#its my favorite song look how she massacred my boy

[crunchycrystals]

after another listen i think enchanted tv's fine if youve never heard the original. its just fine they just made it so much less epic ???????? bombastic ?????? dramatic ??/??? than the original like the drums are so sad when they crash into the chorus and the filter thing over the please dont be in love with someone else is worse now and she doesnt elongate the "dont you let it go" after the bridge like she did in the og and the PINGS GOT MESSED UP IN THE SESCOND VERSE

soyeah enchanted og is better im not adding the new one to any playlists

[langdon-is-my-drug-of-choice]

Intrigued

A/N: First fic im posting on tumblr and I’m really new to this, so please! Bear with me whist I try to figure to this out! 

Outpost!Michael x reader

My Masterlist

Warnings: Smut, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, daddy kink, sorta mean Michael, think that’s it?

The days down in Outpost Three were dreadful. You had lost count of the amount of days that had passed a long time ago, and every single room was always uncomfortably cold. The long hallways in the Outpost always made you dizzy, all the twists and turns, some hallways even leading to dead ends.  

Right now, you were walking down one of those very hallways, mopping the floors. It was established right when you arrived here together with Timothy and Emily that you were a gray, a worker ant as Venable had said, why they got to purple’s and why you had to be a gray, you had no idea. But, as Ms. Venable had said herself, “The grays serve, and are grateful for the opportunity”  

And boy, were you grateful.

You always followed your commands, sometime even doing more than you were asked to. After doing this for every excruciatingly long month down in this hell hole, you eventually became Venable's favorite gray. Or, the gray she hated the least.  

Walking down the hallway during dinner time, everything was peaceful, at least as peaceful as it could be down here, you were humming a quiet tune you remember loving from before the bombs dropped.  

You didn’t have the chance to finish singing your little song, since you were rudely interrupted by the blaring sound of a harsh alarm being projected from the speakers back in the dining room and the lounging area.  

Your body picked up the pace as you continued to mop the floors, desperately trying to finish the damn chore. Once the floors looked pristine enough, you propped your mop up against the wall and bolted down the hallway, aiming to head back to your room.  

You didn’t have the chance to make it all the way to your room, since the sound if two different voices cut you off.

“You don't sound like you believe me” you could distinctly hear Venable say. Her tone was light for a change, she even let out a light chuckle.  

“Why wouldn't I? To me Seems like you've done a wonderful job. The walls are still standing. Your people are alive and healthy. Which is quite a feat, considering” the second voice said, the voice of a man, but not a man you recognized.  

By now, you had propped yourself up against one of the walls, leaning against in with your back to the wall.

“Considering?”  

“That three more Outposts have been overrun, and the remaining three won't last through the year”

“Why are you here?” Venable asked him, her voice reeking of confusion, but still holding a certain level of authority.

“Because it's only a matter of time before the same thing happens to you. The good news is, there's another facility, a sanctuary. This one's completely impregnable and stocked with enough supplies to last a decade” the male voice explained, his voice being deep, but at the same time holding some sort of boyish quality to it.  

“You're here to take us there” Venable said, thinking she had finished his sentence for him.  

“Hmm, I've been assigned to evaluate the people here and select the ones most worthy of survival. I could take all of you or none of you” he retorted, knocking down Venable’s previous confidence boost.

“Those who make it, live and will continue on” he continued; his tone of voice however, soon turned dark, almost eerie sounding.  

“Those who don't end up like my horses” he finished; his voice having dropped a few octaves.  

Only when you heard the sound of footsteps coming towards you, did you hurry down the hallway in the opposite direction you came in. Hoping you weren’t seen.

---

---

You were on your knees, poking at the fireplace in the lounging area. The rest of the occupants were sitting around, seemingly waiting for something, but what, you weren’t quite sure.  

Even though your attention was mostly directed at the fireplace, you didn’t fail to hear the insistent clicking of expensive-sounding leather boots coming towards you from behind. From what you had gathered by now, you knew that Ms. Venable was standing behind you, so it couldn’t have been her boots clicking.

The sound stopped right behind you, Venable stepped down from her spot in front of the Outpost's residents. Venable’s hand found its way to your shoulder, grasping tightly, urging you to stand, and face the Outpost’s new found guest.  

You did as you were silently instructed, standing up and standing beside Venable. You let you eyes wander to the man you had eavesdropped on last night, and boy was he a sight to see.  

He was tall, with long strawberry-blonde hair the reached just below his collarbone. His beautiful crystal-clear blue eyes were scanning the room, looking at every single person inside the room. When his eyes met yours, you could feel you heart flutter and your moth fall slightly open.  

Upon catching sight of his entire face, you felt your breath catch in your throat. You let your eyes wander his face, from his hair, to his eyes, to his beautifully sculpted cheekbones, to his jawline and last, but certainly not least, his beautifully plump looking lips.

He quickly averted his gaze, and faced the elites once again, his large hands clasped tightly behind his back.

“My name is Langdon, and I represent The Cooperative. I won't sugarcoat the situation. Humanity is on the brink of failure. My arrival here was crucial to the survival of civilized life on Earth. The three other compounds In Syracuse, New York, Beckley, West Virginia, and San Angelo, Texas have been overrun and destroyed. We've had no contact from the six international outposts, but we are assuming that they, too, have been eliminated” Langdon said, your mind drifting back to last night, the conversation he had with Venable.

“What happened to the people inside?” Andre asked as he looked up at Mr. Langdon.  

“Massacred. The same fate that will befall almost all of you” he explained.

“Almost all?” you said from beside Mr. Langdon, your breath once again catching in your throat once your eyes met.

“In the knowledge that this very moment might occur, we built a failsafe The Sanctuary” he said, not breaking eye contact with you.

“The Sanctuary is unique. It has certain security measures that will prevent overruns" he continued to explain, almost sounding annoyed.

“Excuse me, sir. What measures? Why weren't we given them?” Ms. Mead asked, her tone being firm and assertive.  

“That's classified. All that matters is that The Sanctuary will survive, so the people populating it will survive, so humanity will survive” he said while raising his hand to her in a dismissive manner.

“Who are the people who are populating it?” Andre asked again.

“Also classified. However, I have been sent to determine if any of you are worthy and fit to join us” Mr. Langdon said, dismissing Andre’s question.

“The Cooperative has developed a particular and rigorous questioning technique we like to call "Cooperating." I will then use the information gained to determine if you belong” Langdon said jokingly, almost laughing at his own pun.

“What is this, The Hunger Games? This is bullshit. I paid my way in here, and that is the only cooperating I plan on doing” Coco whined out to him, sounding pissed.

“You don't have to sit for questioning” He said with a sigh, clearly annoyed.

“What happens if we choose not to?” Andre prodded.

“Then you stay here and die” He said harshly. The tone in his voice was clear and demining, and you weren’t gonna lie to yourself, he was doing a very good job of turning you on.

“I volunteer to go first” Gallant said while raising his hand high into the air.

“I’m afraid that wont be possible, as I’ve already chosen the order of my interviews. The process should only take me a couple of days, so you won't be kept in suspense forever. For those of you who don't make the cut, all is not lost. If the worst should happen and feral cannibals come knocking, down one of these. One minute later, you fall asleep and never wake up. I look forward to meeting each and every one of you” Langdon said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a small vial of tiny white pills.

---

---

“Come, Mr. Langdon has requested to see you in his office” Ms. Mead said to you as you were finishing up your chores for the night.  

“Now? But, I’m not finished with my chores yet” you replied to her’ knowing how mad Venable would be if she found out you didn’t finish your chores.

“Now, Ms. (L/N), he said he didn’t want to be kept waiting” she said. You propped your broom up against the nearest wall and hastily followed her down the corridor.  

She led you tov the wide, dark sliding doors at the end of one of the corridors, you had been down there a few times, sweeping the floors and whatnot, but you had never been inside before.

Ms. Mead knocked on the door, but then the door slid open on it’s own, neither Mead or Mr. Langdon had laid a finger on it.  

“Ah, come in, I’ve been waiting for you. Ms. Mead, you may leave now” said, ushering you inside and shooing Mead away. She nodded politely and left down the corridor, leaving you and Langdon alone.  

“Sit” was all he said as he too, sat down behind the desk by the fireplace. You did as you were told, sitting down in front of him, keeping you eyes on the ground.  

“Do I scare you?” He asked. You shook your head in response, eyes still on the ground. You heard him getting up from his chair and stalking around the desk to stand in front of you.

His fingers curled themselves around your chin, lifting your face to look at him. You could see his eyes wandering you face, then down the entirety of your body. At this point, you could feel just how much this man was turning you on, and all he had done was talk.

“You’re not quite like the others here, are you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” you whimpered, thoroughly confused, but at the same time, insanely turned on. He hummed, brushing his thumb against your bottom lip, parting you lips slightly.  

“You’re so willing” ha said as he let go of your chin and leaned back into the desk, almost sitting on it.

“Willing?” you asked him, now looking at his handsome face willingly.

“Yes, willing. Willing to serve, eager to please” he said, and you couldn’t really dent it either.  

“I guess” you mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

Langdon pushed himself off the desk with his hips, casually stepping to the side, facing you.

“Sit on the desk for me, can you that?” he said with mock sweetness in his tone, but you knew he wasn’t joking. You nodded your head and did as you were told, gently climbing onto the dark wooden desk and squeezing your thighs together once you had gotten situated on the desk.  

“Good girl” he said, but as soon as those words left his lips, you could feel a new flood of arousal was over you, positively soaking your plain cotton underwear. He walked over to you placing his hands on your knees and prying your legs apart, coming to stand between them.

His hands trailed up your thighs, coming to rest on you hips. Your breathing was heavy, and you were positive that Langdon could hear you heart thump in your chest.  

“Nervous?” he chuckled while sliding his hands along you waistline. This time, you nodded while slightly squirming under his warm hands. He chuckled a little at your response and reached behind you to undo the tie on your apron, tugging it off you and letting it fall to the floor.

He continued, once again reaching behind you, unzipping your gray dress, pulling the top part of it off of you, exposing your plain cotton bra to him. His hand soon found it’s way to your throat, pushing you back to lay down on the desk.

“Now, you do know that it’s very rude to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, right?” he laughed, somehow, he knew about how you had accidently listened in to his and Venable’s previous conversation.  

“I-I’m s-sorry” you whimpered, finding talking a bit difficult due to his hand being coiled around your throat. He harshly let go of you throat as he started to rid himself of his own clothing, first his lavish jacket, then his undershirt, then his belt.  

His bare chest was now on full display, and you were definitely enjoying the view.

“Sadly, ‘I-I’m s-sorry’ isn’t going to cut it, pet” he said, mocking your previous whimpers. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of your gray uniform, pulling it off your body, dragging your panties down along with the rest of you uniform.

He stepped in between your thighs again, your glistening cunt now on full display for him. “I’ve barely touched you, and you already so fucking wet for me, dirty girl” you whimpered at his words, becoming even more turned on than you already were.  

He reached behind your back and undid your bra, with some difficulty. Now you laid on his desk, completely nude in front of this gorgeous man who was currently unzipping his expensive-looking dress pants.  

He let his pants drop to the floor, along wit his boxers, exposing him fully to you.  

“Tell me what you want, pet. Naughty girls have to beg to get what they want” he teased as he slid two of his fingers along your slick folds, urging you to call out and beg for him.  

“Please…” you whimpered out quietly, color flooding your face out of embarrassment. He grabbed ahold of you thighs, pulling half of your ass off the desk, giving him better access to you.  

He raised his hand and brought it down onto your bare ass, hard, making you yelp.

“You can do better than that, pet. Now beg. Beg for me to fuck you” he said, it was more of a demand than an instruction.

“Please! Please, f-fuck me, please Mr. Langdon, please” you said, heightening your voice so he could hear you more clearly. He lowered his head down to your stomach, leaving wet sloppy kisses down your abdomen, teasing you further.

“Good girl, I think you deserve a reward, don’t you?” he asked, once again faking that sugary-sweet tone. You nodded your head as fast as you could just wanting him inside you. He came up from your stomach, grabbing ahold of his cock jerking himself a few times, spreading some of his precum onto himself, though you doubted is was necessary.  

He lined the head of his cock up with your drenched entrance and slowly pushing into you. One painfully thick inch out of time. His hands wandered from your waist to one hand tightly gripping your throat to the other holding a bruising grip on your hip.

One he was finally fully sheathed inside you, he let out low growling-kind of noise, making you clench around him. He gave you very little time to adjust to his size, since he soon began pounding into you at a ruthless pace. Your moaning was loud, and you were sure that if you didn’t shut up soon, the entirety of the Outpost would hear just how good this man was making you feel.

“You’ve gotta stay quiet for me, okay pet?” all you could do was nod you head in response, but you didn’t seem to be keeping your promise, since you didn’t quiet down. Langdon put both his hands on your waist, leaning down and planting his lips over yours, effectively shutting you up.

His lips were soft, just as soft as they looked. They moved against your lips in perfect sync. The feeling of his lips on yours was almost orgasmic on its own.

You could feel a certain pressure building up in your lower abdomen, and you knew you orgasm was creeping up on you. Langdon must have felt it too, since he soon detached his lips from yours and slowed his pace significantly.

“Don't you dare cum before I say you can. Now, show Daddy just how much you want to cum” he instructed, making you pulse slightly around his cock.

“Please! Please Daddy, I want to cum on your cock, I wanna cum so bad, please!” you begged him for your release, and apparently, that was enough for him, because he came back to his previous pace with a passionate fury.

Thrusting his cock into you as hard as he possibly could, he seemingly stopped caring about just how loud you were being. You could feel his cock twitch inside you, and that was quite enough for you to start clenching around him as your orgasm washed over you.

Because of how much you had tightened around him, Langdon couldn’t hold back his own orgasm either. With a few more hard thrusts, his cock twitched inside you once again as he released his cum deep inside you, filling you to the brim, some of it leaking out and dripping down and onto the floor.

Both of your breaths were heavy, you were borderline panting at this point, but he was also breathing heavily, his face buried in your neck, leaving gentle little kisses along your throat.  

“Is this part of my test?” you whimpered out weakly, his cock still hard inside you, twitching and pulsing.

“Isn’t everything?” he asked breathlessly, coming up from your neck to look into your eyes once again, still breathing heavily.

“Well, then do I pass?” you ask, feeling a single tear run down the side of your face.

“Yes, you’ll be coming back with me, pet”

[singofsolace]

Madam Spellman 2020 Challenge Masterlist!

Many thanks to everyone who participated in the Madam Spellman 2020 Challenge! Over five weeks, we created thirty-four, I repeat, THIRTY-FOUR fanfics, and five pieces of gorgeous fan art. A grand total of 73,530 words were published to the collection on Ao3. I am in awe of how much content was created, and over the moon at the response this challenge received. 

Since this masterlist is going to be very long, I've decided to put it all under the cut! Check out the 39 pieces of fanwork below!

Week One Prompt: New Year’s

a year has fled o’er heart and head by Singofsolace (@concreteangel1221)

Summary: Mary Wardwell has never been kissed on New Year’s Eve. Zelda seeks to rectify this grave injustice.

A Mortal Tradition by lady_needless_litany (@lady-needless-litany​)

Summary: Even though months have passed since Blackwood’s massacre, everything’s still up in the air. Zelda’s barely hanging on - and now she can’t even kill Hilda as a form of stress release.

Remembered Footsteps on Old Roads by brokenmemento 

Summary: Lilith asks Zelda to take a little trip, one that will prove difficult for her to do.

Happy New Year darling, for whatever is in store by Saturn_Silk 

(@saturn-silk)

Summary: Mary and Zelda spend New Year’s Eve together at the cottage.

this gorgeous fanart by @bainelland  

Art Description: A polaroid picture from the Spellman’s album. Taken on a New Year’s Eve night by Sabrina who accidentally walked in on a quiet moment between Zelda and Lilith. Illuminated by the Solstice Tree, with Ella Fitzgerald’s “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” playing in the background. It’s one of Zelda’s favorite pictures in the whole album.

this stunning fanart by @miss-spellman (aka @asterleaf and @moon-rise )

Art Description: Zelda Spellman and Lilith stand, wrapped in an embrace. They are kissing as confetti and streamers fall around them. Zelda has one hand wrapped around Lilith’s waist, and the other is precariously holding a glass of champagne. Lilith’s hand is placed on Zelda’s cheek. 

Piece of My Heart by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish (@claire-de-macarune​)

Summary: Yes, Lilith, I love you. Yes, Lilith, this is your home now. I could never deny you. Yes, Lilith, I want you to stay.

~~

Week Two Prompt: Road Trip

Strangers by brokenmemento 

With the coven in shambles and the Academy without a sense of direction, Zelda finds a place to start rebuilding and settles on asking an unlikely person to aid her in her mission.

this will be our year (took a long time to come) by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish ( @claire-de-macarune ) 

Mary’s keys in the ignition and her head lolled back on the headrest, Zelda blew a last, elegant kiss out the back windshield to her family and trundled the old Ford down the drive, onto the passing road. They disappeared in a wink of distance rather than magic.

Road Trip by AlexusOnFire ( @alexusonfire )

Poetry, written from Lillith’s perspective.

wrestling with the wind by Singofsolace ( @concreteangel1221 )

When Lilith, the skateboarding, tomato-stealing lesbian meets Zelda, the elegant, willful daughter of a mortician, sparks (and motorcycles) fly. 

this sweet fanart by @moon-rise​  

Zelda and Lilith take an impromptu road trip and stop at a little witch friendly café. Zelda orders her black coffee and Lilith orders a coffee with 4 creams and 7 sugars. Zelda hates the colour scheme of the room but the romance of it grows on her as the sun sets and lights up Lilith’s impossibly gorgeous blue eyes. 

Pulp fiction for Zelith by @jyou-no-sonoko19​ 

(please show your support for this fabulous edit by reblogging from the original source!)

~~~

Week Three Prompt: Winter

Breathe by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish ( @claire-de-macarune​ )

"I think you have what it takes. It’s completely reasonable for you to have some support, but this needs to work. I need this to work. We both do,” Edward said, under his breath. “It’s this or go back home. You know that.”

Chasing Out The Chill by Jyou_no_Sonoko ( @jyou-no-sonoko19​ )

After the fall of the Church of Night and its ceasing to worship Lucifer, Zelda in her new role as self-appointed High Priest has to transition them to the Church of Lilith. And while she believes in her Patron, it is a difficult adjustment to make. Lilith grows concerned for her and plans a little getaway.

Dance Under the Winter Sky by TommorowNeverCame ( @its-a-goode-day )

A year later, the coven has a winter ball. Zelda decides it's time for her and Lilith to be happy.

Double Black Diamond by Singofsolace ( @concreteangel1221 )

When Zelda Spellman gets driven off the ski trail by the Judas Boys, Lilith (the snowboarding lesbian) comes to her aid.

Fire and Ice by Saturn_Silk ( @saturn-silk​ )

Lilith really wants to go ice skating, and eventually, Zelda caves in and takes her.

Their Heart Grew Cold by stellastellaforstar ( @stellastellaforstar​ )

She looked beautiful, Zelda could tell even through the haze of snow. Her glasses were foggy and her nose was red, but every snowflake seemed to land so beautifully on her head.

These Winters Can Be Maddening by brokenmemento 

Winter through the eyes of Zelda Spellman at three points in her life.

Winter by AlexusOnFire ( @alexusonfire​ )

a lovely winter poem!

winter and hard earth by CallmeCordelia 

Zelda observes the Winter Solstice. Lilith observes her.

~~~~

Week Four: Alternate Universe

Like a fool, I fell in love with you by Saturn_Silk ( @saturn-silk​ )

Zelda Spellman, Greendale’s local coroner, needs a date for her sister’s wedding and who better than her colleague Detective Lilith Morningstar. Will they get away with it? Or will it turn into something more?

Lady Justice by Singofsolace ( @concreteangel1221​ )

Lieutenant Lilith Demos had spent the last twenty years investigating New York City’s most sensitive crimes. She was intimately familiar with the worst humanity had to offer, but getting justice for rape victims made everything else worthwhile. There was no case too perverse or too delicate for her to handle; she always remained coolly professional, no matter the situation. But that all changed the day Zelda Spellman walked into her squad room. Bringing Zelda’s abuser to justice proves to be her most difficult case yet, and it doesn’t help that Zelda is extremely uncooperative when it comes to the investigation. 

The Muse by AlexusOnFire ( @alexusonfire​ )

Zelda Spellman attends an art class. Lilith is her muse.

No Man is an Island by brokenmemento 

Zelda and her roommate Lilith have been fighting with this thing for five years. With the rain comes absolution. AKA the Madam Spellman as Grace and Frankie AU.

Vying Off Course by Claraon ( @sheep-in-space​ )

Her eyes stop in their track, surprised at spotting the eldest member of the Spellman family sitting at the bar. Her frock is modest enough – a pale linen thing with a simple blue lacing, and her strawberry hair is tied back in a conservative bun –  but she somehow manages to look at once regal yet perfectly at home among the buccaneers and other shady characters crowding the place.

We Lost the Sea by bainel ( @bainelland​ )

Their eyes locked for a second across the room, and Lilith felt her breath catch in her throat. She felt as if the whole room had faded away. For a fraction of a second, they were the only two people in the inn. But then the bartender placed a glass of amber liquid next to the redheaded woman. She turned away, towards her drink, and the moment was over.

Lilith gets dragged into a series of events that will lead her into one of her greatest adventures yet.

Wild with Adventure by stellastellaforstar ( @stellastellaforstar​ )

It’s a wild west AU, y'all! Sheriff Zelda and Outlaw Lilith.

Your Song by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish ( @claire-de-macarune​ )

Songwriter AU

And you can tell everybody this is your song It may be quite simple but now that it’s done I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind That I put down in words How wonderful life is while you’re in the world

The Spelldelaire Children by @claire-de-macarune​ 

(please show your support of this fabulous fan art by reblogging it from the original source!)

~~~~~

Week Five Prompt: Fix It!  (the list is in alphabetical order)

a little death (une petite mort) by Singofsolace ( @concreteangel1221​ )

Mambo Marie intervenes when Zelda Spellman denies Lilith sanctuary. This changes many things, but not all things. Lilith proposes that the only way that the three of them will survive the wrath of both the Dark Lord and the Pagans is to perform an incredibly intimate ritual. Mary Wardwell stumbles upon this ritual, with gun in hand.

An Offering of Trust by paradox_n_bedrock ( @paradox-n-bedrock​ )

Zelda and Lilith try just a little harder for each other. They’re lucky Marie has an emotional intelligence greater than a potato.

Forever…(is a long time) by brokenmemento 

After the events of Part 3, things are still left hanging in the balance. Lilith forges an unlikely alliance with the least likely of suspects.

From Her Beacon-Hand by CallmeCordelia 

Lilith seeks asylum, but what will she find?

home in the heart of hell by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish ( @claire-de-macarune​ )

And all shall fade The flowers of spring The world and all the sorrow At the heart of everything

I Was Housed by Your Warmth by daisygrl ( @asterleaf​ )

Something about the other witch pulled her ever closer, made her ache inside. It was the strangest sensation: two parts nostalgia and one part pain. If she had lived lives other than this one, she would have sworn that they had met before. Perhaps their souls had passed one another by as they swam in the primordial muck.

The Witch’s Lullaby by marla_black ( @marla-black​ )

With Lilith pregnant with Lucifer’s baby, she is in need of a midwife, and who better than Zelda Spellman, the witch who has never lost a child in her life.

~~~~~

Many thanks to everyone who reblogged and commented on all of these pieces! You were as much a part of this challenge as the writers and artists!

[johannesviii]

Top 12 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2014

The “least good” of the three best years of the 2010s. This is still a top 12. Because I can, and I will.

I know. People also call it a bad year. And I think they’re wrong.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

New job, which is the one I still have currently. Also, I discovered Doctor Who in December 2013 and you know exactly what happened in 2014 because I dived head first into the extended universe as soon as I finished New Who and I’ve never really recovered since then. The end of the year was highly stressful, with my cat being sick, my father needing a very dangerous surgical intervention, and me being so stressed out I was basically unable to sleep for days. Might explain why there’s a lot of cute songs on this list, I needed cute stuff.

That year wasn’t very generous in good albums from bands I liked. Epica released The Quantum Enigma, and it was okay, Within Temptation had Hydra, and it was also okay, and Coldplay had the very underrated (in my opinion at least) Ghost Stories, a mostly melancholic album full of bittersweet post-breakup songs. So I’m left with no choice but to declare The Birthday Massacre’s album Superstition my album of the year for 2014. They had stayed at a consistent level since Pins And Needles so I wasn’t expecting anything better from them, but boy do they delivered. Here is Divide, it’s about a subterranean world and it might be a metaphor but as you know I’m very literal-minded! Here’s Beyond, about a lady falling in love with a strange woman who might be some sort of fae or supernatural entity!! I love most of the album and there’s only one subpar song on it. I know they’ll never get a crossover hit but they’d deserve it so much. Look at the state of the world. We’re so ready for a new mainstream wave of energetic, angsty, weird music. Just bring it on.

There’s only one non-elligible song that truely pisses me off this time, and it’s Traffic Girl by Indochine, another single from their Black City Parade album. It’s about a policewoman in North Korea who has to wave and smile at non existant traffic all day long and the song presents her as a modern hero. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album and I’m so mad it didn’t make the French year-end list.

Here’s a list of honorable menti-holy shit why is this list so long

Albatraoz (AronChupa) - Riiiiiight at the limit between catchy and annoying. But it’s blissfully short.

Chandelier (Sia) - I would like this more if it wasn’t that painful to listen to, I swear.

Magic in the Air (Magic System) - Insert my usual comment about these guys and their fun & happy songs.

Un Jour Au Mauvais Endroit (Calogero) - Great music, good lyrics. It’s still Calogero and I tend to dislike how overdramatic he usually is. Not enough to ruin that one song for me though.

Je Garde le Sourire (Black M) - This isn’t the last time he’s gonna appear in this post.

Prayer In C (Lilly Wood & The Prick) - A bit repetitive but in a good way.

Budapest (Georges Ezra) - A bit repetitive but in a good way 2, the return but in a completely different genre.

The Monster (Eminem & Rihanna) - We’ve now entered the songs which I considered putting on the list, and yeah, there’s a lot of them even if this is a top 12. “Bad year for pop music”. Yeah. Right.

Addicted To You (Avicii) - This is good, and the music video is great, and I want to stop feeling emotional about Avicii. Please.

Don’t Tell Em (Jeremih) - I. Uh. What the f█ck. Okay. There’s no way I can justify this. I simply adore this beat even if the lyrics are really, really bad. It’s just visually stunning and I really wish the song itself was better.

Photomaton (Jabberwocky) - I don’t think this would have charted without the success of Kavinsky the previous year. But still. Wonderful stuff. Well deserved.

Madame Pavoshko (Black M) - This was on the first version of the list but in the end I really had no room left for it. It’s a song about a guy telling his old teacher he made it in life despite the fact she labelled him a hopeless case at school. With such a premise, it could be an angry song, but no, it’s upbeat, sarcastic and fun. Wonderful stuff.

Le Graal (Kyo) - Kyo? Wait, you mean the embarrassing emo guys from my 2002 and 2003 lists? These guys?? They were back on the charts after ten years?? And suddenly everyone thought it was cool to like them again?? Including me??? Sounds fake but okay

Turn Down For What (DJ Snake) - The last cut. Stim music at its finest, sharp, aggressive and colorful. Everything I ever wanted from a hit song.

Well, that was long. Here’s the actual list.

12 - Wake Me Up (Avicii)

US: #22 / FR: Not on the list

“So wake me up when it’s all over, when I’m wiser and I’m older” should make no sense. You can’t get wiser if you’re asleep. At least that’s what I would probably say if I didn’t feel this. There’s a lot of times in my life I wished I could be switched off and woken up a couple of years later and be like “hello I’m back, I feel better now, what did I miss”. I totally get it.

The only reason this song is so low on the list is the drop. I don’t like it very much. The rest is damn good.

11 - Boom Clap (Charlie XCX)

US: #34 / FR: #84

Boom! Boom! Boom! CLAP. That song got me after its first seconds. Love its atmosphere, very cotton candy-like, very fluffy, with a sharp voice. Doesn’t work well if you listen to it on a loop, though, and that’s the only negative thing I can say against it.

10 - Stay The Night (Zedd)

US: #94 / FR: Not on the list

This on the other hand works very well on repeat and that drop is golden. I’m afraid I don’t have anything very interesting to say about it. It stayed on my playlist from 2014 to summer 2019, though, so that’s an impressive feat.

9 - Rather Be (Clean Bandit)

US: #41 / FR: #18

Several critics I follow have commented this song is 1) mostly meaningless 2) too perfect to say anything about it and I agree. It’s also too perfect to be really passionate about it, unfortunately, but still, very, very good stuff.

8 - Magic (Coldplay)

US: Not on the list / FR: #66

You already know I don’t really like lowkey emotional songs and I also hate the first act of Coldplay’s career, so why on earth did I like Ghost Stories so much and why is Magic making me feel so emotional, you ask? Well it’s because the music itself isn’t bland. It’s lowkey but rich, dense and colourful, and it works much better than whatever they were doing before with their slow boring songs. Also, I really struggle with dramatic vocal performances on quiet emotional songs (which is why I tend to have issues with Adele’s voice on some of her stuff), and here the balance is just ideal. Soft colors, soft textures, soft voice, this is like a colorful plushie you’ve lost for years and just found in the attic and it brings you to tears. I adore it.

Also the part of the lyrics that goes “And if you were to ask me / After all that we've been through / Still believe in magic? / Oh yes I do”, that makes me want to hug someone and never let go.

7 - Waves (Mr Probz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #15

This is completely hypnotic. It’s perfect to drive, to walk, to draw. to sit on a bench and look at the trees. It’s just wave after wave of pastel colors with a good beat and it washes away your anxiety slowly but surely. Therapeutic and beautiful without ever feeling bland. Wonderful stuff.

6 - Uptown Funk (Bruno Mars & Mark Ronson)

US: Not on the list (#1 on the 2015 year-end list) / FR: #3

Everyone loved it and I wasn’t an exception. You all know it and I’ve got nothing new or interesting to say about it. A ton of fun. Love the lyrics.

5 - Sur Ma Route (Black M)

US: Not on the list / FR: #7

If you’re wondering what’s going on in this picture, the guy is parodying a lot of famous movies or series in the music video. It’s a simple but super energetic song about trying to trace your own road in life and all the problems you encounter and how you can’t always count on people you thought were your friends. It’s very propulsive and motivating and it’s my favorite song from that guy even though he made a lot of good songs. Just great stuff. Check it out if you’ve never heard it.

Speaking of being on your own...

4 - Ain’t It Fun (Paramore)

US: #47 / FR: Not on the list

I miss hearing that kind of thing on the radio and yes, I’m aware that makes me sound like an old idiot. Oh how I wish this had been released in 2010 when I just started to work, that would have been perfect. I know the song is supposed to be sarcastic with the whole “ain’t it fun being on your own” angle, but yeah, when your life wasn’t great before, it’s actually liberating to “live in the real world”, even if it sucks at times, even if it’s difficult and you have responsibilities and all.

Also the music video is super cute. Love it.

3 - Pompeii (Bastille)

US: #12 / FR: Not on the list

I’m honestly surprised this is only #3 on this list considering how much I loved this one back when it came out, and don’t get me wrong, it’s still a song I love to this day, just... a bit less. Maybe it’s because of overplay? I’m not exactly sure considering #1 was also played very often and I never ever got tired of it. And it’s well written, and it’s not every day that you hear a song about two dead people talking about the wrath of the gods after their city was engulfed in ash.

So yeah. Not sure what happened there. I hope this band is eventually gonna have another hit like this one. Bastille, more of Pompeii and less of Happier, please.

2 - Dangerous (David Guetta)

US: Not on the list / FR: #8

A few months ago I heard Memories by Maroon 5 and I was instantly filled with a truely disproportionate amount of rage for such a bland pop song. See, I love it when music uses well-known classical tunes and completely changes their context and tone, but Memories doesn’t do any of that, it’s just the Pachelbel canon with some bad lyrics on top. So yeah, it’s a pet peeve.

Dangerous, on the other hand, is a song mixing a small loop of Toccata & Fugue in D minor and it basically uses it as an ominous pseudo-police siren in a song about illegally cruising a car with your possibly criminal, possibly gangster crush and not knowing if you’re scared, in love or feeling the thrill of adventure, or all of that at once. I. Love this damn song.

When the only bad thing I have to say about a song talking about driving at night way too fast is “eh this isn’t as good as Kavinsky”, you know you’ve found gold.

1 - A Sky Full of Stars (Coldplay & Avicii)

US: #51 / FR: #9

As much as I love Dangerous, there wasn’t any doubt about what would top this list. I’ve spent about ten lists explaining how my appreciation of Coldplay kept growing over time and four lists explaining how much I loved Avicii, and this song is the best of both worlds. The first time I heard it, I was driving and, no joke, I was so overwhelmed I had to park my car to properly concentrate on the song.

One day I will have to paint this song to explain how fantastic it looks and I’d have to use purple, china blue and pink watercolor inks and basically paint a psychedelic night sky full of little lights and yeah, this is basically another of these songs that are deeply satisfying on a synesthetic level, and it joins this very select club with the blue song called “Blue”, the song full of bright flashes called “Lights” and the song that looks like gentle pulsing lights called “Fireflies”. I’m trying (and failing) to learn how to play it on the piano. I know the chords, and I suck, but I’m very determined.

On top of that deeply satisfying visual, there’s the soft vocals so specific of the Ghost Stories album, and the very simple, very cute lyrics, and I simply hear “'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars, I'm gonna give you my heart” and I die instantly. This is high quality musical fluff. Come to think of it, this list is full of it, and this is the Ultimate Fluffy Song. One fluff to rule them all.

Sidenote, considering I fell into the DW audios right when this song came out, that’s one of my theme songs for Eight and Charley. Because of course it is.

Next up: The beginning of a progressive drop in quality but you wouldn’t be able to tell considering how long this list of honorable mentions is

[blookmallow]

and finally, the conclusion of the dark brotherhood questline 

i have been through so much and lost so much but i gained the one thing that matters most of all.....  cicero’s heart 

-----

well

these aren’t the real emperor’s clothes but i have this still,

i put it on the dawnstar sanctuary mannequin with the jester hat lmao

:( my favorite guard friend who hangs out around the shops in the mornings with me is onto me 

hes not hostile or reporting me to the jarl or anything at least tho 

Dont woRRY About It

i did have guards after me for a while (i had. several just go ‘ok ill let you off this time :)’ bc. i. asked nicely. after attempting to assassinate the emperor of skyrim) but eventually just paid my bounty and they were like ok you’re good and now apparently everyone has completely forgotten That Time I Tried To Murder The Fucking Emperor 

anyway after the fucking massacre that happened at the sanctuary i was absolutely Out For Blood

i mean like....... i realize maro is completely justified here. we are in fact a league of assassins guilty of murdering A Lot of people, we very much did make a real attempt on the emperor’s life (and killed his double, who was less important but still like, an innocent guy, presumably)(or even if it was like that death note thing where its actually a criminal on death row anyway, like, we clearly didnt know that) and i did personally murder maro’s son and ruin his reputation, so. like. we are the bad guys in this situation no matter how you look at it lmao but STILL THOSE WERE MY FRIENDS, FUCKER

so i decided to murder him out of pure spite, but. uh

I DONT REMEMBER WHAT I DID TO CAUSE THIS BUT I ACTUALLY GOT THE SOLITUDE GUARDS TO MURDER HIM FOR ME LMAO I DIDNT EVEN HAVE TO DO ANYTHING

im trying to remember what the fuck even happened here im clearly. underwater, i think maybe i like. confronted him and he got hostile but i jumped off the pier and the guards were like “woah that guy’s losing it” and intervened but he fought them too or something ??? ??  I DONT KNOW BUT THE GUARDS KILLED HIM FOR ME :’) thanks guys 

then after everything we still kept the contract, and... the new plan.... was for me to sneak onto the emperor’s ship before he leaves skyrim and kill him there.... WHICH I COULD HAVE FUCKING. DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE. THIS IS SO MUCH EASIER THAN... KILLING SOME OFFICIAL’S SON AND PLANTING FALSE EVIDENCE AND TRACKING DOWN THE GOURMET AND MURDERING HIM AND IMPERSONATING HIM TO TRY TO POISON THE EMPEROR AND IMPLICATING A RANDOM CHEF WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AND

EVERYONE IS DEAD!!!!! WE COULD HAVE AVOIDED ABSOLUTELY ALL OF THIS. WAS ASTRID GETTING ME ALL MIXED UP IN THIS WILD GOOSE CHASE ON PURPOSE FROM THE BEGINNING ?? ? ? SORRY!!! IM ANGRY

i got all the way here without anyone even seeing me (i used a couple invisibility potions for the really tricky spots, but still) i could absolutely have just done this and avoided the entire everything. god 

anyway i again dont really understand the politics of skyrim but. the real emperor was expecting me to find him one way or another. he had already accepted his death and made peace with it. it was. actually kind of sad. i dont know enough to say whether he was actually a decent guy or not but he seemed like he was. i couldnt bring myself to steal his clothes so i still just have the duplicate emperor’s clothes but it looks the same anyway

i took a war axe from one of his displays though. i dont remember if i already mentioned my ongoing tradition of always taking something from my victims and enchanting them later to mark who it belonged to, but thats a thing ive been doing. little murder scrapbook

im not really sure how murdering the emperor counts as “serving the empire” but sure ok 

i also killed this guy lmao the emperor’s last wish was for me to kill whoever it was that betrayed him and i dont like this dude in the first place so i was like yea you got it 

i built a memorial with the weapons rack in my room in the dawnstar sanctuary

enchanted special weapons for each of our fallen members (left to right it’s astrid, arnbjorn, festus, gabriella, and veezara) (i also later added another dagger for lis bc i had one space left) 

theres also gemstones on the floor beneath each weapon but they keep sliding out of place :’ | 

ANGEL DARLING SONG OF MY HEART LIGHT OF MY LIFE YOU’RE ALIVE

you can see the game autosaving in the corner bc i had Just come out of the sanctuary lmao thats how lightning fast i reacted to this 

[sobbing] baby boy.... baby.... i was SO WORRIED

i murdered the fucking emperor of skyrim bc i was so desperate to continue this questline to see if cicero would come back I DID ALL OF THIS FOR YOU.....

(he pranked me and pretended he was gonna kill me at first. i almost lost it thinking he STILL wouldnt forgive me but it was ok :’) u got me, ) 

sniffs...... best friends forever........ this is the best possible outcome this is all ive ever wanted it was all worth it for this 

we got our window back!!!!! also ft cicero subtitle photobombing me with his boundless enthusiasm for murder but i forgive him 

oof we also have... a bunch of torture victims hanging around now too :’ ) oh

i kinda feel bad about them but there doesnt seem to be an option to let them go, 

i mean i could just kill them all i guess. i killed one guy to see if i could. you Can. his body is still there. nobody seemed to care that i killed him

I TURNED AROUND AFTER NAZIR SAID THAT AND CICERO’S JUST. LOOKING AT ME LIKE THIS,

i fuckign love this cute little shit. what the fuck. this is such justice too everyone was so rude to him, everyone made fun of him and talked down to him, everyone wanted him dead after he went after astrid, but she sold us out and got everyone killed, he was RIGHT, and now hes the right-hand-man to the Listener who is now ALSO the leader of the brotherhood. he’s basically second in command to the entire organization now and nobody can do a goddamn thing about it bc they all KNOW not to fuck with me now 

i also realized hes taller than me and i dont like it, :’)

im still deciding medea’s taller than him anyway i dont care. she would be taller than the character model is allowing for

he likes to randomly start singing/humming really off key/dancing around its SO cute.... im lov him...............

darling..... calm down, :’) 

hes so completely devoted to me now im in pain

i realized i could tell him to go to sleep and he actually did it the absolute madman 

he gets up if you try to sleep beside him though

i mean. not that i tried that or anything

he stands SO close to me all the time.... i turn around and hes right there beaming adoringly at me. i cant do this 

he kept saying mother needed some flowers so i took him out to collect some nightshade for her n dropped them around her feet 

“whats the point of thievery lol like..... just kill them?????? stupid” 

having cicero constantly two feet behind me jus making cute comments and/or half singing The Weirdest Shit I Have Ever Heard is absolutely delightful 

ur so cute when you’re threatening people

he also hates the forsworn see we’re in sync

I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE AGAIN

me, the leader of the brotherhood, in full brotherhood armor, with cicero following right behind me giggling to himself about murder:

[iicewitch]

☕ real boy

a playlist for @stevenrcgers​ link to playlist: here tracklist and favorite lyrics below

1. blood, sweat and tears - bts   Peaches and cream, sweeter than sweet Chocolate cheeks and chocolate wings But your wings are wings of the devil In front of your sweet is bitter bitter 2. brainchild - everything everything A good thing Now you think about it, don't you make it real? The bad thing, maybe it's a feeling I don't want to feel But love is all you need to know But love is all you need to know

3. dumb dumb - red velvet

Like a mannequin Everything is so awkward I should just act like I do normally But whenever I see you, I act so stupid Like my little brother’s robot Everything is so awkward What do I do? I think I’m broken I forgot even how to breathe 4. the zombie song - stephanie mabey And I'd try not to bite and infect you because I'd respect you too much And that's why I'd wait until we got married Oh, and our happiest days would be spent Picking off all your friends and they'd see A love this deep won't stay buried

5. real boy -  lola blanc Every time we touch your hands are colder, colder There's no beating coming from your wooden chest Frozen grin, a mannequin When I get closer I can see the strings there underneath your vest 6. who do you want to be ? - oingo boingo Who do you want to be today? Who do you want to be? I think I'll be a teddy boy, I think I'll be a hunk I think I'll be a tough guy and I think I'll be a punk I might just be a fashion star all dressed in frilly rags Or perhaps, I'll cross the other side and walk around in drag! 7. under my skin - jukebox the ghost I can fit two people under my skin Yeah, I can fit two people under my skin And I will prove it if you will listen You crawled up in there, you joined me within I can feel your heart beating under my skin And the beating of your heart is making me bleed from within 8. mr. capgras encounters a secondhand vanity: tulpamancer's prosopagnosia - will wood and the tapeworms Damn, I thought you’re not your imposter. You’re so sure you’re not gonna get caught! Dead in your own skin, but you didn’t choose what you were born in! And another man in your repertoire, ready in your head and fed upon your memoirs Still the same rules apply from the birthday to the mourning What you feel and what you do; are those things really you? And if not, then what is?  9. breaking out - the protomen If you can hear my voice outside these walls (If you can hear me) If you can hear me sending out this message tonight Then break the silence, send a signal back (If you can hear me) I'm coming, all I need is a little guiding light...

10. roaring 20s - panic at the disco Maybe I'm overjoyed, maybe I'm paranoid Designer me up in straight jackets My tell-tale heart's a hammer in my chest Cut me a silk-tied tourniquet This is my roaring, roaring 20's 11. evelyn evelyn - evelyn evelyn We grew up closer than most Closer than anything, closer than anything Shared our bed and wore the same clothes Talked about everything, spoke about so many things 12. looking glass - the birthday massacre A boyish notion of false emotion These words are spoken despite my love A fool's devotion was set in motion My eyes are open now

13. play dead - the birthday massacre Thinking hurts and thoughts don't rhyme To those of us who've never tried To find a face behind our lipstick smiles And as our pretty faces die Our broken hearts will wonder why The makeup just won't hide the scars of time 14. lets fall in love - mother mother There's a game in the world A little bit of cat and mouse With the boys and the girls And if I had to ante up I'd bet on the birds 'Cause they don't have to walk around With the boys and the girls 15. o my heart - mother mother And I pour my heart a new foundation But it don't set hard it just stays shaking And I scratch my name I scratch my name in But it don't set hard it gets mixed back in Oh my heart, it's a fish out of water  16. body - mother mother Take my teeth, tear through my cheeks And take the nose go and dispose Oh would you go dispose, just go dispose 'Cause I've grown tired of this body A cumbersome and heavy body 

17. touch up - mother mother I am a makeover queen A swan out of duckling Ugly duckling you're drowning In makeup (in makeup) My makeup (my makeup) Has washed off 18. roman holiday - nicki minaj Take your medication, Roman Take a short vacation, Roman, you'll be okay You need to know your station, Roman Some alterations on your clothes and your brain

19. replicant - they might be giants You've got his eyes Same exact smile All that he has All this will be yours  20. happy days - GHOST Oh, it’s painful My heart is quite a mouthful I’ll tear it out for you I’ll be the sacrifice for you Y’know, things could go exactly how you want it I’d be exactly how you want me Use what’s left of my soiled personality I’m all yours, I’ll do anything 21. girls on film - duran duran 'Cause the crowd all love pulling dolly by the hair By the hair And she wonders how she ever got here As she goes under again Girls on film (two minutes later) Girls on film Girls on film (got your picture) Girls on film  22. nobody - mitski And I know no one will save me I'm just asking for a kiss Give me one good movie kiss And I'll be alright Nobody, nobody, nobody 

23. TT - twice I feel like crying, I don’t feel like myself This isn’t like me at all I love you so much Think I’m all grown up now I’m free to make my own choices, but why Why can’t I have it my way The more I try to push you away The more I’m drawn and attracted to you baby 24. in every dream home a heartache - roxy music Your skin is like vinyl The perfect companion You float my new pool De luxe and delightful Inflatable doll My role is to serve you Disposable darling Can't throw you away now 25. the moss - cosmo sheldrake But have you heard the story of the rabbit in the moon? Or the cow that hopped the planets while straddling a spoon Or she, who leapt up mountains, while whistling up a tune And swapped her songs with swallows while riding on a broom 26. green - todrick hall Green! Is a way of life And the millions would kill to see their name up in the lights For the green is okay tonight But be careful what you wish Because you might get what you like 27. guy.exe - superfruit Oh I, wish I could synthesize a picture perfect guy Oh I, oh I Six feet tall and super strong, we'd always get along Alright, alright Oh, he'd pick me up at eight and not a minute late Cause I don't like to wait, no Kind and ain't afraid to cry or treat his momma right 28. the dismemberment song - blue da kid  Well once upon a time that's where the clock begins And right after the end Well, that's right where the plot thins And I've got no angel to keep me in line! So I'm taking your narrative and I'm making it mine! 29. me!me!me! - teddyloid I’ve worked hard for myself - What have you done for yourself? When you notice the scattered pieces of the mirror You’ll realize I wanted you to notice Is this still going on? Is this still happening? Even though I’d been waiting for you Even though I loved you 30. alone together - fall out boy My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broken Do you wanna feel beautiful, do you wanna, yeah I'm outside the door, invite me in So we can go back and play pretend 31. get busy living or get busy dying - fall out boy This has been said so many times that I'm not sure if it matters But we never stood a chance And I'm not sure if it matters If you are the shores, I am the waves begging for big moons I'm mailing letters to addresses in a ghost town  32. hi it’s me - ashnikko When I'm with you I have amnesia, I'm weaker than before My stupid brain thinks that I need you, I'm eager to hurt more My best friend thinks that I'm a dumbass My dumbass should be a little more cautious I slip up, I text you, I forget That you were so so disrespectful 33. i’m poppy - poppy Welcome to the new world, I'm your internet girl Open up and you'll see, everyone is happy I like your technology, can you put it on me? The future is so pretty, we're living in harmony 34. idola no circus - neru Come, let’s dance all night in our naked bodies We know, we know your true nature Again putting on a fake face, You’re just like a pierrot ! It’s time to put a mask, a mask On your unsociable faced 35. shine - casey lee williams But baby, it's time to make up your mind I think that tonight is when our stars align Honey, it's time to leave the doubt behind Take my hand 'cause you and I are gonna shine 36. one thing - casey lee williams I was nowhere, I had no one, I felt nothing Lost without a voice and on my own Then a candle's flame brought a brand new name But now you've stolen everything And I'm all alone 37. sweetest cure - hugo What the hell am I s'posed to be Choose a world over me Sitting pretty in my mess On the phone I can't confess Word's out somehow You're the sweetest cure I never got to tell you 38. bang bang bang bang - sohodolls Teacher says that I've been naughty I must learn to concentrate But the girls they pull my hair And with the boys I can't relate Daddy says I'm good for nothing Mama says that it's from him Manic sister thinks I'm cracking Brother says it's in my genes 39. helpless - phillipa soo One week later I'm writin' a letter nightly Now my life gets better Every letter that you write me I'm helpless! He's mine, that boy is mine! Look into your eyes And the sky's the limit, I'm Helpless! Helpless! Down for the count, and I'm drownin' in 'em 40. lifeboat - laurence o’ keefe Everyone's pushing Everyone's fighting Storms are approaching There's nowhere to hide If I say the wrong thing Or I wear the wrong outfit They'll throw me right over the side 41. chase the morning - sarah brightman In you is a world of promise We have both been kept in bondage But you can learn from all my failures Let your life be your dream Integrity, honesty, its too late for me Don't look back till your free to chase the morning 42. no reason - leslie kritzer Everything, everything happens for a reason Be a beacon of light in the world Put a little "alright" in the world There are spiritual guides above Look up and see 'em Perception is reality Just listen to the melody the universe sings 'Cause everything, everything happens for a reason 43. i love play rehearsal - stephanie hsu I love play rehearsal 'Cause you are equiped with directions and text Life is easy in rehearsal You follow a script so you know what comes next Anywho, the point that I'm getting to Is sometimes life can't work out in the way It works out in the play 44. your song - elton john And you can tell everybody this is your song It may be quite simple but now that it's done I hope you don't mind I hope you don't mind That I put down in words How wonderful life is while you're in the world 45. the party goes with you - lindsay mendez And when we're dancing nose to nose Darling do you suppose, darling do you suppose This party could be just us two, and I your wife? Oh, oh, the gayest party, sad but true It's true The party goes with you The party goes with you 46. half jack - dresden dolls It's half biology and half corrective surgery gone wrong You'll notice something funny if you hang around here for too Long ago in some black hole before they had these pills to take it back I'm half Jill and half Jack 47. the secret - pierces Got a secret Can you keep it? Swear, this one you'll save Better lock it in your pocket Takin' this one to the grave If I show you, then I know you Won't tell what I said 'Cause two can keep a secret If one of them is dead 48.  connect - claris My heart awakes in order to depict the future Even if I come to a halt on a tough road The beautiful blue sky always waits for me Therefore I'm not afraid I won't be disheartened anymore no matter what happens 49. simple and clean - hikaru utada Hold me, whatever lies beyond this morning Is a little later on Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all Nothing's like before 50. mountains - message to bears  And we could run away Before the light of day You know we always could The mountains say, the mountains say And we could run away Before the light of day You know we always could The mountains say, the mountains say

[tawneybel]

The holy month of No Nut November is not observed on this blog. 

Did I ever mention how much I love Halloween socks? It takes self-control not to buy a dozen pairs each year. But if you don’t get ones that actually say “Halloween” or have pumpkins on them, you can wear them whenever.

Okay, last personal post I said I would talk about Stranger Things 3. First, here’s a list of other stuff I’ve watched:

Murder on the Orient Express 2017

Crooked House 2017

Hills Have Eyes 2 

Sleepwalkers (Charles Brady is going on my husband list.)

Slither (But the infestation was not sexy, not sexy at all.) 

Body Snatchers (Billy Wirth is actually hotter [to me] in this than The Lost Boys.)

Halloween: Resurrection 

Rocky III

Halloween II 2009 (Caught up with this franchise, finally.) 

Leatherface

Pet Sematary 1989 (Debating whether or not to watch Pet Sematary Two, but I definitely want to watch the remake.) 

Thir13een Ghosts (Had no idea this was a remake. The Torn Prince is kinda cute.) 

Orphan (Actually pretty terrifying.) 

The Blob 1988 (I’m surprised I preferred the original.) 

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Finally! Bubba’s grunts and yelps are oddly endearing.) 

Suzie, Do You Copy?

It’s a good thing I watched the recap. Steve’s still great. Guys who are good with kids are sooo hot. That’s why dads are hot.

I wish I could hang out at the Starcourt Mall with its synth music. :( Some people don’t like how this series employs so much eighties nostalgia pandering. I don’t see the problem. 

The Mall Rats

“Yeah, well, boyfriends lie. All the time.” Who hurt you? Besides Lucas. Communicate! Then dump his a/s/s if need be. As for those supposedly mean girls, all they did was give you a look! Don’t blow the drinks up in their faces! Imagine if Eleven had manually done that. It would be considered bullying. :/ 

I want Mrs. Wheeler’s swimsuit and El’s dress with the black background. And I want to get glamour shots to “Material Girl.” But my favorite thing about this episode was the possession. It was a really, really pleasant surprise. 

The Case of the Missing Lifeguard

Ralph Macchio? Yesss. When I was thirteen, I watched The Outsiders and I’ve liked him since. Also, Bill Gambini from My Cousin Vinny.

The Sauna Test

Look at all those infested townspeople. Yes, good.

The Flayed

The characters are kind of mean to each other. :( But Steve finally won a fight!

E Pluribus Unum

Flayed!Billy’s speech: “Don’t you see? All this time we’ve been building it. We’ve been building it… for you./“All that work… all that pain… all of it, for you.”

Also, today Dustin would be considered a Brony. 

The Bite

I like how El and Mike worked on their issues. Illegally hanging out at a grocery store after hours with some friends seems fun. Steve making fun of Robin’s crush was one of my favorite scenes this season: “She sounds like a Muppet giving birth.”

Eleven badassedly using telekinesis to get that thing that burrowed under her skin. 

Alexei died, which sucked. But I laughed when Murray said, “I left for a stupid corndog.” It sounded like he got food before looking for Hopper and Joyce. 

The Battle of Starcourt

I wish a Flayed dude would carry me over his shoulder. But like, without knocking me out first. And without carrying me to danger. 

Dustin/Suzie might become my Stranger Things OTP in season four. Their rendition of “The NeverEnding Story” was so beautiful. Eventually I will watch that movie. 

Nice to see Keith again. I WANT TO WORK IN AN EIGHTIES VIDEO STORE. :( Thanks, Netflix.

Song of the Day: “Bigger Hole to Fill” by The Hives.

[theabominableblogger]

My Reaction to “Birds of Prey“

*in best Roman Sionis impression*  WHOOO!

Figured I might as well FINALLY watch it.  On with the show!

*silently jams to the opening logos*

This animated intro is great.

*snorts at the little animation of how an egg gets fertilized*

Why is this animated Joker a different (and actually better) character design than what we got in Suicide Squad?  Were we robbed of Letoker in full Joker suited glory?  I think we were.

“Behind every successful man is a badass broad.”  *points at screen in agreement*

I love Harley’s freaking rainbow apartment

The hyena!

This movie has the same amount of color saturation as “Pulp Fiction”

Freaking Bernie the Beaver is holding her tissues!  We stan supportive friends!

*gasp* Cass!

This guy [Roman’s driver] looks an awful lot like Jon Hamm and that is never gonna go away

“It’s not a party without a little drama!”  I love Ewan McGregor

*snorts in hilarity when Harley turns to address the audience about how much she doesn’t like Roman in front of Roman*

“Do give the Joker my [Roman] best.”  Uhhh....

*jams the crap out to “Boss Bitch” by Doja Cat*

*laughs at Harley drunkenly giving relationship advice to a female bust in the club*

“Some people have the Eiffel Tower.  Or Olive Garden.”  Can we please hear the stories about Gotham’s Olive Garden?

Oh that shot [of Harley walking away from the Ace Chemicals explosion] is great

[Four Minutes Ago]  *snorts in hilarity*

So far I actually really like Rosie Perez as Montoya.

Huntress!

*Huntress kills the mob people in the flashback*  That was awesome.  And the way Montoya steps back and forth to investigate the body is great.

“Harley Quinn just called open season on herself.”  And oop.

God, seeing Ewan as Black Mask is really gonna throw me off but man this is gonna be a great performance.

*jaw drops in horror when Zsasz removes someone’s FACE*

JESUS CHRIST HOLY SHIT RATED “R” HUH?!?

“Is that a snot bubble?”  Shit!

OHHHHH THAT SHOT OF ROMAN WITH THE MASK ON!!!  AAAAAAHHHH!!

The SATURATION IN THIS MOVIE

Also the soundtrack and aesthetic in this movie is very... “Suicide Squad”-esque

Man that sandwich looks good

*jaw drops when Harley accidentally throws her sandwich into the road*

Also they de-saturated everything again hahaha

Oh my gosh that guy [”Happy”] is HUGE

[GRIEVANCE:  COSMETIC VANDALISM]  Yeah, that sounds about right

“Par-ley??”  *snorts*

Her [Montoya’s] shirt....

Also why is she wearing that shirt at work?

This movie is giving me huge Tarantino vibes

Why does the actor that plays Montoya’s boss looks familiar?

Oh!  He’s Rufus in “Supernatural.”  Bobby’s kinda buddy!

“Ms. Montoya, we do have a dress code.”  There we go.

They are really just going back and forth in the timeline to cover everything, aren’t they?

Harley’s using nonlethal rounds?

The action set pieces in this movie so far are awesome.

*says “Run, piggy, run!” along with Harley*

Of course Dinah is singing “This Is A Man’s World”

Also I’ve seen like a 20 second Twitter compilation of Roman saying the f-bomb and it’s glorious

“We could make our own family.”  Oh snap.

WAIT THAT’S THE GUY WHOSE FACE ZSASZ REMOVED!

Does... Roman... like Dinah?  Like... that?  Or is this manipulation?

*chuckles when drunk Harley slides up next to Dinah at the bar*

*gets very uncomfortable at a guy trying to take advantage of a drunk Harley*

C’mon Dinah...

What’s the song playing here [when Dinah’s beating up the guys in the alley]?

Uh whatcha doing in the corner there, Zsasz?

“Oh sooongbirrddd?”  Noo...

Did I just see a street sign that said “ANUS”?

So is Cass faking a broken wrist or does she actually have a broken wrist?

So far my favorite characters are Montoya and Dinah.  Not gonna lie.

*has to muffle laughter when Roman does the mmkay hand sign* 

“I mean, I like crossbows!”  *giggles*

Holy shit, Zsasz is jealous of Dinah.

“Look at his little ears, the little haircut...”  *insane giggling*

ZSASZ IS DYING IN THE BACK I LOVE THIS SONG

Dinah is clearly rethinking some life decisions while looking at that statue of Roman

*jams out to “Sway with Me” by GALAXRA*

*Cass robs Zsasz of the diamond*  WHOOP!

*winces when Roman does acupuncture*

“SHE’s a chILDDD!!”  *laughs*

ZSASZ

Ho shit that shot of Roman on top of the stairs looking down at Harley

“VOTED FOR BERNIE” HAHAHA

*Harley completely derails Roman’s villain monologue*  THIS IS AMAZING

HE [Roman] GOT A BOWL OF POPCORN

*Zsasz licks Harley’s cheek*  EEUUUGGGHHH!!

Did that goon just pull a tampon out of Harley’s pocket?

I’M SORRY CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE PICTURE OF NUDE ELEANOR ROOSEVELT?

*gasps when Roman backhands Harley across the face*

OH HERE WE GO

HOLY SHIT THIS IS GREAT

ROMAN IN THE STRIPED SUIT

THE CHOREOGRAPHY

WHY WAS IT SO SHORT I LOVED IT

Where is this cover at on the official soundtrack?!?

“I’ll give you ‘til midnight.”  Hold on, hold on, what’s the timeline for this movie?

Harley’s just booking it in the background

Aaaand we’re back at the beginning!

Aaand there’s Harley!

Wait there’s about an hour left and we just now got to Harley meeting Cass?

CONFETTIIIII!!

Is she just using paint bombs on all the guards?

Harley, trying to enter the cells:  I AM PRESSING.  EVERY BUTTON.  I CAN FIND.

Why would they put Cass in the cell block with all the adults?

OH HALSEY!  COME THROUGH!

*Harley slides across the floor to knock a guy down*  OHHHH!!!

Daniel Pemberton’s orchestral score for this movie is reminding me an awful lot of “Into the Spiderverse”

Is that Katana’s sword?!?  How the hell did it get there?!?

WAIT SHE’S GONNA HUFF THE COCAINE?!?

Jesus, now THIS is Harley’s fighting style!  Holy crap!

*gasps when Harley gets kicked back and knocks off a car door off its hinges*

*jaw drops*  SHE JUST SET THAT DUDE’S BEARD ON FIRE

How does everyone seem to know where Harley is?

*Smash cut to Harley buying laxative for Dinah in the store*  Hahahahahaha!

“I do not care that you’re [Cass] a kid.”  Yeah, Harley, didn’t you uh... assist in the murder of Jason Todd in this universe?  Hmmm???

Wait so how long ago have Harley and the Joker been together?

Doc calls Harley “lotus flower”!

Those are the nuns from the school in the beginning!

She is actually... talking to the beaver

“[Joker] Sounds like a dick.”  I mean, yeah.

Also I just realized that Harley drew an actual dick in the Joker drawing’s mouth

HUNTRESS!

OH NOW WE’RE GETTING INTRODUCED TO HELENA!

*eyes widen in shock at the Bertenelli massacre*

*chuckles at the smash cut to Helena practicing in the mirror*

*Roman sees someone laughing in the club*  Oh no.

“Get on the table.”  Uh.

Oh no what is he doing?

“DANCE, ERICA!”  Ohh.  Shit.

“Take your dress off.”  *jaw drops in horror*

God, I cannot watch this.  Holy-

*has to avert eyes*

*Roman stops Dinah from leaving*  NO.

“You soothe me, little bird.”  AHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

OK, I can take a breather now.  Ohhhh my God...

They’re [Harley and Cass] really just having a girl’s night

BRUCE, NOOOOO!!!

“No one knew we were here except-”  DOC SOLD THEM OUT!

“This next bit ain’t very pretty.”  Oh boy.

“I [Roman] own this town.  You have my protection.”  Mmmmm... no?

Whoa this super dramatic cover of “Hit Me with Your Best Shot”

OH HE’S [Zsasz] GONNA SEE THE TEXT SHE [Dinah] SENT [to Montoya]!

*Roman starts to break down*  Oh.  Shit.

OH THIS MUSIC

*Roman puts the mask on*  OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

OH THIS IS GREAT

Also of course Joker and Harley had a hideout in Amusement Mile

*winces when Montoya punches Harley right in the boob*

*Harley kicks Montoya out the window*  Oh she dead

*gasps*  Zsasz!

Man that sideways shot of him is terrifying!

OH FRICK NO

JESUS I DON’T LIKE THIS

So is it implied that Zsasz only kills women or what?  I thought he was an equal opportunity killer?

“That’s why he [Roman] needs me [Zsasz] to look after him.”  Dude.

...did they just kill Zsasz?

Everyone except Harley is pointing guns at each other and all I’m thinking of is that scene from “The Office”

*snorts in hilarity for Harley clapping for Helena completing her kill list*

Oh Roman just brought a whole freaking army

OHHHH HE’S GOT THE MASK

Oh this music *chef’s kiss*

Oh my God is Roman gonna find Zsasz’s body?

Oh that crane shot out of the lair and back outside?  That’s some good shit.  Cathy Yan, I see you.

“I [Helena] DON’T HAVE RAGE ISSUES!”  DINAH’S FACE!

*Helena pounces on a goon in the slide down and kills him*  Geez that’s awesome

This whole set is great

*Helena gives Cass her old toy truck*  THIS MAKES ME SAD

Yeah when did Harley have time to put on her skates?

Some dude just gets shanked then leaps back up

That fight scene just went by real quick

*gasps when Roman shoots Montoya*

*jaw drops when Dinah does the Canary Cry*

*Harley gets sideswiped by one of Roman’s goons*  Yeah no there’s like half a rib cage gone

*Harley works on overtaking one of Roman’s goons’ car*  CRAZY TOWN BEEP BEEP!

*Harley backflips onto the top of Roman’s car*  OHHHH!

Founders Pier... geez that looks great

Wait are those all Roman’s goons just lining the dock or are those just statues?

Oh they’re all statues.  That’s creepy.

“exCUUSEE me?!?”  *snorts in hilarity*

*jaw drops when Cass tucks a grenade in Roman’s coat and activates it*

*still shocked when he FREAKING EXPLODES*

I’M SORRY THEY JUST KILLED OFF BLACK MASK

*Cass finally goes to the bathroom*  Finally!

“Does she always [Montoya] talk like the cop in a bad 80s movie?”  *laughs*

Guys Helena is great

*laughs when Helena laughs at the fact that Harley stole Dinah’s car*

“They call themselves the Birds of Prey.”  Yay!  Lemme see them again!

Harley’s jacket has a bedazzled vagina on the back of it

Look at Cass with her jacket and sunglasses!

“Yeah, I made the kid my apprentice.”  Yeah, that’s not gonna last long.

[nenesleepyhead]

Original/blank post here

answers to

⚰️ horror movie ask game 🔪

a nightmare on elm street: top 5 fav songs rn?

Stabbing in the dark, thanks god it’s Friday, IT is the end, animals (these four by Ice Nine Kills) and the last one the Ukrainian Eurovision 2021’s entry Shum by Go_A

hellraiser: do u have any tattoos/piercings? do u want any?

Double no on that, I like them on others but simply I can’t envision myself with them

the texas chainsaw massacre: what’s ur favorite food?

Fruits and anything with mushrooms or sweets :3

my bloody valentine: are u in a relationship/do u have a crush?

Nope and nope, I’m single and happy right now

scream: what’s ur favorite movie?

A tie between Freddy vs Jason, Halloween (1978) and Wrong Turn 4

carrie: if u could have any superpower, what would u pick?

Regenerative/healing powers for sure, especially since I bump often on forniture and it’s very useful in general ✨

the shining: do u prefer warm weather or cold weather?

Cold weather, I can always put other clothes on to feel warmer but I can’t skin myself if it’s too hot

us: if u could change one thing about urself, what would it be?

My body build I’ll say the height it’s alright but I’m always struggling trying to loose some weight uff 🤔

jaws: what’s something u wish u were good at?

I really don’t know what to write, maybe being good at NOT procrastinating 🤔

hereditary: do u drink, smoke, or do drugs?

Absolutely not, for smoke and alcohol I don’t even like the smell so I never wanted to try them, and if in some food there’s alcohol I spit it out since I can’t stand the taste, (when people gift my family with chocolate I always double check if there’s alcohol in them) and drugs never seen the appeal or such so never tried them either but that’s me what other people do it’s up to them u.u

nosferatu: do u have a lot of friends?

Just a few but they are all great friends and that’s what matters u.u

friday the 13th: do u believe in astrology?

On some degree yes

child’s play: have u ever committed a crime? what was it? *adjusts wire* if not, would u ever commit a crime?

Nah and I don’t plan on committing any

frankenstein: what’s ur favorite website?

A tie between Tumblr and Instagram but just because are the one I use the most

suspiria: what’s ur favorite book?

Sabriel, the first of a trilogy and its as good as unknown

re-animator: are u neat or messy?

Neat and messy, neat with works relate things but my bedroom desk is a mess, all the rest of my things are super neat and my computer it’s full of folders just to be able to easily found anything

the ring: if u could visit/live anywhere in the world, where would u?

I would keep living here in Switzerland but I want visit Scotland, Ireland and Japan :3 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇯🇵

midsommar: show ur lock screen + home screen!

I draw myself my Lock Screen and my Home Screen it’s a fan art I found years ago of one of my all time favourite manga character, Nakano Makoto from Kyou kare ore wa!! (Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the artist nor I could find it but if you know who made it let me know so I can credit them properly :3)

halloween: what’s ur favorite holiday?

I’ll say Hollywood even tho here we don’t celebrate it, I just love the vibes and the various decorations

silence of the lambs: what’s something ur looking forward to?

I’m always looking forward to go out and eat sushi with my friend or just have a movie night with them at my place :3

the exorcist: are u religious?

Nope I’m an atheist even tho my mum is a Christian (even tho she don’t practice it) but yeah I mean religion it’s not a big deal in my family my father just don’t care. Plus from my mum family we probably would have been called witches since it’s a common thing for the women of the family to “have the gift”, being good with tarot cards, having premonitory dreams and so on u.u (aka I’m proud to have inherited those ability)

paranormal activity: do u believe in ghosts/demons/aliens/magic/anything paranormal?

Sure I live with a couple of ghosts and like written above it’s quite a normal thing in my family (from my mum’s part)

saw: give a controversial opinion >:3

Eh not really my thing plus I don’t know what to say .-.

alice, sweet alice: what would u describe ur style as?

Dark-ish but I wear mostly large and comfy t-shirts with things i like on them (music bands, characters, games, or so) with skinny black jeans, but depending on the mood of the day I can be more punk-ish or more goth-ish

the fly: what is ur biggest fear?

Height u.u it’s the only fear I got

the evil dead: do u have any weird/obscure interests?

Research demonology and those kind of things

the vvitch: what’s ur favorite historical time period? (without the old-timey bigotry)

Victorian u.u love the dresses and the art style and just the vibe of it but especially the clothes 👀✨💙

psycho: do u collect anything, or want to? if so, what?

Action figures and stones as onix, ruby, and so on

night of the living dead: what’s ur fav hobby?

Writing, reading, drawing and sewing

the blair witch project: what’s ur biggest pet peeve?

Bad table manners for sure it’s just a thing I can’t stand

alien: what character do u relate to a lot?

I’ll say Jason, I love to live near the nature and being left alone to relax and chill and I don’t talk so much. And I’m very shy with new people irl

invasion of the bodysnatchers: how do u think ppl see u? how do u see urself?

Others probably see me as a shy short weird woman. I see myself as a chill person who enjoy the company of her friends

house: do u have any pets? do u want any?

Yup a cat who I love my old boy Kira 💙

the thing: what’s ur job? (or dream job if u don’t work?)

A freelance Illustrator but right now it’s so difficult for me to find work offers here in Switzerland .-.

final destination: what’s something everyone else hates, but u love?

In my family/friend group: things horror’s related

rosemary’s baby: what’s something everyone else loves, but u hate?

In my family (my sisters and mother, not really my father) romance movie, I can’t stand those movies (if the love story it’s just marginal it’s okay but if it’s what the plot is all about I just can’t, I would die of boredom)

[themusicjerk]

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica

I was stopped once again on my way to Travis’ house to return his Sex Pistols CD. At this rate, I doubt he’ll ever get it back. He should be thanking me. My friend April saw that I was feeling pretty beaten up, and asked me what the matter was. “A Tribe Called Quest,” I told her. “They’re awful. It’s the same thing over and over again for an entire hour. And don’t get me started on the Sex Pistols.” She was surprised that I was even listening to music - me, the Music Jerk, who only knows three songs and hates all of them, and she said that if I wanted music that wasn’t afraid to try new things and go off the beaten path, I should listen to Trout Mask Replica.

I’m a little more willing to trust April, being of the fairer sex, after all. Perhaps listening to this CD will finally convince me that good music is out there. From my research, it seems that Captain Beefheart, Drumbo, Antennae Jimmy Semens, Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton, and The Mascara Snake got together because of their undeniable rock star names, and Beefheart locked them all in a mansion until the album was absolutely perfect. “Perfect,” “new,” “good,” I have high hopes for this record. April wouldn’t even tell me what genre it was. So here goes nothing.

...

.........

......

.................

What in God’s good name is this garbage?????

So the first track on this album is called “Frownland” which seems to be exactly where I am being transported as I listen to this. Beefheart’s scratchy, off-key pseudoblues singing is a vain attempt to add melody or order to what I can only describe as a cat walking across a synthesizer and a guitar falling down stairs. As soon as “Frownland” ends, Beefheart begins sing “The Dust Blows Forward ‘n the Dust Blows Back,” without any support whatsoever from his Magic Band. Perhaps they all died in the great massacre that was “Frownland.”

I’ve listened to bad music before, but this is insulting. Dom and Travis at least had the good sense to give me CDs that I didn’t immediately recognize as instruments of torture. This is like a conversation with a homeless person that you didn’t know you were starting but that now you can’t escape from.

Off-beat drums and dissonant guitars return as Beefheart attempts to sing “Dachau Blues.” I say ‘attempt’ because the melody and rhythm are all over the place, and I cannot believe that anyone was locked anywhere in an attempt to make this perfect, unless of course they were so malnourished and traumatized by the whole experience that they forgot their original point. Then again, I would think trying to make good music would be akin to spinning gold from straw. The middle of this song has what sounds like the humming of an electromagnet, which I can only imagine is another way in which Beefheart is torturing his band.

Their tortured screams can be heard in “Ella Guru,” in fact even being used as what I can only suppose is supposed to be the chorus of said song. The scary bit is that I’m only seven minutes into this CD and there’s two of them. That’s right, April gave me this torture device and it comes with two discs. It will be a chore and a nightmare to try to even put the second disc in the player, but I will hold out hope that something here pulls back, says “haha gotcha,” and actually lays off my eardrums.

The squealing of elephants and deflated balloons that is “Hair Pie: Bake 1″ is not that, though. “Hair Pie: Bake 1″ is about the exact opposite of everything that a theoretical good music should be. Imagine you’re at the pier, and you hear the foghorn of a ship, but there is a booger caught in the horn and so the foghorn is whistling in and out of its tone. That’s “Hair Pie.” Halfway through, guitar and drums come in as if to try and convince me that this “song” has rhythm, but neither the guitar nor the drums are playing in time with each other. The best thing I can say about this “song” is that at least Beefheart isn’t trying to sing anymore.

Then, there’s about a minute of some guy rambling about an octafish, whatever that is. Dead air, um, dead air. This gives way to “Moonlight on Vermont,” which is the closest thing to an actual song I’ve heard all day. The drums and guitar are actually playing the same rhythm (for the most part) but Beefheart’s incoherent screaming still grates the eardrums like nails on a chalkboard. The guitar meanders and seems to confuse trying to find the right note with artistry. 

“Gimme that old time religion,” Beefheart repeats over and over with no regard to meter or rhythm. I’m having flashbacks to Johnny Rotten’s “Holidays in the Sun,” which, with all due respect is better than anything else on this record.

“A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, you got me?”

No, Beefy, I don’t got you.

“Pachuco Cadaver” is somehow the most generic song I’ve ever heard, as it sounds like it was written in an elementary school music class. It also sounds like it was played by elementary schoolers, because despite its very basic chord progression, we’ve again returned to none of the instruments playing in time, and Beefheart has given up any attempt to make a melody as he now rants about everything and nothing all at once on top of instruments playing whenever they feel like.

Oh goodness, they have somehow managed to combine saxophones with geese, my two least favorite noises in the world. Next time a fascist regime seeks to take over the world, they should hire these guys as interrogators. I would talk so fast.

To April’s credit, this is unlike anything I’d ever heard. At this point, though, I’m no longer surprised by it. I’m just waiting for it to be over. There is nothing here that could be construed as pleasant or exciting. To call it listenable is an overstatement.

“Oh lady look up in time, oh lady look out of love And you should have us all or you should have us fall”

My favorite bits, if favorite is even the right word to use, are when it sounds like he’s finally shutting up, like at the end of “Bills Corpse,” but the disorganized alarm tones of “Sweet Sweet Bulbs” prove that he’s not done yet.

“Neon Meate Dreams Of A Octafish” makes about as much sense as the title does. Beefy has now taken a step further away from melody. Now, he is literally just shouting gibberish in my ear while the guitar and drums do their own independent things. This is what it would sound like if Jack Torrance made a record. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We’ve brought back the elephants. Is there no end to this torture?

“China Pig” sounds like it was recorded from a bathroom. Even the recording engineer couldn’t stomach this and had to retreat and record from a distance. Maybe this album would sound better if I retreated and listened from a distance, by which I mean, put the album to continue playing in my room while I run as far away as possible and disassociate myself with my exfriend April.

Maybe that’s a little harsh, but if April, or Travis, or Dom, or any of you had my best interests at heart, you would not be torturing me like this. I’m not a big sports guy, but I “get” sports. I see the appeal of sports. It’s competition, it’s hometown pride, it’s a way for local underdogs to become massive heroes, and it’s exciting to see how it plays out. If music is just people angrily shouting over people who don’t know how to play instruments, like everything I’ve been listening to over the last few days, then I must confess, I don’t “get” music. I was sort of hoping, honestly, that this project would open my eyes, but it really hasn’t. It’s just confirmed what I already knew.

Oh, “My Human Gets Me Blues.” I guess the engineer is out of the bathroom. Let’s see, what can I say about this? Uh. It has no melody and I don’t know what the guitar and drums are trying to do. I could probably fake my way through the rest of this album just saying that about every song. But maybe, I’ll suffer whatever aneurysm possessed the band to record this album later on and suddenly I’ll become a music fan.

“Dali’s Car” is a guitar solo, which is good, because it means that there are no drums or vocals for the guitar to be playing out of time with. Though, I should clarify: “Dali’s Car” is not a guitar solo which is good. Commas are important. It, like everything else on the record, seems to be dissonant chords and random notes at random times. And that’s the first disc.

It didn’t even end. The randomness of the notes means that the last note on the first disc sounds like the middle of a phrase. I just... I have to listen to the second disc. I need to know *what* April could possibly hear in this. Give me a minute.

First disc reflections: It’s awful. This is what schizophrenia must feel like. It should be illegal to call this music. This makes the Sex Pistols look like talented men, and A Tribe Called Quest poetic. Is that what music is? Listening to music so bad that you can apologize for music that is less bad? Seems like a situation with no winners. Is the only way to win to not play the game? And yet I’ve committed to this, and the last note of “Dali’s Car” has not given me any sort of satisfactory resolution. Here I go. Disc two. Wish me luck.

“Hair Pie: Bake 2???” Was the first one not bad enough??? At least this one doesn’t have so many elephants and deflated balloons. Actually, this one doesn’t sound too bad. I think it’s happening. The aneurysm is happening. Maybe I need to go run laps or something. Focus. Wow. That jarring key change just knocked me out of whatever hypnotic trance they just placed on me. Make no mistake: this is bad. It is clear and evident that the band have no idea what they are doing.

If I hear the phrase “fast and bulbous” one more time I swear I’m going to start saying it too.  When a hostage or prisoner begins to develop a friendly relationship with their kidnapper, that is called Stockholm Syndrome, which seems to be developing in my brain in a “fast and bulbous” manner. I did not ask to be here, but here I am, stuck.  

Oh my goodness. “Pena” is the Spanish word for “pain” in the metaphorical “pain-in-the-neck” sort of way. Well, that’s what the song “Pena,” is. Gone is any possible inkling that this music might be good. The tortured squealing of whoever-this-is has returned me exactly to where I was on the first disc. It’s like they knew that prisoners become numbed to torture, so they’re still thinking of new ways to break me.

Beefheart singing “Well” sounds like a song a prisoner might sing - sung by my jailer, it is both painfully ironic and borderline abusive. 

“Thick black felt birds a-flying With capes of solid chrome With feathers of solid chrome And beaks of solid bone,”

Did these words mean anything when Beefy wrote them or were they always word salad?

“When Big Joan Sets Up” is the culmination of everything terrible about the album, with offbeat instrumentals and an extended goosaphone solo. I’m three minutes into this song and it sounds like the guitarist is just trying to end it already, but the bassist wants to keep playing for some reason. The geese are getting angry. I don’t like angry geese.

“Is she a boy?” No. Next question.

“What do you run on, Rocket Morton?” “I run on beans. I run on LASER beans.”

Sure you do.

I will not lie, the bassist on “Fallin’ Ditch” is actually making an effort to play something with a melody. If only the guitarist, drummer, and singer were on the same page. As it stands now, we have a decent bass line - not great, but something you might hear on People’s Instinctive Rhythms and the Paths of Melody - now being tortured by the strangling mess that is the rest of this album’s production.

“Sugar ‘n Spikes” again features an attempt at a hook. I think I know what Beefy’s game is, and why April thinks this is a good album. The first disc is so bad that no matter what they throw at me in the second half, it has to sound better by comparison. “Big Joan” and “Pena” notwithstanding, I must admit that I am much happier than I was half an hour ago. 

But then I think about listening to “Ant Man Bee” on purpose. I think if I ever heard this by itself, on its own accord, I would have post-war flashbacks. The other albums I’ve listened to were bad, this is traumatic. This upsets my brain chemistry. When this album ends and I can see the world in color again, I’ll wonder how I ever smiled listening to the insane ramblings of a man with a terrible name. But even the saxophone has started to become a familiar edge to hang onto for me. Oh, saxophone that sounds like a deflated balloon, we’ve been through so much, you and I. Remember that time on “Hair Pie (Bake 1)” when you were the worst thing ever? Good times, good times.

If I listen to “Orange Claw Hammer,” enough, my vocabulary will become fast and bulbous. Havin’ t’ shine a wallet f’r a hamm’r, ‘llbe my career. Man with olives f’r eyes off’rs me a chicken f’r my troubles, but th’ chicken won’ stop singin’.

Hold on, you mean to say you can’t even pronounce the word “licorice?” No, no, no. I’ve still got one foot in reality, and I will stand my ground. I’ll not be pulled into the vortex that is the gibberish dream of Captain Beefheart. Remember “The Dust Blows Forward ‘n The Dust Blows Back” when this was the worst thing ever? Good times, good times.

No! Not good times. I will not have this aneurysm. Not today. Objectively, there is nothing good about any of this. I should never have started calling him “Beefy.” That’s where this all started. There is no difference between “Wild Life” and “Frownland” except that “Wild Life” has more geese. But it’s become familiar, now. I’ve been trapped here, listening to Trout Mask Replica for so long that it has become the only life I’ve ever known.

You know what, besides Captain Beefheart, is fast and bulbous? Cancerous tumors. That’s the best comparison.

“She’s Too Much For My Mirror,” is introduced as ‘famous,’ because at this point, had I not one foot in reality, I might actually believe that this song is well-known, well-liked, or well, anything. If April is trying to brainwash me, or hypnotize me, or I don’t know what, I swear to Beefy that I will put her in a chokehold and make her listen to an entire CD of me reciting Mad Libs over a Casio keyboard drum loop because only then will she understand the psychological torment that this album is putting on me.

hobo chang ba hobo chang ba hobo chang ba hobo chang ba hobo chang ba

“it’s the blimp, Frank! it’s the blimp!” Time is nothing. My room is nothing. There is no anything. All there is a trout, a mask, a replica, and a blimp. A mothership.

“Steal Softly thru Snow” and “Old Fart At Play” are the same sort of thing. It’s been almost eighty minutes and now I am craving to hear Beefheart talk about farts because it is the only remote pleasure I know in this torture chamber that is Trout Mask replica. When I am finally freed from this war camp, I will need to be entirely reeducated on proper human etiquette and civilization. How April manages to uphold herself as a functioning human being after listening to this, I don’t know.

The only outcome I can imagine where this album does not cause a human to become a stark raving lunatic is one in which the hypnotic spell of the goosaphone does not affect the brain. And if the brain is not affected, how anyone could enjoy or recommend this advanced instrument of psychological warfare is beyond me.

“Veteran’s Day Poppy” slowly decays into a complete wall of noise, before the guitar and drums slow down, and then, if we weren’t hypnotized yet, play the same cacophonous riff over and over again, getting more and more aggressive until the end of the record. And just like that, it’s over. I’m done. I hear birds chirping outside my window.

Whew, boy. I don’t think April is getting this back. I think this is going straight into the shredder where it belongs.

Captain Beefheart died, tragically, in 2010. I’m gonna dig him up and kill him again. One death is not enough to suffer for this crime against humanity. While I’m out, I should probably give Travis his CD back, and apologize for the mean things I said about his music. I had no idea.

If you think music is good, send me music, and I will tell you why you are wrong!

[oadara]

It irks me when people say that Dany is nothing without her dragons. GRRM described her as a warrior Queen some years ago. He compared her to Nymeria the warrior queen from Dorne. I can't find the source but I do remember reading it. I wonder how Martin feels when people try to deminish one of his favorite characters? He must take some offense or something.

Hey anon,

I’m sure GRRM is used to it by now, but I think he probably laughs to himself when people are so off about one of his characters. 

Regarding Dany, her dragons are in a way a symbolic representation of her own power. People who say she’s nothing without her dragons don’t understand the character and quite frankly have a really shitty memory. Her dragons did not make her strong enough to survive and get the respect of Drogo, or to cross the Red Waste, or to come up with the entire plan to sack Astapor without anyone’s help, or her plan to make Yunkai put down their swords with minimum bloodshed. He dragons are not what inspires her people or keeps them loyal to her, it’s her and fight to free the slaves and to treat them like people. 

It’s funny that you mentioned Nymeria because I was discussing with a friend the many similarities Dany shares with her. GRRM has compared Dany to Nymeria (who is Dany’s ancester from her great-great-grandfathers marriage to Mariah Martell) on a couple of occasions. Here is one: 

In particular, given that Nymeria was a warrior-queen, is there a certain amazon tradition?

“The Rhoynar did impact Dorne in a number of ways, some of which will be revealed in later books. Women definitely have more rights in Dorne, but I would not call it an “Amazon” tradition, necessarily. Nymeria had more in common with someone like Daenerys or Joan d'Arc than with Brienne or Xena the Warrior Princess.”

I found this fantastic comparison between Dany and Nymeria, I’ll quote my favorite parts but you can find the discussion here: (The bolded are quotes from the books.)

The refugee, the nomad, the woman wearing the literal skirt and metaphorical pants

“In the songs, Nymeria is said to have been a witch and a warrior; neither of these claims is true. Though she did not bear arms in battle, she led her soldiers on many battlefields, commanding them with cunning and skill.”

Dany is doing the exact same thing. She’s a warlord that’s not a warrior. And yes, you can be a warlord with absolutely no skill at arms, else Dany wouldn’t be called Aegon the Conqueror with teats.

Now let’s skim over Nymeria’s general history as it applies to Dany so far.

“Only Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar spoke against him. “This is a war we cannot hope to win,” she warned, but the other princes shouted her down and pledged their swords to Garin.”

In AGOT, Viserys is dreaming his fool dreams about re-taking Westeros with Dothraki. Dany knows better. She’s also somewhat skeptical of the Dothraki taking Westeros from the start, mostly thanks to Jorah Mormont educating her.

“The same fate awaited her own city, she saw.”

Nymeria runs for it after Valyria massacres the Rhoyanar men.After Drogo dies, Dany hatches her invaluable dragons. She’s also left with few Dothraki, and she has to flee from various Khals (on top of her constant running from Robert).

“Nymeria’s voyage was long and terrible.”

The difficulty of the Red Waste corresponds to this.Then, Nymeria had her Odyssey: Rhoyne -> Basilisk Isles -> jungles of Sothoryos -> Isle of Naath -> Summer Isles (Isle of Women).She couldn’t stay in any of these places, because~

“(…) arrived at Yeen to find that every man, woman, and child in that haunted, ruined city had vanished overnight.”

Haunted (to the eye) ruins, like the House of the Undying?

“The sullen wet heat oppressed their spirits, and swarms of stinging flies spread one disease after another (…)”

and

“On Naath, the Isle of Butterflies, the peaceful people gave them welcome, but the god that protects that strange land began to strike down the newcomers by the score with a nameless mortal illness”

Illness, like the Bloody Flux outbreak? Also, Missandei - one of Dany’s main helpers - is a friendly girl from Naath Dany finds somewhere at the halfway point of her journey.

“Basilisk Isles (…) only to fall afoul of the corsair kings (…) carrying off hundreds into slavery.”

and

“new towns on Basilisk Point were raided by slavers,”

Well, what do you know, Dany’s slave liberation campaign isn’t working out so well. In fact, seemingly half of the slaving Essos is sending armies against her in ADWD - Yunkai, Qarth, New Ghis, Tolos, Elyria, Volantis, the Harpies within Meereen itself.

“In the Summer Isles (…) its thin stony soil yielded little food, and many starved.”

As Dany approached Meereen, the slavers put the land around it to torch to starve her out. She still took the city, but many of her people are nonetheless starving.

“The battered, tattered remainder of the ten thousand ships sailed west with Princess Nymeria. This time she made for Westeros.”

Dany at the end of ADWD:

“Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy’s city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you.”

The once and future queen

Back to Nymeria and why I think Dany will do well in Westeros~

“Dry, desolate, and thinly peopled, Dorne at this time was a poor land where a score of quarrelsome lords and petty kings warred endlessly over every river, stream, well, and scrap of fertile land.”

Wet, desolate and overflowing with corpses, at the end of ADWD Westeros is a fucked-up continent where a score of quarrelsome lords and petty kings war endlessly over everything. Euron, Tommen, Aegon, Stannis, KINGINDANORF? are just the Kings we have. (Does the Night King count?)

“Most of these Dornish lords viewed the Rhoynar as unwelcome interlopers, invaders with queer foreign ways and strange gods, who should be driven back into the sea whence they’d come.”

Yeah, Dany will have barbarians, slaves (you think Westerosi can notice they have no collars?), the infamous Imp, dragons, a trail of burning enemies behind her. She won’t get warm reception from most.

…

And they lived happily ever after

Well, probably not. I don’t see how GRRM will keep Dany on Nymeria’s track without breaking his tone.

“Though she married twice more (first to the aged Lord Uller of Hellholt, and later to the dashing Ser Davos Dayne of Starfall, the Sword of the Morning), Nymeria herself remained the unquestioned ruler of Dorne for almost twenty-seven years, her husbands serving only as counselors and consorts.”

I suppose that in a certain way, Mors can also work as Drogo, old Lord Uller as lame King Hizdahr, and the Sword of the Morning as… Jon NOT DARKSTAR, because I refuse to contemplate the possibility of Darkstar (she already did Bad Boy Daario). The husbands as consorts works for Hizadhr, and whomever her prophesized 3rd husband is, Dany will be leading in her own right - Drogon, Dracarys! helps there.

“She survived a dozen attempts upon her life, put down two rebellions, and threw back two invasions by the Storm King Durran the Third and one by King Greydon of the Reach.”

Dany already survived at least 4-5 attempts on her life - AGOT wineseller, ACOK manticore and arguably Undying, ASOS Titan’s Bastard, ADWD Poizdar do Loqust. I also don’t see Stannis bending to Dany, same for Tyrells who’ll stay with Tommen Lannister. Other possibilities for revolting kingdoms are Dorne (the irony!) and Iron Islands.

…

That was pretty awesome, there are more quote at the link if you want to read all the parallels between these awesome women. 

I will add one thing regarding Nymeria’s 3 husbands vs. Dany’s 3 husbands.

Nymeria’s first husband (Mors Martell) came from a people who are famed for their horses (Dorne), Dany’s first husband came from a people famed for their horses (Dothraki). 

Nymeria’s second husband came from Hellholt (Lord Uller), which is symbolized by a sort of fiery yin-yang thing, it’s half this and half that, it’s divided basically. Dany’s second husband was symbolized by the Harpy, half woman, and half bird. 

Finally, Nymeria’s third and final husband was Ser Davos Dayne the Sword of the Morning, I do wonder if the Sword of the Morning will play a role in the books as it has been mentioned a lot. And whether Jon will use it or not. Jon does have a connection to an actual Sword of the Morning in Author Dayne. And of course, there is the whole War for Dawn thing going one. 

Sorry, I hijacked your asked but yeah, Dany doesn’t need to wield a sword to be kickass, just look at her very kickass ancestor Nymeris. 

TTFN

[bring-me-bellarke]

The 100 Ask

Tagged by @griffinnblake ! Thanks, Lindsay! Honestly, what a blast this was.

rules: answer as many as you want if tagged and then tag three more people OR just reblog it and treat it as a regular ask meme!! have fun xoxo

1. What would you get arrested for on the Ark?  Probably for punching a guard or something, tbh. Maybe starting underground resistance (yikes)

2. Would you take off your wristband when you landed on the ground?  Maybe. 

3. What would the necklace Finn would make for you look like? (Clarke: deer/Raven: a raven duh..)  Probably a fist or some sort of cool resist sign. 

4. If you could resurrect any MINOR character who would it be?  WELLS JAHA DESERVED BETTER. (close second would be Anya) (close third would be Ilian)

5. Create a squad of 5 characters to go on missions with. Who are they? Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, Monty, Miller.

6. Minty or Briller?  Mintyyyyyy all da way. Briller just never did anything for me. 

7. What would your name be in Trigedasleng? (example: Octavia=Okteivia…just make it up!)  Jessei, Jessai, i have no idea. 

8. Thoughts on Finn? I’ll be honest, I was blind when I first started watching and thought Finn was a good guy...until Raven showed up and was like WTF ....and then he massacred a bunch of people. Then I looked back and realized how manipulative he was with Clarke, and what a shitty person he was in general.

9. Be honest. How willing would you have been to take the chip without knowing all the horrible things it does? I don’t think I would have. It wouldn’t really appeal to me. I could see myself giving in if someone I loved was threatened (like Clarke with Abby, I would’ve folded like a lawn chair)  

10. What character do you relate to most & What character do you like the least not including the obvious ones like Pike, etc… I relate to Clarke and Raven the most. I’m bossy and serious like Clarke, but also sassy and passionate like Raven. The character I like the least was (don’t bring out the pitchforks) L/xa. To me, from day 1, she was too bland of a character. It’s like she was always putting on this brave facade that I just never bought into. But I truly love ADC and she’s awesome. I just didn’t believe all of L/xa’s dumb philosophies and thought she wasn’t a good leader. Also, Octavia was on my most hated from the moment she laid her hands on her brother (i will never be over that. bitter 2kforever)

11. Describe your delinquent outfit. (Would you wear something like Murphy’s jacket with the spikey red shoulder patch or have a trademark like Jasper’s goggles? Be creative, yet practical)  I probably would have had a patchy black leather jacket, gray t shirt that read Space Sucks, combat boots, black ripped up jeans, and the jacket would’ve had RESIST stitched onto the back in big letters (or maybe a patch). I like to think I would’ve been a total badass but who knows. 

12. Favorite type of mutant animal?  I don’t think we saw many besides two-headed deer, pauna, and maybe some panthers? Oh, wait! Glowing butterflies, those were cool.   

13. What would your job be on the Ark? Oooooh, I don’t know. Sounds weird, but I would’ve liked to work in the archives/library, making sure all the history was preserved (sounds like a Bellamy thing, I know). But tbh, I probably would be jailed for starting a resistance as a side gig. 

14. Would you have willingly pumped Ontari’s heart if Abby asked?  I’m squeamish, but I would’ve done it to save Clarke (and everyone else in turn). 

15. If Lexa wasn’t Heda, then who would make the best commander?  Hmm, good question. Well I loved Anya and think she could’ve. I think Luna might’ve if she’d given up her weird ways and NOT BEEN TOTALLY RUINED in s4. ALSO LINCOLN (RIP IM NOT OVER IT). If all 3 could’ve led as like a council, that’d be fire. 

16. If you were a grounder, then where would you live and who would be your mentor? Oh god, I don’t know the tribes. Maybe Trishanakru (sp?) just cause Ilian’s such a hottie and it would’ve been cool to be friends. 

17. How would you act if you ate the hallucinogenic nuts like Jasper and Monty?  I’d probably dare everyone to go jump off a waterfall with me (but like a small one)

18. How would you have dealt with Charlotte’s crime? A more John Murphy approach or Bellamy Blake?  Uggggghhhh, this is hard. Listen, neither method worked. Charlotte wouldn’t have survived on her own and Murphy’s dumb. Maybe like a jail or something they could’ve kept her in? Idk, there’s too many things that went wrong with all that. 

19. Who should be the Chancellor, if anyone?  Anyone at all? Crap, I don’t think there should just be one, it’s too much power. I like the idea of council/committee with the mains like Bellamy, Clarke, Kane, Abby, uhh idk who else. 

20. Mount Weather had a lot of modern commodities. (example: Maya’s Ipod) What is the one thing you would snatch while there?  Headphones to escape all the drama, probably. Maybe some good hiking gear because goddammit how do they all travel through all these jungles/woods? 

21. Do you think you’d have caught the virus spread through camp or would you have been immune like Octavia?  I would’ve caught it probs. 

22. What would your grounder tattoos look like? Hairstyle? War paint? I’d have just cool geo shape tattoos probably. I’d wear a high pony because how do the girls deal with humidity/sweat wearing it down???? My hair is hella thick, so no thanks. War paint would probably just be a few lines on my cheeks, maybe diagonals. 

23. Favorite quote?  I CAN’T JUST CHOOSE ONE. OH GOD MY HEART LITERALLY HURTS AT ALL THE ONES I LOVE. (this deserves its own post tbh)

24. Can you forgive Murphy for his actions? How about Bellamy?  Murphy’s a real pain in my side. Full offense, I hate that we move on so easily from a white boy’s VERY SIGNIFICANT MISTAKES, yet poor POC Bellamy has to keep suffering from the repercussions. Like Murphy LITERALLY permanently damaged Raven’s body yet they’re cool now? Idk, I hold grudges, and I don’t think I’d be able to let it go. Kudos to Raven, ig. Though I won’t hesitate to admit that Bellamy has royally fucked up too, from the radio to the army (which happened in a season I hate altogether). It just seems like we forgive Murphy much easier than Bellamy and it kills me. Whooo, sorry for that. 

25. If one of the characters was in the Hunger Games, who would have the best shot at winning? Hmm, I was gonna say Bellamy but he’s a real softie. Clarke is sneaky and sometimes heartless, so maybe her. BUT ACTUALLY Octavia would because she’s absolutely bat-shit crazy.

26. Least favorite ship? Favorite ship? NOT INCLUDING CLEXA OR BELLARKE  Aww crap. I didn’t like Flarke. Fave ship (that never happened) was Ice Mechanic, like imagine the chemistry/hotness. Ugh, still upset about this. Fave canon would be Kabby, I guess? They’re great, but it’s weird to think Kane had Abby tortured. Idk (Y’all know I’m ride or die Bellarke). I was conflicted for a long time about Linctavia because I loved them but when you boil it down, he was way older than her and it seemed kinda Stockholm Syndrome-y? Plus, she turns psycho and he would’ve hated it. IDK ALL SHIPS ARE PROBLEMATIC DAMMIT.

27. A song that should be included in the next season, like when Radioactive was? If there had to be another guest star like Shawn Mendes on the show, who would you want to make a cameo?  Lindsay said Home II by Dotan and I 100% agree because that song is amazing and would work so well for S5. Oooh, cameos! Um CAN YOU IMAGINE IF STEPHEN KING JUST SHOWED UP OUT OF THE BLUE? Like I would die. Or Kass Morgan, the original creator! 

28. What would you do if you were stuck in the bunker with Murphy for all that time?  Honestly, I’d probably be very annoyed and want to be far away from him. BUT if we did warm up to each other, I think we’d bond over cooking (if there was any food). 

29.Opinion on Emori? Roan?  Both badasses. Kinda indifferent on them actually. Like I don’t love or hate them. 

30. Would you want to be an extra that is killed off in a brutal way?  Yeah, sure. It’d be cool if it was memorable, poignant, and really related to/impacted the storyline. High hopes, amirite? 

31. A character you’d like to learn more about and get flashbacks of? Raven, I think. All her flashbacks were related to Finn and I hated it. WHO WAS SHE BESIDES FINN’S GIRLFRIEND? Show us her mess of a mom, how her love for science started, how she became a mechanic! God, there’s so much we don’t know. 

32. A character you’d bang?  BELLAMY FUCKING BLAKE, ladies and gents.

If you made it through all this, bless your soul! BUT THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN!! I loved having to really think about the hypotheticals and what I’d do if I was in this world/show. Side note, I’ve been totally gone from this blog and not even tagging my stuff (which is where I freak out the most). I’m slowly coming back and hope April comes soon! All right, this has been long enough. I tag @littlebellarkemix & @southsideserpentine & honestly anyone who wants to (it’s a lot of fun). 

[estnormalis]

Chapter One: Apertio

IF EVER HUMANS DID NOT EVOLVE, Trevor Inskeep conceived, the world might be a whole searching for power; creating wars and hostilities to claim territories for exploration and research, studying beyond what should be, resulting in a world of chaos. But favorably, the world he lives in got everyone their unique abilities; except him; yet.

Trevor is seated upright at his desk. In front of him is the scene of the outer world from his window. A sunny Tuesday afternoon at Florence, empowering the beautiful view of Palazzo Vecchio over a golden settling skyline. Nervous that he's turning 16 in nine days, and he cannot figure out what his ability would be or if there is.

"There must be something I can do."

He rummaged through his memories of a conceivable thing he can try. Trevor remembered the boy who killed three civil guards by penetrating a metal coin through their skulls. There he laid a coin over his old-fashioned desk and sharpened his look on it, trying to make it float. And nothing happened.

Then he looked at the right side of his room, pointing a gaze at his twenty-gallon aquarium with one full-grown goldfish in it. "Hey." Thinking he might have the ability to communicate with the whole fauna. And nothing happened, again.

"Maybe I can talk to non-aquatics. Haha." Shortly kidding himself until he realized that if he has no gift at all, everything will be different.

Since 1896, when the last Homo sapiens died, there is just an inadequate number of people that are born without any special ability, and all governments detain them for research purposes- asking why would an advance specie produce an ancestral copy of itself. With the current world population of 5.13 Billion, Trevor only recalls 3 people he saw over the news that has no power. That is less than the massacres broadcasted. What a misfortune.

Then without knocking the door, Trevor's mom, Meilyn Calder-Inskeep, who luckily can arrange her larynx cells, changing her voice and copying anybody's, used her original sweet and soft voice to tell her son to continue reading the requirement book- a book required by the government for each of its citizens to read- "Historia de Humanus" by Elizabeth Patrihamm. It is printed in Meilyn's utterance that she, too, is nervous for her son who couldn't discover his gift.

"Mom, how did you discover your ability?" Trevor asked; almost mumbling. Meilyn knew that his son is afraid, and so is she.

"When I was eleven, I accidentally copied my mom's voice while she's singing her favorite song. And you know, the silliest thing I did after that is using her voice to trick my big sister to give me extra money for school." Trying to change the mood of his only child. He smiled and cautiously obeyed her mum. Maybe he can see through the past just like the author of the requirement book while he's reading.

Elizabeth Patrihamm, a French writer, is a notable Homo sanctus, classified as an Opsilon level individual. With the ability to see through the past three hundred years, she wrote the book "Historia de Humanus" giving a detailed sight of how mutation is currently accepted and be a part of human history, and also how the first gifted humans suffered.

Homo sanctus are classified into six different levels. The Classes are identified and named by an Asian scientist named Jhechell Almore in 1870.

First is the Rho(roe) Classification. Non-combative type of mutation. It can pass easily to the sight of society, meaning, no or not major physical gene alteration. Subtle and low use abilities. Faint powers. Includes Meilyn's voice changing ability, alteration of retina pattern, reworking machines without being told or even fully understanding how they work, and telepathy of just vicarious transmission of information. An estimated 51% of the population is classified as Rho.

Second is the Delta(del-tah) Classification. Non-combative but unlike Rho, their gene inheritance made their appearance different from any other Homo sanctus and it cannot be concealed. Subtle and low use abilities. Examples are Zebra skin, thick fur, lion mane, overgrown or very huge muscles, and others just have strange markings just like tattoos. An estimated 30% of the population is classified as Delta. They make up the blue-collar workers.

The third class is the Psi(sigh) Classification. Combative type of mutation. Physical characteristics are altered by the ability-casting gene and cannot be concealed. Examples would be a prehensile tail, and hands and feet membranes that can make someone cling to surfaces. It makes up the estimated 13% of the population.

The fourth is the Zeta(zay-tah) Classification. Humans with a combative type of gene inheritance and altered physique but can conceal it or can pass for a human being, but careful scrutiny reveals they have some strange trait. Once there was a human with slightly-like porcupine gene inheritance but all the spikes are retractable and are hidden beneath his skin. Makes up the estimated 5% of the population.

The fifth is the Upsilon(oop-si-lon) Classification. The high-end use of gene inheritance. Concealed power of an individual. No physical characteristics altered. This includes Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis, Energy Absorption, Weather Control, Elizabeth Patrihamm's ability to see past, and furthermore. They are almost 1% of the world population.

The sixth and the last is the Epsilon(ep-si-lon) Classification. Not specific if physical attributes are altered by the gene inheritance or not. A human that is classified as Epsilon has continental to planetary scale ability. Rarest gene inheritance; Not even 0.1% of the world population. This classification did not exist until 1987. Epsilon Classification is not discovered until the 24th of September, 1986, when a telekinetic male named Benjamin Petrov attacked the Russian Government House in the middle of peace meetings with several world leaders. He made the brain freeze- literally and intentionally- of all people in the radius 2 miles. Petrov will not be identified if the Russian secretary Shaira Henric did not send flash memories to the police 2.1 miles away before she was killed. Benjamin Petrov was never captured. Another identified Epsilon Individual is Kath Bolivar, who had control over non-organic matter at the atomic structure within the range of her vision. She tried to rearrange the city of Birmingham and execute its people just a week after Benjamin Petrov did the attack. She was killed by a single bullet, shot from the back of her head. There is no known connection between the two. Individuals under this classification are considered the most serious threats if not a benefit and are capable of wide-scale destruction if not creation.

After the massacre, all governments required each people to register their citizenship and genetic inheritance at birth if the mutation is already visible, right after they discover it, or until they turn 16 which when the gene inheritance takes its last chance to manifest. Each one must submit their birth certificate and DNA Reading Certificate that is obtained after a Laboratory has read and classified an individual's gene inheritance. If not fulfilled, there will be valuable consequences: months or even year-long court trials and a substantial fine.

Any minute from now, Trevor can discover his ability, but until the time he did or till he turns sixteen, then he will only be allowed to have his DNA read and see what's ahead of him. He paused with reading. He looked at the view of his window. At the other side of the street, there plays Mattia. A neighbor's  seven-year-old son with elf-like ears that can sense sound waves lower than 20 Hertz. Already filed as Delta individual. Mattia's ability is not a great gift, yes, it comes handy sometimes, but not as substantial as Elizabeth Patrihamm's. But Trevor still deems that the lad is as lucky enough as the famous writer of the book he's reading.

[clown-bait]

29 Neibolt ST (Monster Roommate AU) Chapter 9

Hi friends! Heres Chapter 9! Got inspired by that post awhile back about Africa by Toto being played in the sewer and Penny jamming to it. Leech is a huge music connoisseur so I head cannon that she plays a lot of Guitar Hero with Freddy. Also theres slapstick/horror comedy in this one! The story is going to get more and more comedic from here because of the characters that are soon to be involved. Bonus points if anyone can guess which monster(s) I plan on bringing in next!

Warnings: Fluff, Horror, Alcohol

chapter 9

Africa

Pennywise climbed the basement stairs of the Neibolt House in annoyance. Leech hadn't come to see him yet today and as much as he hated to admit it her visits had become the highlight of his day especially when she had the weekend off to spend all her time with him. he had noticed that the more he was around her the more her scent changed, it was something that initially drew him to her in the first place. Her scent started out faintly sweet, but ever since they became intimate it was becoming overwhelming to him. A human would probably describe the scent similar to that of a freshly baked cake or pie being shoved right up against your nose. When he first noticed it, he had caught her looking at him while they had been both been casually chatting doing their chore wheel tasks. Something about her smell changed when she smiled at him. It got worse that night she got drunk while watching movies with the gang. Leech was sitting next to him on the couch and that sweet smell drifted into his nose when she reached over him for the popcorn in his lap. It would get stronger and stronger as their interactions increased Pennywise noticing that he could draw it out of her by doing certain things like putting his hand on her shoulder, or giving her certain looks.

He tried desperately to cope with the strange new feelings, he stopped eating for a bit and avoided her as much as possible. When Dracula finally confronted him he was a confused mess and he was even more confused when the elder vampire helped him realize that this new feeling was lust. After Chucky found out about his terrible affliction the two had begun bugging him non stop about it. Their “helping” him ending up feeding his obsession and he eventually gave in, fully accepting that he had feelings for this nearly human girl. These awful feelings are even worse now having started this…..complicated thing. He found himself with a whole new mess of emotions that he had no idea what to do with other than bury them deep and hope she didn't notice.

When usually he found her Leech would be listening to music or messing with her phone in her room where he'd promptly scare her before flopping down onto her bed to annoy her further. Today however he could hear her shouting passionately at Freddy in the living room, a hobby that they both shared.

“Your ass is mine Kruger I spent an entire week perfecting this solo.”

“Sweet cheeks you weren't even born when this song came out”

The two were in front of the old tv violently playing with fake guitars in their pjs. Leatherface was behind them gleefully hitting a toy drum-set and Dracula sat amused on an old chair.

“Does anyone want to explain this to me?”

“I don't quite know what it is but they have been at this for at least 12 hours now” the vampire exclaimed motioning for the clown to join.

“Have they even slept?”

“I do not think they have, my young apprentice hasn't even fed or bathed yet. Her determination to crush my roommate at this strange musical game is quite admirable.”

“Speaking of, Drac need refreshments!” Freddy called over his shoulder as the song Free Bird headed into its big solo.

“You cant do that! I haven't had anything to eat all day!”

“You’re just mad because you're all alone in this battle. THERES NO ONE TO SAVE YOU LEECH GIVE UP” Freddy shredded on the rock band controller aggressively

“Bite my nearly undead ass Freddy”

“I’m sure the clown does that plenty for you already bitch.”

Pennywise cleared his throat.

“Oh hey Pen, you wanna be a peach and get me some fuel.” Leech said glancing over her shoulder.

“Do I look like your servant? You're perfectly capable of getting it yourself you're just too lazy to go out and practice apparently.”

“OH HE BURNED YOU GOOD BLOODSUCKER”

“There are more pressing matters at hand Penny, asses need to be kicked right now”

“More pressing matters than not starving to death?”

“I’ll live”

“Barely. You look half dead, go sleep”

“Sleep is for the weak” she said turning to him with an absolutely feral look on her face.

“You're taking a break” the clown said as he scooped her up before she could protest. He carried her off to the bathroom where he turned on the shower and pushed her in still wearing her clothes.

“PENNYWISE what the hell!”

“Get clean.”

“But?

“No you can kick Freddy’s ass later” he crossed his arms and watched her expectantly.

“Um….. are you gong to leave?”

“Need to make sure you listen dear. Come now out of those wet clothes.” he said with a lusty tone, shit eating grin now forming on his face. Leech rolled her eyes and shut the curtain causing the clown to groan in disappointment. He nearly began to leave when the curtain reopened he turned back around quickly. Leech was now holding her wet clothing in a nice little ball and a drop of drool left the clowns lips at the sight.

“Hey Penny~” she said with a seductive voice

“Y-yes?”

“Hang these out to dry douchebag” she chucked the ball at his head wet clothes landing smack on his face before the curtain shut again.

“you torture me.”

“Its my favorite hobby.”

Pennywise growled in annoyance and left to find some extra hangers. He knew he kept some somewhere in his clown room where he kept a collection of circus memorabilia. When he opened the door and was greeted with a puff of dust causing him to scrunch his nose in annoyance it'd been a while since he was up here “I’ve been slacking off” he thought aloud to himself as he rummaged for hangers. After finding what he was looking for he decided to try to tidy the place up a bit grabbing a mix tape he had acquired from some poor soul standing outside his ex girlfriends window with a boombox. The clown never really liked the songs on the tape at first but lately they've been growing on him due to….certain circumstances. A few cheesy love songs had gone by and he was halfway done, Pennywise felt himself getting carried away with the current song playing singing along while dusting off an antique mannequin. He removed the clown wig from its head glancing fondly at it now as it was reminding him of a certain almost-vampire a few doors down. The clown found himself serenading it as if it was actually her, picking it up and beginning to dance to the song Africa by Toto. Freddy walked by the door just in time and froze to watch the scene unfold before him in amusement. “My darling little Leech you know I have grown quite fond of you” the clown growled into the mannequins cheek. Freddy had to bite down on his hat to keep quiet. “Whats that? You've fallen for me as well?” The clown dipped the mannequin down kissing its chest as the song came to an end. Freddy gave him a round of applause wiping away fake tears doing everything he could not to explode in laughter. “That was beautiful Jingles.”

Pennywise dropped the mannequin. “H-how long were you s-standing there for?”

“How long have you been in love?”

“I’m not in love. I don't love.”

“You just admitted it to your doll there jackass.”

“WAIT HE FINALLY SAID IT ALOUD?” came Chucky’s voice from down the hall

“NO I DID NOT AND SHUT UP PLEASE”

“This is great, I'm going to tell Dracula he's going to flip out.” Freddy began running for the stairs

“I wish those kids actually killed me in the 80s.” Pennywise mumbled

Just then a scream of terror could be heard from the bathroom followed by a series of curses of the clowns name. “PENNYWISEEEE”

Freddy and Chucky both came back out to look at him.

“What? I'm not doing anything?”

The three monsters eyes grew wide.

“oh no…. I'm not doing anything….”  The clown whispered

He bolted to the bathroom busting down the door “LEECH! What hap-” he slipped on a puddle of…. something and comically landed on his back. When he sat up she was covered in a weird black sludge that was shooting out of the shower head and bath tub faucet. The curtain had been yanked off and she was using it as a shield from the strange substance.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT” yelled Chucky

“Also, nice butterfly tattoo under your boobs there Leech” Freddy added

“Its a moth!” Penny said from the floor.

“CAN WE FOCUS ON THE GOO PLEASE?? PEN MAKE IT FUCKING STOP”

“I told you I'm not doing it!”

Leech flopped out of the antique bathtub still clutching the curtains to herself and scrambling backwards into Pennywise as the tub began to overflow.

“AH Leech! You’re getting it all over me!” he yelled .

“PEN STRANGE BLACK GOO IS EXPLODING FROM OUR BATHTUB AND SHOWER HEAD. YOU LIVE IN THE SEWER! STAINS SHOULD BE THE LEAST OF YOUR WORRIES.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOUR SINK CLOWN” came a scream from downstairs flowed by frantic stomping up the stairs from both Leatherface and Drac

All the boys plus Leech were now staring at the massacre that was the upstairs bathroom.

“JINGLES MAKE IT STOP” screamed Chucky

“I CANT I’M NOT DOING IT”

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIFF WILL DO TO ME IF SHE COMES HOME AND FINDS ALL HER BATHROOM SHIT COVERED IN BLACK SLUDGE. I. WILL. DIE.”

Leech reached a trembling claw up to her head and pulled out what looks like a piece of scalp with long hair still attached to it her eyes began to grow wide in horror.

“IS THIS HAIR? WHY IS THERE HAIR IN IT? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT” Leech turned around and grabbed Pennywise ruffles.

“DO NOT LET IT GET ON ME THIS IS AN ANTIQUE OUTFIT” shrieked Dracula

Leatherface was hooting and crying. He Began smashing a hole in the wall in panic. Chucky did his best to calm him but ended up being thrown down the hall screaming out in pain.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR HOUSE CLOWN” Freddy was shouting.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP AND STOP BEING AFRAID I CANT FUCKING THINK WITH ALL THIS FEAR IN THE ROOM”

“YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT FOOD AT A TIME LIKE THIS??? WE ARE GOING TO DROWN IN BLACK GOO THAT HAS PIECES OF SCALP IN IT! I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE THAT CANT RESURRECT YET! IM GOING TO DIE PEN! IM GOING TO FUCKING DIE!” Leech started hyperventilating and twitching claws out now tearing at the fabric of Pennywise’s costume.

Everyone was frantically “trying” to do something to stop the sludge oozing out of the bathroom Freddy ran up to the shower with a towel in an attempt to plug it up, Dracula was backed up against the corner on the ceiling, Chucky was attempting to stand back up after being thrown like a rag doll and Leatherface was chucking anything he could at the bathroom (mostly hitting Freddy.)

“SHUT UP ALL OF YOU” Pennywise roared rising to his feet, a door materialized behind the clown and he disappeared into it slamming it shut.

“YOU FUCKER! YOU CANT LEAVE ME PEN. DONT YOU DARE ABANDON ME. GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE IM NAKED AND AFRAID AND I FUCKING NEED YOU RIGHT NOW! PENNYWISE THE DANCING CLOWN GET YOUR PASTY RUFFLED BUTT BACK HERE AND STOP THIS BLACK SLUDGE.” Leech was pounding at the wall were the door had appeared still on the floor making big black hand prints on the wall.

Suddenly everything stopped. The boys and Leech all were frozen and panting in fear and confusion. The door reappeared and Pennywise walked out sludge splattered on his costume. “Did ANY ONE here think to turn the fucking water off? No? Just Pennywise? WOW imagine that! I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO FUCKING DIDNT FREAK OUT AND MAKE THE SITUATION WORSE!!! WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT???? NOW EVERYONE GET OUT SO I CAN FUCKING FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT WITHOUT HAVING YOU SCREAMING BANSHEES TAINTING THE AIR WITH YOUR PANIC AND FEAR!” The usual yellow of the clown’s eyes were almost completely red. He was livid. Not only were his fangs and claws on full display he seemed to be even taller than before looming over everyone in the room. It was truly terrifying to behold. The gang went silent.

“C-can I at least p-put some clothes on?” Leech asked still covering herself with the shower curtain

“OUT.”

“Leaving!” she and everyone else scrambled for the door slamming it behind them.

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

Poor Penny he’s having a hard time. I totally head cannon that Pen is a secret plumbing expert since he lives in the sewers. Next chapter is going to have terrifying monster hate fucking so get hype for that friends! 

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 1999

A list with quite possibly the most embarrassing #1 yet, and considering some of the previous ones, that’s really saying something.

Also, a very, very long list of honorable mentions.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

This could have almost been a top fifteen, because holy f█cking shit look at this list of honorable mentions. I might eventually make a top 15 for some years (gosh I just finished my 2013 top and it’s a massacre of good songs, an absolute disaster, and I’m seriously considering making it a top 15 or 20 I swear), but for now, it’s still manageable.

Summer Son (Texas) - Why is this so hot. The lyrics aren’t even hot in the first place. What the hell.

That Don’t Impress Me Much (Shania Twain) - Not my favorite song from her but still very good. Fun fact, one of my English teachers was using songs as dictation exercises and that was the hardest one he ever used for that. I don’t think any of us got the Elvis line right. Also he’s solely responsible for me loving The Cure because the second song he used for this kind of exercise was Boys Don’t Cry. This has nothing to do with Shania Twain but I thought it was a fun little story to tell.

Jusqu’au Bout de la Nuit (Emile et Images) - Two French bands from the eighties team up and release a song which is composed of every single one of their hit songs from the eighties, with each chorus sung one after the other, and... it sounds great? And it charted?? My brother absolutely loved them, too. The only reason it’s not on the list is that it feels like cheating, in a way. I mean, half these songs could top some of my lists on their own. Putting them together is a dirty trick, guys! Oh well, I love you all anyway.

Baby One More Time (Britney Spears) - I really love this song and it was on the list at first, but overplay played a big role in its removal from it.

L’Ame Stram Gram (Mylène Farmer) - Has the privilege of being the first Mylène Farmer music video I ever saw in my life. Was incredibly confused but also fascinated. The song isn’t her best though, and she’s on so many of these lists that I claim self care on its removal from this one, especially because, uh... she’s still gonna appear on it anyway. Damn it.

Move Your Body (Eiffel 65) - I told you I loved stupid dance music didn’t I. Unfortunately things aren’t gonna get better as years pass. I just made a list (which is gonna be posted muuuuuuch later) where I put David Guetta six places higher than Adele. This isn’t a joke.

Save Tonight (Eagle Eye Cherry) - I genuinely love this song and it’s kinda sad I couldn’t fit it on any of the two lists where it was elligible.

La Manivelle (Wazoo) - This would NEVER have charted if La Tribu de Dana by Manau hadn’t been such an enormous hit the previous year. Not in a million years. And if it hadn’t, the world would have been a little less fun. So I’m glad. I love it and it was one of the last cuts from this list.

Kiss Me (Sixpence None the Richer) - Was also on the list at first. Was removed because it never ended on any compilation I made and that’s the only reason.

Well, that was long. Here’s the proper list.

10 - Crazy (Britney Spears)

US: Not on the list?? I was very surprised / FR: #14

So I dug up the first cd compilations I ever made for the previous list, and look what’s the first song on the third compilation I ever made!

Relistened to it, still love it to bits, put it on the list. Sorry Kiss Me.

9 - All Star (Smash Mouth)

US: #17 / FR: Not on the list

I know it’s impossible to listen to it with fresh ears after something like 15 years of memes. But it’s still damn good and a ton of fun to sing along with it.

8 - Ma Baker 99 (Boney M)

US: Not on the list / FR: #66

Where’s that photo of the cd compilation I mentioned in the previous list?

There it is.

Yep, it’s a remix, but it charted here, and it sounds and looks absolutely fantastic. I had never heard the original at the time for some reason, and that song sounded so badass. I could only understand isolated bits of the lyrics (like “she was the meanest cat in all Chicago town”, “the cops appeared too soon they couldn’t get away”, “she never could cry”) but it was enough to get a general idea, and that was back when I was starting to realise than most of the dance songs I enjoyed as a kid didn’t tell stories and weren’t about wizards and magic. So, a song about a mean woman who’s also a gangster?? I was like, wow, nice, a song I like with an actual story, give me twenty.

7 - Boom Boom Boom Boom (Vengaboys)

US: Not on the list / FR: #20

Told you I loved Vengaboys! It’s also on that third cd compilation I ever made!

Fun fact, at the time, for a while I didn’t know what the lyrics were and since I only knew a couple of words of English I was convinced a “broom” was somehow involved in the lyrics instead of a “room”.

6 - Souviens-toi du jour (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #73

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ; I used to be a huge fan of her as a teenager and my brain somehow links her and her songs in general to some dark times in my life - and so, every single time she appears on one of my lists, I feel like I’m texting an unstable ex and that things will end horribly and I probably shouldn’t do that but, ugh, can’t help it, love her too much.

Ok so the first seconds are actually painful to listen to but holy shit, that’s a beautiful, beautiful song. When the chorus swells near the end, so full of hope and light? Amazing. Chills on my arms every single time. That’s from one of her best albums, too. I have nothing more to say about it.

5 - Better Off Alone (Alice Deejay)

US: Not on the list / FR: #30

I don’t have anything to say about this one apart from the fact one of my friends around 2005 thought the lyrics were “do you think you’re better? rofl lol” and I think that’s hilarious.

Moving on to- oh shit oh no not that song

4 - Je te rends ton amour (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #97

What I said in #6 also applies here and this song is so dark it feels even worse. That song used to be very important in my life. Bad memories, bad times. Really, really bad times.

So. Uh. This is a song about a woman in a painting, who’s despising her creator, and possibly (that’s very, very open to interpretation, here’s a translation) coming out of her frame to kill him. That’s quite possibly the weirdest story I’ve ever heard in a song, and I love it. And it sounds so sinister. God, the first notes. They are so ominous. And that brief moment of silence after the bridge, right before the guitar explodes again? Horrible chills. I’m not sure who killed who or what actually happened in the story but press F to pay respects.

Also the music video has nothing to do with the lyrics and it’s absolutely terrifying and I shouldn’t have watched this at 14 because it’s kinda burned into my mind now and it will never go away and you probably shouldn’t watch it either.

If it wasn’t so inextricably linked to bad memories, this song would be #2. I still love it and listen to it but I kinda jump like a scared rabbit whenever I hear it by surprise and it should come with its own trigger warning as far as I’m concerned.

3 - Narcotic (Liquido)

US: Not on the list / FR: #99

This is barely elligible. But I’m so, so glad it is. These chords right there? Love them. Love. Them.

Also here’s a fun story about this song and me. At first, I was like “oh wow, I can only understand one word out of five, but this sounds badass.” Then a couple of years later I was like “oh. Oh no. It’s about drugs.” And THEN a few years later I was like “oh shit oh no. It’s about sex.” But no, now that I can understand everything, it’s just a breakup song. It’s okay.

2 - Where I’m headed (Lene Marlin)

US: Not on the list / FR: #24

Ok so. Uh. I just realised this song was called Where I’m headed and not, as I believed for literally 18 years, “Pass By”. I had never checked. I have it on several tapes and several cd compilations, always labelled Pass By. It’s also called Pass By on the mp3 I still have in my playlist. I know I’m in the wrong here and probably never checked what the title was but I still feel like there’s been a glitch in the matrix. What happened.

Anyway. Fantastic song. Love it.

Now let’s embarrass myself beyond all hopes of redemption.

1 - Blue (Eiffel 65)

US: Not on the list (...yet. #49 in 2000) / FR: #2

So. Uh. Yeah.

Blue by Eiffel 65 was, for a long, long, LONG time, my favorite song ever.

See? This is one of my oldest lists of favorite songs.

Another one from several months later.

A cd compilation of my favorite songs ever, which I made around 2003 or 2004 as well, with a booklet with lyrics entirely copied by hand and with every page painstakingly illustrated with panels and characters from my favorite comic at the time, Horologiom.

You open the booklet, and look at that, Blue is the second song right after Children.

This silly song which lists blue things and has a nonsensical chorus and one of the dumbest music videos of the entire 90s was, indeed, for years, my favorite song ever. Why. How. Well, first, please remember I am, in fact, a sucker for dance music and electronic music ESPECIALLY when a piano is involved, but this isn’t at all why this song was special to me (and still is, actually).

As I already mentioned, music has colors to me and guess what’s the dominant color of this song? Yepppppp. This is one of the bluest songs ever made even if there’s a little black, yellow and green here and there - the only song I can think about right now which out-blues it is Derezzed by Daft Punk.

And I can’t even begin to explain how SATISFYING a blue song called “Blue” listing blue things and which has an extremely blue music video is.

I know. It’s an embarrassing #1 even for 1999. It took me a long time to post this list partly for this reason. But I wouldn’t be honest if it was placed at any other position. It’s stupid, it’s repetitive, it’s meaningless. I absolutely love it and I’ve loved it for twenty years.

Deal with it.

Next up: the year when I actually started to buy cds with my own money, with debatable results.

[unsettlingshortstories]

Nightcrawlers

Robert McCammon (1984)

1

“Hard rain coming down,” Cheryl said, and I nodded in agreement.

Through the diner’s plate-glass windows, a dense curtain of rain flapped across the Gulf gas pumps and continued across the parking lot. It hit Big Bob’s with a force that made the glass rattle like uneasy bones. The red neon sign that said BIG BOB’S! DIESEL FUEL! EATS! sat on top of a high steel pole above the diner so the truckers on the interstate could see it. Out in the night, the red-tinted rain thrashed in torrents across my old pickup truck and Cheryl’s baby-blue Volkswagen.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose that storm’ll either wash some folks in off the interstate or we can just about hang it up.” The curtain of rain parted for an instant, and I could see the treetops whipping back and forth in the woods on the other side of Highway 47. Wind whined around the front door like an animal trying to claw its way in. I glanced at the electric clock on the wall behind the counter. Twenty minutes before nine. We usually closed up at ten, but tonight—with tornado warnings in the weather forecast—I was tempted to turn the lock a little early. “Tell you what,” I said. “If we’re empty at nine, we skedaddle. ’Kay?”

“No argument here,” she said. She watched the storm for a moment longer, then continued putting newly washed coffee cups, saucers, and plates away on the stainless-steel shelves.

Lightning flared from west to east like the strike of a burning bullwhip. The diner’s lights flickered, then came back to normal. A shudder of thunder seemed to come right up through my shoes. Late March is the beginning of tornado season in south Alabama, and we’ve had some whoppers spin past here in the last few years. I knew that Alma was at home, and she understood to get into the root cellar right quick if she spotted a twister, like that one we saw in ’82 dancing through the woods about two miles from our farm.

“You got any love-ins planned this weekend, hippie?” I asked Cheryl, mostly to get my mind off the storm and to rib her too.

She was in her late thirties, but I swear that when she grinned she could’ve passed for a kid. “Wouldn’t you like to know, redneck?” she answered; she replied the same way to all my digs at her. Cheryl Lovesong—and I know that couldn’t have been her real name—was a mighty able waitress, and she had hands that were no strangers to hard work. But I didn’t care that she wore her long silvery-blond hair in Indian braids with hippie headbands, or came to work in tie-dyed overalls. She was the best waitress who’d ever worked for me, and she got along with everybody just fine—even us rednecks. That’s what I am, and proud of it: I drink Rebel Yell whiskey straight, and my favorite songs are about good women gone bad and trains on the long track to nowhere. I keep my wife happy. I’ve raised my two boys to pray to God and to salute the flag, and if anybody don’t like it he can go a few rounds with Big Bob Clayton.

Cheryl would come right out and tell you she used to live in San Francisco in the late sixties, and that she went to love-ins and peace marches and all that stuff. When I reminded her it was 1984 and Ronnie Reagan was president, she’d look at me like I was walking cow-flop. I always figured she’d start thinking straight when all that hippie-dust blew out of her head.

Alma said my tail was going to get burnt if I ever took a shine to Cheryl, but I’m a fifty-five-year-old redneck who stopped sowing his wild seed when he met the woman he married, more than thirty years ago.

Lightning crisscrossed the turbulent sky, followed by a boom of thunder. Cheryl said, “Wow! Look at that light show!”

“Light show, my ass,” I muttered. The diner was as solid as the Good Book, so I wasn’t too worried about the storm. But on a wild night like this, stuck out in the countryside like Big Bob’s was, you had a feeling of being a long way off from civilization—though Mobile was only twenty-seven miles south. On a wild night like this, you had a feeling that anything could happen, as quick as a streak of lightning out of the darkness. I picked up a copy of the Mobile Press-Register that the last customer—a trucker on his way to Texas—had left on the counter a half-hour before, and I started plowing through the news, most of it bad: those A-rab countries were still squabbling like Hatfields and McCoys in white robes; two men had robbed a Qwik-Mart in Mobile and been killed by the police in a shoot-out; cops were investigating a massacre at a motel near Daytona Beach; an infant had been stolen from a maternity ward in Birmingham. The only good things on the front page were stories that said the economy was up and that Reagan swore we’d show the Commies who was boss in El Salvador and Lebanon.

The diner shook under a blast of thunder, and I looked up from the paper as a pair of headlights emerged from the rain into my parking lot.

2

The headlights were attached to an Alabama state-trooper car.

“Half-alive, hold the onion, extra brown the buns.” Cheryl was already writing on her pad in expectation of the order. I pushed the paper aside and went to the fridge for the hamburger meat.

When the door opened, a windblown spray of rain swept in and stung like buckshot. “Howdy, folks!” Dennis Wells peeled off his gray rain slicker and hung it on the rack next to the door. Over his Smokey the Bear trooper hat was a protective plastic covering, beaded with raindrops. He took off his hat, exposing the thinning blond hair on his pale scalp, as he approached the counter and sat on his usual stool, right next to the cash register. “Cup of black coffee and a rare—” Cheryl was already sliding the coffee in front of him, and the burger sizzled on the griddle. “Ya’ll are on the ball tonight!” Dennis said; he said the same thing when he came in, which was almost every night. Funny the kind of habits you fall into, without realizing it.

“Kinda wild out there, ain’t it?” I asked as I flipped the burger over.

“Lordy, yes! Wind just about flipped my car over three, four miles down the interstate. Thought I was gonna be eatin’ a little pavement tonight.” Dennis was a husky young man in his early thirties, with thick blond brows over deep-set light brown eyes. He had a wife and three kids, and he was fast to flash a walletful of their pictures. “Don’t reckon I’ll be chasin’ any speeders tonight, but there’ll probably be a load of accidents. Cheryl, you sure look pretty this evenin’.”

“Still the same old me.” Cheryl never wore a speck of makeup, though one day she’d come to work with glitter on her cheeks. She had a place a few miles away, and I guessed she was farming that funny weed up there. “Any trucks moving?”

“Seen a few, but not many. Truckers ain’t fools. Gonna get worse before it gets better, the radio says.” He sipped at his coffee and grimaced. “Lordy, that’s strong enough to jump out of the cup and dance a jig, darlin’!”

I fixed the burger the way Dennis liked it, put it on a platter with some fries, and served it. “Bobby, how’s the wife treatin’ you?” he asked.

“No complaints.”

“Good to hear. I’ll tell you, a fine woman is worth her weight in gold. Hey, Cheryl! How’d you like a handsome young man for a husband?”

Cheryl smiled, knowing what was coming. “The man I’m looking for hasn’t been made yet.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t met Cecil yet, either! He asks me about you every time I see him, and I keep tellin’ him I’m doin’ everything I can to get you two together.” Cecil was Dennis’ brother-in-law and owned a Chevy dealership in Bay Minette. Dennis had been ribbing Cheryl about going on a date with Cecil for the past four months. “You’d like him,” Dennis promised. “He’s got a lot of my qualities.”

“Well, that’s different. In that case, I’m certain I don’t want to meet him.”

Dennis winced. “Oh, you’re a cruel woman! That’s what smokin’ banana peels does to you—turns you mean. Anybody readin’ this rag?” He reached over for the newspaper.

“Waitin’ here just for you,” I said. Thunder rumbled, closer to the diner. The lights flickered briefly once … then again before they returned to normal. Cheryl busied herself by fixing a fresh pot of coffee, and I watched the rain whipping against the windows. When the lightning flashed, I could see the trees swaying so hard they looked about to snap.

Dennis read and ate his hamburger. “Boy,” he said after a few minutes, “the world’s in some shape, huh? Those A-rab pig-stickers are itchin’ for war. Mobile metro boys had a little gunplay last night. Good for them.” He paused and frowned, then tapped the paper with one thick finger. “This I can’t figure.”

“What’s that?”

“Thing in Florida couple of nights ago. Six people killed at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, near Daytona Beach. Motel was set off in the woods. Only a couple of cinder-block houses in the area, and nobody heard any gunshots. Says here one old man saw what he thought was a bright white star falling over the motel, and that was it. Funny, huh?”

“A UFO,” Cheryl offered. “Maybe he saw a UFO.”

“Yeah, and I’m a little green man from Mars,” Dennis scoffed. “I’m serious. This is weird. The motel was so blown full of holes it looked like a war had been going on. Everybody was dead—even a dog and a canary that belonged to the manager. The cars out in front of the rooms were blasted to pieces. The sound of one of them explodin’ was what woke up the people in those houses, I reckon.” He skimmed the story again. “Two bodies were out in the parkin’ lot, one was holed up in a bathroom, one had crawled under a bed, and two had dragged every piece of furniture in the room over to block the door. Didn’t seem to help ’em any, though.”

I grunted. “Guess not.”

“No motive, no witnesses. You better believe those Florida cops are shakin’ the bushes for some kind of dangerous maniac—or maybe more than one, it says here.” He shoved the paper away and patted the service revolver holstered at his hip. “If I ever got hold of him—or them—he’d find out not to mess with a ’Bama trooper.” He glanced quickly over at Cheryl and smiled mischievously. “Probably some crazy hippie who’d been smokin’ his tennis shoes.”

“Don’t knock it,” she said sweetly, “until you’ve tried it.” She looked past him, out the window into the storm. “Car’s pullin’ in, Bobby.”

Headlights glared briefly off the wet windows. It was a station wagon with wood-grained panels on the sides; it veered around the gas pumps and parked next to Dennis’ trooper car. On the front bumper was a personalized license plate that said: Ray & Lindy. The headlights died, and all the doors opened at once. Out of the wagon came a whole family: a man and woman, a little girl and boy about eight or nine. Dennis got up and opened the diner door as they hurried inside from the rain.

All of them had gotten pretty well soaked between the station wagon and the diner, and they wore the dazed expressions of people who’d been on the road a long time. The man wore glasses and had curly gray hair, the woman was slim and dark-haired and pretty. The kids were sleepy-eyed. All of them were well-dressed, the man in a yellow sweater with one of those alligators on the chest. They had vacation tans, and I figured they were tourists heading north from the beach after spring break.

“Come on in and take a seat,” I said.

“Thank you,” the man said. They squeezed into one of the booths near the windows. “We saw your sign from the interstate.”

“Bad night to be on the highway,” Dennis told them. “Tornado warnings are out all over the place.”

“We heard it on the radio,” the woman—Lindy, if the license was right—said. “We’re on our way to Birmingham, and we thought we could drive right through the storm. We should’ve stopped at that Holiday Inn we passed about fifteen miles ago.”

“That would’ve been smart,” Dennis agreed. “No sense in pushin’ your luck.” He returned to his stool.

The new arrivals ordered hamburgers, fries, and Cokes. Cheryl and I went to work. Lightning made the diner’s lights flicker again, and the sound of thunder caused the kids to jump. When the food was ready and Cheryl served them, Dennis said, “Tell you what. You folks finish your dinners and I’ll escort you back to the Holiday Inn. Then you can head out in the morning. How about that?”

“Fine,” Ray said gratefully. “I don’t think we could’ve gotten very much further, anyway.” He turned his attention to his food.

“Well,” Cheryl said quietly, standing beside me, “I don’t guess we get home early, do we?”

“I guess not. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Goes with the job, right? Anyway, I can think of worse places to be stuck.”

I figured that Alma might be worried about me, so I went over to the pay phone to call her. I dropped a quarter in—and the dial tone sounded like a cat being stepped on. I hung up and tried again. The cat scream continued. “Damn!” I muttered. “Lines must be screwed up.”

“Ought to get yourself a place closer to town, Bobby,” Dennis said. “Never could figure out why you wanted a joint in the sticks. At least you’d get better phone service and good lights if you were nearer to Mo—”

He was interrupted by the sound of wet and shrieking brakes, and he swiveled around on his stool.

I looked up as a car hurtled into the parking lot, the tires swerving, throwing up plumes of water. For a few seconds I thought it was going to keep coming, right through the window into the diner—but then the brakes caught and the car almost grazed the side of my pickup as it jerked to a stop. In the neon’s red glow I could tell it was a beat-up old Ford Fairlane, either gray or a dingy beige. Steam was rising off the crumpled hood. The headlights stayed on for perhaps a minute before they winked off. A figure got out of the car and walked slowly—with a limp—toward the diner.

We watched the figure approach. Dennis’ body looked like a coiled spring ready to be triggered. “We got us a live one, Bobby boy,” he said.

The door opened, and in a stinging gust of wind and rain a man who looked like walking death stepped into my diner.

3

He was so wet he might well have been driving with his windows down. He was a skinny guy, maybe weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds, even soaking wet. His unruly dark hair was plastered to his head, and he had gone a week or more without a shave. In his gaunt, pallid face his eyes were startlingly blue; his gaze flicked around the diner, lingered for a few seconds on Dennis. Then he limped on down to the far end of the counter and took a seat. He wiped the rain out of his eyes as Cheryl took a menu to him.

Dennis stared at the man. When he spoke, his voice bristled with authority. “Hey, fella.” The man didn’t look up from the menu. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.”

The man pushed the menu away and pulled a damp packet of Kools out of the breast pocket of his patched Army fatigue jacket. “I can hear you,” he said; his voice was deep and husky, and didn’t go with his less-than-robust physical appearance.

“Drivin’ kinda fast in this weather, don’t you think?”

The man flicked a cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame, then lit one of his smokes and inhaled deeply. “Yeah,” he replied. “I was. Sorry. I saw the sign, and I was in a hurry to get here. Miss? I’d just like a cup of coffee, please. Hot and real strong, okay?”

Cheryl nodded and turned away from him, almost bumping into me as I strolled down behind the counter to check him out.

“That kind of hurry’ll get you killed,” Dennis cautioned.

“Right. Sorry.” He shivered and pushed the tangled hair back from his forehead with one hand. Up close, I could see deep cracks around his mouth and the corners of his eyes and I figured him to be in his late thirties or early forties. His wrists were as thin as a woman’s; he looked like he hadn’t eaten a good meal for more than a month. He stared at his hands through bloodshot eyes. Probably on drugs, I thought. The fella gave me the creeps. Then he looked at me with those eyes—so pale blue they were almost white—and I felt like I’d been nailed to the floor. “Something wrong?” he asked—not rudely, just curiously.

“Nope.” I shook my head. Cheryl gave him his coffee and then went over to give Ray and Lindy their check.

The man didn’t use either cream or sugar. The coffee was steaming, but he drank half of it down like mother’s milk. “That’s good,” he said. “Keep me awake, won’t it?”

“More than likely.” Over the breast pocket of his jacket was the faint outline of the name that had been sewn there once. I think it was Price, but I could’ve been wrong.

“That’s what I want. To stay awake as long as I can.” He finished the coffee. “Can I have another cup, please?”

I poured it for him. He drank that one down just as fast,” then rubbed his eyes wearily.

“Been on the road a long time, huh?”

Price nodded. “Day and night. I don’t know which is more tired, my mind or my butt.” He lifted his gaze to me again. “Have you got anything else to drink? How about beer?”

“No, sorry. Couldn’t get a liquor license.”

He sighed. “Just as well. It might make me sleepy. But I sure could go for a beer right now. One sip, to clean my mouth out.”

He picked up his coffee cup, and I smiled and started to turn away.

But then he wasn’t holding a cup. He was holding a Budweiser can, and for an instant I could smell the tang of a newly popped beer.

The mirage was there for only maybe two seconds. I blinked, and Price was holding a cup again. “Just as well,” he said, and put it down.

I glanced over at Cheryl, then at Dennis. Neither one was paying attention. Damn! I thought. I’m too young to be losin’ either my eyesight or my senses! “Uh …” I said, or some other stupid noise.

“One more cup?” Price asked. “Then I’d better hit the road again.”

My hand was shaking as I picked it up, but if Price noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“Want anything to eat?” Cheryl asked him. “How about a bowl of beef stew?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks. The sooner I get back on the road, the better it’ll be.”

Suddenly Dennis swiveled toward him, giving him a cold stare that only cops and drill sergeants can muster. “Back on the road?” He snorted. “Fella, you ever been in a tornado before? I’m gonna escort those nice people to the Holiday Inn about fifteen miles back. If you’re smart, that’s where you’ll spend the night too. No use in tryin’ to—”

“No.” Price’s voice was rock-steady. “I’ll be spending the night behind the wheel.”

Dennis’ eyes narrowed. “How come you’re in such a hurry? Not runnin’ from anybody, are you?”

“Nightcrawlers,” Cheryl said.

Price turned toward her like he’d been slapped across the face, and I saw what might’ve been a spark of fear in his eyes.

Cheryl motioned toward the lighter Price had laid on the counter, beside the pack of Kools. It was a beat-up silver Zippo, and inscribed across it was NIGHTCRAWLERS with the symbol of two crossed rifles beneath it. “Sorry,” she said. “I just noticed that, and I wondered what it was.”

Price put the lighter away. “I was in ’Nam,” he told her. “Everybody in my unit got one.”

“Hey.” There was suddenly new respect in Dennis’ voice. “You a vet?”

Price paused so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. In the quiet, I heard the little girl tell her mother that the fries were “ucky.” Price said, “Yes.”

“How about that! Hey, I wanted to go myself, but I got a high number and things were windin’ down about that time anyway. Did you see any action?”

A faint, bitter smile passed over Price’s mouth. “Too much.”

“What? Infantry? Marines? Rangers?”

Price picked up his third cup of coffee, swallowed some, and put it down. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when they opened they were vacant and fixed on nothing. “Nightcrawlers,” he said quietly. “Special unit. Deployed to recon Charlie positions in questionable villages.” He said it like he was reciting from a manual. “We did a lot of crawling through rice paddies and jungles in the dark.”

“Bet you laid a few of them Vietcong out, didn’t you?” Dennis got up and came over to sit a few places away from the man. “Man, I was behind you guys all the way. I wanted you to stay in there and fight it out!”

Price was silent. Thunder echoed over the diner. The lights weakened for a few seconds; when they came back on, they seemed to have lost some of their wattage. The place was dimmer than before. Price’s head slowly turned toward Dennis, with the inexorable motion of a machine. I was thankful I didn’t have to take the full force of Price’s dead blue eyes, and I saw Dennis wince. “I should’ve stayed,” he said. “I should be there right now, buried in the mud of a rice paddy with the eight other men in my patrol.”

“Oh.” Dennis blinked. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I came home,” Price continued calmly, “by stepping on the bodies of my friends. Do you want to know what that’s like, Mr. Trooper?”

“The war’s over,” I told him. “No need to bring it back.” Price smiled grimly, but his gaze remained fixed on Dennis. “Some say it’s over. I say it came back with the men who were there. Like me. Especially like me.” Price paused. The wind howled around the door, and the lightning illuminated for an instant the thrashing woods across the highway. “The mud was up to our knees, Mr. Trooper,” he said. “We were moving across a rice paddy in the dark, being real careful not to step on the bamboo stakes we figured were planted there. Then the first shots started: pop pop pop—like firecrackers going off. One of the Nightcrawlers fired off a flare, and we saw the Cong ringing us. We’d walked right into hell, Mr. Trooper. Somebody shouted, ‘Charlie’s in the light!’ and we started firing, trying to punch a hole through them. But they were everywhere. As soon as one went down, three more took his place. Grenades were going off, and more flares, and people were screaming as they got hit. I took a bullet in the thigh and another through the hand. I lost my rifle, and somebody fell on top of me with half his head missing.”

“Uh … listen,” I said. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to, friend.” He glanced quickly at me, then back to Dennis. I think I cringed when his gaze pierced me. “I want to tell it all. They were fighting and screaming and dying all around me, and I felt the bullets tug at my clothes as they passed through. I know I was screaming too, but what was coming out of my mouth sounded bestial. I ran. The only way I could save my own life was to step on their bodies and drive them down into the mud. I heard some of them choke and blubber as I put my boot on their faces. I knew all those guys like brothers … but at that moment they were only pieces of meat. I ran. A gunship chopper came over the paddy and laid down some fire, and that’s how I got out. Alone.” He bent his face closer toward the other man’s. “And you’d better believe I’m in that rice paddy in ’Nam every time I close my eyes. You’d better believe the men I left back there don’t rest easy. So you keep your opinions about ’Nam and being ‘behind you guys’ to yourself, Mr. Trooper. I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Got it?”

Dennis sat very still. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that, not even from a ’Nam vet, and I saw the shadow of anger pass over his face.

Price’s hands were trembling as he brought a little bottle out of his jeans pocket. He shook two blue-and-orange capsules out onto the counter, took them both with a swallow of coffee, and then recapped the bottle and put it away. The flesh of his face looked almost ashen in the dim light.

“I know you boys had a rough time,” Dennis said, “but that’s no call to show disrespect to the law.”

“The law,” Price repeated. “Yeah. Right. Bullshit.”

“There are women and children present,” I reminded him. “Watch your language.”

Price rose from his seat. He looked like a skeleton with just a little extra skin on the bones. “Mister, I haven’t slept for more than thirty-six hours. My nerves are shot. I don’t mean to cause trouble, but when some fool says he understands, I feel like kicking his teeth down his throat—because no one who wasn’t there can pretend to understand.” He glanced at Ray, Lindy, and the kids. “Sorry, folks. Don’t mean to disturb you. Friend, how much do I owe?” He started digging for his wallet.

Dennis slid slowly from his seat and stood with his hands on his hips. “Hold it.” He used his trooper’s voice again. “If you think I’m lettin’ you walk out of here high on pills and needin’ sleep, you’re crazy. I don’t want to be scrapin’ you off the highway.”

Price paid him no attention. He took a couple of dollars from his wallet and put them on the counter. I didn’t touch them. “Those pills will help keep me awake,” Price said. “Once I get on the road, I’ll be fine.”

“Fella, I wouldn’t let you go if it was high noon and not a cloud in the sky. I sure as hell don’t want to clean up after the accident you’re gonna have. Now, why don’t you come along to the Holiday Inn and—”

Price laughed grimly. “Mr. Trooper, the last place you want me staying is at a motel.” He cocked his head to one side. “I was in a motel in Florida a couple of nights ago, and I think I left my room a little untidy. Step aside and let me pass.”

“A motel in Florida?” Dennis nervously licked his lower lip. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

“Nightmares and reality, Mr. Trooper. The point where they cross. A couple of nights ago, they crossed at a motel. I wasn’t going to let myself sleep. I was just going to rest for a little while, but I didn’t know they’d come so fast.” A mocking smile played at the edges of his mouth, but his eyes were tortured. “You don’t want me staying at that Holiday Inn, Mr. Trooper. You really don’t. Now, step aside.”

I saw Dennis’ hand settle on the butt of his revolver. His fingers unsnapped the fold of leather that secured the gun in the holster. I stared at him numbly. My God, I thought. What’s goin’ on? My heart had started pounding so hard I was sure everybody could hear it. Ray and Lindy were watching, and Cheryl was backing away behind the counter.

Price and Dennis faced each other for a moment, as the rain whipped against the windows and thunder boomed like shellfire. Then Price sighed, as if resigning himself to something. He said, “I think I want a T-bone steak. Extra rare. How ’bout it?” He looked at me.

“A steak?” My voice was shaking. “We don’t have any T-bone—”

Price’s gaze shifted to the counter right in front of me. I heard a sizzle. The aroma of cooking meat drifted up to me.

“Oh … wow,” Cheryl whispered.

A large T-bone steak lay on the countertop, pink and oozing blood. You could’ve fanned a menu in my face and I would’ve keeled over. Wisps of smoke were rising from the steak.

The steak began to fade, until it was only an outline on the counter. The lines of oozing blood vanished. After the mirage was gone, I could still smell the meat—and that’s how I knew I wasn’t crazy.

Dennis’ mouth hung open. Ray had stood up from the booth to look, and his wife’s face was the color of spoiled milk. The whole world seemed to be balanced on a point of silence—until the wail of the wind jarred me back to my senses.

“I’m getting good at it,” Price said softly. “I’m getting very, very good. Didn’t start happening to me until about a year ago. I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing. What’s in your head comes true—as simple as that. Of course, the images only last for a few seconds—as long as I’m awake, I mean. I’ve found out that those other men were drenched by a chemical spray we called Howdy Doody—because it made you stiffen up and jerk like you were hanging on strings. I got hit with it near Khe Sahn. That shit almost suffocated me. It felt like black tar, and it burned the land down to a paved parking lot.” He stared at Dennis. “You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper. Not with the body count I’ve still got in my head.”

“You … were at … that motel, near Daytona Beach?”

Price closed his eyes. A vein had begun beating at his right temple, royal blue against the pallor of his flesh. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered. “I fell asleep, and I couldn’t wake myself up. I was having the nightmare. The same one. I was locked in it, and I was trying to scream myself awake.” He shuddered, and two tears ran slowly down his cheeks. “Oh,” he said, and flinched as if remembering something horrible. “They … they were coming through the door when I woke up. Tearing the door right off its hinges. I woke up … just as one of them was pointing his rifle at me. And I saw his face. I saw his muddy, misshapen face.” His eyes suddenly jerked open. “I didn’t know they’d come so fast.”

“Who?” I asked him. “Who came so fast?”

“The Nightcrawlers,” Price said, his face devoid of expression, masklike. “Dear God … maybe if I’d stayed asleep a second more. But I ran again, and I left those people dead in that motel.”

“You’re gonna come with me.” Dennis started pulling his gun from the holster. Price��s head snapped toward him. “I don’t know what kinda fool game you’re—”

He stopped, staring at the gun he held.

It wasn’t a gun anymore. It was an oozing mass of hot rubber. Dennis cried out and slung the thing from his hand. The molten mess hit the floor with a pulpy splat.

“I’m leaving now.” Price’s voice was calm. “Thank you for the coffee.” He walked past Dennis, toward the door.

Dennis grasped a bottle of ketchup from the counter. Cheryl cried out, “Don’t!” but it was too late. Dennis was already swinging the bottle. It hit the back of Price’s skull and burst open, spewing ketchup everywhere. Price staggered forward, his knees buckling. When he went down, his skull hit the floor with a noise like a watermelon being dropped. His body began jerking involuntarily.

“Got him!” Dennis shouted triumphantly. “Got that crazy bastard, didn’t I?”

Lindy was holding the little girl in her arms. The boy craned his neck to see. Ray said nervously, “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“He’s not dead,” I told him. I looked over at the gun; it was solid again. Dennis scooped it up and aimed it at Price, whose body continued to jerk. Just like Howdy Doody, I thought. Then Price stopped moving.

“He’s dead!” Cheryl’s voice was near-frantic. “Oh God, you killed him, Dennis!”

Dennis prodded the body with the toe of his boot, then bent down. “Naw. His eyes are movin’ back and forth behind the lids.” Dennis touched his wrist to check the pulse, then abruptly pulled his own hand away. “Jesus Christ! He’s as cold as a meat locker!” He took Price’s pulse and whistled. “Goin’ like a racehorse at the Derby.”

I touched the place on the counter where the mirage steak had been. My fingers came away slightly greasy, and I could smell the cooked meat on them. At that instant Price twitched. Dennis scuttled away from him like a crab. Price made a gasping, choking noise.

“What’d he say?” Cheryl asked. “He said something!”

“No he didn’t.” Dennis stuck him in the ribs with his pistol. “Come on. Get up.”

“Get him out of here,” I said. “I don’t want him—”

Cheryl shushed me. “Listen. Can you hear that?”

I heard only the roar and crash of the storm.

“Don’t you hear it?” she asked me. Her eyes were getting scared and glassy.

“Yes!” Ray said. “Yes! Listen!”

Then I did hear something, over the noise of the keening wind. It was a distant chuk-chuk-chuk, steadily growing louder and closer. The wind covered the noise for a minute, then it came back: CHUK-CHUK-CHUK, almost overhead.

“It’s a helicopter!” Ray peered through the window. “Somebody’s got a helicopter out there!”

“Ain’t nobody can fly a chopper in a storm!” Dennis told him. The noise of rotors swelled and faded, swelled and faded … and stopped.

On the floor, Price shivered and began to contort into a fetal position. His mouth opened; his face twisted in what appeared to be agony.

Thunder spoke. A red fireball rose up from the woods across the road and hung lazily in the sky for a few seconds before it descended toward the diner. As it fell, the fireball exploded soundlessly into a white, glaring eye of light that almost blinded me.

Price said something in a garbled, panicked voice. His eyes were tightly closed, and he had squeezed up with his arms around his knees.

Dennis rose to his feet; he squinted as the eye of light fell toward the parking lot and winked out in a puddle of water. Another fireball floated up from the woods, and again blossomed into painful glare.

Dennis turned toward me. “I heard him.” His voice was raspy. “He said . . . ‘Charlie’s in the light.’”

As the second flare fell to the ground and illuminated the parking lot, I thought I saw figures crossing the road. They walked stiff-legged, in an eerie cadence. The flare went out.

“Wake him up,” I heard myself whisper. “Dennis … dear God … wake him up.”

4

Dennis stared stupidly at me, and I started to jump across the counter to get to Price myself.

A gout of flame leapt in the parking lot. Sparks marched across the concrete. I shouted, “Get down!” and twisted around to push Cheryl back behind the shelter of the counter.

“What the hell—” Dennis said.

He didn’t finish. There was the metallic thumping of bullets hitting the gas pumps and the cars. I knew if that gas blew we were all dead. My truck shuddered with the impact of slugs, and I saw the whole thing explode as I ducked behind the counter. Then the windows blew inward with a god-awful crash, and the diner was full of flying glass, swirling wind, and sheets of rain. I heard Lindy scream, and both the kids were crying, and I think I was shouting something myself.

The lights had gone out, and the only illumination was the reflection of red neon off the concrete and the glow of the fluorescents over the gas pumps. Bullets whacked into the wall, and crockery shattered as if it had been hit with a hammer. Napkins and sugar packets were flying everywhere.

Cheryl was holding on to me as if her fingers were nails sunk to my bones. Her eyes were wide and dazed, and she kept trying to speak. Her mouth was working, but nothing came out.

There was another explosion as one of the other cars blew. The whole place shook, and I almost puked with fear.

Another hail of bullets hit the wall. They were tracers, and they jumped and ricocheted like white-hot cigarette butts. One of them sang off the edge of a shelf and fell to the floor about three feet away from me. The glowing slug began to fade, like the beer can and the mirage steak. I put my hand out to find it, but all I felt was splinters of glass and crockery. A phantom bullet, I thought. Real enough to cause damage and death—and then gone.

You don’t want me around here, Mr. Trooper, Price had warned. Not with the body count I’ve got in my head.

The firing stopped. I got free of Cheryl and said, “You stay right here.” Then I looked up over the counter and saw my truck and the station wagon on fire, the flames being whipped by the wind. Rain slapped me across the face as it swept in where the window glass used to be. I saw Price lying still huddled on the floor, with pieces of glass all around him. His hands were clawing the air, and in the flickering red neon his face was contorted, his eyes still closed. The pool of ketchup around his head made him look like his skull had been split open. He was peering into hell, and I averted my eyes before I lost my own mind.

Ray and Lindy and the two children had huddled under the table of their booth. The woman was sobbing brokenly. I looked at Dennis, lying a few feet from Price: he was sprawled on his face, and there were four holes punched through his back. It was not ketchup that ran in rivulets around Dennis’ body. His right arm was outflung, and the fingers twitched around the gun he gripped.

Another flare sailed up from the woods like a Fourth of July sparkler.

When the light brightened, I saw them: at least five figures, maybe more. They were crouched over, coming across the parking lot—but slowly, the speed of nightmares. Their clothes flapped and hung around them, and the flare’s light glanced off their helmets. They were carrying weapons—rifles, I guessed. I couldn’t see their faces, and that was for the best.

On the floor, Price moaned. I heard him say “light … in the light …”

The flare hung right over the diner. And then I knew what was going on. We were in the light. We were all caught in Price’s nightmare, and the Nightcrawlers that Price had left in the mud were fighting the battle again—the same way it had been fought at the Pines Haven Motor Inn. The Nightcrawlers had come back to life, powered by Price’s guilt and whatever that Howdy Doody shit had done to him.

And we were in the light, where Charlie had been out in that rice paddy.

There was a noise like castanets clicking. Dots of fire arced through the broken windows and thudded into the counter. The stools squealed as they were hit and spun. The cash register rang and the drawer popped open, and then the entire register blew apart and bills and coins scattered. I ducked my head, but a wasp of fire—I don’t, know what, a bit of metal or glass maybe—sliced my left cheek open from ear to upper lip. I fell to the floor behind the counter with blood running down my face.

A blast shook the rest of the cups, saucers, plates, and glasses off the shelves. The whole roof buckled inward, throwing loose ceiling tiles, light fixtures, and pieces of metal framework.

We were all going to die. I knew it, right then. Those things were going to destroy us. But I thought of the pistol in Dennis’ hand, and of Price lying near the door. If we were caught in Price’s nightmare and the blow from the ketchup bottle had broken something in his skull, then the only way to stop his dream was to kill him.

I’m no hero. I was about to piss in my pants, but I knew I was the only one who could move. I jumped up and scrambled over the counter, falling beside Dennis and wrenching at that pistol. Even in death, Dennis had a strong grip. Another blast came, along the wall to my right. The heat of it scorched me, and the shock wave skidded me across the floor through glass and rain and blood.

But I had that pistol in my hand.

I heard Ray shout, “Look out!”

In the doorway, silhouetted by flames, was a skeletal thing wearing muddy green rags. It wore a dented-in helmet and carried a corroded, slime-covered rifle. Its face was gaunt and shadowy, the features hidden behind a scum of rice-paddy muck. It began to lift the rifle to fire at me—slowly, slowly …

I got the safety off the pistol and fired twice, without aiming. A spark leapt off the helmet as one of the bullets was deflected, but the figure staggered backward and into the conflagration of the station wagon, where it seemed to melt into ooze before it vanished.

More tracers were coming in. Cheryl’s Volkswagen shuddered, the tires blowing out almost in unison. The state-trooper car was already bullet-riddled and sitting on flats.

Another Nightcrawler, this one without a helmet and with slime covering the skull where the hair had been, rose up beyond the window and fired its rifle. I heard the bullet whine past my ear, and as I took aim I saw its bony finger tightening on the trigger again.

A skillet flew over my head and hit the thing’s shoulder, spoiling its aim. For an instant the skillet stuck in the Nightcrawler’s body, as if the figure itself was made out of mud. I fired once … twice … and saw pieces of matter fly from the thing’s chest. What might’ve been a mouth opened in a soundless scream, and the thing slithered out of sight.

I looked around. Cheryl was standing behind the counter, weaving on her feet, her face white with shock. “Get down!” I shouted, and she ducked for cover.

I crawled to Price, shook him hard. His eyes would not open. “Wake up!” I begged him. “Wake up, damn you!” And then I pressed the barrel of the pistol against Price’s head. Dear God, I didn’t want to kill anybody, but I knew I was going to have to blow the Nightcrawlers right out of his brain. I hesitated—too long.

Something smashed into my left collarbone. I heard the bone snap like a broomstick being broken. The force of the shot slid me back against the counter and jammed me between two bullet-pocked stools. I lost the gun, and there was a roaring in my head that deafened me.

I don’t know how long I was out. My left arm felt like dead meat. All the cars in the lot were burning, and there was a hole in the diner’s roof that a tractor-trailer truck could’ve dropped through. Rain was sweeping into my face, and when I wiped my eyes clear I saw them, standing over Price.

There were eight of them. The two I thought I’d killed were back. They trailed weeds, and their boots and ragged clothes were covered with mud. They stood in silence, staring down at their living comrade.

I was too tired to scream. I couldn’t even whimper. I just watched.

Price’s hands lifted into the air. He reached for the Nightcrawlers, and then his eyes opened. His pupils were dead white, surrounded by scarlet.

“End it,” he whispered. “End it …”

One of the Nightcrawlers aimed its rifle and fired. Price jerked. Another Nightcrawler fired, and then they were all firing point-blank into Price’s body. Price thrashed and clutched at his head, but there was no blood; the phantom bullets weren’t hitting him.

The Nightcrawlers began to ripple and fade. I saw the flames of the burning cars through their bodies. The figures became transparent, floating in vague outlines. Price had awakened too fast at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, I realized; if he had remained asleep, the creatures of his nightmares would’ve ended it there, at that Florida motel. They were killing him in front of me—or he was allowing them to end it, and I think that’s what he must’ve wanted for a long, long time.

He shuddered, his mouth releasing a half-moan, half-sigh.

It sounded almost like relief.

The Nightcrawlers vanished. Price didn’t move anymore.

I saw his face. His eyes were closed, and I think he must’ve found peace at last.

5

A trucker hauling lumber from Mobile to Birmingham saw the burning cars. I don’t even remember what he looked like.

Ray was cut up by glass, but his wife and the kids were okay. Physically, I mean. Mentally, I couldn’t say.

Cheryl went into the hospital for a while. I got a postcard from her with the Golden Gate Bridge on the front. She promised she’d write and let me know how she was doing, but I doubt if I’ll ever hear from her. She was the best waitress I ever had, and I wish her luck.

The police asked me a thousand questions, and I told the story the same way every time. I found out later that no bullets or shrapnel were ever dug out of the walls or the cars or Dennis’ body—just like in the case of that motel massacre. There was no bullet in me, though my collarbone was snapped clean in two.

Price had died of a massive brain hemorrhage. It looked, the police told me, as if it had exploded in his skull.

I closed the diner. Farm life is fine. Alma understands, and we don’t talk about it.

But I never showed the police what I found, and I don’t know exactly why not.

I picked up Price’s wallet in the mess. Behind a picture of a smiling young woman holding a baby there was a folded piece of paper. On that paper were the names of four men.

Beside one name, Price had written “Dangerous.”

I’ve found four other ’Nam vets who can do the same thing, Price had said.

I sit up at night a lot, thinking about that and looking at those names. Those men had gotten a dose of that Howdy Doody shit in a foreign place they hadn’t wanted to be, fighting a war that turned out to be one of those crossroads of nightmare and reality. I’ve changed my mind about ’Nam because I understand now that the worst of the fighting is still going on, in the battlefields of memory.

A Yankee who called himself Tompkins came to my house one May morning and flashed me an ID that said he worked for a veterans’ association. He was very soft-spoken and polite, but he had deep-set eyes that were almost black, and he never blinked. He asked me all about Price, seemed real interested in picking my brain of every detail. I told him the police had the story, and I couldn’t add any more to it. Then I turned the tables and asked him about Howdy Doody. He smiled in a puzzled kind of way and said he’d never heard of any chemical defoliant called that. No such thing, he said. Like I say, he was very polite.

But I know the shape of a gun tucked into a shoulder holster. Tompkins was wearing one under his seersucker coat. I never could find any veterans’ association that knew anything about him, either.

Maybe I should give that list of names to the police. Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll try to find those four men myself, and try to make some sense out of what’s being hidden.

I don’t think Price was evil. No. He was just scared, and who can blame a man for running from his own nightmares? I like to believe that, in the end, Price had the courage to face the Nightcrawlers, and in committing suicide he saved our lives.

The newspapers, of course, never got the real story. They called Price a ’Nam vet who’d gone crazy, killed six people in a Florida motel, and then killed a state trooper in a shoot-out at Big Bob’s diner and gas stop.

But I know where Price is buried. They sell little American flags at the five-and-dime in Mobile. I’m alive, and I can spare the change.

And then I’ve got to find out how much courage I have.