#not me reading that excerpt like ''ohh so tHIS is where I first made up jiruoub berries!!!'' lmao

[nebulouscoffee]

✄ what’s your editing process?

★ what was the scene you most wanted to write in "Who We Are" ? what was the hardest scene to write?

and

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line -> for "Home"

Thank you so much!😊

✄ what’s your editing process? - answered here :)

★ what was the scene you most wanted to write in "Who We Are" ? what was the hardest scene to write? - I remember being so excited to write Ezri's joining, which ended up being a ton of fun- as well as this (not yet posted) fallout between Jadzia and Julian. Plus the climactic zhian'tara ritual! A scene that's been quite hard to write is one where Jadzia sort of snaps and is... actually very mean to Ezri (hard because it's tough to find the balance between painful and still in-character; in canon it was Garak, who can easily be cruel- but while I think Jadzia can be uncaring sometimes she isn't usually mean like that, so what would it take to push her? how can I make it convincing?) - and ofc that climactic zhian'tara ritual lol, because HOWWW can I capture the sheer madness of Jadzia Sans Dax But Not Quite Idaris hosting the spirit of Technically Now Dead Past Host Jadzia Dax. Nothing is good enough!! Nothing!!!

▵ pick a fic and I’ll tell you my favorite line -> for "Home" - omg Home :') can't believe it's been two whole years since I sat down and thought "well maybe I should try writing a fan fic" & then accidentally gave birth to a 100k word monster lmao. I haven't actually read this one since last December, so I'm not sure these are in fact my fav lines- but people seem to comment about this exchange between Kira and Garak a lot, and I do like it!

“Nilvi isn’t even a Cardassian fruit,” he said randomly.  Kira knew. It was Amlethi; plucked from their soils and grown on Cardassian worlds. Jiruoub berries were Amlethi too; yet they’d fed her three years in the Resistance. Korman weeds brought by Cardassian invaders now blanketed moba orchards, inexplicably helping the indigenous trees grow. Two of the seven spices in Seven-Spice Hasperat were Cardassian.  Years ago, Kira would’ve defiantly relished a five-spice version, shamed her peers who didn’t. Now, she just thinks they’ve all been through too much to punish themselves with bland hasperat. Maybe time couldn’t heal all wounds. But it could turn her hasperat from a political statement into lunch. “My father enjoyed it,” she remembered. “So did my mother.” Garak paused. “You’ve met her, you know.”

This digs into a lot of things I find fascinating about their dynamic, and what they might have in common despite being from opposite sides of an Occupation- but it's also an important character moment for both of them; a recognition of how much their lives have changed, their worlds have changed, they have changed. The nilvi fruit does have symbolic weight in this fic lol- it's the thing that starts off the whole series of unfortunate events, yes, but also when it's first mentioned in chapter one, it's via Garak reminiscing about it as a symbol of cultural pride, unity, and Cardassian wealth, and with casual nostalgia. Him saying this now is a display of how much the events of the fic have forced him to confront that nostalgia- now, the fruit has become a symbol of Cardassian greed, entitlement and violence (both on a larger, planetary scale, and a personal one). I also really wanted to write this moment of peaceful self-awareness for Kira- there are things she will never truly heal from, things she'll never forgive (a lot of which are quite literally personified in the man she's currently sipping springwine with) - but that doesn't mean they can't come to take on new significances. I remember I was thinking about how maize is a dietary staple in most African countries, and red and green chillies are so famously associated with various Asian cuisines- yet, neither of those things is native to those lands. Every country from Sudan to Sri Lanka is filled with tea stalls that are now a crucial part of the culture - but shai/chai never used to be made with tea leaves until those countries were colonised. This is not a "silver lining on the cloud" type thing, of course- quite the opposite; neither Bajor nor any real-world nations should ever have been colonised (& this is why I included that "inexplicably helping the indigenous trees grow" line- the exact sort of thing that would get paraded around as a defence of colonialism! Just like railways, languages, European architecture, fusion art, etc. Whether Cardassian activity was poisoning the soil or inadvertently helping something grow, it doesn't matter- it had no business being carried out in Bajoran territory.) But this is an aspect of occupations I hadn't seen explored all that much in ds9 fanworks; that inevitable intertwining of cultures- so I wanted to write more about it, and given I drew a lot of inspiration from stuff I see around me I'm always so pleasantly surprised by how many people responded to it, I'm very glad it resonated

[seaofreverie]

I listened to a new Sparks album and it was all I could think about for two weeks straight afterwards, a.k.a. My Hello Young Lovers Review

Okay, so here's my fabled review (I mentioned having written it once about three months ago, so I guess there's a chance that someone still remembers that). It's hecking long (seriously, it's long.) and consists mostly of me pointing out specific sections of the songs and raving about which specific elements of the songs I particularly like. And also attempting to make some sort of general statement on the style / atmosphere / themes etc. of the whole thing. I wrote this back in november, after 5 full listens of the album, over the course of about a week, and I didn't update it with any new opinions that I have formed since, to keep it true to that original form, besides some side notes where I thought they'd be useful to add. I hope you enjoy my yapping, however unprofessional and all over the place this whole thing probably is.

How to start album reviews? Well, I could sum up the general vibe / thing / feel / theme with the album but that seems much more fitting for the conclusion of the whole thing.

So let's kick this off with the first thing we see instead!! The album cover, the sleeve! (note: I got this album on vinyl for that first listening experience, the 2022? reissue) Ohh so pretty and cute, isn't it? Even inside, so much pink, even over-the-toply-so (for real though, I didn't even really think about what to expect from the inner cover, besides some photos that I knew would be there, but it was certainly not THIS. level of pink and cute), it looks so pleasant and sweet, doesn't it? And the band photos too, fun times all around!

Oh wow, ok, let's get back to reality here, I knew what I was in for (knowing just one track and excerpts of other two + reading misc comments on the album before already, as it is inevitable, you know. And frankly, that was actually the exact right amount of info from that commentary for a peak enjoyment here. Not going in totally blind but still encountering many surprises). This is a prime and, imo, very well executed example of mood dissonance. In a way where, idk, maybe it comes from me still having this even small amount of info beforehand, but it's the kind of situation that you can actually tell that something is off.

So yeah, the visual aspect of the album does fit it and I'd even say it does so VERY well, but as to how and why, maybe I should start exploring the atmosphere and themes and elements of individual songs first so we can make more general conclusions from that! So yes, I think it's time to dive in!

1) Dick Around ▪︎

Shortly put, amazing, showstopping and life changing song. And one of the earliest ones for me too! As a part of the extremely important and memorable playlist (note: my first time hearing a bunch of random popular sparks songs), it appeared somewhere in the latter half on the mix and oooh boy, was hearing this song for the first time, on the road in the dark evening too, an experience. I certainly found it intriguing to say the least, maybe I wasn't yet completely SOLD you know, and let's not forget that the second time I heard it (july) it actually kind of freaked me out in a way, but still, it certainly made an impression immediately. There's a reason this is one of the more well known / popular / important songs of theirs overall. This song is truly a journey and it messes with you in so many ways, oooohhh so many ways. I was super looking forward to hearing it again properly after being teased with some parts of it in the more recent weeks, so ok, maybe this is where I get to the individual parts I want to talk about.

Actually wait, first let's maybe say something about the placement. Of course it's the first song as I was pretty much certain it would be (and maybe already had kind of possibly spoiled..?), and it does work incredibly well as a mood-setter for the rest of the album, so it truly couldn't work any other way in my view. So yes, speaking of parts, there are so many different ones! Hearing this again was extra fun also because I would remember the main "point" / mantra of the song ("all I do now... is dick around") but not much else, then be reminded of another notable but very different part, then listen after this whole time properly on pretty much repeat now and be aware of those other little touches and bits that bring it all together...

So, let's start with the pleasant vocals & piano break near the beginning, it's, well... I just really like it (I hope I'll be able to say more specific things about other elements in these songs that I think need to be mentioned as I go on LOL), and right after that we have some very nice strings, then, suspenseful strings!! Idk why but I really really like it when those come in, they really set the unnerving classical tone that follows and returns throughout the album, then the same "calm" / bouncy vocal melody and a more "all over the place" piano returns (at least from what I remember, the notes are sort of more expansive in range in this part I think...). And soon enough... we reach the real moment of the song when it gets, well, real. And very intense. And this is almost jumpscare-like, ohhhh it's so good, even when you know you can expect it it still hits the spot amazingly.

So this is the rocking part that's honestly pure distilled joy and amazement to hear for me each time, the repeated echoey "hey hey"s for a second there are just the icing on the cake, so so so good. And, in fact, it doesn't get more rocking than this for the rest of the album. Dissappointing? Maybe it WOULD be, if there weren't other things still going on later, which were also in their own ways showstopping, so I think that yeah, those can make up for all that follows not really coming close to this level of unhinged. And this is the right word here I think, unhinged!! Damn, this freaking song. Like for a second there I remembered that in one of my early-ish hearings I just found it almost uhhh, unbearably raw? Idk if it's the right word but yeah, it gets... ugly for a second (I need to stop cringing at every more unusual / to the point word I use or I won't be able to write any genuine reviews in my life). Before going back to the main mantra of course! And then it goes on in a circle a bit more again, with more changes and some progression of the story and all that. And end on the mantra again. I don't know if I'm leaving out any super important bits here, I might be... Well, it comes back to full on rocking near the end too, with some variation too, so that's awesome! And very suspenseful and unnerving strings too for a moment!

So, should I talk about the lyrics / the story just a bit now? Ok, I won't go super deep into these or any of the following ones, I'll try to focus more on specific bits and the feelings that come with them and a general "theme" if anything. So, I think this song and its story is very engaging and I like it a lot and it certainly provokes further thoughts and ponderings, those 6 and a half minutes fly by super fast (guess that's just the power with sparks and their long songs, it's kind of incredible how maybe this goes ESPECIALLY for songs that rely a LOT on repetition, because those might work this trend the best), lots of variation, while still keeping some prominently repetitive / reoccurring parts balances it very well. You're really just thrown from one part to the next with this song. Ok, I wrote a lot about just one song and I feel like there's still more I could say if I thought about it hard, but let's move on now, we don't have all day (night)...

2) Perfume ▪︎

This is a favourite. An instant favourite. Right away this song grabbed me with its subdued, brooding and honestly pretty dark tone and sound. Low vocals, kind of ragged but driving guitar sound, and the DRUMS. They do SO much for this track, something about this specific drum pattern / style is very pleasant to me, very atmospheric. It's like a specific pattern that works to deliver some kind of effect (ok, I think through that, in a way, I just described the whole thing with repetition in sparks' music, especially in this era, nice, I guess that's how I view it and why it works so well) there's still a lot of interesting stuff going on there, plus it just sounds nice, idk. Once again, maybe "driving" is a good word for it. But now I need to mention that there is this one odd-one-out part that sounds much more cheerful, or maybe hopeful (and it returns again near the end). Because it has this specific thing, the different intonation of the SAME lyrics than the rest of the song ("and that's why...") feels strangely emotional. It certainly hit ME in the feels once I noticed it, so, yeah!!

So I think this is one of the darkest songs in mood and sound, while it also has something extremely COOL about its sound that I can't really categorize, I think I'm gonna feel like repeating this for every other song on the album but it just feels so CLASSIC, it's that typical song that always existed type of feel, yeah. But here it's less so due the melody necessarily, and more due to the whole picture. With some others it's also the song as a whole of course but they don't necessarily feel as much as a representation of a whole THING / genre / type of song / feeling in music of sorts (I'm really bad at articulating my exact views on these, am I not...) rather than those specific special moments that just bring it all to the next level. But OHHH I can't believe I almost forgot this, but the piano lines (I mean the post-chorus ones specifically) in this song, oh my goddddd!!!!!!! They're truly THE thing that sold me on this song completely, they're just so... something. So I guess this song also has that special "it" moment after all, doesn't it? Well, still possibly not quite as prominently as the next one, because...

3) The Very Next Fight ▪︎

Well, this is the kind of song that's completely made up of those specific parts making a very special whole. Starting with, of course, that melody line during the chorus "it's always the same. It's always the same". But maybe, just to be fair, I should actually start with where the song actually starts so, well, hmmm, the beginning. The very solemn piano and overall kind of heavy atmopshere here kind of slows down the momentum after the first two songs, and it delivers something quite different instead. So yeah, well, that chorus melody!! Oh wow!!! Isn't it so simple though? But it works so well!! It's simply beautiful honestly. It absolutely is! And later the electric guitar comes in for more effect and oh wow, it feels so incredible, yeah. And then some more solemnity with the... I think harpsichord?

This track feels very empty (as in the atmosphere, I'm not actually calling it empty as a bad thing or something like that, no no no!!) in some parts, then it has those emotionally charged bits, and let's not forget that it has some more really amazing guitarwork near the end. That kind of guitar "wailing" sounds beautiful in its own right too, it also kind of reminds me of some other rock-adjacent genre(s), I can't tell what exactly though...

4) (Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country ▪︎

In all honesty, after my first listen I decided that this was probably the song I was the least impressed by? Kinda strange, yeah, because I no longer think that, and yeah, it was another one that I was only slightly familiar with already. Very slightly. It's a very interesting song once again, I think it's really unique after some thought actually (as are most all of the songs on this record tbh, obviously). It's unique, but it once again has this special classic quality to it that just feels like it represents a very specific type of sound.

I wanna say that the chord progression in the chorus might be some variation of one of the "usual" progressions although OF COURSE I might be very wrong here, it's just the feeling I get because maybe it's worth mentioning that 1) a while ago I started noticing this one type of progression in songs that made them sound very similar to Kiss Me, Son of God (They Might Be Giants song), so I figured it must mean that KMSOG is just in some kind of typical progression that is used a lot, especially in country-sounding songs from my experience 2) there was also an element of some classic rock / rock&roll (?) / punk (??) songs that also made them sound very alike after a while when I started listening to this one internet radio station recently, idk if it's the same progression or its variation or if all those songs use different variations mostly but are still based on a very similar thing at the end of the day, but yeah. I might still not understand chords or be able to catch them while listening, but there's now at least a little part of that whole section of music theory that I might be able to recognise in music just by myself, so that's some major music literacy development on my part I think... Anyway, maybe the progression in this song didn't even remind me of that usual pattern specifically, but it just made me think of that thing nevertheless, maybe it's similar, maybe it's not... So this was kind of an irrelevant tangent on my part, oops.

So ok, let's get to the jist of this... What exactly I like about this song and such, or just what I wanna mention. Well, I wanna mention that this is probably one of the more repetitive songs, also one of the longest I think, maybe the third longest, I wouldn't be surprised by that (the opener and closer are both pretty tough competition in the length department) but it doesn't feel monotonous, it flies by super fast, once again.

I think it's also possibly the brightest sounding song on the record, the word that immediately sprung to mind here is "triumphant". Certainly fitting with all those awesome horns!! They're truly what really sets this song apart. I'm especially a fan of the horns in the bridge part, I think it's the bridge. Sooo so cool sounding, kind of "descending". I also really like the layering of the different vocals and their melodies and such, the acoustic guitar also brings it all soooo nicely together, it's so pleasant sounding, especially in the quieter "baby, let's invade" part.

Idk what else to say, very awesome song though and I definitely don't mind listening to it twice (with the repeat as a bonus track, which I'll also get to briefly at the end) at all, in fact this might be the least "intrusive" song in a sense, so that makes the best choice for a repeat, if I had to choose, I could see myself going with this one, it's just very pleasant all around.

5) Rock, Rock, Rock ▪︎

So things get real once again, huh. This is one of the songs that I count in the category of kind of sick and twisted but in a way where I only respect them more for making it, so that puts it right next to, hmmmm, sherlock holmes for sure, maybe some others I can't think of right now. Big part of that factor is surely played by the repetition which just works, well, very well. Specifically the choruses.

One part of this song I was pleasantly reminded of on my first few listens were the short strings interludes, they really give it some of that pleasant classical feel (a separate thing from what i describe as classic feel here!) that I could say kind of contrast with the song and its atmosphere in general. Or maybe spruce it up, idk, we do have very dramatic strings during the verses too... The very deep drum sound is also pretty prominent in this track I think, pretty great.

As to some more notable parts in the vocals department... Let's just say that the way Russell says some words is very, uhhhhhh, effective (i think this sounds more cursed than it should, but i mean exactly that, the delivery just really hits you... and other times it's kind of silly instead). And also, with that repetition and it creating something great in mind, there's the repeated "and since you put-" part near the end that's also really great. The repeated "I"s in the bridge I think also need a mention. It's like they know exactly what word / phrase to repeat, what amount of times, and in which part of the song for it to work the best, like the perfect placement and number.

I think this song also has a bit of a fake ending, so that's also something of note, especially when it's supposed to sound as dramatic as possible (at least that's the idea I get from it). And actually, oh, so does the previous song! I forgot that part even though it's even more noticeable / memorable in that song than it is here imo.

6) Metaphor •

Second half of the album starts off with something that's very elegant and all the while very pleasant and melodic, all of which makes it a very nice track, even in a more usual pop song sense. Some very cool piano to start things off, and the electric guitar accompaniment, which also enters pretty early on. And then we have that slightly more strange part, kind of like an early bridge, that honestly has a bit of a comical effect imo (with no disrespect intended!!)? As in, I find it kind of funny and silly personally. Yeah, the "who's up for a metaphor" part, especially when we get the repeated "don't don't"s and "we we"s, and, well, what follows is what's definitely the greatest part(s) of the song, when Russell enters his falsetto mode and we get the "aaaaa-ªªªªª..." etc. backup vocals in choruses. Those are the moments of the song that are just, well, ONCE again that classic factor that makes the melody & everything else super special. But more specifically, I think those parts are just kind of beautiful. Yeah, I'd say this song is the prettiest in sound that this album gets overall. Truly wonderful and gets you excited for the remaining songs.

Meanwhile, the spellings of dig as d-i-g might feel kind of random I guess? But it works. Adds variety or whatever (note: it's also a very good moment of a rhythm change I believe, I think now that's what makes it sound as cool and satisfying as it does). So yeah, kind of a heavenly song I think, in a sense, also one of my top faves just for that factor (note: this song is now probably my favourite on HYL, and also among my top fav Sparks songs overall. It wasn't instant, but it grew on me quickly and oh man, I truly love this song so much now)

7) Waterproof •

I think this is kind of an odd-one-out actually? And why? I think it's probably the closest on the album to being sort of a fully, or at least MOSTLY, "normal" song. It doesn't have so many parts that are just downright weird and unexpected I'd say, it's just kind of friendly instead compared to the other ones (note: it took me perhaps too long to realize that this song just doesn't have quite as much repetition, which most other songs here rely on heavily, so that's definitely what makes it stand out the most). Not that it's an entirely bad thing! Sometimes you gotta slow down and relax a bit I guess...

I do appreciate the kind of sudden switch with the "the sky is starting to cloud up" part, and the little orchestral bit right after the first time the aforementioned switch happens (the second? or generally some later time it happens again there are also some very awesome horns! Really starts feeling like a quaint rainy street in some french town or something...) when, well, I was going to say that the vocals and the strings do the same melody, but they actually don't, at least not fully, still though, I did have that illusion before I made sure it wasn't the case with another relisten, either way, when it DOES happen, and Sparks do that a whole lot I feel like, it's always quite awesome, I mean, syncing the vocal melody with some other prominent intrument's melody...

The I think harpsichord also makes a return, yay! And then there's the guitar part, that does have some real surprise factor when it comes in, but this time for sort of the opposite reason - it sounds bright and nice this time around, and also it reminds me of Sparks' later style tbh, specifically in their following more rock-centric songs of course. And I think that's very nice, we see the always progressing evolution of their sound here I think. That guitar bit also has some album closer vibes, that kind of fake closer (or nearly-closer) situation kind of reminds me of a similar thing I experienced with Bon Voyage on Propaganda for example (note: I have since learned that Bon Voyage IS the closer on Propaganda, and the following two songs on streaming are just b-sides. So it makes sense that it would sound like an album closer because it IS one).

Annnddd the last thing that I just can't forget about here is Russell's another epic falsetto moment (waterwatereverywherebutnotadroponme!~) that part actually makes me smile. Yeah. Legit. I paid attention and I did smile on that part during my relisten today. ... Ok, let's go on.

8) Here Kitty •

When this song came on the first time during my vinyl listening I of course instantly knew exactly which song it was (bcs I've heard the title before, and a few words on it too) and had this little amused "oh no" moment. And, well, turns out this song is actually very awesome and veeeery interesting! It adds something really unique to the album. I saw someone call it quite impressive in the vocals / vocal lines layering department recently (in the last week, so already after hearing it myself I'm pretty sure) and I absolutely agree.

First off, let's settle that - this is a very strange song. But that's exactly what makes it so good of course. The strangeness keeps you so distracted from this fact, that when we reach the bridge of the song you suddenly realize that beneath all the "tatata"s, meows and unsettling rising piano notes we have the very much usual song structure with verses and choruses. Yeah, I think I actually sort of figured it out, what might be the verse, and what might be the chorus... Speaking of which, the parts that I identified as choruses have this, well, it's the same thing all over again (but each time the specialness comes from a different place and is totally different of course), but that very classic feel, indicative of maybe even some specific genre but idk what exactly...

Besides that, well, maybe let's go back to my oh no moment for a minute, and let me say that I either am very illiterate in that sense (and yeah I am tbh) or the lyrics aren't as overtly, let's say, innuendo-filled? as I expected. They actually have a semblance of a story you know... I mean, NO, not even a semblance, it IS a story! Let me also say that this is a very interesting song to have stuck in your head a lot over the course of pretty much an entire week. Yes, it got to the point where it could be annoying. One last bit of the song I really like is at the very end, when one vocal line starts to sound kind of echoey / distant, nice touch.

9) There's No Such Thing as Aliens •

The song that first cemented itself as being by far the shortest song on the album, sort of an interlude before the incoming epicness of the last one (that was quite literally my very first impression before I even heard either, looking at the vinyl this one was visibly much shorter than the last, and of course I expected the last one to be fittingly grand, and so it was obviously, but we'll get to that in a minute). The funny thing is, it's not even that short, as I figured even before eventually making sure how long it was in fact, and that's almost 3 minutes, which, well, of course that's still something around well over two times shorter than the last song.

But enough about its length, this song actually does kind of work as an interlude thematically too, which it is? it sort of even feels like it doesn't quite fit with the themes of the other ones, I mean, maybe not that it doesn't fit but just that it's defintely the furthest removed from the much more similar topics of the other ones (more about that also later!). Plus it's pretty sparse lyrically, once again, there's less you can fit in under 3 minutes anyway. Which supports the interlude argument also I believe.

Anyway, the music. First of all, waltz time!! Always a treat in sparksland to have that rare spooky 3/4 time track. The feeling I get from this track is: grand, very orchestral, anddd, hmmmm, elegant. But is it more elegant than the rest of the album... Idk, I wanted to use 3 different descriptors. I honestly don't think there's much more to say about this one, it's great, the melody is really great, the grandiosity of the choruses, the even more notable waltz time during verses. I think that yeah, I could pick this track as the most orchestral / classical inspired of the album. One cool moment I'll mention though would be the very ending, with the repeated "no"s going for longer than you'd expect them to maybe, and the deep drum accompanying all that. Very grand ending.

10) As I Sit Down to Play the Organ at the Notre Dame Cathedral •

Well, how do I even start on this one. I think I can say that with literally each single listen I become more and more in awe of this song. Could I even call it even more of a journey than the opener? In a sense, yeah. There's so much going on here. So much that I almost feel like breaking it down into individual parts and giving all of them their due because they all work for the amazingness of the whole. In fact, I might even already have this track roughly memorized (all... 7 minutes of this track) so it could be done. But ok, I'll just go with each part as I remember it, we'll see if I in fact do go over nearly all or all of them.

So. Echoey synth (?) intro, then the first melody part, with the individual words repeated, kind of "urgent" vocals part, very nice rhythm and something I just find very cool. As it progresses we get another part of just the synth / electric guitar-like synth / guitar or whatever this thing is, then a mix of both + this clicky instrument and / OR is it the harpsichord again? Giving it all more urgency and a nice constant rhythm. I also really like when the "byebyebye" vocal gets looped before the synth reenters. Overall, this part of the song has a very electronic, drony feel that I greatly enjoy and find very atmospheric and immersive already.

But, well, it doesn't end here. Because later, everything else stops and we hear a church organ. Even the melody it enters with is very much like something you'd hear in a cathedral, indeed! Good environmental storytelling, isn't it? But then... the organ transitions into this very very cool frantic melody (and by very very cool I mean that it's probably the #1 thing that stood out to me about this song right from the start) which returns consistently throughout the song and is just oh so very awesome.

So we enter the next part, what could probably be called the central part "as I sit down to play the organ...", tension is rising, the organ is doing its thing in the back, then some "hallelujah"s and BOOM! The chorus? The "I've got faith" part of course. And with it some epic strings, and I don't think I can really say what exactly it is about this part that makes it SO FREAKING GOOD & ABSOLUTELY SHOWSTOPPING but it's easily in my top 3 moments on the album at least. Then it's followed by the slightly considerably calmer "she's here..." section and we go mostly full circle for now, more variations on the same parts. Some grandiose "lalala"s & epic drum action too. And then, the "I believe" sections which I cannot let myself neglect, mostly just on the basis of them being kind of sickening to me. You know, in the "why did they do this (said respectfully)" way.

Ok, did I really just talk about all of the individual parts, I guess so. But before I move on I have to mention the moment when the very first major part, the "bye-bye-bye my baby" part, makes a sudden comeback. It's honestly just so good and satisfying, when completely different sections switch and make unexpected (or maybe you actually DO expect them on some subconscious level, and that's what makes them work so well??) returns like this, if a song has that it's very likely it will become a top top favourite or at least have a very big effect on me. Or even HUGE effect, like here.

So yeah, the song does eventually end (I mean technically unbelievable somewhat, since it's so long, but have I actually mentioned yet that this track goes by about just as fast as the first one, because it sure does, you do not notice the time passing WHATSOEVER) on some more "hallelujah"s. And the album's over. Wooo boy.

Bonus tracks

Well, it's not really over yet if it's not the vinyl but the streaming version. We still have just two more bonus tracks, technically just one? So I'll go over both quickly now for completion's sake.

First we have "We Are the Clash" which is a pleasant song for sure, can work as kind of a denouement after the crazy journey of the previous track, so you're left on a little less of a mood unresolution and can become a little less unsettled after all of this going down... Idk.

But yeah, I actually have this impression veering on pretty strong conviction that this song is a cover actually. It could even be a cover of the band whose name is mentioned in the song, which would put this version in a extremely funny area of how far stylistically it might be from the hypothetical original, if it exists (what's up with all these bands and their "we are the [band name]" songs, there's so many). Of course I could also be very wrong about this so all I just wrote could turn out to be absolutely hilariously off target, still, a fun little attempt at guessing things and connecting ideas on my part, whatever the truth turns out to be (I will learn the truth... in due time. My experience tells me that when I'm still fully in initial unwell mode over an album it's difficult for me to read and retain any outside information / commentary on it. So no need to rush it, heh) (note: yeah I was right for once. I meannnn I guess it was obvious anyway but still, let me have this, I've been fooled by assuming that a cover was someone's original song way too many times so I'm happy to not be fooled for once).

So ok, the last last track. Baby baby can i invade your country is baaaaaack, not much to say but it's pretty much the same other than the lyrics, since well, it is the "alternate lyrics" version, not "alternate" version. I do think that it might be slightly longer than the final version though but it's also likely I'm misremembering.

Anyway, lyrics, all I can or feel the need to say is that they seem to be definitely way more to the point on what this song's actual topic is (not... invading... countries . I don't need to explain it here do I) so subtlety win for the final one I guess. Just so it is known, I have not read these two songs' lyrics unlike all the main album tracks'. But I think I caught enough to get the main idea from both, you know. I do think also that the final version's lyrics just kind of sound better, idk if it's the rhythm of the words or what but they do just have a nicer flow. So, improvement, probably, still very nice to know this version anyway of course. (note: yeah i have learned since that most of the final lyrics are the US national anthem. Makes sense that if any song were to have alternate lyrics it would be this one)

To round it all up...

I think there's still a lot that can be said about this album as a whole but how do I go about that. Well, I did mention earlier that I'd come back to a) the overall feel / atmosphere here b) the themes / stories and how they connect. So those shall work as a guide to my conclusions part of this whole review.

First off, I could even say a bit about the main vibe / sound here in reference to Lil' Beethoven! Since it really does work as a sequel, at least in sound, by all means. I described LB with stuff like... cold, distant, cathedral-like, what else was there.... Ok, I have more, lifted directly from my LB write-up. (note: finally listening to LB a month prior to this was enough of a big deal for me that I wrote down my live reactions to hearing the songs) Impersonal / detached. Alien. Spacious.

Do those apply here too? I think so, yeah! Pretty much all of these words also feel like pretty good descriptors here. But honestly, the more I think about it.... Maybe it's just that the distance / the detachedness and alienated feeling is a bit lower here? Or at least in some songs more than the others. It's hard to explain honestly.... That similar atmosphere continues here but it's just..... not as pronounced maybe. Idk, maybe it will become clearer with this next point I wanna make which is that LB actually is less, uhhh friendly in sound. Less accessible! Yeah, I do think that this album could be seen as: LB started the experiment, HYL perfected it by taking it in a slightly more accessible direction. Or is perfected a wrong word here, who can say which was, or should be considered the better outcome here.... I think I actually have a problem putting concepts into the right words today. But maybe at least some of my feelings about this can still come across here...

So yeah, I don't think it's possible to tell if HYL is better or LB, it also depends on how you look at it! As it kind of always does when judging stuff per good / better. One thing that I can say sort of for sure though is that LB certainly started ideas / techniques that HYL expanded on and toyed with further, so in that sense, it could be considered an improvement. And so it is clear, I don't think I can say 100% that I like one more than the other. It's not that simple. I guess you could however say that HYL was more of an instant hitter and LB really just grows and grows more in power overtime....

So yeah, they kind of did take the LB concept and all of the avant-garde, experimentation factors that come with it, and made it more accessible, which is a form of art and an achievement and a testament of skill in itself. I think the somewhat friendlier, more palatable approach of this album also lifts off the coldness aspect a bit, but it's still there, especially on tracks 1, 3, 5, 10, off the top of my head.....

But maybe I should talk more about the album and its sound as it stands on its own before I move on though. Maybe we could jump from the words I already used: classic, orchestral, brooding, dramatic, dark, aggressive (yes, I somehow see it as friendlier than its predecessor despite also being much more aggresive in all senses. Raw even. How does that work? I can't tell you today. And idk if I'll ever figure it out. And also personal, YES, that's the word, this album feels soooo very personal and emotive. Not in the sense that I'm trying to say that it must be personal to them, more like it just shows some very personal feelings and struggles), triumphant (but that goes only for that one song really), driving, ELEGANT. I think the word elegant is the key here. In all of its subtler or less subtle tone shifts it keeps that very elegant, kind of graceful feel, all throughout. Even when it seems to be touching subjects that wouldn't necessarily bring that kind of atmosphere to mind, it kind of elevates them and gives them, idk, a new meaning?

So is this a good segue into the topic of themes? I guess the album name sits well with what I think is going on here, because my main impression of the whole thing was something like.... stories of fucked-up guys with self-image problems / feelings of inadequacy, which they try to go around fully convinced that they're right (and their messy love-lives too ofc). Or are they just, normal, regular guys actually. Who can tell. It certainly gives you an idea / a whole concept to work with and ponder here and to connect and visualize kinda.

I think that yeah, out of what I've heard so far this has to be the most thematically-consistent sparks album there is. It comes to a point where all the songs give this little impression of a whole universe where all of this takes place, and while I've had these kind of impressions from albums that are way more all-over-the-place conceptually with their lyrics (I mean like.... pretty much every They Might Be Giants album. You can create this sort of illusion with more than words, the music and its atmosphere and often also its stylistic consistency might be even more important actually), this comes, in my mind, almost close to concept album levels in that regard.

The definition of a concept album probably calls for something more specific than all the tracks being in sort of a similar theme but you know.... I don't think it really happens most of the time in music in general, that the whole album has this sort of a familiar idea / spirit throughout that makes a unique whole. (note: apparently wikipedia calls this album a concept album. Another win for me in that case, lol). You could probably try to connect different songs' themes and work with that in some way.... Which is something I already did in all honesty, but actually it's a between albums thing here, because I do believe that the dick around guy could be the same guy that the narrator from ugly guys with beautiful girls talks about. Similar ideas you can connect! That's what I'm talking about. I love it when songs tell overarching stories.... Make me think about characters from songs or little universes and vibes created by even the vaguest of lyrics and the ideas those create and the imaginings they bring, any day.

Ok, what else can I say. I think I mostly covered everything I could actually. Should I say something more about the cover with the added context now. I already said that it gives off a "something's wrong" feeling, but I think it's also compelling in how it conveys that elegant, non-threatening and polished image, sterile kinda. Well, I think only one of those four words I just chose doesn't really apply to most of this album's songs. I mean non-threatening ofc. Hmmm, maybe sterile doesn't really work here either, besides those prominent examples of the coldness of sound on this album, it would actually go more with LB, which also has a fittingly minimalist, all-white cover. Collected and orderly to a distressing degree. Just like here, it also gives off some.... distressing vibe. As I already said with the "this isn't right" feel.

What else can I say. In reviews you usually give your opinions, which I very much did throughout this thing here, everything like this is always somewhat subjective I think, but even then, a final verdict could also be said here. I think it's pretty damn clear by now what my opinion on this album is. I wouldn't spend several days writing a review and analysing every little detail if I didn't have a very strong (positive) opinion on this album (I guess I technically can imagine writing a very throughout review of something that just annoys you so much that you simply have to go through everything wrong with it and have some relief and closure through that. I can't see myself doing that kinda thing however, I'm not that kind of hater (or really a hater at all lol, i hope), I'd rather devote my time to things that I find actually cool and awesome and stand-outs in a positive sense, and worthy of attention and that dedication).

So this comment I fittingly found on tumblr over the last few days feels pretty relevant towards my opinion of writing "reviews" of stuff (this was more of a, very detailed analysis I know, but review just kind of fits, especially with how people call their recaps / commentary / writeups of concerts "reviews" a lot of the time):

(note: yeah I think I should come clean here that despite my very recent start of actual social media participation I've already been a serial lurker in various places for years now, lol, I mean, that's probably a normal thing to do though, I hope. I mean, probably lots of people do or did that at some point, but still. And I don't know whose post this is anymore sadly. But I thought I'd keep it here because it's a good summary)

And also, just for the record, this is my opinion on HYL pretty much. Yaaaayyy i loved it i had so much fun!! For real. i'm glad they're creating something!!!! Absolutely. One of a kind album that I will cherish as yet another great and unforgettable entry on the list of albums that changed me (TM) and brought me lots of fun and great memories / associations, even in such a short time. And the actual FIRST on the new list of albums that I'm happy to have brough the utmost attention to and dissected like that. It's out of love.

Thank you for reading this far! Here's a little bunny as a prize!

Whoa whoops this gif was supposed to be small! Have a huge bunny in that case, you deserve it! 🐇

[jackrrabbit]

Spoiled Rotten /// Overhaul x f!Reader (18+)

Request: What if Overhaul fucks spoiled rich reader because her dad owes the yakuza money and in exchange Kai takes the daughter as a form of payment using her as his personal stress doll whenever and wherever he wants making her into his perfect little doll

A/N: While I was writing this my roommate asked if I was okay bc cause I kept stopping to fan myself and blush lmaooooo god I’m such a brat. I did change the concept up a bit, hope that’s fine!

This is dedicated not only to the OG requester but also to everyone who read the excerpt I posted a while back and told me they couldn’t wait to see the finished product!! Love you guys ❤️

Tags/warnings: threats, dubcon/coercion, dom/sub, brat taming, degradation, exhibitionism, restraints, mentions of forced prostitution, verbal & physical harassment, kidnapping, kinda breath play?, long

The first thing you notice when you come to are voices. Multiple people talking to each other, speech overlapping in patterns you can’t make out. They’re quiet—not whispering for your sake, but quiet because you’re still half knocked-out and you can barely hear.

The second thing you notice is the pounding in your head and the lingering smell of something sweet spread over your nose and mouth.

The third thing you notice is the fact that when you try to blink your eyes open, your lashes brush against something soft and dark. You’re blindfolded…and gagged, and your hands feel like they’re cuffed behind your back. From what you can sense around you, it seems like you’re hunched in a kneeling position with your cheek flattened against the floor and your bare feet tucked under your backside.

At least you’re still in your nightgown. You can feel the frilly silk of it, a useless barrier between your skin and the cool air, and it reminds you of how you got here in the first place.

A loud noise in the night. Your father’s voice pleading. A heavy thump. The door to your bedroom banging open and a strange man holding you down to your bed…lifting a sweet-smelling rag to your mouth…telling you to “take a deeeeep breath, princess.”

“Hey, I think she’s waking up.”

An invisible hand fists itself in your hair and you whine in pain as your upper body is lifted off the floor. Once you’re properly upright, you hear squeaking, shoes against concrete, and the heat and breath and presence of someone behind you. Something rustles at the back of your head—you’re too scared to move so you stay still—and then the blindfold is being lifted off your face.

Once it’s gone, you have to blink for a moment even despite the low light of the dingy room where you’ve…apparently…been kidnapped. By the freaking yakuza. And for some reason, they’re all wearing bird-beak masks.

You close your eyes, almost wishing they hadn’t taken the blindfold off. You’d prefer to live in blissful ignorance of how decidedly unclean the floor is. How dare they let your face touch it? What happened to honor among thieves?

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Against your will, your eyes flick up to the speaker. He’s the only one sitting, and somehow that gives him a position of power among the others. The leader?

Unsettling golden eyes rest on yours, and you realize he’s waiting for your answer, so you slowly move your head from side to side.

“Didn’t know about daddy’s bad habits, huh?” This time the person speaking is behind you, the one who untied your blindfold, a thin man with lank, greasy blond hair. He’s the one who drugged me, you remember in a surge of panic, and you try to stand up away from him only for him to step on the chain that connects your handcuffs, jerking you back and pinning you—painfully—to the floor.

“Careful, Setsuno. I told you not to leave marks. Let her talk.”

“Got it, boss.” The blond—Setsuno—fumbles at the back of your head and then he’s pulling the gag out of your mouth.

You open and close your mouth a few times to stretch out the stiff muscles. “Oh. My. God. Was that polyester you just took out of my mouth? Do you have any idea how bad synthetics are for sensitive skin? I’m totally going to break out.”

A hush falls over the little room. You could hear a pin drop.

“…Are you complaining about the quality of the fabric we gagged you with?” the leader asks after a second.

“You may be yakuza, but you don’t have to act like savages,” you reply primly, aligning your knees together and sending a proud look off to the side.

“Ohh…little princess deserves better, does she?” Setsuno coos. He edges closer to rub his cheek against yours and laughs when you cringe away from him. “Boss, you shoulda seen her bedroom. All pink and frilly, looked like royalty lived there. Bet they treat you like a real princess at home, huh? No wonder your daddy’s in debt.”

“Daddy isn’t—“

“Your father…took out loans from my gang. My men came last night to collect,” the leader says, drumming his fingers over the armrest of his chair impatiently.

He’s wearing plastic gloves. Why is he wearing plastic gloves? Immediately your mind is spinning, imagining all the different gruesome possibilities of what they’re going to do to you. “That’s ridiculous. My daddy doesn’t need to borrow money—“

“Clearly he does, because it looks like he pissed it all away on his daughter.” The leader’s eyes are cold enough to make you shiver—although maybe that’s just the icy temperature of the floor soaking through your nightgown.

“He had a couple payments overdue, so we stopped by to ask nicely for him to pay up,” Setsuno says, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Didn’t find too many valuables in your house, but then we got our hands on a real treasure.”

“Don’t touch me—“

“You don’t seem to understand the position you’re in,” the leader says. “When I made my contract with your father, he understood that obligations like these are inherited. Since he can’t pay his debt, you’re going to be working it off in his place.”

Working it off? You swallow. Somehow you don’t think he’s talking about your little part-time job as a receptionist at your daddy’s company. “You can’t make me do that.”

“I’m not sure you’re getting the gist, princess,” Setsuno hums. “What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna put you in a room, and then men are gonna give us money, and then we’ll let those men fuck you. All that money’s gonna go toward paying what your daddy borrowed. Sound good?”

For the first time since you can remember, you’re shocked speechless. They’re going to…what? But you’re a quick thinker, and instead of letting these filthy, awful gangters boss you around, you raise your chin haughtily to look directly into the leader’s eyes. “I don’t think so. If Daddy’s the one who got himself in debt, you can make him whore himself out to pay it back. You can’t hold me responsible for something he’s done.”

Another brief silence, and then you hear a whistle echo out from the corner of the room (and you try not to look toward it, reminding yourself that this can only get worse if they know how scared you are). “She’s got a mouth on her, Overhaul,” someone says.

Overhaul. So the leader’s name is Overhaul. How ridiculous; it sounds like a villain’s name.

“Aww, princess,” Setsuno says, and once again his voice is too close for your comfort. “Little spoiled princess doesn’t know how to shut her mouth and suck it up when things don’t go her way? Well…you’ll learn.”

You don’t want to know what he’s talking about, although if you thought about it for more than a second it’d be obvious. You suck in a harsh breath and the cool, damp air stings against your dry throat. “You can’t just make me—“

“Ohh, I think we can. See, if your daddy’s been spending all of the Shie Hassaikai’s money on his precious daughter, don’t you think you owe a little too? Like, this dress—“ you jump as Setsuno’s hand tugs on the thin, floaty silk— “was bought with Overhaul’s money, so it belongs to him, right?”

You keep quiet, not wanting to prompt him to go further, but when his hands stroke up over your waist to grope your breasts in full view of everyone else in the room, you don’t really have to guess.

“And, y’know, your daddy’s been keeping you nice and healthy with Overhaul’s cash, making sure you grow up into such a pretty girl…” Setsuno’s voice is a purr in your ear as his hands squeeze your tits almost lovingly, then pinch your nipples through the fabric. “So hey—if you think about it, this tight little body…belongs to Overhaul too. Isn’t that right, sir?”

You squirm in place as best you can but with the metal cuffs digging into your wrists, there’s nothing you can do to get away from his touch. You’re desperate enough to shoot a terrified glance up at the leader—surely there are rules about treating an innocent girl like this, even for the yakuza—but he looks as unmoved as before. “Get her out of my sight. We’ll give her a rest for the next few days, and then…”

“No!” you yelp, too panicked to keep up the pretense of confidence. “I won’t, I can’t do that, please don’t make me—“

“Shhh. You’ll get used to it, princess. And if you don’t…” Setsuno’s hand combs though your hair and then trails down your neck, tracing the path of your spine between your shoulder blades. “…well, you won’t really have much of a choice, will you?”

And then he’s tugging on your cuffed hands, pulling you to a standing position, but you wriggle away from him and do everything you can to stay planted on the ground so they can’t take you away from here, away from the only man who is capable of stopping this. Overhaul. “Please! I’m— I can work it off another way! I’ll be useful— I’ll—“

Overhaul leans forward a fraction in his chair, and you wonder if you’ve caught his interest. “What, exactly? How do you think you can be useful to me?”

You bite your lip and wrack your brains, not knowing whether the question is rhetorical. What skills do you have that would be valuable to them? Suddenly all the knowledge you’ve gained in your short life seems so meaningless. You’re a decent receptionist (well, decent is a stretch), but if Overhaul wanted someone to answer calls for him you’re pretty sure he would’ve asked.

Why did you spend your life learning such impractical skills? The four-year weekend course you took on horseback riding jumps to mind and you want to hit your head against the wall. Why didn’t you ask your father to sponsor a class in something that would actually matter in the long run? And what would even be useful to these people? Accounting? Bookkeeping? Extortion?

There’s nothing valuable you can offer. You’ve wasted your life, and now you’re going to pay for it. Seriously, the only thing you’re actually good at is keeping your boyfriends (or, rather, the men you cycle through once a month) happy until the novelty wears off and you get bored and move on to the next lovesick target—

—wait. Keeping your boyfriends happy. That’s a skill, isn’t it?

Once, a little bit after you turned eighteen, you’d had a rather illicit conversation with one of your more sexually adventurous friends about being a sugar baby. Your friend had just secured a very generous benefactor, and you’d been so intrigued by all the designer purses and vacations to Cabo that you’d almost considered trying it for yourself. She’d even helped you set up a profile on Seeking Arrangements that listed your physical features and interests, but you’d blanched when it came time to post photos.

“But why do men even like this?” you'd asked your friend after your picture-less profile received its dozenth unsolicited offer. “Rich, successful guys shouldn’t have so much trouble finding girlfriends that they have to resort to paying for sex.”

“It’s a power trip,” she’d replied. “Most men never get the chance to have a woman who’s willing to do and be whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. You’re his ideal girlfriend, his therapist, his wife, and his stress relief all in one.”

At the time, you’d decided against it, deleting your profile and telling your friend you’d rather just keep taking advantage of your real father doting on you than have to fake orgasms for rich men in their 50’s. But back then, you’d had a choice; now that you’ve been kidnapped by a gang who wants you to get fucked by a bevy of strangers to pay off a debt you’ve never even heard of, you no longer have the privilege of a way out. Or, at least, the options are a lot less appealing than before.

You tilt your head back to Overhaul, eyeing him for the first time with real scrutiny instead of prideful disgust. Judging from what you can see of his face under the ornate bird mask (and again, what is with the freaking bird masks?), he’s fairly young, mid-twenties at the oldest. Short, sort of wavy dark hair (you’ve always had a thing for dark hair), a trim suit and tie, and those eyes. Like he can read your mind just looking at you.

He’s…handsome enough, you have to admit to yourself. But it’s not just that. There’s something pristine about him, something untouchable that commands discipline. He’s clean. You and him are probably the only clean things in this hovel of a room.

“Well? I’m waiting,” Overhaul says.

And now that you’ve got the idea in your head, it’s almost too embarrassing to meet his gaze. But you can do this; you have to do this. At least it’ll be your choice, and—you’re hoping—it’ll be better than the alternative.

“I could be yours,” you tell him, taking pride in the fact that your voice isn’t breaking.

His eyes narrow and you think god, his eyelashes are long. It’s not fair. Men never appreciate having long eyelashes. What is he thinking? Is he going to kill you for even suggesting it? But it’s too late now…you have to dig yourself a little deeper if you don’t want to go through with their original plan for debt fulfillment.

You force your muscles to relax, knowing this’ll be impossible to pull off if you’re tense and biting down on the words like they’re going to choke you. If you’re going to make him believe it, you have to make yourself believe it too. “You… This job must be hard. Even for a—a powerful man like you, it has to be stressful, right? Always looking out for the interests of the gang instead of your own…needs.”

Overhaul doesn’t move, but you’re so focused on him it would be impossible for you to miss the way a single muscle in his neck flexes. You’ve hit a nerve.

You take a cautious step toward him, trying to channel the sexually-liberated vixen you consider yourself when you’re not in your nightgown surrounded by men who could murder you with their bare hands and not miss a minute of sleep. “You’re always giving, aren’t you? Looking toward the future of the gang? Doesn’t it get frustrating when—when a pretty thing is in front of you and you don’t even get…a little taste of her?”

Oh god, you can feel the humiliated heat rushing to your cheeks. How can you be saying this? You’ve played the role of seductress plenty of times before, but never in such a risky situation. You just have to keep moving toward him and hope it feels authentic enough to convince him.

“You’ve worked hard. And…like he said, my—my body belongs to you.” Now you’re close enough to Overhaul and he hasn’t stopped you, so you lower yourself onto the floor, knees bumping softly into the cold surface. Kneeling between his legs.

Overhaul stares down at you, gaze as sharp and cold as before—and you’re sick with anxiety, so scared you can feel your hairs raising up on end—but if he wanted you to stop, he would have said something, right? So you shuffle a little closer and nuzzle your cheek over the inside of his clothed thigh like a kitten, then raise your head up to him to give him your best bedroom look, the one that says, I want you. I need you. No one but you. The look no man has ever been able to resist.

“…You deserve something to yourself, sir,” you murmur.

There’s a collective intake of breath as every person in the room simultaneously realizes what you’re offering. Overhaul’s expression doesn’t change, but once again, a tendon jumps out white under the skin of his throat and there’s a creak of latex on leather as his grip on the arm of the chair tightens.

“Damn,” Setsuno says under his breath from behind you. Someone whistles. You’re pretty sure you hear the word ‘slut’ being tossed around, but there’s reverence behind it.

“And what makes you think you’re so valuable?” Overhaul asks.

You close your eyes to ground yourself for a second. He’s interested, you know that much. You’ve never really had to convince someone to want you, but there’s a first time for everything. Besides, you only have to look at him for a second to know he does want you, which isn’t a surprise. Who wouldn’t?

“I’ll do anything you want, be anything you want,” you tell him, echoing your conversation with your friend back then. “Take out your anger on me if that’s what you’re into. When you’re tired of me, you can consider my debt paid and let me go.”

“And?” he prompts.

‘And’? And what? You’re offering yourself to him, your body and your mind—what more can he possibly ask from you? You cast your thoughts around, wondering what else you have to give him. “And…and I’ll do it willingly. You, um—you look like a man who appreciates obedience.”

And that’s it. Your last shred of pride is gone. Not only are you offering yourself up to a man to use as his personal stress doll, you’re saying you’ll be compliant every step of the way. Knowing yourself, you’re pretty sure that’s impossible, but you just need to make him believe it long enough for you to find a way out of here. You can pretend to enjoy getting fucked by a gangster a few times. You’ll live.

But you’re naive. And with the stream of thoughts pushing through your head, you never really consider one thing, one essential thing: how you look pleading up at him in that pale pink nightdress—soft, pure, immaculate against the filth of the underworld, the only clean body that Overhaul’s seen in a long time.

And you’re right. He is a man who appreciates obedience.

“Willingly…so you’d be willing to prove it.”

Your head jerks up and down in response. Yes! He’s taking the bait, now I just have to get him alone and—

“Then demonstrate.”

When a moment passes and you don’t move, Overhaul tips his head to the side, gaze still locked on you, and gestures vaguely at his lap. You blink and then shy back, shrinking under the hungry gazes of the onlookers. “You can’t mean—in front of them?”

“And here I thought you were going to be obedient.” There’s no mercy, no amusement in his voice. No hint of humanity.

So he’s serious. He wants you to give him a blowjob in front of—how many? one, two three, four—four other men!? Your first instinct is to jump back away from him and your next is to slap him for even suggesting it; you can actually hear the jingle of your cuffs as you attempt to raise your hand. You’ve gotten a little kinky before—blindfolds, vibrators, maybe a hand tied to the bedpost with a Hermès scarf once or twice, but this is a whole different level. And the way they’re all looking at you…like they’re itching to see you brought down. How absolutely disgusting.

But Overhaul’s waiting for your answer, and you know full well that you’re not going to deny him.

“O-Of course.” You lean forward over the seat of the chair so your face is just inches from his lap. “Um. My hands...?”

They’re still cuffed behind you, but it seems like they’re going to stay that way when Overhaul gives a curt shake of his head. “Use your mouth.”

Once again, you’re stunned into silence. How are you supposed to—? Without your hands? It doesn’t even seem like he’s going to undo his pants for you. It’s like he wants to humiliate you…oh, wait. As soon as the thought crosses your mind, it’s clear that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.

You give him another doe-eyed glance, bidding him to at least undo his belt, but he remains unmoved. Bastard.

After aiming another glare at him (because as obedient as you’re attempting to be, you’ve never been good at concealing your emotions) you lean deeper in and take the stiff leather of his belt between your teeth, gently easing it out of the buckle and trying to ignore the mixture of earthy and metallic tastes it leaves on your tongue. It takes a few tries, but eventually you’ve got the tail of the belt out of the buckle and you pull your head back to guide the metal down until the belt is hanging open from its loops.

A rush of accomplishment surges through you when you get it open, and then you want to slap yourself. Accomplishment? From doing this with your mouth like an animal—like a dog? You can hear laughter and mocking encouragement from the men watching, but you steel yourself and dip back in to get Overhaul’s pants undone. The button is tricky, especially with your face nudging into the hard muscle of his abdomen through his shirt, but somehow you manage to tug the fabric slit over the button and then—delicately, delicately—clamp the zipper between your teeth and peel it downward.

“Oh, she’s good,” someone says from the background. Setsuno. You look up warily, but Overhaul’s eyes haven’t moved from you.

Now that you’ve got his pants open, you’re face to face (literally) with what you’re going to have to deal with. The outline of his cock is bulging the fabric of his boxers outward, and he’s not even half erect. You snatch a look back up at him—and damn it, you have to stop doing that, because every time you look into those golden eyes and that stupid bird mask you feel like a lamb looking at a bird of prey right before it snatches you from your safe little lamb-house in the meadow and—fuck, you just have to get on with it.

So you dip down and mouth over him through the fabric, spreading the flat of your tongue over the length of his thick cock. Your mouth feels like you’ve been eating cotton (probably because they drugged you earlier) but you force yourself to salivate, letting drool spill over your tongue and dampen his boxers. When you duck and spread your lips down on the place you can feel the tip stretching out, you know the friction must feel good, because despite the lack of even so much of a deep breath from the man above you, his cock is getting harder.

You nudge your mouth over the tent between Overhaul’s legs again, letting the heat of your breath wash over him—but when he doesn’t do anything, you pull back and blink up at his face. Does he expect you to get him off through his underwear? You could, but most of your moves depend on skin-to-skin contact. There’s no way you can get his cock out with your mouth like you undid his pants, so…what? “Are—are you going to take it out?”

Overhaul brings a gloved hand to his face to rub absently at one of the straps on his mask. “…Beg,” he tells you.

Your mouth drops open and you reel back from his lap like he asked you to lick the dirt off the floor. What!? He can’t seriously expect you to—to beg him to put his dick in your mouth when you’re clearly disgusted at the whole situation. When he doesn’t give any indication of retracting the statement, you can’t help the mocking sneer that forms over your face. “Please, sir,” you spit, and a deaf man could hear the spite in your voice.

Now, that gets a reaction. Overhaul’s eyes flash and you take a certain degree of pride back at the anger you’ve clearly inspired in him. But it’s extinguished as soon as you see it, and then he’s reaching down to cup your chin, tilting your head back and rubbing his thumb over your lower lip.

“I think you can do better than that, princess,” he says, and you can hear your own mocking tone reflected back in his voice. “Unless you’d like me to give my men a turn?”

This, more than anything, scares you. He must be able to feel the way your spine goes stiff, adrenaline rushing, your fight-or-flight instinct kicking in at the prospect of what he’s threatening.

“Each of them, one by one. Between the four of them, I think they could cure that smart mouth…although they might just break you in the process,” he continues, and then his thumb is pressing into your lip, into your mouth, and you loosen your jaw to let him in. You can taste the rubbery latex of his gloves and the other men mutter agreement, encouraging their leader to turn you over to them, and you want to cry.

But you hold the tears back. “Please, sir! Please, please may I s-suck your cock sir? Please!” Your voice is more terrified than obedient, but that’s probably what he’s into anyway. When he doesn’t say anything, you babble on, unwilling to let yourself get gangbanged by a group of men who could probably wreck your pussy in a single round. “Please, please, Mr.—Mr. Overhaul, um, boss? M-Master?”

“Sir will do just fine,” Overhaul says, apparently satisfied, and he pulls his hand away from your face to free his cock from his boxers.

You let out a hot sigh of relief and angle yourself back toward his lap so you can zero in on his cock (and, hopefully, do a little to block out how sickeningly degrading all of this is: how easy it is for him to threaten you; how he has all the power and you have none; how the men around you are goading you, taunting you and calling you things that should get their mouths washed out with soap). You can focus on this, and this, at least, you’re good at. You’ve always been good with your mouth.

It’s a nice dick, too, you have to admit to yourself as you stare at it. Perfect length, girth, and a thick, cut head that you know just by looking that you’re going to have to stretch your jaw to get around. All his hair is neatly trimmed and groomed, and he even smells good, clean and fresh like soap. You’ve never been in front of a dick that didn’t smell like day-old ball sweat, so this is a first. It’s got a nice upward curve, too, and there’s a bead of pearly precum oozing out of the tip. The kind of cock that’s made for penetrative orgasms—

No. Fuck. You cannot be thinking this. You cannot allow yourself to lust after a gang leader who thinks of you as little more than an interactive sex doll. A tingle of blood rushes to your cheeks as you feel wetness pool in your panties and you adjust your stance, shuffling your thighs apart under the pretense of getting closer and hoping Overhaul doesn’t notice.

If he notices, he does the merciful thing and keeps quiet (which makes you think he has no idea you’re feeling the way you’re feeling, because he’s probably never chosen to do the merciful thing in his life). He does, however, shift one of his knees farther apart to accommodate you as you crawl close enough to him to get your head all the way between his legs.

So now you’re staring up at that unfairly pretty cock and wondering how the fuck this is supposed to start, but—best just get on with it. Pretend it’s not him, pretend it’s…no, wait, pretend it is him, it is Overhaul, the same bastard who’s looking down at you like you’re trash, except pretend you’re in control. Because no matter how many orders he gives, once you’ve got his cock in his mouth he’ll have to be the weak one. Right?

Lightly, slowly, you trace the tip of your tongue in a wet path up the underside of his cock, sliding up from the hilt to caress every bulging vein with all the delicacy and accuracy of a surgeon. When you reach the tip, you flatten your tongue to curve it around that bulbous head and then slip it off, the suction providing a wet smacking sound as your skin leaves his.

The breath of his barely-heavier exhale ruffles your hair and you relish the knowledge that he’s getting impatient. Yes. The bastard can wait.

You kiss the tip of his cock, barely moving your lips around the slit, only enough to let your tongue flick out against the precum and gather the bitter liquid up in your mouth. And then—right when he’s getting annoyed, when you can tell by the tension in his body that he’s five seconds away from shoving your head down to fuck your face—you duck closer, relax your throat, and swallow.

Like a fucking python. Or so you’ve been told.

The exhale that escapes him isn’t light this time. You can almost hear the barest hint of a groan under his breath, but you’re more focused on holding down your gag reflex as you let that heavy cock hit the back of your throat. Once he’s all the way down (or at least as far as you can get him), you rock yourself back an inch and then take him deeper, forcing yourself to hold still so he can feel the walls of your throat convulse around him, sucking him in, dry-gagging on the mass that’s filling you up.

“Fuuuuck,” you hear someone whine, and it’s not even Overhaul. It’s one of the men watching, and you feel a perverse mixture of hatred and arrogance rise up in you.

Overhaul’s cock is too big for you to properly moan around it, but you give it a go anyway so he can feel the vibration of your voice through his skin. You’re rewarded with a tangible twitch with it sitting on your tongue, and—oh—your mouth is watering out of where you’re clenching down on him at the back of your throat.

Spittle slips out over your lower lip and onto your chin, but you ignore it in favor of jerking your head up and down in fractional strokes, trying your absolute best to get yourself down to his base but knowing that he probably doesn’t give a shit anyway, not with how good your throat feels around what you’re capable of stuffing in.

What were you saying about ‘valuable’, sir? you think, and then you pull your head off his cock, so slow it’s almost cruel, sucking your cheeks in and hollowing out so those wet walls are rubbing up on every millimeter of his skin. When you reach the tip, you savor it, letting your tongue do the dirty work and looking up at him through your lash extensions before you release him with a nasty wet pop.

“Holy fuck, can I have her next?” one of the other men says, but you and Overhaul are too focused on each other to even look and see who’s talking.

His gaze is trained firmly down at you, and—no way, damn it—he looks bored, like he could be waiting in line at the DMV instead of getting sucked off by you, a girl who’s been complimented by every man she’s ever been with (including her first) on her bj technique. You know he’s feeling it—he can fake calm, but he can’t fake the way his cock’s throbbing under your tongue as you lick up the shaft. Still, now that you’ve got it in your head that Overhaul’s not going to make a sound, all you can think about is forcing him to moan. Let him look weak in front of all his little lackeys.

With renewed vigor, you lap up the length of Overhaul’s cock in sloppy dabs, leaving strings of saliva dripping off your mouth and his cock only to slurp them up, audibly, wiggling your tongue over the tip when you reach it. And that, that gets him, because you feel more than see the buck of his hips into your face as he hisses out a curse.

And—oh dear, maybe you shouldn’t have done that—because the next thing you feel is Overhaul looming forward over you, hand gripping the back of your head, and is he going to force you down? You hate that—so you take the initiative, tilting forward to take him into your mouth again, head bobbing up and down so quickly that your hair is falling all over your face, but it’s okay, because he’s got you, he’s got you, got his hands combed through your hair holding it out of your face, pulling so lightly it barely even hurts, but it does hurt, and he’s guiding you up and down on his cock and it’s hitting the back of your throat every time, and—and it hurts.

You really shouldn’t have done that.

“Take it deeper,” Overhaul instructs, almost encouraging, although you’re not given the option to pull off because he’s holding you down, pushing you firmly toward the base of his cock. You sputter around it, gagging, and you’re almost fucking choking, and he won’t let you up.

God, you’re not—not breathing, you can feel your throat choking down on him—“breathe through your nose,” he says, and this man, this villain has no idea what he’s fucking talking about, because you’re trying, eyes stinging and then you can feel tears down your cheeks. You try to squirm back on your knees, but somehow the combined force of every muscle in your body is outmatched by his single hand on the back of your head—and—and—you squeeze your eyes shut, relax, open your throat as much as you can and—

Overhaul forces your mouth down to the hilt.

Fuck, is he going to keep you there? You can’t, you can’t—if you could move, you’d be shaking your head and begging him to let you stop and as it is you’re whimpering around his cock. Your throat is making gagging noises and you’re crying, actually crying, actually fucking crying on a man’s dick. So this is what it feels like to be used?

“Good.” There’s something lower and darker in Overhaul’s voice, a husky undertone from the growl he’s trying to suppress. “Hold still…remember, you asked for this.”

You did. You asked for it. Begged for it. Pleaded.

“Want me to forgive your father’s debt…? You’re going to have to earn it.” He pulls out an inch just to ram himself back in. You make a weak attempt to move your tongue around his shaft and you can feel the shudder all the way through him, his cock twitching where it’s locked in your throat. “Mm…good girl. Just a little—little longer—“

His fingers are tightening in your hair, curling around the strands and tugging instead of just applying pressure to your head. He’s close, you think, and then you struggle back, not wanting him to cum down your throat, what if you choke on it? Like, really choke? You don’t want it, don’t want his cum in your stomach, but then he sighs and tells you again that you’re a good girl, and ohfuckohfuck you must be so scared you’re desperate for praise because you feel heat rush into your cheeks and your cunt when he says it and you try to move your tongue like you did earlier and his hips jerk forward and—he cums. In your mouth.

It’s salty, you think. The next thing you think is that you want to gag, because you’ve never had cum in your mouth before. For all your sexual experimentation, you’ve never let a man cum down your throat like this, always telling them it shoot it on your tits or whatever because you are not a person who should have semen in her mouth, much less ingest it.

But right now, with Overhaul lazily dragging your head up and down for a last couple pumps on his softening dick, your choice isn’t spit or swallow. It’s swallow or choke.

Hot. Thick. The texture is slimy, so viscous you can feel it going down your throat in strings. Part of you wants to throw up. It’s repulsive. Filthy. You hate this.

Part of you has to shift your position again so you don’t have to feel your own wetness slicking up the insides of your thighs.

How. Is. This. Possible. You may have just had to swallow your pride (and not just that), but what about your dignity? You’re a good person…okay, well, even if you’re not a ‘good person’ per se, you don’t hurt anyone with your selfishness. You don’t deserve to be kept as a pet by a sadistic bastard who gets off on watching you almost pass out on his cock, and you certainly don’t deserve the humiliation of finding that you’re turned on by it.

And yet. Here you are. Still held securely in place until Overhaul slides you off him. As soon as your mouth is free you suck in a dizzyingly deep breath, but even that is too much for your battered throat and the breath turns into a cough; you instinctively fold down away from Overhaul so the mixed saliva and cum you’re hacking out spatters in cloudy white flecks across the floor instead of on his clothing.

“Stop that,” Overhaul scolds, hauling you back up by your hair and forcing your mouth closed with a hand on your jaw. “If you make a mess, you’ll be cleaning it up.”

Considering what he just made you do to him, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s implying you’ll have to lick it off the floor. You clench your jaw, holding back the convulsions of your throat as best you can, and hope he doesn’t press the issue.

Now that you’ve got your coughing under control, you can start to sense things that you had been tuning out before: the men hooting and wolf-whistling and applauding your performance, the traitorously persistent throb of your clit pulsing under your panties, and Overhaul’s hand releasing your chin to pet down your neck. “Now. What do you say when someone gives you a meal?”

Just you wait, bastard. I’m going to tie you to your bed and set fire to it. But you’ve got the sense that that answer won’t go over well, so you take a deep breath and look up at him again, meeting those piercing gold eyes with your own. “Thank you, sir,” you say in a soft whisper because it’s all your abused throat can manage.

“That’s right.” His hands feel colder than the concrete under your legs as he spreads his hand down your neck, only to toy with one of the lacy pink straps of your nightdress. “Stand up.”

You stand shakily, too cowed to even consider stepping back from him. Without warning (much less permission), Overhaul lifts the hem of your stupidly short dress up past your thighs, exposing your panties and lower belly to view.

“Hold this in your mouth,” he says, and after only a few seconds of hesitation you open up and bite down on the fabric so you’re effectively holding up the skirt for him. Overhaul skims gloved hands down the sides of your hips and comes to a rest when he reaches your panties—and why did you have to wear these today? Shiny red satin in the front; the back is just flowers worked in crimson lace. You know exactly how good you look in these panties, and judging by the things Overhaul’s men are saying, they’re more than appreciative of the view.

But Overhaul ignores them in favor of hooking his fingers under the elastic and pulling the panties down until they’re resting stretched between your upper thighs. You don’t have to see them to know there’s a string of slick connecting the lips of your cunt to the fabric, betraying in full technicolor detail how turned on you’ve gotten just from sucking him off. He gazes down at your pussy and then up to you as if waiting for you to admit it, but you stay silent.

“Well, well. What a nicely-trained slut I’ve found myself.” He gracelessly pulls the panties the rest of the way down your legs and lets them fall to the ground. “Do you always get this wet when you let your boyfriends fuck that smart mouth?”

It takes you a second to comprehend that he’s expecting an answer. “N-No, sir,” you reply, voice muffled by the fabric you’re still holding between your teeth.

“I suppose I can’t leave you like this, not after you took me so nicely.”

Does he mean he’s going to get you off? No freaking way. You drop the hem of your dress, let it flutter down over your thighs, try to scramble back, but his hand on your waist keeps you from moving. “I— It’s okay, I don’t need—“

“No, I think you do. I think I’m going to reward my pet for a job well done.” He leans back, eyeing you without sympathy. “I’d have you touch yourself, but—“

The mere possibility that he might remove the handcuffs has you straining against them again, and the sound of metal against metal rings out from behind you.

“—but, I think it’s best to keep the cuffs on for a few days…until you’ve settled down.”

Days? He can’t leave you in chains for days, helpless and powerless, so easy to take advantage of. “You can’t,” you whimper, and even though you mean for it to be a decisive statement, with your throat ravaged and hoarse it’s downright pathetic. Overhaul doesn’t even bother reprimanding you for talking back.

“My men have been patient,” he muses, and an enthusiastic wave of agreement wells up from the others. “Any of them would be happy to do it.”

You may have been through a lot in the past hour alone, but there is no way you’re going to let those rowdy criminals have their way with you. You send a nervous glance around the room and as predicted, not a single one of them looks like they have the slightest shred of control over themselves.

None of them…except Overhaul.

Still eased back in his chair, he looks just as relaxed and unaffected as he did when he was explaining your father’s debts to you. But there’s something flickering in his eyes, something he isn’t going to say to you, isn’t going to say out loud. A challenge.

Maybe, once again, he’s waiting for you to ask for it yourself. And if it’s a choice between him and one of the grimy ruffians who’ve been looking at you like dogs look at meat, you know what you’d prefer. Well—really, you’d prefer option C: none of the above (your current state might be uncomfortable, but you’re not so wanton that you’d rather cum in front of strangers than keep your legs together). Unfortunately, you’re starting to come to terms with the fact that ‘no’ is no longer an option.

Overhaul’s stare flicks from you to an unseen figure behind you, and you can tell he’s about to summon one of them over so you force yourself to move, lurching forward and climbing into his lap to straddle one of his thighs with all the grace you’re capable of. You feel the stir in the air when he inhales sharply, surprised, and his masked face is so close to your neck that you wonder if he can smell the lotion you put on before you went to bed last night.

It’s one of your favorite scents: vanilla, lilac, orange blossoms. You bought it because it smelled pure.

“Please, sir, I don’t want them,” you breathe next to his ear, injecting every ounce of sexual frustration you’re feeling into the needy tones of your voice. “I’m yours. I belong to you, just you. No one else—please, sir…Overhaul.”

He’s quiet for a long, tense moment, and you think he’s going to hit you, or maybe even kill you for your disobedience. Push you off his lap at least. But just when you’re teetering on the edge of jumping back from him and begging for forgiveness for talking out of turn, you feel it—a low rumble of laughter from deep in his chest.

Big, cold hands wrap around the sides of your ribcage under your breasts and his fingernails dig into you through the layers of latex and fabric. He tilts forward, forcing you to arch away and all you can think about is how horribly weak you are compared to him. Are you trembling? Will he be angry if you feels how afraid you are?

“You know, I guess I’ll keep you after all,” he hums, stroking his fingers through your hair and down your neck. “How does that sound, princess? I think you’d like that very much, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” The response comes all too easily, even if the words taste bitter in your mouth. You’ve never said the word ‘sir’ so much in your life…but as he repositions you on his lap and slides a single hand up the inside of your thigh under your dress, you bite your lip and decide to hold back your protest.

If you’re going to have to learn manners, you’d better do it sooner rather than later. Something tells you Overhaul’s not going to accept any less than your best behavior if you want to pay off your debt.

[sky-squido]

16, 21, 30, or 34? ALSO HAPPY BORTH YOU WONDERFUL PERSON 'yeets a cake at you'

*gets cake yeeted at me*

MORPH ILY

it's really funny thought cuz my parents actually got squido WRITTEN ON THE CAKE AAH

anyway *coughs*

here's where you can find the answer to 16! ^^

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

all of these are gonna be platonic cuz ew romance ((post was made by the probably aroace gang)) and FOUND FAMILY IS THE BEST

okay so i write a LOT of downfall duo,,, like a LOT. it might be my favorite pairing, but it feels a little too easy sometimes. i'm a total sucker for rarepairs like sky&legend, four&legend, wind&legend twi&legend—I'M A SHAMELESS LEGEND STAN OKAY

oh hyrule&sky is fire, too

okay but in all seriousness i ADORE writing twi-sky parent gang and wind&twilight also gives me SO MUCH LIFE. my favorites are legend, sky, and wind, and i feel like the latter two especially are just really underutilized. the most fun i have in my fics is like, yes there's a storyline and Serious Things Are Happening but they're still a buncha kiddos going on an adventure together and i feel like the more banter and rarepairs a fic has, the more real it all feels

enough rambling okay YES i love downfall duo with my whole heart but also i think the beauty of LU is the diversity of interactions you can play with and anything with a soft legend or a badass wind and/or sky in it is a recipe for a VERY happy squido. just,, sky and wind, and twi, too, i feel, are often the "recessive" characters in an interaction, if you will. it feels like they're usually not the main characters and tend to be a vehicle for the plot of whoever's talking to them so when THEY'RE stepping up and taking a role, it just makes me so happy! ^^

as i mentioned here, they're all the main characters of their own games so watching them all step up and take charge, especially the traditionally timid ones is just YES

okay enough rambling what was the other one? ah yes

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

yes.

no i’m kidding.

well only sort of.

the way i see it, angst and fluff, hurt and comfort, they’re like push and pull. it’s a dance, my friends, a dance of hurt and healing and you need both to feel satisfied. fluff fics are nice, but they’re not food. angst fics are great, but i always leave them feeling sort of empty. but both, the angst sets up the conflicts and the fluff resolves it. i think you really do need both to have balance in a fic. obviously fics don’t have to show you the whole picture and authors can write whatever they’re comfy with and sometimes you want a fluffy comfort fic and sometime you just want pain—i’m by no means trying to say that my way is the only, or even the best, way to write a fic. it’s just my personal preference and that intertidal zone between the soft yet stagnant sands of fluff and the roaring, turbulent waves of angst is where i make my home. the tides come and go, waves crash and pull, but life flourishes in the cracks in the rocks and the burrows in the sand and sjghsfjghfldkgsehfjgsd i really just went off didn’t i

tl;dr:

yes

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

ohh this one's hard.

i had a big ramble here before i remembered two excepts that just take the cake and these are probably my favorite things i've ever posted on ao3

this one’s from Burns:

 “Tell me, do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls?” The man said that like it was somehow supposed to explain something. Like it meant something.

 Wind thought for a moment. “No, I can’t say that I do. Sunset… it’s beautiful.” Wind smiled despite himself, gesticulating excitedly. “The sky lights up a million colors and the ocean turns to molten gold. The sea stays warm even as the wind grows chilled and the first stars begin to blink into the sky, a welcome sight to any navigator. Sure it’s sad that the day ends, but the night is beautiful in its own way. I welcome them both. Two sides of the same coin, you know?”

 The man remained in silence for a moment. “But what about the twilight? That time when the world hangs precariously between the two, balanced on the coin’s edge. What about that time?”

 Wind felt his brow furrow in confusion, but he indulged him nonetheless.

 “Yeah, it’s nice. That time when the first star blinks into the sky, the bravest and the brightest, a beacon of hope guiding sailors on their journeys. It’s like the dawn, but not quite as still. It’s like… it’s as if the day is an inhale and the night is an exhale and twilight is that little time in the middle when the world holds its breath. Is that what you mean?”

 The man’s gaze shifted to the ground, a bittersweet smile on his face and his eyes suspiciously wet.

 “Yeah. That is what I mean.”

 Wind opened his mouth, but was interrupted by the man saying: “call me Twilight.”

:D

This is from What Hyrule Hadn't Seen chapter 10 and it’s both spoilers and kinda long and i don’t want this post to be five miles so

 “Wind, we need to get you out here. You can barely stand.”

 “Bullsh*t! I’m not leaving you behind!”

 “I’ll manage,” came his reply, the blade of his spin attack passing above Wind’s crouched head.

 “No you f*cking won’t! I’m not going to leave you out here to die!”

 “So you’d rather we both died instead?!”

 “You admit that this is a suicide mission, then!”

 “Stop wasting time and get out of here!”

 “NO!”

 “WIND! As your commanding officer, I am ordering you to get to safety!”

 Wind finally rose to his feet, his right leg bleeding and clearly supporting none of his weight, his sword unwavering in his determined arms.

 “The day I submit to your authority when you're being an ass is the day I f*cking die.”

 Warriors let out a small whine, a sound Wind never could have imagined the captain making. He spoke in a low, slicing tone, his eyes like his blade—cold, steely, and far too wet—as he faced the sailor.

 “I’ve stood over far too many corpses. Don’t let yours be one of them.”

 Wind straightened his posture and said nothing, pulling his bow from his back, his gaze like fire—hungry and bursting with life—and wordlessly turned his back to the captain, knocking an arrow, brilliant luminescence collecting on its head as he aimed into the blackened forest that seethed with darkness.

 “Come on, tactics man, use your head. If you fall here, the town won’t be safe. Nowhere will be.”

 He smiled a smile that had no right to cover the face of a child.

 “If we’re gonna die, we might as well do it together.”

 Warriors’ shoulders heaved in a silent sob, but he quickly quelled it, regaining his composure as best he could, brow furrowed and sword quivering in his hands.

 “I just can’t f*cking win with you.”

 “No, but you can lose with me one last time.”

 "So be it."

 Warriors said nothing more, diving into battle once again.

 Wind fired his arrow.

 A halo of light burst through the forest, shattering shadows into dust.

 And a sword slipped past the captain’s wavering guard. 

read it here uwu: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25993870/chapters/68195218

[spoopybananel]

For the Ask Game: July, and Tomorrow 👀

july: what’s the hottest fic you have written and/or posted if you write smut at all? 

👀I had to go back and read all my smut to properly answer this- Hottest KakaYama smut would have to be in...Chapter 11 of the Gay Ninja fic lmao I'll add it under the cut (I have to edit it in after publishing this cuz tumblr is just Like That, but anyone wants to read the chapter in full, you can find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26295373/chapters/73398279 

tomorrow: favourite ways to write fluff? 

Ohhh, I love fluff too. I especially like fluff with lots of tender words and holding each other, or just doing something meaningful together that they both enjoy. I am such a sap for mushy heartfelt confession, it kills me every time ahaha There's one coming up in the Kakayama fic and I melt just reading it ;u;

Excerpt of the spicy spicy KakaYama scene under the cut:

         Yamato whined into the other’s skin as his walls flexed. “Kakashi, oh, f-fu-”

         “What a dirty mouth. Is fuck your favorite word tonight?”

         The bigger man couldn’t help the buck of his hips and got an open mouth moan from Kakashi. “As long as...I’m fucking you, y-yes.” He has halfway inside, already keening and fighting to keep his voice down. “It feels so good, I-I...”

         “Your cock is filling me so well, Tenzō,” Kakashi murmured, cradling the younger man in his arms. He nuzzled at his hair, taking in the strong scent of nature on him at all times. “Go deeper, I want it.”

         He pumped in and out at a sluggish pace, being hit with wave after wave of new sensations. He breathed in time, croaking at every move Kakashi made. He buried his face in the other’s shoulder, feeling a rise of emotions in his heart. “Kakashi, hhnnn…”

         “You’re driving me crazy, being so gentle on me, and saying my name like that.” He sighed into Yamato’s ear. “Harder, please Tenzō.”

         He shuddered, dick throbbing from inside and making even more friction. He groaned, allowing himself to thrust as fast as his chest was heaving and watching with wide-blown eyes at Kakashi’s thrown back head.

         “Ohh yeah, just like that, fuck me.”

         A heat pooled in his tight stomach and a cry tore out of his throat. “Kakashi, I’m gonna-” It came out of nowhere and his entire body trembled as he unexpectedly finished.

         “Damn it, I-I’m not ready to stop.” he panted, still driving into Kakashi as if he hadn’t just orgasmed. It was somehow even warmer and endlessly sensitive now, every twitch making him moan. “I need to make you cum first.” Where the rest of that goes, I’ll leave to find out in the fic ;p Read it here <3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26295373/chapters/73398279

[a-good-finder]

the malec playlist ♥

Ok, so. Hi!

I’m not very big on fandom things, so bear with me. Months ago, I created this playlist on Spotify with songs that touch my Malec-strings. I’m here to share it with you lot, in hopes you all can cry at them with me or even point out other songs which you consider Malec-y.

This is it: the malec playlist :)

Below, you have a list of all the songs, some with excerpts cos I’m a bitch for lyrics that remind me of my favorite couple. It’s a very eclectic playlist, you see.

[Btw, some things might be off or wrong cos not only is English not my first language I’m feeling too lazy to search for spelling and etc, sorry >D]

So, we’ve got... 

- All of Me, John Legend

- Little Do You Know, Alex & Sierra (due to this amazing fanvid)

- Grow Old with Me, Tom Odell (cRY)

- “Read All About It, Pt. III”, Emeli Sandé :’)

- Nobody Wants to be Lonely, Rick Martin & Christina Aguilera [sERIOUSLY, look: your heart is cold and lost the will to love, like a broken arrow (...) time is precious and it's slipping away, and I've been waiting for you all of my life (...)  can you hear my voice, do you hear my song, it's a seranade, so your heart can find me, ohh. and suddenly you're flying down the stairs into my arms, baby, ohh (me singing and crying this sHIT IS GOOD)]

- Shape of My Heart, Backstreet Boys

- OBVIOUSLY War of Hearts, Ruelle (um hino desses)

- True Colors, Cyndi Lauper :’’’’’’)

- Wide Eyed, Billy Lockett (3uheuwhuhuehuehuehruheu3heu)

- Two Men in Love, The Irrepressibles (so so so so bEAUTIFUL)

- And Then You, Greg Laswell (seeeeeee:  and how my dreams they spin me 'round, and how my dreams they let me down, and how my thoughts they spin me 'round, and how my thoughts they let me down... then there's you, then there's you, then there's you, then there's you...)

- Duet (feat. Stephanie Briggs), Penny and Sparrow (ok I’m sorry but tHIS ONE IS GOLD: because I’ve seen you, and I know you, and I’m not going anywhere)

- Strong, One Direction

- What Makes You Beautiful, One Direction (heuhuehuhe)

- You & I, One Direction

- Can’t Help Falling in Love, Elvis Presley (wISE MEN SAY ONLY FOOLS RUSH IN aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah)

- Better Love, Hozier

- Can You Hold Me, NF & Britt Nicole (this one has become such a favorite, seriously, listen to it)

- Old Skin, Ólafur Arnalds (I’ve heard this song first in an Evak fanvid, but if fits bOTH so well...)

- I Choose You, Sara Bareilles (#ImmortalHusbands)

- I’m Yours, Alessia Cara (BUT HEAR ME OUT!!!  She says: cause I’ve had my heart broken before, and I promised I would never let me hurt anymore. but I tore down my walls, and opened my doors, and made room for one. so baby I’m yours, and honestly the whole song is so dhjfhjfbjhbfj I cry a little)

- Do I Wanna Know?, Arctic Monkeys (I’ve taken this one from another Malec playlist on spotify, Take You As You Are, it fits pretty well lol)

- Certain Things, James Arthur (this is such a fanvid song lol)

- Love You Any Less, Rag’n’Bone Man (mAN, another one from Take You As You Are, and it’s so so so so touching, seriously; listen to it while you watch the 2x15 scene ;D)

- Underneath, Adam Lambert

- OBVI: The Other Side, Ruelle (2x18 break-up vibes)

- Brave, Riley Pearce (yes, the one from their last 2x18 scene, but just listen to it)

- Vulnerable, The Saturdays (same vein as “I’m Yours”, very Magnus-y)

- Surrender, Natalie Taylor (since we’re talking about Malec-break up, look at this fanvid)

- Beautiful Mess, Kristian Kostov (another amazing fanvid :D)

- Run Away With Me, Carly Rae Jepsen (such a fun song)

- Nobody ‘Til You, Lindsay Lohan (I mean:  'til you I was nothing but lonely nights, there was nothing but sad goodbyes for me to fall through. come true, my dreams are awakening, somebody is making me the only one in the room. what nobody could do, nobody 'til you)

- Hurry Up!, Superfruit (I’ve seen this one in a very cute gifset, but for the life of me can’t I find it D:, but the bit was this one: hey baby, I've never been in love, but I wanna be, I wanna be, so hurry up)

- Never Gonna Change, Broods (I’ve always loved this song, and it made me really happy to be able to add it to this list)

- Wildfire, SYML (HONESTLY SERIOUSLY FULL-HEARTLY nothing is as beautiful as the love in this song. Someone on tumblr once pointed out how Malec-y it is, and just- listen to its softeness)

- Turning Page, Sleeping At Last (#weddingfeels, also: nothing makes me stronger than your fragile heart?????? I mean, shit!)

- In the Name of Love, Martin Garrix (heart emojis)

- Venus, Sleeping At Last (after a while, I thought I’d never find you. I convinced myself that I would never find you. when suddenly I saw you. at first I thought you were a constellation. I made a map of your stars, then I had a revelation. you’re as beautiful as endless, you’re the universe I’m helpless in)

- Only You, Cheat Codes & Little Mix (dUDE)

- Atlas: Two, Sleeping at Last (first time I heard this song I couldn’t stop thinking of Malec and /sigh/, help: I know exactly how the rule goes, put my mask on first. no, I don’t want to talk about myself- tell me where it hurts. I just want to build you up, build you up til you’re good as new. and maybe one day I will get around to fixing myself too ring any bells?)

- Bloom, Troye Sivan (hueheuheuheueh)

- I Found, Amber Run

- Saturn, Sleeping At Last (crying forever)

- Stronger, Proper Gentleman & Mr. Gabriel (mAN, woMAN: I am not here to stay, I am not far away, and I can be with you if you need me. I wish that I could say I feel your pain, lost in your shame, and the hardest part is believing... you are stronger than you look in the picture. you are brave, even as you are falling apart)

- Don’t Forget About Me, CLOVES (played during 2x5, Jocelyn’s funeral)

- Show Me What I’m Looking For, Carolina Liar

- When You Look Me In The Eyes (I can’t access the Jonas Brothers’ version, maybe it’s cos my spotify is Brazilian or something, so this is a cover, but dANG this song)

- Fear of the Water, SYML (ok, listen!!! so much sense!!! and also watch this beautiful incredible fanvid)

- Take Care, Florence + the Machine (Drake’s is also so touching and soft and beautiful, yes, but I kinda like the violins in this one lol)

- Dressed In Black, Sia (added yesterday, but everyweek it seems I find another song for this playlist-- if you’ve never heard it, take a look at this chorus: you found me dressed in black, hiding way up at the back. life had broken my heart into pieces. you took my hand in yours, you started breaking down my walls, and you covered my heart in kisses. I thought life passed me by, missed my tears, ignored my cries. life had broken my heart, my spirit. and then you crossed my path, you quelled my fears, you made me laugh. then you covered my heart in kisses)

That’s it, so far. I hope listening to it is an eye-opening experience as it always is for me, and we can talk about it all in caps? That’d be nice.

Also, #SaveShadowhunters :D

EDITED, October 13th.

- Telepathy, Christina Aguilera, from the Get Down, which should also have been saved (yes, it’s a Thizzee song, but dAMN)

- Never Enough, Loren Allred, from the Greatest Show Man (another musical, and also another dAMN, just listen to it)

- Come What May, from yet aNOTHER musical and also from Glee (yes, both versions) cos both are amazing and deserve to be listened to always.

[tidethreads]

i love that you've read the womf books, i feel like they're not as popular as her other books on here. are you more of a sam/grace or isabel/cole person?

Ohh wow thank you for sending me this and saving me from my boring day. Be prepared this will be a long answer.

I feel like for me this is a very complex question, one which the answer to has changed a great deal over the past years, from the first time I read the books to my latest reread. For several reasons no one cares about but which I’m going to list anyway.

The first time I read the books (the trilogy) was around winter 2010/11. We always had this book exhibition at my school to encourage students to read books in a foreign language (mainly English) and I discovered Shiver. I bought Shiver and Linger together (and Forever a couple of months later when it was published) pretty soon afterwards. You have to understand I was eleven years old at the time and had only taken English classes for about a year and a half so my understanding was pretty rudimentary. I could follow the plot but the intricacies were lost on me.

Anyway, so that first time I read the books, I liked Grace and Sam. They seemed like quite typical main characters, I identified with Grace’s love for reading. I did, however, not like Isabel and Cole. At all. And at first it wasn’t so much that I disliked them but that I found their chapters annoying and rather unnecessary. Isabel was too cold for me to empathise with and I thought Cole was a heartless narcissistic jerk. 

The second time I read the trilogy was when I was around 15. There wasn’t a particular reason for it I think I was just bored. Anyway, my mindset at the time was a complete 180 compared to a few years before. I think we all went through that phase as a teenager when you see those relationships à la D*lena and idolise them because you’re too young to understand how a healthy relationship is supposed to work. I want to emphasise at this point - I will come back to this later - that Isabel and Cole’s dynamic is different to that type of relationship in ways I probably didn’t quite comprehend back then, and I also probably didn’t really care much. Cole was the type of guy I went for, this concept of a not-quite-relationship-yet dynamic was something I was experiencing first-hand in my own life, and I have to admit I idolised it. Since I already knew the main story I didn’t pay much attention to it and with it Grace and Sam’s relationship. I didn’t relate to Grace’s life and personality other than certain traits and I couldn’t imagine being that co-dependent. Their entire relationship felt like playing it safe and I found that boring.

The third time I read the books (trilogy + Sinner, a little more than a year ago I think) was prompted by researching how YA literature aimed at a teen female audience treated the topic of sex. I came across this article saying how Maggie Stiefvater forayed into this and caught flack for implying that Grace and Sam were sleeping together. That is something I didn’t catch the first time I read Shiver because of my lack of language skills and the second time presumably due to my inattention so I reread the books to see it myself (that was also when I found out there was a separate Isabel/Cole-centred book.

After getting a little burned by someone quite like Cole in some ways, I found a sort of quiet comfort in Grace and Sam’s relationship. There was never any incertainty, they could count on each other all the time in every situation and I thought I would much rather have that type of relationship than one where you are constantly on edge and can rarely relax your mind and enjoy the “pure” parts of sweet declarations and being just generally comfortable.

However, that’s not what Isabel and Cole’s relationship is like, and it took me maturing to realise that. It’s not fair to them to set them in relation to that aforementioned relationship or ones like them (the kind that are being picked apart constantly for being borderline mentally abusive). It felt like I was finally able to understand the complexity of the relationship but also of the individual characters themselves.

Because yes, Cole is a conceited self-serving type A personality who relies on his looks and charms to get what he wants and has done morally condemnable things, but that’s not all there is to him. You have to keep in mind how his privileged upbringing by a famous scientist made him subconsciously adopt the values his family pushed onto him, his need to rebel and denounce that lifestyle but also how his strive for his father’s approval and living up to his expectations pushes him in his own scientific experiments. He’s not a heartless narcissist and he’s also not a “bad boy with a heart of gold”, he’s misguided and confused by the opposition of his upbringing with his fame and who that makes him as a person. This is further elaborated on in Sinner but I have to honestly say I don’t have enough experiences with what Cole’s going through there to really comment on it.

Now to Isabel. First I thought she was an asshole, then I liked her ability to banter with Cole. Out of all the books I’ve read in my lifetime, her character is one of the ones I relate to most strongly. Like with Cole, it was the ways external factors influenced her character that was the hardest to grasp when I was younger but those are so important. Yes, they also influenced the story (her father being involved in the hunt, her brother dying) but her character is so much more. It’s easy to label her a vain conceited rich bitch using examples of her saying she runs because it makes her legs look nice and wearing expensive clothes, but again there’s so much more. She is the way she is because of her equally privileged upbringing, yes, with materialism engrained into her since that’s the way her parents solve marital problems. Her real issues, however, are things like feeling trapped in that “image” she had created for herself and the pressure to maintain it - and with that what people perceive her to be like. This is expicitly discussed when she admits her sexual inexperience even though that doesn’t fit what people think of her.

Speaking of that scene with her and Cole (excerpt here - it’s a tumblr post), it’s exactly what I meant when I said you shouldn’t compare their relationship to others people think are similar. What makes Cole and Isabel stand out is that behind their “mean” banter and perceived antipathy there’s a lot of room for vulnerability and trust and genuine respect. This is the scene where Isabel opens up emotionally and ends up practically begging Cole to sleep with her just so she can say she’s had sex while underneath she thinks she’s not worth someone’s genuine affection and its physical manifestation. The reason Cole doesn’t do it is not because he’s an inherently good person - he would have done it if it had been anyone else - but because he knows she’ll regret it and he doesn’t want that for her.

Their relationship in Sinner is even more complicated and intense, the change of location and new characters playing a big part of it, and it makes it seem like Isabel “hates” Cole. For the first time their relationship seems to regress and like in the trilogy, it’s Cole who has to show his vulnerability first and talk about his feelings that makes progress even possible (if I remember correctly). I could talk about this forever if I read the books again I think.

Anyway, to actually answer your question, I am more of a Cole/Isabel person but I do appreciate the emotional stability and infinite trust Sam and Grace have.

[dearmrsawyer]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

I was tagged by @akai-coat and @imlouisaf thankyou!!

1. List of works published this year:

My fic round-up is here :)

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

I’m definitely most proud of Wear Your Fur, my nouis wolvesfest fic. It sort of came together in my head really quickly and when i wrote it, it just fell out of me. I usually spend a really long time writing my fics, longer than their word counts would suggest. Idk why, i’m just like that. But Wear Your Fur was written in under a month, i wrote every single day for a few consecutive weeks and it was all out there. It felt like such a clear story to tell, and even before i went back and fixed it up, i was so happy with it. It just did all the things i wanted it to do, its all the thing i want when i go looking for wolf fics, and its kind of exciting when you achieve something that’s kind of your ideal scenario, you know? And it wasn’t even achieved through rigorous re-working and re-writing. It was all there in the draft, it just needed a tidy. It was also my first nouis fic and i was nervous about that but i ended up loving the feeling of writing them. 

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

I mean, i’m happy with everything i wrote this year, but i guess if i gotta pick one i’ll go with part 2 of my nouis proposal series, The One Where Everything Goes Wrong. I don’t dislike it or anything but it prob could’ve been better, had i more knowledge of babies in general and what to do in that situation. It’s still a bit of fun though!

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

There are a lot of little interactions between Harry and Louis in We Could Live This Life Forever that i love, but i think this is one of my favourites. Sometimes you just capture a moment just the way you want to.

He goes back into the hall, leaving everyone behind. He can hear the phone dial out and he turns back to the nursery door. It’s quiet on the other side, but Harry can see a break in the line of light underneath the door and knows Louis is standing right there.

He leans his head against the doorframe. “Louis, are you okay?”

“Is she calling them?”

Harry can hear Aunt Sophie’s hushed but urgent tone from the kitchen, punctuated by James’ unrest. He takes a deep breath, throat thick. “Yeah.”

Louis doesn’t say anything. When Harry strains his ears he hears quickening breaths through the door, and crowds closer in solidarity.

“Why are you here, Louis?”

It isn’t what he’d been planning to say but it comes out without his permission. Louis’ breath catches.

“Came back to try and get you to forgive me.” His tone is rueful. “I heard yelling, thought I heard you, too, so I climbed in the window.”

Harry lets out a watery, monosyllabic laugh.

There’s one deep, harsh breath that sounds like its pressed right into the doorjamb. “I… I don’t want to go back.”

Harry wishes he could just reach out and take Louis’ hand the way Louis had done so many times. Wishes that in Louis’ moment of need, he could be the comfort Harry has come to know. He taps his fingernail lightly on the door.

“I’m going to help you.”

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received:

Ohh all the comments i receive matter to me a lot? I love the ones i receive on ao3, but i look at a lot of tags people add to my fic posts on tumblr and they make me really happy too. I think Sav’s comment on Wear Your Fur was one of my stand outs for the year. Coming from her, i was in awe. 

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Just after posting my wolvesfest fic! Once i was done with it i went back to working on a WIP that i’m still working on. I’m having issues with it i still haven’t solved. It got put on the back burner for another WIP so writing got easier then, but that particular fic has been difficult to work on. Sometimes you know things would be better written by someone else, but you know no one else is gonna do it so you have to find a way to do it yourself. I’m still in the process of working it out.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

Hmm maybe Freddie? He’s a core element in my nouis proposal series, but i’m not really comfortable writing kids because i know nothing about them or their care. Life was made easier by the fact that as a baby, Freddie’s expressions and personality were pretty limited. As time goes by, it becomes clearer that everytime i write Freddie i do not age him up according to reality. He’s always gonna very little so i don’t need to figure out how to write a child lol.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I think i just followed the natural progression of growth that anyone follows when they continue writing. Everything gets incrementally better as you write more (hopefully), so i’m just trying to do that. Gradual improvement fic by fic. 

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

I would like to continue that same trajectory of growth, but maybe also get comfortable writing characters outside OT5. Even within OT5, there are some voices i really struggle to capture, and branching outside of them was too much to take on thus far. But maybe that’s something i can get better at next year! I like keeping the cast of my fics small, but it’d be fun to get some variety on who i can write. 

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

For the first time since uni, i really felt like i’m part of a community of writers this past year. Its been a long time since i had people to talk to about ideas or current projects, whose work i read and also read mine, people to sort of speculate back and forth about how things would play out, or what would be fun to write. I feel a lot less alone in that and it really does make it more exciting/rewarding. @imlouisaf and @1000-directions in particular have been part of that for me. 

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

Hmm, my love for Disney is pretty clear in my decision to write a Lady and the Tramp AU lol. My feelings about Louis after reading the Observer interview manifested in the nouis drabble i wrote about Niall reacting to it. 

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Justine said exactly what i would’ve said here, and that’s to try writing by hand if you find you’re having a hard time making progress. Writing was v slow at the beginning of the year but after we started talking i started writing by hand, and i did my entire first draft of Wear Your Fur by hand. It forces you to move forward, you can’t go back and fix things. It also helps my editing process to type it up, i can add notes as i go along and leave marks that i need to come back to and sort out. So if you feel like you’re stuck, i’d recommend trying it!

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Hopefully i can finally work through my issues with my Nouis Killjoys AU because i want it to be good and i want it to be done.

I’ve got Pokemon AU coming up for rarepair.

I’ve got more ideas waiting for me. I have a feeling once these two are done i’m going to try my Being Human AU idea next. I feel most excited about that one.

14. Tag three writers/artists whose answers you’d like to read.

I’ve love to hear from @niallspringsteen!

[chilled-ray]

Serving & Smiling

2/16-17/2017

My name was under Phil’s*(1)(2) on the list.

“I had you going there for a second,” my coworker was saying, “but we already had the grilled cheese incident. Hey – how’d that be for a stage name? Grilled Cheese Incident?”

The familiarity tinkled my temple and crinkled my brow. “Isn’t there a band called the String–”

He finished it with me – “Cheese Incident? Yeah. Might be conflicting.”

I was also reminded of references to Calvin’s so-called “Noodle Incident” (3), but decided on a different tine of the conversational fork. “You should perform as The Incident Formerly Known as The Sandy Koufax Bar Mitzvah Experience.” 

“Ohh, inception!” About a month ago, Phil had signed himself up as The Sandy Koufax Bar Mitzvah Experience, a name replaced the following week by Something Someone Quinceañera  Extravaganza or a Synonymous or Similar Word. He was reading regularly now, almost every week. Before he worked here, no other barista had gotten behind the microphone except perhaps to call a “testing, one-two” into it during setup. Or a sillier version, if you’re Alek**. Now, after three years of listening and pouring to and for the artists and patrons of the Open Mic, I’ve begun stepping gingerly over the freshly blazed trail and reading a handful of poems.

My Grover’s Mill debut came the second Thursday after Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize, because I couldn’t believe that not a single musician had made mention of the achievement. In succeeding weeks, another couple classic poems and striking passages tumbled from my lips, some from a Seagull reader or Norton anthology, one from VanderMeer, maybe a Lovecraft.

Most fun for me was the Italo Calvino excerpt from “In a network of lines that enlace”, because role-playing a neurotic professor meant that a panicky and stammering performance actually worked, though I hadn’t realized so consciously until partway through my reading. After the applause, I received several compliments, my favorite of which came from the dark-haired young fellow with the beard and spectacles and Johnny Cash voice: “You really captured the urgency of the piece.” Another musician took the book out of my hands and took a picture of its cover.

Last week I read an original for the first time, though it was from a prompt suggested by Phil that very night, and I stumbled – did that whole deer in the headlights thing – and read what I decided afterwards was the worst of the three poems I’d written.

Tonight, when Anker*** called my name, which was after Phil had finished reading a song in which every other word was four-lettered, I walked up to the microphone with a leather-bound notebook in one hand and a smartphone in the other. I waited for the chatter to die down before speaking.

“Would you guys like to hear something about creating a story, or about working in a coffee shop?”

In a clear majority, “Coffee shop!” came from various tables, not synchronized. I thought I heard “Story!” in Phil’s voice. I pocketed the phone, fingered the red string of the leather-bound book, and cleared my throat.

I serve dutifully

not just because it is my duty

but because I can and I do it well

and people appreciate it

and I enjoy that.

I enjoy hearing you tell me

that I make such good drinks

or how pretty my smile is.

Realistically, those are two of the best compliments a person can pay or receive.

It’s lovely when people comment on

how it’s nice to see a smiling face

or that they come here for the service.

When you ask me where I got my dimples,

I flash them again [insert flirtatious smile]

and say they’re one of the many things my mother gave me.

(It sounds sweet. My roommate thinks

I’ve nailed the good-girl-next-door act.)

But – sometimes there’s another question.

“How are you always so cheerful?

“Are you a generally happy person, or

is it part of the job?

“Why are you always smiling?”

I’ll make a joke about how much my parents spent on braces,

or say,

“Ah, it’s in the job description!”

or I may respond with,

“We have such good customers!” –

which [deliver charmingly to audience] isn’t a lie –  

or I’ll remark on how wondrous life is,

that it’s full of things to smile about,

that every moment should be embraced – 

[wince]

or –

feed you whatever.

But the truth – ? –

I’ll probably never tell.

[exit]

I walked back behind the counter.

“We could put that on the website,” said Boss.

* Names have been changed to protect the practice of creative liberties. And identities. Also, see footnotes 1 and 2.

** Formed from true middle and last names. Probably temporary.

*** This name is not changed because it is already a pseudonym the musician host has given himself. Perhaps I will change it down the line for consistency’s sake, and to carry out the liberties cited in Asterisk One.

(1) What do you call the fictional name of a character based on a probably real person? Pseudonym? Alias? Supporting characters, not the protagonist or writer.

(2) Other possible names for this particular human/character/persona/player: Hugh, Emmett, others. It should have meaning that makes sense for what this person embodies, and not be the kind of name that evokes an idea too far from the interpretations the writer intends to be read from the character. This goes for all naming, now; I am referring to future and past creatures, fictional or flesh. A name, a label, should convey an essence and be interesting but not too distracting. “Phil” means horse-lover, which seemed appropriate for someone who is looking forward to being drawn as a centaur; moreover, he seems closer to a Phil than to any of the other brainstormed pseudonyms (a term I’m beginning to think may be the most accurate answer to the question posed in footnote 1.)

(3) A Watterson allusion, obviously. I say Calvin and not Calvin and Hobbes because we don’t know how involved the tiger might have been. Part of the reason I chose not to mention this Incident is because so little is known about it.