#like i know some people call them “harmony” or “melody”

[neon-catarina]

couldn't a reason Mind and Heart hate each other be because of whole's love interest (sung in Haiku and Hidden In The Sand), like how Whole really liked them, but he thought that they would never love him, so basically his Heart wanted to ask them out and pursue a relationship, but his Mind refused thinking they would never love him. And its mostly because of that Whole split into three in the first place, so they both blame each other for it, and that's why they hate each other?

[bunny584]

OBSESSED: FUSHIGURO

A/N: OH. MY. GOD. Anon. I love you and hate you for this request. This was…hard. I told myself I wouldn’t publish it unless it was fucking perfect (you should see the scalpels I took to each goddamn sentence before this version).

SECOND: I will square up with Gege for writing the most enigmatic, LAYERED, complex, muddled character to exist. I wanted this to be Megumi. Through and through. His darkness, his light, his reservation, his crazy, all in one. And IDK. I think I did it? This one is purely to prove to myself that I can write for characters that are hard to write for (*cough* yuta im glaring at you *cough*)

THIRD: if you do read this (I get people feel things about aged up characters etc), I implore you to listen to this. Guys. I heard this at 0200 IN THE OR during a 6 hour case and the entire concept for this came to me. Meg is sophisticated and unruly, selfless and selfish, etc. So this has some NSFW but definitely probably more on the poetic, long ends of my works.

CW: Aged up characters (20+), college AU, fluffy/raunchy/dark romance-y because LOOK at him. He takes after Gojo AND Toji. Mature, 18+

“You like it when I’m rough.”

Megumi’s melody rings crystal clear.

Low.

Precise.

An F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, flying dark. Below enemy radar.

The piano keys float beneath his tone. His long, slender, deft fingers effortlessly execute the sheet music before him. It’s his GPS system, a personal flight map.

Little Beethoven, his advanced music theory professor calls him.

Truth is, Megumi is a prolific pianist and vocalist. He can tame any note, any melody, any harmony faster than any of his Shikigami.

Speaking of…

Megumi pulls off the piano and tortured love song in an instant. Just as the grade 3 curse creeps through the open door.

The part between his right long and ring fingers is automatic. His left hand grips the web space between his right thumb and index finger.

“Demon dog.” Megumi summons.

Low. Precise. Decisive.

“Eat it, boy.”

A small, approving smile tugs on the corners of his lips. Low level curses are the nothing more than chew toys to his divine dogs. With a tiny wave of his fingers, his technique buzzes inward.

Megumi’s eyes float to the ancient analog clock on the wall.

13:50

10 more minutes until you’ll meet him for your date.

No. Not date.

Study. 10 more minutes until you’re meeting him to study.

Your thought blooms within him like wildfire. It sets his normally cool, porcelain skin ablaze.

Megumi whips his body around to face the piano. To exorcise the feeling. The keyboard has always been his outlet. His life blood. Playing, singing, musing in and out of written songs is his catharsis.

Words don’t come easy. They never have. But lyrics do.

And when he gets to ride lyrics with his voice, his runs..?

The words he can never find on his own are suddenly out there. In the atmosphere. Coating empty rooms in a mist of his thoughts, his feelings.

No certain promise that the person the words are destined for will ever catch them. Or ever walk through the room and be kissed by the remnants of his musical trail. But Megumi has said (sung, played) them. And that’s enough.

“Sorry if I come across a type of way.”

“I’ve been trying to get out of my way…”

His fingers dive into the keys. Angrily. Earnestly.

“I know it doesn’t seem like I care, but you know I care—“

“Wow Meg, you sound incredible.”

You bring him to an abrupt stop. Your voice is maple syrup trailing down Megumi’s neck, leaving goosebumps in its candied wake.

Pitch fucking perfect.

A soft, ethereal C, gliding down Heaven’s staircase. You infuse sunlight into his name, whichever way you choose to say it.

And it’s hell. It’s cruel. To have as keen hearing as he does. To listen to you sing his name and have nothing else follow.

“Fushiguro.” Megumi shoots up from his seat, slinging his backpack over one shoulder.

“What?”

“Fushiguro.” He repeats, eyes briefly meeting yours before settling above your head. He’s at least a head and shoulders taller.

“Nobody calls me Meg.”

You throw your head back. Feather light crescendo in your laughter. It’s pretty. Tantalizing in the way chandeliers twinkle when they capture a beam of light.

His eyes dart down to catch the feminine column of your neck. Curving into your delicate collar bones. How are your lines so seamless?

So cinematic. Like he’s watching a figure skater land a triple axel. Or a prima ballerina en pointe. It’s not fathomable.

Gorgeous.

You are gorgeous.

“I call you Meg.” You retort with a smile that liquifies all of his joints.

You double your walking speed to keep pace with Megumi’s long strides. Both of you exit the sound engineering building. Heading straight for the campus library a couple blocks away.

“Who were you—oh,” Megumi’s glacial hand along the small of your back steals your voice away.

Your eyes and feet follow his gentle push, shifting you to the other side of him.

“Walking on the wrong side.” He mutters, monotone. Matter-of-fact. Obviously.

He’s a gentleman. Of course he is going to walk on the traffic facing edge of the sidewalk.

Of course he didn’t feel the electric currents wire through his fingers to clench — suffocate — his heart.

No, he didn’t hear that punched out, falsetto gasp when his hand cradled your perfectly tapered waist.

Or notice how well you fit into his hand. How light you are under his touch that had none of his real strength behind it.

You’re made of alluring lines. Intoxicating sounds.

What would it take to coax a pretty melody out of your pouty lips?

His fingers?

They’re long. And smart. Cold. Remarkably patient. You’d like them.

He could make you love them.

Crave them. Need, whimper, whine, and cry out for them.

“So who was it?” You tether him to reality.

“Who was what?” Megumi counters, leading you to a private study room.

“The way you were singing earlier.”

Hairs along the back of his neck stand at attention. Blood runs Siberian cold. Megumi’s gaze on you is subzero.

“It had to be for someone.” You lower down into a seat in slow motion.

The sweetheart neckline of your sundress is mean. Your supple mounds tilt and ripple with every micro movement. Megumi has forgotten why he’s glaring at you.

“You sound too…pretty. It can’t be wasted on thin air.” You continue.

“She must be—“

“Let’s just get started, okay?” He sharply redirects the conversation.

And promptly shifts gear to low autopilot. He’ll speak when spoken to, answer questions intermittently. But his mind’s true coordinates are a galaxy away.

Megumi retreats to his shadow garden.

Watching you.

Drinking you in.

Savoring each detail on his tastebuds like dessert.

The pencil eraser leaves an indent on your bottom lip where you’ve been pressing too hard.

Megumi wants to roll your bottom lip under his teeth. Until it flushes rose and swells beneath his relentless pull.

His eyes fall to your bracelet, far too big for your dainty wrist.

He could hold both of your wrists in one hand above your head or behind your back for hours. Without breaking a sweat.

His other hand would take its time.

To stroke you. Pet you. Learn your sheet music. Then play your body like a harp until you’re a chorus of beautiful, soprano whimpers and moans. Begging and pleading so prettily, enticing him to give in.

But he won’t.

Not until you’re soft enough. A babbling, warm, ruined brook beneath his fingers.

Then he’ll take you, gorgeous.

Searing pain from his sharp swallow and nails digging into his thighs rip him down to the present.

Vision a little fuzzy. Head a revolving door of vulgar scenarios. A dull, demanding ache between his legs draws his eyes to his lap.

Fucking hell.

His jeans are uncomfortable. He’s stiff and needy. Not nearly enough strength in his pants to hold back his drunken arousal.

Not to the mention, the—

swarm of shadows growing at his feet?

Is his…innate domain materializing around him right now?

Megumi aggressively slices through the air at his hip level. Below the table, but you don’t miss his sudden stirring.

“Meg? You okay over—“

“Going to the bathroom.” He gruffs through a clenched jaw. Megumi places his forearm over his crotch before hurrying out of the room.

He can barely recognize the man in the mirror. Flushed to his ears. Volcanoes threatening eruption in his eyes. Api Biru. Pure, triple distilled, blue lava coursing through his veins.

Snap out of it, Fushiguro.

The splash of cold water does nothing for his internal heat. But his milky complexion returns to its effervescent state.

But then he turns a little too quickly to leave. And his painfully hard length drags along his fabric. It’s blinding.

A feeble moan tumbles out of his tight lips.

“Fuck.”

Megumi slams his eyes shut. He needs to readjust. But if he touches himself now, he might not be able to stop.

A slow, steadying breath fills his lungs.

“Just adjust, don’t…” His voice trails off. Icey fingers around his hot, angry base is enough to rip the carpet from beneath his feet.

“Oh, fuck.” Megumi mumbles through one quick pump up his shaft.

He shakes his head as if to tell himself enough. He rests his erection along his thigh before zipping up. Still painful, but tolerable.

A tornado obliterates any remaining resolve in Megumi’s mind on his walk back to you.

You are a dream.

Or a nightmare? A curse?

It doesn’t matter. He couldn’t care less.

Megumi would follow you. Deeper than the crypts of his 10 shadows. Into hell if it meant he could have you the way he wants you.

The way he craves you.

Because fuck the cost.

He’d pay anything.

You’re working on an elaborate concept diagram on the white board. On the tip of your toes. Lip curled under your teeth. And you are just irresistible.

So, he won’t resist.

“Meg! Took you a bit, you okay?”

Megumi is silent. Unblinking. Sauntering toward you.

“Megumi?”

You lower to the soles of your shoes. Neck craning to look at his face. Your eyes widen at his persistent silence. Rosy heat dusting your cheeks.

Pretty little doe, rooted in place by his wolfish glare.

Megumi takes the marker out of your hand and tosses it behind him in one swift motion.

“Hmm,” a tiny acknowledgment of his name. Just because it sounds so sweet rolling off your tongue.

Megumi corners you against the wall. Both of his hands casually in his pockets.

He watches you shift. Flicker your eyes in every direction. Fiddle with your thumbs.

His quiet.

His presence.

It flusters you. Well before he’s gotten the chance to run his hands along the lazy curve of your waist and hips.

“So…so blue.” You stammer. Your warm eyes metronome between his.

“They are.”

Megumi steps impossibly closer. His eyes drop to your chest. Dainty, nervous heaves. Up and down. Up and down.

“You are so,” you swallow thickly, dropping your gaze. “hard to read.”

Megumi snakes his large, graceful fingers into your nape. The temperature difference between your warmth and his cold startles you deeper into his grasp. Your head evanesces into his pull.

A beautiful, shocked gasp escapes you. Just as Megumi’s lips trace the shell of your ear.

“I want you.”

His breaths collide with yours, now. Heat welling deep in his groin. His cock thunders against his thigh.

“Can you read that?” Megumi rasps. Ensuring his voice vibrates down your spine.

A new sound tumbles from your lips. Like you choked on your last swallow. How pretty. You gurgling and gagging like that.

“W-want me? Megumi wh—“

“I.” Megumi nudges his thigh between your legs. His steel pipe erection digs into your dewy, hot core. He angles his leg slightly upward, inching you on the tip of your toes.

His prima ballerina, en pointe.

“Want you.” His lips ghost against yours. Free hand cups the flesh beneath your thigh. Pads of his fingers twitching to dig in.

The two of you drink in this lock-in-key fit. Megumi revels in you. Like this. At his complete mercy.

The prodigal son, born with more power than he knows what to do with.

Ten shadows. Ten Shikigami. It’s been centuries since the last head of his bloodline had power buzzing beneath his fingertips like him.

And somehow he’s never felt more powerful than this.

With you, heaven’s most precious angel, cradled in his arms. Drowning in sinful ecstasy. He brands this freeze frame into the most permanent part of his memory.

Then, he free falls off your cliff edge.

Megumi takes your lips with unfettered greed. Hunger woven into the way his tongue traces every corner of your delectable, soft mouth. His fingers push your head deeper into him. Sucking and nibbling on your warm muscle.

You shower him with airy, choppy little pants. Moans and whines so light they crescendo to fairy dust. You can’t keep up with his bruising kiss. His other hand palms your thigh, kneading little bruises into your silky smooth skin.

Marking what’s his.

“Oh my god.”

You breathe into his mouth when he lets you up for air. Megumi’s eyes dart down to the meeting point of your sex and his muscular thigh.

Did you really think he wouldn’t notice how you’re rutting your pretty little cunt against his leg like that?

Crimson high on your cheeks. You look away when he tries to catch your fucked out gaze.

“Don’t hide from me, gorgeous.” His hand traces up to your hips. You preen into his firm grip.

“Megumi.”

“Don’t stop, pretty girl.” He forcefully moves your hips in more dramatic, languid, deep rolls against his thigh. He’s not paying any mind to the pool of his precum soaking through his pants.

You bury your head in his neck. Fingernails digging pretty crescent moons into his back. You take over the pace. Undulating against him. Shameless. In complete heat.

“You feel s-so…so good.” Your lips smear against his dampened neck. Megumi responds by circling your puffy, slick bud with his fingers.

And fuck. The slurred, broken whimper that rings in his ears.

The way you hump him even more sloppily.

He could finish from that alone.

Your hand flies to your mouth. Empty huffs spilling. Whines ascending in pitch. You are close.

“Such pretty sounds, baby.”

“Megumi…meg..I-“

“Let it out.” He grips the back of your neck. Feeling dangerously close to his own nirvana. Drunk off your precious melody.

“Sing for me.”

“F-fuck, GOD.”

You bite down on his neck. Waves of pleasure crashing into you like hurricane winds. He grips your waist steady. Feeling every involuntary twitch and jerk of your doll-like frame.

Blessing or curse?

He doesn’t know.

But he will follow you to the end of his lifetime and the next.

“God, Fushiguro. That was…” The lusty haze from your peak settles around you. The once shattered world, slowly pieces itself back together.

“No.” Megumi pulls you out of his neck. Dropping his lips to yours, so he can breathe the air directly from your lungs.

“Meg. You call me Meg.”

[harrisonarchive]

Photo by María Moreno.

In 1987, George was interviewed by El País; here's a translation of that interview (to the best of my school-level Spanish).

George Harrison On Cloud Nine

George Harrison recently released his first album since 1982, when he disappeared from music to work on movies and live his life in peace. In making Cloud Nine he called on his friends Eric Clapton, Elton John and Ringo Starr- Many of the songs are similar to those of the early Beatle years, but Harrison scoffs at rumors about the group reuniting.

Cloud Nine sounds so much like the Beatles that it ends up being a tribute to the band’s early music. One of the songs on this new LP, When We Was Fab, refers to that epoch in which ‚we were fabulous‘ and ‚we were doing everything.‘ The song, which recalls Beatles melodies such as Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am The Walrus, suggests the style of John Lennon. At times it sounds as the late rhythm guitarist himself is singing.

El País: Cloud Nine contains songs and harmonies that recall the early Beatles. Is that what you intended?

George Harrison: Yes. It sounds like the Beatles because of the 12-string guitar. This is the kind of guitar we used on the first Beatles records. The electric guitar I have on the album cover is the one I used when the Beatles were not famous, when we were playing in Hamburg (West Germany). I have recovered it and use it in several songs. In contrast to the heavy music of this generation I had the idea of making a contemporary record that permits young people to know what was happening at the end of the 60s. Some of the songs are similar to those of the Beatles in the late 60s. I did it intentionally. I didn’t want to bend to the pleasure of the record companies or the industry. I don’t want to be untrue to myself. I like this album… It is so old it seems new.

EP: Listening to Cloud Nine, one gets the feeling that you were comfortable and happy during the recording.

GH: I was because I was with Eric Clapton, Elton John, Ringo Starr and other friends I have known for years and with whom I get along well. Elton John asked to be part of the record when he found out I was going to make it. He is one of the great musicians of rock 'n' roll. And Ringo? Well, what can I say? We have lived and performed together for a long time. We are alike in the way we regard music.

EP: You invited old friends to the recording, but did you invite Paul McCartney?

GH: No. I didn't invite Paul.

EP: You recently said that it is good to grow old, that it is time to mature with dignity.

GH: Yes. After running around so much when you're young, you need tranquility. When we were the Beatles we lived in permanent turbulence, we were crazy. We met mountains of people and went to many countries but we didn't get to know anything well because we never had a moment of peace. Therefore, for the past few years I have been trying to find out what is happening. It would be rare if it was only happening to me, but we are all growing old together. Ringo and Eric Clapton are growing old with me and that makes it easier. I have always considered them friends, but after the craziness of our youth you rediscover them and they become your best friends. Another thing that compels me to mature is my son, Dhani. I try to devote time to him and be a good father.

EP: At one time you influenced the Beatles to look for an introspective path that derived from Oriental mysticism and transcendental meditation. What remains today of this stage in your career?

GH: It is something I still carry inside but I don't talk about as much. On the new record there are no songs that advocate this way of life as there were on other records.

EP: “My sweet Lord, I really want to see you, I really want to be with you …" Do you still believe in a Sweet Lord?

GH: Oh, yes. Absolutely.

EP: If you were to write the song today, would you keep the same lyric?

GH: I would keep the same lyric. I believe that the lyric is true. I would change a few notes in the melody. (Laughter. In 1976, a U.S. judge sentenced Harrison to pay a fine after determining that My Sweet Lord, which was on the 1970 album All Things Must Pass, was an unintentional plagiarism of another melody.)

EP: The Beatles are said to have taken drugs -- especially marijuana and LSD -- from 1965 to 1967. This comes across in the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, recorded in 1966. You began transcendental meditation the same year. Did this help you give up drugs?

GH: I think so. The discovery of LSD was something we could not avoid because, in the case of John and me, someone put LSD in our coffee without our knowing it. After having had an LSD experience you do not want to go back to the way you were, you lose the notion of ego and you change because you see things you didn't perceive before. Even if I had not taken LSD it would not have been long before I began spiritual activities. After LSD, I became aware of God. But like with alcohol or other drugs you go crazy if you consume too much.

EP: You have not given up tobacco. Are you still a vegetarian and ecologist?

GH: Ecologist, yes, but now I eat fish and chicken. I did not eat meat from 1966 to 1979. During those years I was undernourished because I didn't know what to eat to replace the protein. In 1979, I began to follow the Formula One auto races and I was in Madrid or other capitals and it was difficult to eat in restaurants and hotels. If you don't go to Indian restaurants, where you can eat lentils and greens, you cannot stay on a vegetarian diet. So I began eating fish and chicken.

EP: The press has presented you in the past as a lonely man, shy and frightened after the assassination of John Lennon in December 1980.

GH: That's what the gossipers say. From time to time I get a flash of John's death. Sometimes it happens when someone I don't know approaches me by surprise. But you can't be afraid. I live a normal life. I don't go to cocktail parties and discos.

EP: How has Lennon's death affected you?

GH: I don't think anyone ought to die this way, at the hands of a madman. John's death has affected me, like it has most people. It's sad that someone can ruin the life of another. And when it's a longtime friend it's like losing a family member, a father or a brother.

EP: Even though you have written popular songs you have not had a hit since 1969. Do you think you were misunderstood and your talent underused in the Beatles epoch?

GH: For sure, because John and Paul dominated the group and had an arrangement for songwriting. Our producer for many years, George Martin, has publicly asked me to forgive him for this. But there is a moment for everything and at this time I was marginal.

EP: I remember reading in Rolling Stone that Lennon once said you were an invisible man between two egomaniacs.

GH: Absolutely.

EP: Is there something to the rumors of a Beatles reunion? There are rumblings that Lennon will be replaced by Elton John.

GH: Every six months or so someone invents a story like that. There is no possibility of the Beatles coming back to life. That era has ended. It is better to leave it like that.

[bloom-agreste-cheng]

Winx Club Planet Origins

I have ideas for how the planets in Winx Club came to be besides the Great Dragon creating the universe. You know how Stella yells “Solaria” for her first transformation in 1x01? I wondered, what if the other fairies in the Magical Dimension did that too. So I decided to create some headcanons about how the Winx’s planets were created. Cause we know where they are from canonically so it’s easier to build headcanons around them.

Domino was designed meticulously by the Great Dragon and it let its essence deep into its magical core/ heart after it died. This is why guardians of the flame are mainly born on Domino. I headcanon that before he went to sleep, the Dragon chose a family line to keep his power and keep watch on the Magical Dimension. He decreed that whoever holds his flame is to be the guardian of the dimension. After the great witches of the dark killed him, the inhabitants say that you can still feel it’s heat, its essence around sacred areas of Domino. Like the Vortex of Flames which is why the royal family built its castle around it, to be close to the dragon. Now on Domino many believe that they all hold a spark of the flame, that their power is connected to the dragon. So until they find their own battle cries, most fairies choose to invoke the great dragon to give them strength. For example: “by the Power of the Great Dragon, DOMINO LEND YOUR FURY!”

Solaria and Lunaria were created by opposing forces. The Great Dragon and the Water Stars had a fight which resulted in the great sun of solaria, which was created from the Dragon, and the Moons of Lunaria created by the Water Stars. When the Stars left, the dragon molded both planets after the light and sheer power floating around since their fight. He then made them neighbours so that everyone knew of the si and moon. Also to make sure Solaria understood where it came from, the dragon forged the second sun out of the first and gave it to the inhabitants, specifically to one he built to have special connection with it. The second sun is why fairies of Solaria scream “Solaria, Let your suns SHINE” because it’s second sun’s light is what powers their beloved planet.

Linphea is Mother Nature’s real name. After being created by the great Dragon, she went around the universe to spread her magic and nature. She chose planet Linphea as her final resting place and gave her heart to power the planet’s magic. The inhabitants can call on her name to help them transform. “By the great roots of Mother Nature, Linphea, I call on your forces.”

Melody as well as the rest of the Harmonic Nebula, was sung into existence by a nymph of the same name, who was graced with the power of the dragon fire. Legend has it that when you achieve pure harmony in yourself and the world around you, you can still hear the nymph‘s song in Melody’s core. So now, young fairies call on “Sing us a Melody!”

Andros and Zenith were once one planet until a comet separated them both. Let’s focus on Andros first. After the collision, Andros became most water. The dragon decided to populate the waters with mermaids and tasked them to protect the oceans of every world, hence the gates. Since fairies are the guardians of nature, mermaids are the guardians of the oceans. Some mermaids chose to leave the oceans and become land dwellers like those they’ve seen from other planets. But they never forget their origins even after intermingling with other planets. To remember their mermaid origins, the Androsian fairies say “I call on the powers of the mermaid, ANDROS, let your currents roar.”

Zenith terraformed over years and is considered one of the youngest planet in the magical dimension. The planet’s core was built from a material enchanted by magic from other planets. The inhabitants originally came from Andros. Those are are the people who choose to completely deny their mermaid heritage. They eventually brought in other people from the other dimensions which is why they have fairies and other creatures… just enough to be considered a magical planet. Everyone on the planet grew rather ambitious and were eager to prove Zenith as a great planet hence the drive to become the most technologically advanced planet in the magical dimension. They are actually the inspiration for Magix City as they were the first people to converge magic and technology. The inhabitants chose the name Zenith because it means the highest point of power which is what they always aim for—perfection. This is a world that doesn’t follow a type of religion unlike the others which makes them so unique. The fairies that come from this planet call on the core of Zenith to power them up with a simple phrase; may our power reach its ZENITH.

[cath-pages]

thanks to @r3m-ster for the prompt!

——

The night is a symphony. You can hear it, when you stay up late, late enough that you can hear the stars singing to each other, hear the earth humming as it moves through the emptiness which is not emptiness, which is everything.

It was made for those humans who had half that song waiting to be completed inside each cell, who would stay up late to protect the tribe from the dark which they secretly worshipped, the night which made them whole and complete. Alice had been one of those humans.

She had always wished she could drink that night, call the song to her and let it fill her up with its gentle melody. It was only the music that pulled part of her from her chest, the high soprano melodies so opposite to the deep baritones yet made so whole by them, the hundreds of voices working together just for you to feel incomplete, for you to know how your soul drips with need.

For now she laid a beautiful girl’s head to rest on her knee, the body pale and drained, and tried to ignore the taste of the saltwater.

—

Lily. She liked that name. It flowed off the tongue so naturally, full of love and appreciation and trust, the vowels tall and choral and beautiful, the consonants soft and light. It would do well for the night, Rowan tossed off like a threadbare coat. It would do well for the occasion. It would be known.

The coat she wore now was dark and tailored, supplementing the hard lines of her cheekbones and the sharp ebony blades of liner at the corners of her eyes. Ten thousand years have not dulled those blades, still honed enough to cut a man with no less than a look.

And tonight was a night like none other had been but one before.

Lily could already feel Alice there, that festering contamination fought against so harshly. She was always the only one who could, who would fight it.

—

What is your name? No query of less use could leave your lips. You know my name.

No.

Vampir, in your language. The one and only. I’ve been watching you.

I don’t want to go with you. I don’t want to go with you. I don’t

Oh, but you do! I feel the need in you. Come with me. Together. We will face the end of days as the only beings who can know it. We will see the darkness and call it friend. Dance with me, Elena, to this night-symphony.

I won’t take others’ lives to sustain my own!

What irony. You already do. See the blood on your hands? The countless livestock who have lost their lives to your consumption?

Do you remember Andreea?

All I ask is that you take my hand. That’s all I desire.

—

And two eyes met again, thousands of years pushing against that force that called them to each other.

“Elena” was the whispered harmony, gathered by the symphony and twisted to the unknowable composer’s whim. Alice’s hand dropped.

“Take that off your neck. I don’t want to see that ever again.”

“I can’t,” Alice murmured through her tears.

“Alice. Is that still the name you use?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you doing this? You knew I had to come.”

“I had hoped you wouldn’t.”

“Alice.”

“What did I do to you? What did I make you?”

“You did nothing, Alice. I am the way I am of my own volition.”

“Think of the lives I took! The people I destroyed!”

“Alice-“

“Elena. I loved you.”

“Then take that rope off your neck. Come down here. Let me hold you.”

There was a thud, and two voices joined the night-symphony with their tears. Neither spoke for some time.

Finally, a gentle voice said “Why did you leave?”

“I needed time. I was going to come find you, Alice, I swear.”

“You never did.”

“Andreea stayed with me. She taunted me every night. But I tried, Alice. I promise I tried. I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

There was another silence. Some time passed.

The morning came. Neither moved. The other’s arms were too comfortable.

They stayed together in that gentle comfort for a long time. Their home had many bookshelves and windows, and a cat. Their bed was soft.

When the end of days came, they saw the darkness together. They called it friend.

[xie-xan]

Angle's voice chapter 3 | The angel's song

After a few minutes, venti arrived at the school garden where he saw (Y/n) sitting on the same bench as when they first talked to each other. He approached her figure and sat down next to her. She noticed a presence near her and saw that Venti sat on the other side of the bench, she decided not to say anything.

the two sat on either side of the bench in comfortable silence, although, venti could tell she was crying earlier, her eyes were a bit red and her nose was puffy, there were also some small teardrops on her skirt.

"How much do you love singing?" venti asks not looking at the girl as focuses on the scenery in front of them.

(Y/n) took a deep sigh and spoke "It's a tune of my emotions, sometimes It feels like speaking but in my own language, in my own tune. I feel like I'm telling a story with my heart and I expressing things I can't express normally. I express so much by using my voice one note at a time although I'm scared to captivate people's hearts with my voice, but, oh the harmony with the melodies I feel so happy when I sing. They say I'm like a butterfly of tunes, but ever since that day, I don't see my beauty I don't see my confidence." She finally allowed her heart to open as all her emotions were poured out in the words that she spoke.

Venti could only stare at her as she talked about how much singing meant to her, she looked like an entirely different person, she looked more..relaxed, again, she looked more like an angel than anything else. After hearing how much singing meant to her, he was now more determined to get her on that stage and make her sing her heart out. He promised himself that he'd give her back that confidence that was once snuffed out.

"Let it out then."

"Huh?"

"Let it all out, You love singing that much right? It must be hard having to contain your happiness like this, so let it out, get lost in the music like last time!" venti exclaims. "Kazuha said you write songs right? Can I see it?" he asks

(Y/n) goes through her bag and grabs her bag and grabs her notebook and opens it on a page and shows it to him "Whoa, you play guitar too?" he asks rather excitedly. "Uh yeah.." she mutters feeling a bit embarrassed by this.

Venti grabs his guitar "Let's play it, I wanna hear how it sounds like."

"Eh? But-" she tried to protest but was cut off. "It's ok, remember what I said? Just relax and let yourself feel the music, no one is watching us anyways, it's just you and me."

"Uhm..alright.." she mutters and takes a deep breath to gather all her confidence

"What if I told you that I've fallen And I like the way you say my name? My heart skips a beat when I hear you calling And I like that it won't go away

But never mind, don't wanna give you any trouble Never mind, never mind I'm OK with being by your side for as long as I can hide What if I told you that I've fallen?

~

What if I told you that I've fallen? The heart-shaped arrow through my chest I'll make your breakfast every morning And pick you up when you're a mess

But I know that it won't ever stop You know I'll be there when you call me whether you like it or not Without a warning, now I'm falling for this picture on my phone But don't mind me, I'm just falling, I'll be back up on my own

Please don't say my name, help me put out this flame I'd rather hold onto this feeling that you don't even believe in What if I told you that I've fallen?

~

What if I told you that I've fallen? Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind What if I told you that I've fallen? Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind What if I told you that I've fallen? Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind What if I told you that I've fallen? Nevermind, nevermind, nevermind

What if I told you that I've fallen? (Nevermind) What if I told you that I've fallen? (Oh, nevermind) What if I told you that I've fallen? (Oh, nevermind) What if I told you that I've fallen? (Oh, nevermind, I said nevermind) I shouldn't tell you that I've fallen"

Venti could not take his eyes off her. He liked this side of her better, he loved hearing her sing without any restrictions, and he loved seeing her so confident.

She lets out a sigh as the song comes to an end. She felt relief and relaxed like a huge burden was lifted off her shoulders.

"It's a pretty nice love song, who's it for huh?" venti asks teasingly. Never mind, she felt embarrassed again. "How long have you been working on this? It's really beautiful" he adds. "For the past 4 years.." she mutters.

Venti would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit jealous but he ignored that feeling and decided to focus on (Y/n). "You forgot about it huh?" he heard y/n whisper, he was going to ask to repeat it but was cut off.

"I'll do it"

"Huh?" venti turned to y/n whose eyes shone with determination. "I'll sing with you." she finished

Venti, who couldn't contain his happiness, leaped from his seat and gave her a huge hug. y/n was shocked and blushed madly from their closeness.

"Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!" venti said, thanking her a dozen times as he hugged her tighter. He let go of the hug and gave her a bright smile that felt too blinding for y/n. She wanted to make him smile like that again, she thought, which boosted her determination for the competition, 'I'll do my best, for you venti, thank you'

(Y/n) stirred and slowly opened her eyes and was blinded by the light in the ceiling. She tried to sit up only to get hit by a wave of dizziness and she let out a soft groan and held her head hoping to soothe it.

"Don't sit up yet!" a soft cheerful voice was heard and she looked in the direction of the voice as she blinked a couple of times to get rid of the blurriness in her vision, once she could see properly, she saw a boy who was around her age with aqua green eyes and black hair that has two braids in front that faded into a light teal blue who was smiling at her. "Oh right, My name is Venti! Kazuha asked me to watch over you a bit since he's buying some water for you!" he said giving her a friendly smile.

"(Y/n).." she introduced herself, she suddenly remembered the events that happened earlier, she fainted on the stage in front of a lot of people, she was hit with embarrassment and shame, she guessed that she was brought to the nurse's office. Venti noticed her change of mood and got worried "Are you ok? Does your head hurt? You hit your head pretty hard back there.." he muttered with concern.

(Y/n) couldn't control it anymore as tears fell from her eyes, she finally cried after holding it in for so long. Venti started to panic a bit seeing her cry, he didn't know what to do so he scooted close to the bed and rubbed circles on her back "Hey, it's ok, don't cry, it's just a performance after all…" he tried to comfort her.

"N-no it's not! Y-you don't understand..! I-" She couldn't talk properly as she continued crying, her hands were balled into fists and her knuckles started to turn white. She couldn't breathe again and her vision was starting to become blurry and she felt her head spinning.

Venti was now panicking even more as tried to comfort her but he didn't know how. And so the only thing he could think of, he grabbed his guitar that was leaning against the desk beside his backpack, he also grabbed a piece of paper that seemed like a music sheet. He played a tune that he'd been working on for a few weeks.

(Again, lower your volume I accidentally made it too loud again)

Y/n turned to look at Venti who strummed on his guitar. Hearing the wonderful tune, she wiped her tears as she felt her anxiety slowly subside as she watched in amazement.

He looked enchanting to her. The way his fingers strummed on the guitar, he had a small smile on his face as he did so, his beautiful aqua-green eyes shined as the afternoon sun's rays coming from the window reflected on his fair skin.

She envied him, she wished she could play like him without getting insecure, she wished she could be like him and can play freely without thinking about others.

She allowed herself to get lost in his beautiful melody as the two were surrounded by a warm and comforting atmosphere.

Kazuha then came through the door holding a bottle of cold water in his hands, he let out a sigh of relief when he saw his cousin. "Thank goodness you're alright" he smiled and walked towards her handing her the bottled water.

Kazuha turned to face Venti. "Thanks for watching after her and sorry to bother you like this" he gave Venti an apologetic smile. Venti just shook his head still having a bright smile "No worries!" He got down from the bed and picked up his backpack and turned to the two "Anyways, I've got to go now! It was nice meeting you (Y/n)! I hope I get to hear you sing one day!" he waved before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

Kazuha turned to face his cousin when he saw her holding a sheet of paper in her hands. "What's that?" he asked. "It's Ventis, he must have forgotten it" she muttered.

"You should probably return it next week" Kazuha suggested. And (Y/n) nodded in agreement.

Ever since that day, she started to admire Venti from afar, she admired his carefree spirit and wished she could be like him someday. She'd watch him talk to others so effortlessly as his laughter echoed in her mind like a beautiful harmony, and she, in awe, felt her heart remain. His eyes always shined so bright, she would always find him smiling. She wished she could be by his side, to feel the warmth of his gentle gentle voice like last time. But alas, she dared not speak her mind. So she watched from afar and dreamed of the day when she could be as perfect as him.

And oh, about the music sheet?

She couldn't return it.

How can she? Venti saw her cry and whenever she would try to approach him, she would cower away in fear. She didn't know why she would get so shy in front of him. Her heart would beat so fast when he's near, so fast to the point where her chest would hurt and so, she would run away to calm her beating heart.

So she held on to the music sheet for the past 4 years, venti seemed to have forgotten about it anyway. She added lyrics to his music and was hoping he could hear her sing it. For 4 long years, she held on to it like a treasure.

Years passed by, and the music grew, a symphony of love

And hopped that one day, he'd hear, The words she'd written.

He did after 4 years.

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[lil-melody-moon]

Hello dear, hope you’re doing okay❤️ I just wanted to know your opinion on the new Beatles song. I can’t stop listening to the song and I wonder how do you feel about it. Love ya 🫶🏻

Hello, hun! <3 Oh God, I didn't expect to get an ask about this song, oh Gosh, wait, I need to listen to it once more - best time of the month for me, let me gather my brain.

*4 minutes later*

Alright so how do I even start with this? It's as melancholic as it could get, I love the melody of it. Piano, drums they are good, especially the drums. Ringo did his best job again, love him for that - the guy is irreplaceable <3 Violins are making the work there too, Gosh I love this instrument so much! But the part that draws my attention the most is the bridge. The guitar even sounds sad, but I'll get to that one moment in a few, because now's the time for vocals and lyrics.

I have one problem with the vocals and it's not John. I actually like how he sounds there - I think I heard his voice breaking a few times? I'm not quite sure about that - it's soft, somehow longing, but the thing is I don't like Paul's harmony in it. As much as I like him and adore him for his music, it just doesn't fit for me in the chorus. Maybe it's his old voice that throws me off the melancholy each time I hear him, but like. The song could be good with John's voice only, maybe even better, but it was Paul's and Ringo's choice to do the song how it is now and I'm fine with that. That's only a detail that I can get used to after listening to it a few times.

Generally what image I get through this song is this: two people on each side of a barrier of some sort. Both can see one another, but they can't get any closer. One of them is alive - that's a woman for me, second is dead - that's a man for me, watching over the alive one. It's just that this one moment let them see each other for the first time this close and this visible. The woman thanks the man for care, for support, for being almost always there in various forms - let it be music, videos, photos etc - for helping her in another hard time in her life and so on and so on.

And now to the lyrics, oh God almighty.

It's one of the songs that got my attention to the lyrics almost right away, that's why I couldn't exactly say that if I like it or not after first listen - I always have it like that if this happens - but they got my attention for a reason. This song, at least for me, is about longing for the other person. Loneliness, tears and crying, this is what I get from lyrics and melody all together. I will not go through each verse because that would take forever, but like I have no other choice but to somehow go through it as a whole and get a little personal here.

With the chorus, and with the line "I miss you" the woman breaks in tears, because even if they didn't know each other she has always felt that a part of her is missing and couldn't be so easily found and yet when she does find it, it turns out that it's out of her reach. Though this moment, which should last for no longer than a few seconds is longer. The barrier disappears with the bridge, the man steps closer to the woman, embracing her, promising her that they'll get together. He can't exactly tell if in real world or in afterlife, but he can keep the promise that it'll happen. The song ends and the moment ends as well, leaving the longing feeling even stronger.

This is how the entire song feels to me and even the timing of it is like a strange coincidence because I'm going through a difficult time. It's nothing too major, but university became hard, this semester is hellish, almost nothing interests me, but I want to finish this degree so I have to go through it and yet, there's this one person who makes all of this better. His music makes it better, generally he makes it better for me - even if he's dead for so long, bringing so much joy that I can't even measure it, let alone word it and you can call me crazy, but I think I fell in love with him. In fact I spoke about soul connections with a dear friend of mine and we both came to conclusion that maybe, just maybe this is what takes place, all of the above, the story that this song caused to appear in my mind.

Could be true, could be not, could be even my chaotic, period emotions going insane over him, but in conclusion, to not make this answer even longer, that song makes me feel melancholic, it hits right where it should, I like it, besides that one detail but I can get used to that.

Thank you for asking, love you too! <3

[zilabee]

Snippets from Brian Wilson's autobiography from 2016, that are kind of about Paul McCartney without necessarily being about Paul McCartney at all:

I wrote a song for [Frank Sinatra] once called "Still I Dream of It". He didn't say yes to the song, and that bothered me. It was a beautiful song about loneliness and hope.

I love that both Brian and Paul wrote weirdly sad songs for Frank Sinatra and Frank noped out on them both.

We went on our honeymoon at the beginning of 1965. I was sitting around, looking at the water or closing my eyes out on the beach, and a whole song came to me. It was "Girl Don't Tell Me." I didn't have any way to get it down. I didn't have a pen. I didn't have a guitar. I didn't have a piano. But I just heard the whole thing up there, from start to finish and I remembered it well enough to go later and write down the lyrics on a piece of paper. It was a real trip to write a song that way. I thought it would keep happening like that. It never did again.

He laid an egg! Like Paul with Yesterday. There's also another bit of the book where he says that he wrote Girl Don't Tell Me for John Lennon, and considered giving it to the Beatles, and that's why they didn't put backing on it or anything. Maybe you only lay eggs if you're thinking about John Lennon, that's all I'm saying.

Melinda and I got married at a chapel in Palos Verdas. I picked as the date February 6, because it was Marilyn's birthday. That way I figured, I would never forget the date. Melinda agreed.

Marilyn is his ex-wife. He got married on the date of his first wife's birthday. Apparently this is just something that makes sense and isn't weird at all.

Some answers are in my own songs, some answers are in other people's songs. One of the songs that never fails is "Let It Be". I sing it to myself all the time. Whenever it comes on the radio, it lifts me. Whenever I have mental problems, it saves me, big time. It's like a Valium to me.

There are other bits where he mentions Paul and Paul's music explicitly. Times they've met and sung harmony together. He calls him Pablo. He talks about hearing the Beatles and wanting to do something better and so on. He says that he'd still quite like to write a song with Paul but he's not sure that Paul would want to.

I could say that I really worked forever on it, that I spent a year imagining how the melody would work and another year on the lyrics. But the facts are that Tony and I sat down at a piano and wrote it in forty five minutes. […] If you look at the studio logs, it shows almost two dozen takes, but it didn't feel that way at all. "God Only Knows" felt easy. It came out like melted butter.

Writing emotional support songs for one another across the atlantic ocean.

I have heard those voices for a long time, maybe fifty years now. they first came to me when I was twenty-two, after I took LSD. LSD was something that people told me made your mind larger, and that sounded interesting to me. I was interested in exploring ways of getting expanded. The first time I took it, I had to go hide in a bedroom, and I thought mostly about my parents and whether I should be afraid of them. I also started to play what became 'California Girls' on the piano, that sound of the cowboy riding into town. I played it and played it until I heard other things inside of it. But about a week after that, the first voices started to pop up. They'd sound like a real person's voice, a person different from me who I couldn't control, but inside my own head. I didn't know what to do with them. [...] Doctors have told me that the voices didn't come from the acid, that they would have happened anyway, but I'm not sure. I didn't have them before.

That was 1964. I've never been able to work out how well known this was at the time, but Paul talks about not wanting to take lsd to begin with because he was worried he wouldn't be himself afterwards. He must have known stories like this, even if not Brian's particular experience. But if he did know about Brian, it would be even scarier, I think, because even then they must have seen a parallel in how they heard music, how their brains worked in some ways.

Because [Do You Wanna Dance] is a dance song, people don't think of it as a spiritual thing, but it is, because it's harmony.

Only including that because I love how he just believes that harmony is the most important thing in the world. It's a truly religious thing for him, it's one of the loveliest things about the book. His trying to explain how he writes music, is different from Paul, because he thinks it differently, but there's the same sense of 'you just sit there and then you write a song...' There's a great bit where he talks about being in the studio and sitting in front of the mixer, but not touching it, just needing to be near it so he could work out the song. And he's like 'after about fifteen minutes… I mean they said it was an hour or two, but about fifteen minutes… I went over to the piano… I didn't play the piano, but it meant I could explain the harmony'.

There was some big study at a university and the doctors who did the study said that anxiety and creativity are sort of the same thing: both of them are about dealing less with what's in front of you and more with what's in your head. Listening to what's in your head, especially when you're a person with anxiety, leads to negative emotions. But they're also a form of imagination. If you can worry about problems when there aren't problems around, then you can also think of stories or songs when there aren't stories or songs around. You can make things go from not existing to existing.

I'm sure there's another bit that I can't find now, where he talked about realising that if you can make songs, then you sort of have a duty to. Because if you don't make them exist they don't exist.

all quotes from I Am Brian Wilson by Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman

[marysoulpainter]

Yayyy Mary, I've got some questions for Rodya (does he like to be called like that though?). Feel free to answer them one at a time or all together! Sooo…

What does he listen to with his LemonPod?

Any references for his voice?

What's his own opinion concerning his mental magic? Does he feel like it's unfair towards others? Or does he feel like it can help him make better connection with others? Or maybe he has no idea about his talent?

His favorite scent?

…aaand I just wanna know more about his passion for birds and bird whistles. Birds are fun!

P. S. Love his outfit. Is it traditional for his church, or does he prefer to go a bit... stylish?

Yippie, yummy questions! You're the best, Gray! 💕 (he prefers Rodion, but he doesn't mind at all when his friends call him Rodya :>)

The answers got reaaaaally long, so look under the cut!

He really likes indie rock, although I imagine he listens pretty much to everything (and also i guess because indie rock can be any rock, folk, punk or alternative?).

Uhh, mostly Russian ones, didn't come up with English ones yet... but if you wanna hear them (and have VK), it's "образец голоса" by Михаил Данилюк, Сергей Смирнов and Александр Воеводин! Voevodin is actually the main reference for his voice, you can also hear him in a soviet animated short called "Геракл у Адмета" (he voices Admetus). The other ones work just as well! p.s. when i pick his english voice i'll probably reblog the reference with it...

Well, the magic in ZBDN comes to a person when they hit puberty, and even then it's not guaranteed (plus, Rodion's a half-elf). He wasn't dealing with much bullying at that time, but he still probably felt alienated and had little friends. He felt pretty conflicted with it, since people began gravitating towards him more, and he felt like it wasn't really fair and it wasn't him that attracted people... but he eventually accepted and dealt with it. It works like a passive aura, so he can't really control it, and it's not very strong at all. It just makes him more approachable, I guess, like ✨magic charisma✨. Plus, it helps his sermons get across better!

Hmmm... I feel like it would be lavender. Or pine. He uses different scents depending on his mood and purpose of his meditation session :>

Hehe, I think he just likes nature in general, birds included. Also bird whistles sometimes aren't even birds (я не знаю, какой точный аналог свистулек есть в неславянских культурах...). Whistles and vessel flutes are fun! They're easy to pick up and play, and they look very nice, I think he knows some simple melodies even.

It is traditional for his church! Calm blues and a black-and-white pendant, symbolising harmony in the soul and balance of End and Beginning. One cannot exist without another, and you will gain inner peace and be content with your life only if you seek balance. No true perfect balance exists, of course, but it's good to strive for harmony in yourself! And it's doesn't mean shutting your emotions and getting rid of earthly desire, quite the contrary. Just- just seek mental and emotional stability, ok? :D

[wh1sp3rr]

𑊡˚+₊📀✦ — alone again + multiple; one shot

cw: slight fluff, very slight angst, set in a dystopian environment & gn. reader

an: i highly highly recommend you listen to chamber of reflection by mac demarco on loop as you read this just for the immersion but besides that, enjoy reading <33

-ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ-

there was something so pleasant about the mere sight of him crying in front of you: because of you. an overwhelming and condescending feeling of superiority wavered over you, making you believe you had full control of the situation, that is until you realise his gaze, heavy, was now set upon your lips rather than the floor, glancing up to your eyes shamelessly.

his weakened sniffles were now warming into heaves and puffs till he utters out in the quietest of voices; “i want to kiss you, please let me.” the silence that follows the statement allows you to maintain your composure before his thumb indents into those same lips he was craving and your eyes lock, his filled with lust while yours the same.

these moments were your guilty pleasure, the knowingness between the two of you of what comes next invites all but the unknown sentiment of euphoria. you were needy for him, just as he was for you and nothing was making that change, for better or for worse.

both having the same desire, same want, same need, you kiss– so slowly that it seems you’re engulfing each other whole. his knuckles elegantly trace your jawline before grazing the cut he had given you earlier, “i’m sorry,” he breaths out, and you feel a teardrop stain your cheek, the dampness being rubbed away by [his name]’s fingertip.

your peers were never able to pinpoint your relationship. some called you enemies, some complicated, some strangers, neither of these were the correct term for whatever you had going on but while both of you understood it was wrong, there was something so addictive that made it feel so fucking right.

lyrics repeating the words; ‘alone again’ over and over only ignited the kiss, lips melding harmoniously and in tune with the bluesy melody. it was one of the few tracks that remained unscathed but had grown to become yours and his favourite. as soon as it began to play, that was the others’ cue to back off from the room because they knew, you knew, he knew, what it meant.

‘[y/n]’, he whines, ‘[y/n]’, this time needier than the last. you simply hum in response, his name running a thousand miles in your head as if it were the only thing you knew.

he breaks the kiss. forehead leaning its weight against yours, “you’ve gotten better,” he chuckles with a rosy flush, “and you worse.” he stares at you, your nose bridges connected, “yeah?” he wipes his thumb on the corner of your mouth holding the string of saliva, “you know damn well i haven’t,” he says firmly.

You pause, glance at his thumb, gaze never relaxing and kiss the tip ever so delicately, with the utmost precision as if a touch too heavy would shatter it entirely. He cowers a little but sweeps the hair on your forehead back, slick with sweat as if to prove to himself that he isn’t fazed when that was anything but true.

He brushes himself off, fixes the hair that you instinctually clawed at and asks “How do I look?” before he poses jokingly.

“Just the way I like,” you say, dragging out the final syllable of each word. He rolls his eyes, a common gesture when it comes to him, but then he turns his back and the heavy displeasure in your heart maximises making your movements sluggish and irritated.

You’ll be in front of other people now, you can’t let them know and though they’re suspecting, what with [his name]’s overprotective trait manifesting through arms over shoulders and hands on your waist, there’s still a strong uncertainty within them.

You still long for commitment, unconditionality and cherish however, something that you wish your partner wasn’t afraid of just because of past experiences and core beliefs.

He wipes his sleeve through his nose, the sticky glisten grossing you out. “Ew,” you say meaning for it to be a thought.

He gives you a smile, the one where he’s either about to playfully tease you, or caress you so lovingly.

Your speculations are confirmed with the first option when he starts chasing you with his mucus-covered sleeve, “Dickhead, stop!” you laugh out, not necessarily pleasantly since you were still wary of said sleeve.

“You’re gonna have to run faster, little [girl/boy/one].” You find a safe spot in the corner of his bed, backing up further and further when his walk becomes slower and deeper with anticipation.

The bed’s broken ridges are played with by your fingers, the feeling of randomised patches sewn in is noticeable with every new texture just as familiar as the last.

This bed carries a lot of memories, some undiscovered and some well remembered, it was also where you spent the first night sleeping after the apocalypse had just hit. No amount of description will ever do justice to the unhinged fear you felt that is still carried by you at night when the atmosphere is unrestrained with solitude and danger.

“Fuck!” His snot has now become a part of your attire. He lets out a hearty laugh only to be cut short when you spit on your hand and wipe it on his chest. “Two can play at that game,” you say, conspicuous smugness marked on your face. “Smartass…” he mumbles with a smile still present from his laugh.

A tinge of guilt stings your heart, noticing the slight pink hue of his eyes, worsening when you acknowledge you are the fault for this.

You can’t think of anything to do to comfort him only your body acts on its own when it decides to cup his face with your calloused hands, thumbs wiping away the physical sadness still evident on his face.

He flinches of course, [his name] wasn’t always the biggest fan of physical touch but God knows he needs it, arguably more than you. Be that as it may, a weight is lifted off your chest to the softening of his expression, you’re glad you’re the fault for this.

His face turns to the window but you gently bring it to face you. Eye contact was not uncommon between you two yet it usually resulted in either one of you crying, yelling in a fit of rage or simply just hurting the other one; physically, emotionally, or a combination of the two.

This time was different though, it felt different. The track even remarkably kept playing after its second loop instead of going haywire and killing the mood.

For no exact reason, you lean forward, uncaring about the wetness your spit left on his shirt or the now drying mucus on his forearm.

To your surprise, he adjusts his position, making you lay down instead of lean uncomfortably. The symphony you were hearing was now no longer the music but his constant, slightly alleviated heartbeat.

Your thoughts get cut short when you feel light, benign vibrations against his chest and soon the atmosphere becomes heavy with yearning.

He’s humming along to the tune.

Your eyes widen, making the highlights in them grow. He’s never done that before, and you think this again when he croaks out the lyrics in a rasp several octaves lower than usual.

“No use looking out, it’s within that brings that lonely feeling.”

He stops singing but continues his mellow hum when you reach your hand up to his neck. He’s looking right at you now yet his stare isn’t filled with lust, or anguish or blind rage but genuine tenderness.

A smile creeps onto your face making your eyes squint and teeth show; “I like this side of you,” you whisper.

“Mhm?” he hums, “Mhm,” and with that, his eyes shut and his movements slow as you engage in yet another kiss, this one more intimate than the last.

His jawline is pleasantly acquainted with your lips as you reach his ear and murmur, “You’re so cute.”

He sighs and begins rubbing circles on your spine; “Now you know how I feel…” trailing off.

You harshly smooch his neck, a pop leaving your lips and somewhat echoing.

“Yeah,” you state, “I do.” If you were wearing lipstick, his skin would have a deepening rosy mark in the shape of your lips.

“Heyyy…” he says bashfully with warming cheeks & an amplified heartbeat.

You ignore this and repeat said action, this time softer and with a smile.

He lets out a chuckle whilst shaking his head and brings his hand up to rest in your hair, occasionally playing with the curls and making them bounce while you nuzzle into the crook of his neck, eventually falling into a tranquil slumber.

JASON TODD, bakugo, iwaizumi, TWDG MITCH, josuke, KYOTANI

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Bigger Than Me, live acoustic performance on Sirius XM 9.16.22 (posted 10.2.22)

The thing I love about this performance is how natural and easy Louis sounds, how relaxed and in command. This was by far the best acoustic performance of BTM so far, better than GMA and much better than Elvis Duran.

Just like Louis’ performances of We Made It and Too Young at Sirius XM back in 2019, Bigger Than Me is done with acoustic instruments. The setting is coffeehouse-like but with very expensive studio equipment 😄: good mics, speakers, & acoustic instruments. The accompaniment is barebones. There’s little vocal harmony and almost no backing track (Isaac’s voice doubles Louis’ in the chorus).

This means that there is nowhere for Louis’ voice to hide. As in chamber music, we hear everything: every crack, every pitch correction, every strain in the throat. So Louis’ performance, like a dive off the high board, has to be perfectly executed yet effortlessly easy— and Louis does it. This performance was a tour de force.

One difference with the 2019 performance is that Louis knows this band inside and out, and they know him. After dozens of bathroom warm up exercises, they know how they sound together. They communicate by listening to each other, they can anticipate. There’s a confidence in the air that each man will do what he is supposed to do, that they can adapt to any circumstance. Louis’ implicit trust in his band is evident in his closing his eyes for the entire performance, concentrating only on what he hears. He takes out the left in-ear for the choruses just to hear the balance of the instruments and the accuracy of his belted melody. He’s straight on.

The contrast between Louis singing solo in the second verse (“So come on call me liar/ yeah you’re so quick to judge”) with his smoky emo voice, to the warmth of the male vocal harmony (singing inverted harmony above, “All those voices, all those choices/ I don’t hear them anymore”) makes me want to scream, “I love you, boys!” They simply sound sublime in a loose, honeyed, ambling way. Louis found himself some really good musicians and great people.

Listen to Louis sing the big soaring chorus and hear how strong his central abdominal muscles are. He projects the sound without any throat strain (and takes out his in-ears to listen to himself). Louis isn’t pushing the sound out from the vocal cords, but powering it from a controlled diaphragm and strong abs. His voice sounds powerful without screaming. The vocal cords are vibrating symmetrically and fluidly. Moreover, Louis and the boys have to obtain a beautiful, rounded vocal quality without really using any vibrato (vocal cord vibrations around a frequency)— which is very hard. He is doing theater singing, rock opera singing: a belted voice without too much vibrato, without mic tricks, without synth, without reverb. The tone has to come from shaping the mouth and throat alone, and it’s projected toward the mic.

Most fun of all! We can tell that this is 100% live singing, not lip synching. Smoking and drinking notwithstanding, Louis has been able to keep his high tenor tessatura, and the pure, bell-like tone of his younger voice has taken on a smokier, older, raspier and more complex timbre. What a treat it is when Louis is at his best.

[shayewrites]

Bird Call from Afar

synopsis: inspired by the lore behind the ost Bird Call from Afar xiao x goddess! reader (fem!reader)

warnings: a little angst, mentions of death, she/her pronouns used

masterlist. navigation.

qingyun’s peak was the perfect place to view all of liyue above the clouds and watch as the stars gathered into their constellations in the night sky. it was far enough away from the false light that shone from the harbor while still being close enough to jueyun karst that none would dare to disturb its serene atmosphere.

amidst the clouds and the stars that hung in the sky above, one figure sat at the peak with their legs dangling off the edge as they hummed a soft tune to themselves.

“xiao? what are you doing out here so late?” paimon enthusiastically flew out from behind the traveler’s frame, “on the hunt for demons?”

xiao didn’t turn to acknowledge them, continuing to stare up at the night sky, “not tonight.”

paimon sent the traveler a quizzical glance before asking, “why not? are there not any out tonight?”

the adepti shook his head, “no, it’s not that. it’s just-” he sighed to himself, “today’s different.”

“how come?” the traveler puzzled, hoping that xiao might decide to open up a little bit. it wasn’t like him to be, well, still. he was always a busy adepti, never having a moment to spend on himself.

he finally turned to meet their gaze rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, “it’s uh-it’s a long story.”

the traveler moved to sit next to xiao, swinging their legs to hang off the cliffside beside his, “we’ve got some time before we leave for sumeru in the morning.”

ever the curious one, paimon was quick to interject as well, her voice growing louder by the second, “yeah! paimon loves stories!”

with a shake of his head, he relented, “alright, alright.” he then leaned back, resting his weight on his palms to get comfortable before he began, “what do you know about the gods of liyue before the archon war?”

the traveler started to answer, but their companion beat them to it with her hand raised high in the air as if this were a school lesson, “ooo paimon knows! the gods of liyue worked together for each of their people. they worked in harmony to protect and to guide their people to have good, long lives.”

xiao nodded, returning his gaze to the stars above as he continued, “right. among the various gods of liyue was the goddess of song. unlike the other deities of her time, she did not have a people so to speak. instead, she used her talents and abilities to unite the peoples of liyue through music. bards all the way in mondstadt were inspired by her beautiful songs and enchanting lyrics, and individuals would come from as far as natalan just to hear her sing.” perhaps he was simply lost in the story himself, but under his breath, just loud enough for the traveler to hear he breathed the words, “she was truly spectacular.

despite her love for song and dance, performing in front of a crowd always seemed to be a daunting task for her, so for a few weeks of the year, she’d escape to the mountains of jueyun karst to simply get away from it all. she’d sing from the highest mountain top of qingyun and her voice would carry through the wind down to where the first adepti abode.

oftentimes while i was out training, i could hear her voice, singing from the top of mount qingyun . while at first i thought it to be a distraction and a nuisance, i eventually came to enjoy the new melodies and harmonies that would drift down to the valleys below.

one night particular night, i heard her singing from the mountain when i noticed her voice seemed to waver, as if she were crying, as if the only song she was able to sing was that of a longing songbird searching for its lost mate. it pained my heart to hear, but i was convinced that it was not a song meant for my own ears as i had never once found the courage to speak to her on my own. in fact, out of all the yakshas, only bosacious approached her a time or two while she visited the mount, but he had returned with a telling frown that ultimately signified his heartbroken rejection, but that’s a story for another time.” he brushed off a beetle that had climbed onto his shoulder pad and returned to his story, “it wasn’t until i heard her voice singing the same lonely tune the following night that i found myself wanting to reach out to her. i couldn’t explain why, but her songs seemed to have that feeling that i myself had known all too well, of loss and of despair. looking back, perhaps i had only meant to comfort her, but on the third night of her melancholic song, i sang the melody of her tune back to her, soft and low as i had neither the confidence nor the skill to match her beautiful tones that rang from the mountain’s peak.”

paimon shot into the air, holding her hands in a ‘t’ symbol to call for a timeout, “you mean to tell paimon that you can sing?!” she then folded her arms and stomped at the air, “how come paimon has never heard of this?!”

he chuckled gently at her exclamation, “hmm, it’s not something many people know. in fact, only the adepti themselves retain this knowledge, except for you two of course.”

paimon continued to pout as the traveler laughed, attempting to console the poor, floating child.

before returning to the story, he hid a brief smile at the two companions that he had made, wondering how much his goddess would have wished to meet them, “to this day i’m not sure how she heard me, but she did. she paused to listen, patiently waiting for me to finish before testing out a new melody, which i sang back to her as well. it must have frightened her, because she immediately stopped singing and did not return to the mountains for some time. in fact, i found myself missing her soothing voice that i had grown accustomed to over time. without it, the valley felt,” he paused, “empty. however, around the same time, there appeared to be someone who would come to the mountains and simply sit on the edge to watch the stars, never speaking and never paying any mind to the adepti as they would come and go. while i thought this stranger might be just another foolish human who had wandered too far into adepti territory, i posted myself just out of sight, watching from a distance to see if i could ascertain her intentions. she could have chosen to watch the stars from anywhere in all of teyvat, but she had chosen jueyun karst of all places, and i wanted to know why.

after about a week or so of watching her each night, i unintentionally revealed myself to her after i broke a tree branch while walking to my usual place in the brush behind her. strangely enough, she didn’t seemed startled in the slightest, simply looking back to where i was positioned with a rather amused smile as she playfully remarked, “finally decided to join me?” i was completely caught off guard by her statement, but i nodded nevertheless, moving to sit next to her despite the awkwardness of the situation. for a few moments we sat in total silence, simply observing the surroundings and the stars above before she turned to speak, “i know you’ve been watching me for some time now, but why haven’t you driven me off yet? why? is this not the sacred place of the adepti?”

truth be told, i didn’t have an answer. i had meant to do so, every night in fact, but whenever i would try to gather the courage to confront her, i found myself hanging back, still curious as to why she would visit the mountain every night, but unable to summon the courage required to speak to her. instead of answering her question, i finally asked a burning question of my own, “why do you come out here each night?”

her eyes lit up in a soft smile, “oh, i’m waiting for someone.”

i had simply scoffed, telling her that she wouldn’t find anyone all the way out there, that whoever it was she was searching for was a lost cause, but she shook her head and said, “it may sound quite silly, but i often come out here to craft new melodies and get away from the busy life of liyue. it’s a nice change in pace every now and then.” she sighed to herself before continuing, her face falling just a bit, “truthfully, i came out here to sing as i usually do one night when i heard someone reply. he sang my own song back to me, softly and gently as if he were unsure of his own voice yet it was full of understanding. now that i think about it, i suppose i should have tried to find him instead of running off, but i was so surprised i didn’t know how to react. i’ve yet to find him since that night, so i come out here each night in the hopes that i might hear his voice and find the boy who sang with me that night. foolish, right?” 

by the time she finished, i realized that i was in the presence of the goddess of song. i wasn’t sure what to do. i couldn’t reveal myself as the boy she was searching for, but looking back, perhaps she knew all along, because for the first time since she had supposedly disappeared, she had started to sing again. it was the same melody as before, but with new words that spoke of hope and of sweet longing that filled the air. when she was finished, she returned to looking at the stars. she waited patiently for a voice to relay the tune back to her, but after she received no reply, she bid me farewell and returned to her own home. she thanked me for the company and left without another word.

that night began a cycle of long nights spent together staring up at the stars as i listened to her sing while i would mend the day’s wounds or rest on the soft ground beside her. however, one night she didn’t show up. knowing her status as a goddess and as a renowned singer, i wasn’t concerned, but then two nights turned to three and into four until over a week had passed without so much as a letter from her. i hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, but i was growing worried about the goddess of song. on the eighth night of her disappearance, i left jueyun karst to search for her, singing the song i had once sang to her before in the hopes she might find her way back to me, or i to her.

when i did find her, she was injured on the path to jueyun karst, just beyond cuijue slope. while the scene was unclear, i have always believed it was a fellow god in their jealously that struck her down and left her to die off the beaten path. i tried my best to heal her, but adeptal power can only repair so much. from the pained expression that she tried to keep hidden for my sake and the slowing breaths she was beginning to take, it was clear she was beyond saving. even so, i did the only thing i could to soothe her pain. i sang to her, holding both of her hands in one of mine as i sunk my polearm into her chest and watched as the light instantly faded from her eyes.”

“you killed her?!” paimon exclaimed, unable to keep her thoughts at bay, “why?!”

xiao scoffed, knowing she would overreact, “i wouldn’t expect either of you to understand, but she’d been suffering in agony for days on end. gods and goddesses do not die as quickly as humans or even adepti, and her suffering had become beyond unbearable. while it may sound cruel to mere mortals, i provided a swift and honorable death, just as any god or adeptus would have wished for.”

paimon furrowed her brows as she scratched her head at the yaksha’s story, “that still doesn’t explain why today’s different of all days though.”

“no?” he mused before shrugging lightly, “well, today marks the day of her passing and the start of the Archon War. i take this day each year to remember her and all of those i lost in the war.”

before their companion could interrupt, the traveler gave the grieving adeptus a soft smile and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, “i see. it sounds like she was a lovely person, xiao.”

“she was.” he huffed to himself, “i’d give nearly anything to hear her voice one last time.” looking back to the scene of the valley below, he seemed to be lost in thought.

paimon broke the silence before it could grow too long, “paimon’s curious. what did the song sound like?”

instantly, xiao responded, “i’m afraid i don’t remember its entirety. even so, i could never do it justice.”

while his answer was quick and telling of his hidden truth, the traveler decided it would be better not to pry. perhaps the yaksha should be allowed to keep a secret for himself. instead, they rose to their feet and started to say their farewell, “we should be heading back to liyue. we wanted to say goodbye before we left.”

xiao’s eyes grew wide for a moment and his mouth opened to share something, but he quickly decided against it, turning his head away bashfully, “goodbye traveler, and be careful.”

the traveler nodded, “we will. take care, xiao.”

when the traveler and their companion were out of sight, xiao sighed to himself before rising to his feet. he walked to the edge, as he had seen you do many times, and with a deep breath, he started to sing. after so long, the words were lost to time, but the melody never left his memory. his voice wavered with unrelenting grief and longing, but he continued still. if anyone were to hear him, they would hear nothing but a bird’s call from afar.

as the song came to an end, his voice carried along the breeze that blew across jueyun karst. it rang through the trees, drifting down the mountains to the valley below, and echoed off the mountaintops. centuries had gone by since she had been slain, but the song of his goddess would forever live in his heart, even if his voice was the only one left to sing it.

@ shayewrites tumblr 2022

aghhh i just found about this ost and its lore and i absolutely melted over how sad it was. so ofc i was like LETS MAKE IT EVEN SADDER.

[the-au-collector]

Welcome

I’m The AU Collector, call me Collector. You can find me under the same name on AO3. Here you’ll find my own AUs, my original world, and lots of reblogs. I’m mainly in the Linked Universe and Kingdom Hearts fandoms, but you’ll also see me stray into others like Tales of the Abyss, Lockwood & Co, Batfam, etc. I call pretty much all of my works AUs, so even if it’s a fic, I’ll call it AU for simplicity’s sake.

I have a lot of AUs so I thought I would break them down below for people wondering what they are. Also feel free to ask me about any of them. I’d love to ramble about them!

Linked Universe

Relinked AU: 23 years after Linked Universe, the Links’ kids are kidnapped, forcing the Links on another time-traveling adventure to save them. Meanwhile, the kids go on their own adventure to get home.

Reconnect the Chain AU: AU of Relinked. Taking place 10 years after Linked Universe, the Chain reconnects themselves. It’s my happy, slice-of-lifey version of Relinked. Most drawings or writing I do with the Relinked kids as kids will be tagged as both RtC and Relinked if it’s pre-reunion.

Radio AU: Modern College AU. The Chain are all somehow affiliated with the college radio station at Kakariko University. Hyrule’s a new student who gets dragged into their chaos, and learns a little bit about himself in the process.

Cupcakes for Harmony: Inspired by Their Melody. I looked at Their Melody and said “what if I made it sadder?”

Adventures of Uncle Alfon: Legend’s Uncle has some things to say. A non-linear, slice-of-life fic focusing on Uncle Alfon and his relationship with Legend.

Epic AU: Ongoing brainstorming. Epic: The Musical has inspired a plot in my head but idk what’s happening with it yet. All I really know is it’s another LU Links Reunite fic, plus some.

Second Chain/Ultimate Chain AU: Alternate versions of the same AU. I add some more heroes into the mix! Features The Hero of the Kingdom (TOTK), The Hero of Ages (Age of Calamity), The First Hero (Skyward Sword Manga), The Shadow of the Hero (Four Swords Adventures), The (younger) Hero of Legend (A Link To The Past), and The Hero of the Minish (Minish Cap). Potentially, I may even add the Ancient Hero (Tears of the Kingdom).

Kingdom Hearts

Those Who Have Been Wronged Series: A multi-book series currently in the works. It’s canon-compliant up until the secret ending of KH3. Follows the Foretellers’ arc with Kairi as the main protagonist as she searches for Sora and works to defeat the Master of Masters alongside Ven, Namine, Vanitas, and Lauriam. It does include all the KH characters, and almost everyone gets their own time to shine, but Kairi and co. (The Reflection Crew) is the main group.

Together AU: KH3 onwards AU where everything is wrapped up during KH3. The Union Leaders are here. Eraqus is back. Everyone is (mostly) happy. A soft, slice-of-life series I write when the Wronged Series is getting to overwhelming.

Miscellaneous AUs: Occassionally a KH AU will pop into my head. These aren’t very serious works, just fun ideas.

Tales of the Abyss:

Fire Rises: Mostly vibes at this point, Fire Rises will focus on a cast of 6-7 Unscored (people born outside of the Score) trying to make their lives in a world that still holds onto their hatred for them. Takes place 5-ish years after Tales of the Abyss.

OG-Verse:

The OG-verse is my original world called Auran which shares a good portion of worldbuilding as the Wronged Series and Together AU. It’s where all my KH OCs have gone to live. I have a lot of worldbuilding for this but not a lot of story at the moment.

[numetalpuppygirl]

what i'm listening to 3/2024

spot.//yt

Limp Bizkit - Pollution: got this played on my local radio station bc i got connections

DC Talk - Jesus Freak: i have become OBSESSED with this christian rap rock (kind of) band. couldn't explain it very well myself but i think they're really fun and super silly. i've been listening to this particular song for quite some time now but it's only recently that my full obsession has developed and i've been getting other people roped into it too..... i'm just spreading the good word 😁

Whitechapel - The Saw Is the Law: had this one stuck in my head something FIERCE these past few weeks. just that crusher chorus line is so fucking good, I never was a huge whitechapel fan but they go hard when the mood is right. played it at work and everything

The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again: cumming all over myself i love the riff and the melodies and there are some real good lines despite very few lyrics overall... admittedly that squeaky chipmunk harmony is pretty goofy but when the rest of it is so good who even care.

Faith No More - Midlife Crisis: i like this one more and more every time i hear it. a friend of mine introduced me to this and it's been stuck in my head relentlessly ever since. also definitely goofy as fuck but i love the kinda hardcore-type vocals mike patton throws into the verses, especially in the live version and the big swelling bridge. a song like this makes me get why people talk about faith no more as "proto-nu metal" or whatever..... fred durst would do some shit like this <3 also got this played on the radio station

Butthole Surfers - Cough Syrup: i don't like this band as much as i wish i did, though i've certainly got plenty more listening to do. def some stupid lyrics here bc it's the butthole surfers but i actually really really like "i can't talk so i guess i got nothing to say." something about that one

Third Eye Blind - Jumper: it's back! i think i've expended all the words i have about this already but man what a good little pop song

Breaking Benjamin - Skin: great example of how enjoying breaking benjamin is more about hearing the loud guitars and the unique syllabic experience of ben's weird as hell enunciation than it is about anything original or lyrical. what the hell is this song about i don't know. but it bangeth mightily. this also stands to represent that i and mine have been listening to a fuckton of bb lately

Elliott Smith - Cupids Trick: a dear friend of mine has put me on that elliott smith shit fairly recently and i think this is my fav from either/or... the riff so good and it's catchy and has a really dark punchy sound compared to the rest of the record (which is also real good! but just different)

Gorillaz - Cracker Island: heard this on the radio a ways back and instantly came all over myself and said "omg who is this is this the new sound of the summer????" and then looked it up and saw that it was a band i already know that's been around for decades ^_^ but it's just a banger and they found one good hook and punched it up to 11!!

Kittie - Eyes Wide Open: KITTIE BACK???? and with a rager O_O <me when my eyes are wide open. lol. not much further commentary here i'm just excited for the new record and i hope it's good and not bad

Enon - Window Display: my experience continues of getting into this band at the pace of a tortoise or perhaps a snail. p sure this is like the biggest song from them and. it good! they just have a tastey sound and i like the vocalist's delivery

Lamb Of God - Redneck: been on some metalcore shit too and like groove metal and shit and it hardly gets better than lamb of god. i feel like i haven't often properly appreciated them but what a consistently banger band. and this one just has some cool catchy parts that have been in my head since like high school. JUST! ONE! TIME!!!!!

Insane Clown Posse - Halls Of Illusions: my friends and i have been indulging in what we're calling "fucked up friday" which sometimes includes icp as a soundtrack. still want to listen to the full album with people at some point. but anyway i never took too too much notice of this track until a friend put it on and i realized how good it is. and frankly kind of saw-coded w it

Drowning Pool - Tear Away: kind of not great but the chorus glued itself to me. sort of the death toll of nu metal giving in to the way of the post-grunge ballad but man this vocalist was damn solid!

Victoria Monét - On My Mama: proof that i haven't completely exited the pop listening sphere. i still got todd. go watch the top ten of 2023 for a review

Rai Panesar - I Don't Give a Shet (IDGAS): okay this is a stupid joke song. i think. but i like to imagine it's sincere. like i like to imagine the dude that made this thought it was actually pretty cool and had fun making it. i'm scared to find anything else out about him bc it might ruin this hope that i have

Theory of a Deadman - Rx (Medicate): SUCKS. but kind of fascinating. how the fuck did theory have a hit in like 2017 or whenever this came out. by making a hip hop country rock song about doing drugs. oh okay

The Revivalists - Wish I Knew You: adding this alongside cigarette daydream in the canon of "indie band has relentlessly catchy pop hit that i listen to a bunch and attach memories to but actually think kind of sucks ass." i heard this in a restaurant a while back and went omg it's crazy by gnarls barkley i love crazy by gnarls barkley despite not really having very strong feelings about crazy by gnarls barkley but well these are the things we think to ourselves. so i kept waiting for the part where he goes does that make me craaaaazayyyyyy.... but it never came!!!! every chorus would just end on nothing and then move on to the next verse. i got edged by this song until almost the very end where i finally figured out what song it actually was and then got that stuck in my head but i'm still bitter! motherfucker! and also i don't like their band name. what exactly are you reviving 🤨

[blood-and-pizza]

I wanna talk about a few of my fan animatronics for FNAF, so beware! LOTS of old fan art ahead:

Catie the Cat - my first FNAF OC, created all the way back in 2014. She went through multiple name changes before she finally got her current one. Originally conceptualized as a flirty, sultry lounge singer animatronic from the FNAF 1 era, she gradually evolved into a playful party girl who's an amazing vocalist AND a drummer. Catie is a light blue cat who originally did not have hair, but eventually gained golden blonde hair on her later iterations. Catie's playful nature has always been a part of her, charming both kids and adults alike. I admittedly haven't had the chance to develop her as much as I would like.

Brewster the Rooster - One of my more recent FNAF OCs from 2023. He was part of my Kawaii line of fanimatronics and was called "Brewster the Bishonen Rooster". Currently, Brewster has sort of become one of my favorite OCs, though I haven't done much with him. He's basically a character known for his good looks, and he's developed such an ego about it he literally thinks he's the main character of the universe. And he uses this information to be as sweet and kind and nice and helpful to everyone as much as possible. He's an egomaniac, but if he had a heart, it would be golden. He's a well-meaning himbo who has a secret love of disco music and calls people "dude" regardless of what gender they are. Oh, and his crow is terrifying as fuck and bone-chilling if he's hunting you down for some reason. If you hear him crow, he already knows where you are. Better run...

Monica Gator - I know, I know. I'm sure other people have their own Monica Gator fanimatronics. But I couldn't come up with a better name for this girl:

Inspired by Montgomery Gator and his awful relationship with Bonnie the Bunny, Monica has a love of rabbits. She thinks they're cute... and tasty, too! She also flirts with rabbit animatronics, but they're too terrified of what she'll do to them if they return her affections.

Pammy P. Parmesan - A mouse girl animatronic who's meant to be a female version of Chuck E. Cheese. Her restaurant, Pammy's Pizza Palace, was a rival to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Fazbear Entertainment ended up buying the rights to Pammy and her friends, which include Catie the Cat, Prissy Poodle, and Molly Mallard (formerly known as Dee Dee Duck). I drew art of the original Pammy P. Parmesan animatronic, who was injected with remnant and made to work as the janitor when the Kawaii animatronics with Berli Honeybear took over that location. I also drew a Glamrock version of her but it's kinda crappy to be honest, and I'd LOVE to redesign her.

There's also Kawaii Bonnet and Kitsune Foxy, who are both part of my Kawaii line of fanimatronics:

There are also three more characters I've mentioned before on this blog but haven't finalized designs for:

Melody and Harmony Pomene, Melissa Pomene's AI daughters from my Fazbear Estate AU, are supposed to have animatronic bodies at some point. But I haven't finalized designs for them yet. All I've come up with them is how they look as programs on a screen on Melissa's laptop:

Melody is on the left, and Harmony is on the right.

And the final character, one I truly haven't envisioned a look for... is Spring Chica, the springlock Chica the Chicken suit haunted by Fredbear's Family Diner's creative consultant, Francine Cantor, who got too close to William Afton and ended up dead for it. I've never drawn Spring Chica. I only know she wanted to kill William Afton and canonically doesn't get to... but in a Time Paradox ending she was successful and... well, I don't know what happens after that. Depends on how she decides to kill William.

Yeah, point is, I never came up with a design for Spring Chica. I should. I want her story to be realized in game form at some point.

[thesinglesjukebox]

THE BEATLES - "NOW AND THEN"

The gang's all back together! And it feels so... uh, well...

[3.53]

Tara Hillegeist: As a way to squeeze blood and money from a legacy that doesn't need the teary-eyed hagiography half as much as it needs a rest, this is nothing short of ghoulish. As a chance for the surviving members of history's most-mythologized pop band to have one last chance to reckon with their memories of absent friends, and the sometimes-miraculous sometimes-acrimonious friendship that was responsible for a magical time in their lives not even death will see them outpace, however... would that we all could be so fondly remembered, despite giving it our worst. How do I score something at once this obscenely unnecessary and heart-wrenchingly earnest to two decimal places? Should I hope anyone is going to do the same, fifty years from now, for One Direction? [5]

Taylor Alatorre: "The Last Beatles Song" carries about the same ring as "The McRib Farewell Tour," especially after McCartney's hasty clarification that the use of AI software for routine audio clean-up did not imply any procedurally generated singing. Still, I can't fault Peter Jackson for his basic recognition that, 54 years after "The End," Beatlemania has not yet bitten the dust. Given its origins, it was always going to be a challenge for "Now and Then" to avoid sounding like a song from nowhere, and it even takes a little while to avoid sounding like a tribute to Badfinger. But the decision to lean on the string section in the latter half, and the unabashed grandiosity of those sun-drenched vocal harmonies, help the song transcend its homework-like inception, turning its strange out-of-body nature into a selling point -- perhaps the selling point. Better to frankly acknowledge the role of earnest multigenerational fandom in the track's existence than to try and meticulously recreate the precise Revolver studio set-up. [7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: One of those songs that makes you want to quote Baudrillard and Adorno and Steyerl and meditate on the nature of aesthetic production under contemporary techno-capital. But frankly, I'm lazy and this song is a complete non-entity if you try and extricate it from the circumstances of its creation. Let me know when they find another lost demo and we get The_final_Beatles_song_[FINAL]_[REALLY FINAL].mp3 [4]

Edward Okulicz: Not much of a song, but has the benefit of quite a lovely, wistful arrangement. But that's it -- it's just not much of a song. I hope people aren't going to blame Giles Martin for it being rubbish the same way they blamed Jeff Lynne for "Free as a Bird" being terrible, because he's done a good job with not a lot of material to work with. I hope this makes the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison very happy. [3]

David Moore: I know it's cringe to be so into the Beatles, to think about them all the time and know all their songs well enough that with some accuracy I'd be able to predict the next song in an alphabetical countdown, to read enormous biographies of them, to have strong opinions about the Glyn Johns mix of Let It Be. And I know this song is barely even a song -- that they scraped some fledgling John Lennon melody out of the bottom of a fish tank and let the wannabe Martin (the young one) and wannabe McCartney (the old one) and the one and only Ringo (immortal, eternal, peace and love) gussy it up with a half-convincing pile of pastiche instead of just letting the thing be (see what I did there; did I mention I have strong opinions about the Glyn Johns mix?). I know that there's something a little rank about it, like an air freshener in a morgue, even before Peter Jackson reminded everyone that his first film was called Bad Taste. And I know it doesn't speak very highly of me to admit that even given all that, and potentially worse things to boot, there's probably no way this could have gotten below a [5] from me no matter what final form it took. But it's the truth. [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: This sad, misshapen ballad points to the Beatles' greatest fault: their lyrics could rarely keep apace with their musical curiosity. That's especially clear on the group's simpler, late-career songs, like this pathetic AI-assisted final single. Its aimless meandering finds an emotional core in the harmonized "you" that ends the first verse, but everything else fails to live up to that evocation, devolving into hackneyed sentiment. Released alongside "Love Me Do" to mark this as their final bow, "Now and Then" is a reminder that even when the Beatles started out, the simple lyrics held purpose: "Love Me Do" had relatively dry production compared to their contemporaries' work, and its raw sentiment was palpable, splitting the difference between schoolyard chant and workman-like charm. Comparatively, this track doesn't own up to its straight-ahead lyricism and uses a grandiose arrangement to convince you of its depth. Consider how Lennon admitted that "Something" was the best song on Abbey Road -- neither he nor McCartney could match the poetic grace that Harrison attained. We can now conclude that this was true until the very end. [2]

Alfred Soto: George Harrison, as Jorge Luis Borges said about Oscar Wilde, was almost always right. [3]

Aaron Bergstrom: I was in middle school in 1995 when The Beatles Anthology documentary premiered, and I hadn't planned on caring about it. I was an all-consuming sports nerd and music just wasn't something that registered with me. I knew the Beatles were a band. I probably could have given you "1960s" and "England," but that's about it. (Now, could I have recited the 1991 Minnesota Twins roster from memory? Absolutely.) Still, I lived in a small town before the internet and there wasn't much else going on. Anthology became the type of manufactured cultural event that I couldn't avoid. So while "Free As A Bird" wasn't the first Beatles song I ever heard, it was the first time I had the conscious thought, "Oh, so this is what the Beatles sound like." And... something happened. I can't really explain it. Like a fish discovering water, it suddenly clicked that the Beatles were everywhere. They were "I Want To Hold Your Hand" but they were also "Yellow Submarine" but they were also "Let It Be." I fell in love with the music, but it was more than that. I needed to understand why I loved it. It flipped a switch somewhere inside me that has stayed on ever since. I had to know everything. Who were they? Where did they come from? Why did they sound like this? Who else sounded like this? It's a straight line from that moment to me writing these words today. And I know most hardcore Beatles fans don't care for "Free As A Bird." Or "Real Love." I know that they're fake, and weird, and a cheap ploy to sell studio outtakes that otherwise weren't all that interesting, and I get it, but to me they'll always sound like the moment right before the world cracked open. I don't get to have that experience with "Now and Then." You only get to be a blank slate once. "Now and Then" is fine. It drags a bit. It's a rickety frame trying to support a lot of weight. It's even faker and weirder than the first two "new" Beatles songs. It probably didn't need to exist. Would it make my personal top hundred Beatles songs? I doubt it. But I'm glad it exists, if only on the off chance that it winds up as the bizarre first chapter in some other kid's origin story. [6]

Katherine St Asaph: Pretty! [6]

Nortey Dowuona: Shit is trash. Earth Wind Fire better. [0]

Ian Mathers: If you ever doubt my commitment to TSJ, remember that I could have gotten through the rest of the year without ever hearing this song had it not appeared in the blurber. And I definitely wouldn't have seen its absolute godless abomination of a video. The song itself is mid, mostly just existentially inessential, but we need to take an absolutely harsh line against condoning shit like that video. To be very clear, I don't mean the technology itself, which I imagine could be used in all sorts of worthwhile creative and/or horrifying ways. I mean the specific cultural, aesthetic, emotional context of this video. I could be the world's biggest Beatles fan or hater (I'm neither!) and I would still feel the same way and give this the same mark. [0]

Tim de Reuse: Given what the meaning of the term has warped into in the last year, the only reason to describe the use of source-separation methods as "Artificial Intelligence" to the general public is if you want people to think that a room full of sweaty engineers created a Lennon effigy out of linear algebra and poked it until it sang. The idea of finishing the work of somebody long-dead, making a collage of the debris that fell off of them when they were still breathing -- well, that's centuries old. Were they scared that the phrase "New Beatles Song" wouldn't cut it? Need to zhuzh it up a little? The idea that the Beatles, of all groups, would need a little sprinkle of our flaccid un-future to remain relevant is deeply funny to me -- doubly so, after noting how unremarkable the tune itself is, and how that pleasant unremarkability is exactly what people appear to be responding to. In the present moment we'd all kill for a pleasantly unremarkable week. Why on earth would you want to remind people that they're living in 2023? [6]

Will Adams: "Hello, my name is Princess Jane. I would like to show you some tricks. I hope you enjoy it." [0]

Michael Hong: Garbage in, garbage out. [2]

Andrew Karpan: Among the great, indelible images of the early 21st century ought to be the sputtering, GIF-like loop of John Lennon joyfully playing with his tie, significance perhaps unknown until commissioned for use to illustrate a song he never knew he was writing and was only foggily aware of singing. Whether a revelation as advertised, or a creepy "echoey mausoleum" as warned is besides the point, since it isn't quite a song so much as a curious facsimile of one. Feels perverse to listen to it with anything besides curious awe. [3]

Hannah Jocelyn: Damn "Now and Then," you've got the whole audiophile squad laughing. You have cutting edge AI technology, but not a dynamic EQ to take the resonances on John Lennon's voice? You have the last song from a legendary classic rock group, then seemingly slam an OTT instance on the mix bus to make it "modern?" The mastering engineer Miles Showell even said that he worked with the less limited mix, calling back to the last big audiophile controversy. And yet, Ringo's drums come in and I'm suddenly mini-Hannah, equally mesmerized by "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Yellow Submarine" because I had no conception of 'good' and 'bad' yet. There IS a lot to love, if you're able to pick it out without turning on Dolby Atmos; Lennon's melody is unassumingly beautiful, and I even like Paul trying to be George with the slide guitar solo. The string arrangement is very Phil Spector-overworking-Let-It-Be, and Lennon would probably hate it, but I find it lovely. At any rate, it's better than "Postcards from Paradise." [6]

Frank Falisi: Rough season to be a late-era McCartney truther. Why do you begin to think of your aesthetic project as dying in public? Politicians don't have the gumption to consider their mortality, so we're just left with the rot sloughing down the tubes of democracy, same as it ever was. What about pop stars? What about one of the pre-eminent experimental melodists in modern pop music? Living in the sundown shadow reach of every friend and lover and enemy, gone and departed before you. And to wake up, fingers cracked with England winter cold, capable of moving a bass string, just slower. To be on the worst end of the commodity inquest: they can keep bleeding your memory bank dry for dividends. A photo book, a lyric book, another lyric book, a legacy tour. Just one more memory in the bank. When does being garish back feel like all you can do? When does it not matter if you're composing out of love, if you're trying to write a new song, if you're trying to square your slowing mornings and long long nights -- every gesture gets legacy gnarl, an emotional formaldehyde that inverse's pop's gummy possibility. Lennon became a dorm-room poster ka-ching! before the dirt went cold. How else was it ever going to end? Why would an extractive system that can commodify even a novel melody, a heated-up lust change in how it treats its old stories? No Dylan Thomas rage, no Cohen hallelujah here, just the sneer of another old compatriot walking the long hallway blind to the end: "Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" [0]

Jonathan Bradley: A ghost of John Lennon summoned via digital séance, it hovers insubstantially in gloopy piano ectoplasm, bereft of melody, direction, purpose. [3]

Brad Shoup: As a band that famously lived and created in the moment, the Beatles rarely had the sense of an ending. They were as fond of bits as statements, so they chased their two most renowned album closers with, respectively, pureed studio nonsense and a joke ditty about QEII. Though I'd take "Her Majesty" over "Get Back" any day, Let It Be (released after but mostly recorded before Abbey Road) became the final word on studio Beatles. The Anthology project offered a couple dreamy, slight psych-pop tunes that -- because they were based on compositions from a dead Beatle at his most placid -- couldn't be anything other than valedictory. In the years since we've had reductive Beatles and recombinant Beatles, and now, finally, maybe, retiring Beatles. "Now and Then" is as joyless as I've ever heard them. Not tired or dutiful, but lost: there's no trace of the bantering lads re-introduced in the Peter Jackson documentary. At their best, the Fabs felt like they were playing for each other as much as the world. Down two Beatles now, and again working off a John composition, they can only sound like they're playing to each other. The mix is as blue-gray as the cover art: little vocal homages to their past are buried in the churn. The string arrangement is ghastly. Paul's slide-guitar tribute to George -- in itself pretty funny, considering Paul's famous scene commandeering George's playing in the Let It Be film -- ends up in "Scar Tissue" territory. But even though I don't like this song, John's melody has stuck with me for a month now. By all accounts, it sounds like it's stuck with Paul (who knows from indelible melodies) for decades. There's something in its hesitancy, its uncertainty, in the way that it carries all this naked need to the door without knowing what's on the other side. My mom died -- suddenly, unexpectedly -- in January, so I've spent a lot of fucking time trying to get the sense of an ending. I've hung out with my father more this year than the last five put together, which means I've been talking about the Beatles more than usual. He doesn't care for "Now and Then": it's too sodden for him, too maudlin. I think he would feel that way regardless. But I understand Paul and Ringo's desire to summon their beloved John, to sing him back here and home again. And I understand why, when I play this, I mostly hear pain. [5]

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