Flucloxacillin”, “Here’s to the Fourth Time!”, “Hung Empty”

aaaaand there you have it! Reviews of all the major Los Camp albums! Ahh… fuck

I might do more reviews of different albums in the future, but maybe not. Iunno, maybe I’ll do a few one-shots of albums I wanna talk about, like Gorillaz or something, but I don’t really know what I can really offer for that lol. We’ll see.