#piano nocturnes volume one

[caviarsonoro]

Jeremy de Tolly - Four

Live and let live. No matter how it ended, these lose and, under the sky, Lie friended. For foes forgive, No matter how they hated, By life so sold and by Death mated.

John Pudney

[wesstars]

heaven on earth (ii)

wednesday addams x fem!reader (mostly gn, only term used is “girl friend”)

summary: your friends-with-benefits situation with wednesday isn’t so friendly anymore, but if you could only uncover your own eyes, you might’ve noticed. wc: 5.5k tags: explicit, MINORS DNI! all characters involved are 18+. kinda ooc wednesday, painfully oblivious reader, bad fluff, fluff to smut, top!reader and bottom!wednesday, semi-public (car) sex, mild blood, biting, mild overstimulation. a/n: not sure how I feel about this lol. special thank you to 🕷️ anon for her ideas and workshopping <3 comments/asks welcome, as always!

read part one here! this can be read standalone, but is intended to be a continuation.

masterlist

For the fifth time, Wednesday slapped your thigh to get your attention. “Turn it down.”

You huffed a laugh, and figured it was time. You were playing your ‘obnoxious’ pop playlist, full of mostly Taylor Swift and random Korean bands. It was collaborative with Enid, and likely one of Wednesday’s least favorites. Lowering the volume, you tossed Wednesday your phone.

“Alright, it’s your turn.”

The two of you were driving back from a day trip to a nearby town—actually, you were supposed to be driving back the rest of Enid and Co, also, but while Wednesday was beyond ready to leave, they all wanted to stay and do something called a “holy trinity.” How someone could have so much alcohol in so little time was so bizarre to you, but then Wednesday, of all people, rolled her eyes and downed three shots in just as many minutes, and seemed no worse for wear. 

Seemed was the key word there—not a quarter of an hour later, she’d grabbed onto your arm, grip slack, and her eyes were becoming unfocused, roving all over your face only to miss your eyes and tack onto somewhere lower.

You’d coaxed her to eat something after that. Post French fries and buttered bread (she’d kill you after she knew you’d made her eat such unrefined food,) as well as a bottle and a half of water in, she’d mostly walked it off. You figured it was time to get Wednesday home. As far as you knew, the rest of your friends were still out, though you’d made Yoko promise to text you when they were leaving and when they got back. The windows were open in the car; the wind lifted Wednesday’s fringe off her forehead. You glanced over to where she was gingerly operating your phone, punching in letters on Spotify. Your heart twisted.

You didn’t really want to admit that weird feeling you had the first time, and all the rest of the times, you saw Wednesday. It was a sort of jittery one, with a swoop in your stomach, that made you want to prod her into a conversation. You’d gotten quite a bit more than you’d bargained for, from that first fateful kiss in the classroom, to every secret, heady rendezvous after. The last time you two had been intimate—fucked, in your bed—had left an indelible mark, natural as a shadow settled neatly in your chest. The bickering and play fights had only made things worse, and you knew you had to ignore it all, for Wednesday. To keep things the same, because… something’s better than nothing, right?

You supposed that “something” was where you were right now. Being her ‘girl friend,’ with a space in between, sex and unrequited feelings included, was the best place that you could ever be with her. You had those close moments with her that you could cherish, but also that emotional distance that Wednesday undoubtedly wanted. Perfect. Your childlike sentiments were ones that you were likely to carry in your heart, deep down, for fucking forever. They were never going to see the light of day.

Lilting piano filled the car, shoving images of you and Wednesday seated together before the keys into your mind. Your phone dropped back into your lap.

“Nocturne? In E minor.” You blurted out before you could stop yourself.

“I’m surprised you know.”

“Hey!” Indignant, you nearly shot something back that was sure to start one of your bickering matches again, when an unfamiliar sound rang through the car, lovely as the music, but something you’d never heard before.

“Did you just laugh?”

Wednesday’s mumbled denial was covered up by your own laugh, bordering on hysterical as your heart picked itself up and started racing. 

“Do not insult me like that,” Wednesday grumbled, rubbing the hem of her sweater between her fingers. “Focus on the road. Dying with you in a car crash is too pathetic to even consider.” Though her words were sharp as always, her even tone had something in it that, if one wasn’t careful, could be mistaken as gentle.

You snorted again, unable to stop laughing. “And if a double decker bus…” you sang, tapping your fingers on the steering wheel. Wednesday’s glare nearly sliced you clean in half, and you were smart for once, shutting up immediately. She wasn’t laughing anymore, and some part of you mourned that.

After Chopin played Liszt, Liebestraum no. 3, and you wondered if Wednesday knew how to queue on Spotify. You followed the winding road up the mountain. You’d be back at Nevermore soon, but selfishly, you didn’t want this to be over. It was an odd time, with no bickering, no siege, no sex, and who could blame you if you were feeling particularly, disgustingly, sentimental? Blame the Liszt.

Turning the car off the road, you pulled into a deserted vista point. Carpe diem, you thought, throwing caution to the wind and the car in park. 

“Why have you stopped?”

“Weds, we’re looking at the sunset.”

“I do not need to see it, it happens every day—”

“Oh, come on,” you laughed, unlocking the car doors and stepping out. With the wind whipping around you, blowing your hair every which way, you ducked to peek into the car. “Humor me, I guess. Don’t you feel sorry for me, or something?”

She gave you a pointed look. “I do not.” But she followed you out the car anyway.

Leaning on the hood, you looked out at the scene as she joined you. Spiky evergreens stretched out across the stony slopes, with the last vestiges of snow clinging to the tops. The sun stretched its longing light into the rapidly darkening east behind you, pulling taut the shadows and blanketing everything in an aureate shine.

You glanced over at Wednesday—despite her earlier protest, it seemed as if she was tolerating this. The tension around her brow was gone, and her arms hung relaxed by her sides. The silence wasn’t rare, but it felt reverent anyway. Your heart adored her in her outfit; it was something your mind refused to register. She was in black knee high boots, made of some leather you couldn’t pronounce, an inky dress, flowing in the wind, down to her thighs, and a soft deep gray sweater. There was a sort of bleeding sentiment, beginning to seep into your everyday life, into wondering what Wednesday would think of the book you were reading, imagining her reaction to Bianca’s quip, overthinking her hand clutching your sleeve in the courtyard.

You deliberated, vaguely, what it would be like if you tumbled down the mountainside, into those trees—would the wood be cushioning or bruising? It was a serious consideration, with all that you were feeling. Those damned feelings, ones that Wednesday would undoubtedly scorn, made you kick up the gravel underfoot in frustration.

Beside you, Wednesday cast an uninterested look over you at the noise, silently judging. A beat passed. She grabbed the collar of your shirt, wrinkling it, and pulled you into a bruising kiss. 

“I am going in the car. The back seat. Be not afraid.” She retreated, and gave a little smirk, one reserved for the golden light and dark trees.

It was purely unfair, as the blood rushed from your head to pool in your stomach, making your heart work overtime. Stumbling to the back seat, you’d barely sat down before Wednesday reached over to the console and locked the doors. She’d taken off her boots, leaving her legs clad in white socks scrunched around her calves.

She climbed into your lap without preamble, squeezing your hips with her thighs. The car roof meant she had to duck her head just a bit, giving you the perfect opportunity to press your lips to hers. Having Wednesday on top of you was the kind of thing that made your head spin. And spinning you were, down into that deep unending abyss where there was only the smell of hot sugar, pine, and iron. 

The Midas touch of the setting sun made Wednesday seem even paler, from her exposed knees to her small hands, glowing like some ethereal being. She kissed you as if she could wrap her teeth around you, like searching for sweetness in the corners of your mouth. Sure enough, there was something about her, a sense of urgency, that threatened to take in all of you. 

“This dress is nice,” you murmured, pushing it up her pale thighs, rubbing away the red marks her boots left on her calves. Your hands continued upward, to the light dampness of her inner thighs.

“You said you liked it last time.” Wednesday immediately glanced away, as if she hadn’t meant to say those words. There was a faint flush to her cheeks again, but the two of you were fogging up the car windows.

You ignored the pulsing in your stomach that traitorously screamed she wore this for me? “It’s enchanting,” you said. “Like a witch of the wood.”

You nosed your way into the nape of her neck again, a favorite spot of yours, unable to stop your stupid mouth from running. “I adore it…” You pulled her tighter to your lap, skimming the seam of her underwear at the juncture of her thigh. “Can I touch you, Wednesday?”

“Get on with it,” she said, breathlessly, indulging you with a quick quirk of her lips. 

Skimming the back of your hand up between her thighs, you sent your other hand to palm her chest through her dress. You felt her through her panties, the fabric soft and smooth from her slick. Dipping your hand below the waistband, you wasted no time finding her clit. Her breath came down hard—it was her tell, you knew, even when her face remained mostly impassive.

She was sensitive today, back arching with a small gasp as soon as you touched her. Hand shooting past your head, Wednesday grabbed onto the headrest, hard enough for the leather to creak. Her outstretched arm was right next to your head, and you couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss the inside of her elbow. 

She sighed, unfurling tendrils of a storm in smooth skies. “You have all of me,” Wednesday said, something soft.

You press a kiss to Wednesday's forehead, equally soft, as you curl your fingers again. “If only, Wednesday,” you said, unthinking.

Wednesday froze, squeezing her other hand on your shoulder hard enough to leave pretty bruises under your collared shirt.

You pulled back, cocking your head. “What is it?”

She furrowed her brow at you, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, then glanced away quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Your fingers traced another circle around her clit.

“Stop asking.” Her voice was firm, but it had a waver in the middle, like she’d almost changed her mind. 

“I’ll stop asking,” you whispered, “if you tell me what’s up.” Her eyes were glazed over with a sheen not unlike her slick that coated your fingers, something shiny and sweet. 

“You’re hopeless,” she said, not even a second before she clapped her hand over your mouth.

What an Addams wants, an Addams gets, you surmised, blinking quickly. You rubbed your free hand up and down her thigh, trying to soothe her, but she only moved her hand to grip your jaw, her intent the sear of fire through the underbrush.

“I do not like repeating myself,” she said quietly, “so listen closely.” She shifted closer to you on your lap, car leather squeaking, settling on her knees so your nose was in her collar. She reached down and gave you a handkerchief from her pocket. Knowing what she meant, you pulled your fingers from her warmth, feeling a hard lump in your throat. “And make no noise.”

You nodded. She looked wild on top of you, hair mussed from your make out session, the apples of her cheeks a dusty rose.

“Honesty colors me,” she said by way of explanation. “And you talk too much, so this is how it will have to be.” She seemed to think for a moment, biting her lip. Her burgundy lipstick contrasted so starkly with her gray sweater, as if she was the only screaming color in a black and white world. She might hate that, you mused absently. Maybe she was more a whirlpool of the blackest black, sucking in all of the color and light around it so that you had no choice but to be drawn in, to the only real thing you’d ever known.

“You’re stupid,” Wednesday started, matter-of-factly. “Just like everyone else.” You nodded, used to this sort of thing by now. “But your particular brand of stupidity is showing its truth.”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, arms automatically going around her waist while you leaned back to look at her. Where she was going with this, you had no idea. You only knew that that whirlpool was making its way closer and closer to you.

“At first, our… arrangement was indeed purely physical.” She paused. “But things have changed, quite drastically. I do believe I’ve reached a… point of no return, but I have since found a balance.”

Wednesday locked her eyes on yours, unflinching. “I give myself to you time and time again-” the words were unfamiliar from her mouth- “yet, you seem to give no indication that you know. ‘If only?’ It’s nearly laughable.” She gave a huff, though her gaze was contemplative. You cocked your head, mind uncomprehending, mouth dry.

“You have my heart, beating or still.” Her words rang quiet in the car. Your own heart started up again, with all the betrayal of a thrumming bass. You tried to push it down, but it didn’t erase the reality of what Wednesday had just said—did Wednesday ever lie? She was good at it, sure, but you’d long learned that Wednesday’s word was her end. “And it appears as though you are completely unaware.”

“Unaware?” You broke her rule, and you could see the tick of annoyance in her eyes. But you plowed on anyway. “Are you saying that you have my—that I don’t know that I have your—that you like me?”

“My devotion is more than that,” Wednesday said casually, “but it may be that you’re unable to handle that at this time.”

Sure enough, you could feel your body informing your mind that you were hyperventilating, Wednesday’s weight on your lap the only thing keeping you from shooting off to Saturn.

“I don’t—” you struggled for your words, the usual wit you showed while bickering with Wednesday, the strategy you’d used to defend Jericho, absolutely nowhere to be seen.

“Need I pull stars from the sky to prove myself to you?” she said, raising an eyebrow in amusement, as if she wasn’t blowing through every poorly stacked defense of yours. It would be just like Wednesday, for every word of hers to be devastating and world shifting. No one knew Wednesday Addams and remained unchanged—that was just the kind of person she was, romantic as murder via blade. Perhaps to her, your wide eyed reaction was enough of a damning confession. “You’ll be the end of me, but what bliss that would be.” 

“Um,” you started, eloquently. “You’re… you’re not thinking straight,” you rasped out, mind freezing. You could feel your back stuck to the seat, unyielding. “You’re—”

“If I didn’t know you and your oblivious tendencies, I would think that it is almost insulting of you to doubt me.” She gave a small sniff, chin held high. “You think that just because you do not recognize my words, means that I am not in a right state of mind?”

In one fluid motion, she pressed her forehead to yours, and cradled your face between her two cold hands. Your name felt like salvation from her lips; “believe me, I’m wide awake.”

Your jaw went slack, and you were sure you looked as much a dumbass as you felt.

“I intended for my… vulnerability,” Wednesday’s voice wavers on the word, “to be a sign for you, but either you are just that unobservant, or you are unwilling to admit to what is right before your eyes.”

“I’d never not pick up on something on purpose, Weds.” Your brain was wading through a thick mud, unable to turn at the speed that Wednesday wanted.

“Does that mean that you are willfully disregarding the way I show myself to you?” Finally, in her words, you were able to see the exact vulnerability that she had alluded to.

“No, I’d never, I just… didn’t want to hope,” you said, embarrassed. “Romance isn’t your thing.”

“It’s not,” she replied simply, quietly. “I understand your reservations.” Wednesday’s hands held an imperceptible tremble, but her gaze was strong.

“No—of course I—” your throat tightened, but you felt the weight falling from your shoulders anyway. That was something you recognized. “Of course I like you.”

The silence rang yet again, and Wednesday’s eyes widened, the onyx of them turning warm as molten metal. The exact expression in them was hard to place, but it calmed you, in the wake of speaking aloud something you’d been afraid to admit to yourself.

A thought occurred to you, more clear than any you’d had since Wednesday had opened her mouth. “Even if we’d never—if we never have sex again, I’d still l—like you.”

Despite the way you stumbled into and over your words, Wednesday’s dark eyes on yours grew warm, pupil blurring into iris; the corner of her mouth gave an upwards tick.

“In the cracks of light,” Wednesday whispered, reverent as prayer as her fingertips traced your cheekbone, “I see the heaven on earth I’ve won with you.”

She kissed you then, and you couldn’t hold back any more. It was something like pure relief—though your mind still didn’t quite comprehend Wednesday’s confession (confession!), your heart broke the dam, pulling you down past inhibition. Spiraling to Wednesday’s gravity, it was as natural as breathing to give in.

Wednesday, all knowing as always, must’ve seen the way your resolve broke. She slid her mouth against yours, open and hot, unhurried but eager. The car leather under your thighs was as warm as Wednesday on top of you—not even she was immune to the rays of waning sunlight, it seemed.

“You know,” you muttered, between capturing her lips, “it’s just like you to say all that about moving heaven and earth. Most people just say ‘I like you.’” It wasn’t a complaint by any means; with your hands on her waist, you’d have it no other way.

“As I said, it is more than that.” She took a breath, completely steady and confident, now. “You consume me, completely.”

“And you, I,” you said softly, as if you could do anything but agree to her heady desire. “I’ve got you, Wednesday.”

Her forehead dropped to your shoulder, arms wrapped tight around you. It took a moment for you to realize that in her silence after your words, she was grinding down, near imperceptibly, into your lap.

“Mmm, my love,” you murmured, the significance of the endearment not lost on you, “look at you.” Sliding a hand up her back to her hair, you felt her braids through your fingers. You ran your hands down once more, under her sweater to feel the muscles around her shoulder blades. The heat you felt through her dress from where she was pressed to you, through your trousers, was something out of a darkest dream, unable to be forgotten.

Wednesday leaned up again, eyes sharp as a lance, to brand you with a kiss. She bit your lip, breaking through skin, and you grinned at the pain. It was hard and harsh, comforting like the thin edge of a knife. You felt the blood seeping into the seams of your teeth, rain in scorched earth. Intoxicated, you seemed to float closer into that sweet and dark whirlpool.

“That hurt, Wednesday…” you leaned in, voice dropping. “I wanna…” There was a beat of silence where you could only taste the copper in your mouth, sweet as you knew the slick between her thighs to be. You shifted your grip to her hips, bruising, and the soft little moan Wednesday gave in response spurred you on. “I wanna hurt you.”

You did, helplessly. Of course, you would rain hell on anyone that so much as lifted a finger against Wednesday, but to hold her trust that came with pain—you wanted that from her, to know when she hurt, when she wanted to hurt. Whether it was holding her back from the edge, or flying and dropping together to the bottom, bodies crashing against one another, you wanted it. Like something out of a classical myth, with wings of wax or blood, you would burn and be burned to feel the weightless warmth of that golden light.

There was no hesitation for Wednesday, just a look in her eyes that you’d come to know intimately as hunger. “Hurt me.” Her voice was low, nearly fond, in your ear as her eyes tracked the blood collecting on your lips. She leaned towards you and licked, tongue to your teeth, translucent saliva mixing with the burgundy. “I want it to hurt—I want you to hurt me.”

When she leaned back, her lipstick was stained with your blood, and it made you want to bleed if only she was the one taking it. You leaned your temple to her jawline, eyes burning at the sun through the windshield. Your hands continued once again up her thighs, just as reverent as before. The two of you never could do anything by half—you were always Wednesday’s. Realizing it, speaking it aloud, confessing or not, couldn’t have changed that. Despite that, as you rocked back and kissed the blood off Wednesday, you felt as though you were on your knees, professing everything you were. Giving one last cheeky swipe of your tongue on her lips, you went to tug Wednesday’s panties down. She followed your lead easily, tossing the expensive garment somewhere to the side. 

“My sweet girl,” you sighed, something possessive curling in your words. “What would you like?”

“Everything.” There was a devout way about her utterance that had your hands shaking with the desire to fulfill her. “Touch me.”

Crossing one arm around her to clasp the back of her neck, you brought her face close to yours, the tips of your noses brushing.

“Everything? How much can we do with ‘everything’ when you’re so sensitive, angel?” On cue, Wednesday’s eyes slipped shut as you drew a finger along her pussy to find her wet and wanting.

“Don’t you think you should be the one to answer that?” Her voice, bold and challenging, shook up your stomach like champagne. You were completely, utterly ruined before Wednesday Addams, and it was a nearly celestial ruin, so bright and beloved it nearly hurt.

You didn’t hesitate, slipping your finger in and grinding your palm on her clit. You didn’t miss her knees sliding further apart, that elusive grin gracing her face as she tipped her head back. Only her tight hold on your shoulders kept her from falling into your lap. Your mouth tasted of iron, such a contrast to Wednesday’s burnt sugar sweat on your tongue as you licked a stripe up her jaw to bite her earlobe. Drawing every small sigh out, you took your time, curling your fingers the way you knew she liked. You squeezed your hand, heavy where her shoulders met her neck. The jagged breaths she took in response made you crave more, and your stomach burned with contentment when she let you press another finger inside of her.

Wednesday’s half lidded eyes tracked down your neck, hunter to the scent of fear, leaving a shiver in her wake. It was inexplicably easy to discern what she wanted, even as she threaded her hands in your hair, something tingling and distracting.

“Go ahead, I know you want to.” Like blood rushing back into white fingertips, her soft lips were on your neck, undoubtedly leaving a smear of lip stain that you’d have to be chastised to wipe off. Almost as if she’d read your mind, she was sucking at your skin, impatient. Already you could feel the raised welt, and the way her tongue soothed the strain.

“You’re mine,” she breathed out, harsh despite the way she was panting with every twist of your fingers.

“Yeah,” you whispered, the haze of being Wednesday’s blurring your every action. “I’m yours.”

You curled your fingers, and had to bite down a moan as her teeth sank deeper into your neck, a cause and effect that you’d kill for. You swore as she set sight on your jawline, the sweet shock of her hot tongue making you shiver. 

“Took you long enough,” she muttered darkly—it seemed she was satisfied with the state of your neck, since you could feel the skin throbbing pleasantly. She leaned back, proffering her own throat.

“I was always yours,” you said easily. “I can just…” you trailed off as your sharp teeth met her skin in the spot you knew she liked, making her cry out, “show you better now.”

Wednesday’s hands tightened in your hair, pulling a broken gasp from your throat. Her smirk, challenging as she took in your reaction, only spurred you on. It was pure selfishness, when you grinned lazily as she tugged. You gave as good as you got, though, each curl of your fingers and shift of your hand had her trembling.

She was close; you could feel it in the uneven cadence of her breath, almost as erratic as yours. Pulling the collar of her sweater aside, you worked your tongue against her jugular, her pulse tempting and honey sweet in your mouth. It was nearly tangible between your teeth, soft and solid, the pounding of her pulse, just milliseconds away from your own.

“C’mon, Wednesday,” you whispered in her ear, “just like that.”

Her breath stuttered, climbing up higher to the returning lump in your throat. It was always a marvel, the way that Wednesday was so incredibly responsive to you, your touch or your words. The hard catch of her lip between her teeth made you grin, and you reached out, tugging it free. You leaned in to kiss her forehead as you slipped your thumb in her mouth instead, your fingers never stopping. 

“Wednesday.” She turned her glossy eyes towards you, and it was the closest you’d ever seen her to coming without really falling. “Let go.”

At your words, she gasped, and you could feel her cunt pulse around your fingers as she came. Her teeth bit into your skin and her eyebrows knitted together ever so gently—you loved to watch her come undone. She was all soft moans and flushed cheeks, open in a way that she hardly ever was otherwise. It unfurled something bright and warm in your chest, spreading out into your fingertips. You felt as hazy as she looked, the smell of her spilling into the air and undoubtedly lingering in your chest.

“That’s perfect, love, you’re so good for me.” You shushed her as she panted, eyes unfocused beneath her mussed fringe, but searing into yours. You continued your palm on her clit, holding her tight as her body stuttered. You moved your hand to cup her face, smoothing over unshed tears along her waterline.

“You’re…” Wednesday gave a low groan as you hit that sensitive spot inside of her again, none too gently.

“Yes,” you answered gently. “You’ll tell me if you want me to stop, won’t you?” She nodded, eager, as she pushed her hips into your hand, even though it made her whole body shiver. 

“Fuck—”

You hummed in response, feeling her cunt open even easier now that she was impossibly wetter. As you worked a third finger into her, Wednesday’s spine went rigid, a whining, desperate sound you’d never thought you’d hear breaking from her throat. She grabbed your hand, and her palms were damp. Her grip on your wrist was tight, just as much keeping you from progressing as it was keeping you from pulling away. You leaned in by her ear. “Does it hurt?”

She gave a jerky nod, jaw clenched and lips parted. You would turn a storm on its head for those ways that Wednesday strayed from her control, especially when you were the one guiding that meandering path. Pressing the heel of your hand into her clit, you laughed, small and indulgent, as she clung tighter to you, a strained little cry escaping. 

“Good girl, Wednesday… you’re taking it so well, aren’t you? You’re taking me so well, darling…” Fisting the front of her sweater in your hand, you pulled her off balance, tugging her close so her lips fell to yours, easy as breathing. Swallowing every single prized whimper that fell from her, you kissed her slow. Wednesday was already sensitive, but this was intense for even her, you could tell. Her breath came shakily against you as you pulled away, having smeared her lipstick to your content. Fingers sliding punishingly against her clit, your laugh rumbled low in your chest as she keened, soft and just a bit pleading.

“Very good, Wednesday, my love,” you coaxed. Her gasp, more like a sob, washed over you in a satisfaction that made you shudder. The slick from her previous orgasm clung to your hand, making it easy to keep up your punishing pace. Her tears shined like sea glass in her lashes, as devout to the cause of ruining her cheeks as the dusk outside was to darkness. You had no idea how much time had passed, only that if she asked, you’d stay right here with her until daylight again.

“I’m—” A whine rose from her throat, and you couldn’t help but smile.

“You can do it, baby-” your thumb circled her clit as your fingers found their way impossibly deeper into Wednesday- “just for me, okay?”

“Okay,” she repeated, mindlessly. This world where Wednesday let herself trust you to take care of her was one you could live in, drown in, make your home in. You raised your hand to the juncture of her neck and jaw, heavy and comforting. Reminded of every time Wednesday had put her hand in that same place on you when you were on your knees in front of her, more intimate than anything, you tugged on her wrist, instantly missing her hold in your hair. Intertwining your fingers together, you held your hands together in between you and Wednesday. 

Without a warning, her fingers tightened around yours, so hard that her knuckles turned white. You could see that how hard she came took her by surprise, too—eyes wide open and pupils blown. It was breathtaking, you thought, just how much tension was in her, all tense shoulders and choked cry. Her nails dug into your skin, her grip tethering you from dropping off with her. It stung, and you loved it, the maroon of your blood welling up just enough to smear her fingertips. 

Wednesday’s head fell into the nape of your neck, nuzzling like she could find the world’s secrets in your skin. Hand still in hers, you wiped away the smeared burgundy around the corners of her mouth with your thumb pad, fingers lingering.

“That was devious,” she murmured, words blurring around each other.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” you chuckled. She nodded, somewhat resolutely. You eased your fingers out, tucking them surreptitiously into your mouth. The gesture didn't go unnoticed by Wednesday, but she only narrowed her eyes.

Even in her post-orgasm daze, Wednesday looked dangerous. Her fringe was all over the place, getting caught in her eyelashes, and you could finally attribute the pink in her cheeks to something a little more than the fogged up windows. Surely, this was heaven on earth, having Wednesday with you, steady as planetal orbit. You shifted her to sit sideways in your lap, making sure her knees didn’t burn from the leather. She was watching you, carefully. It was almost as if she was trying to memorize you, the studious way she looked at you, like she was the sole messenger for a world that wasn’t allowed to take you in. It made your heart pound, finally in accordance with your head. You let her take her time in your arms, rubbing her shoulders. The little press of her lips was back, something you had adored for something dangerously similar to ‘forever.’ She seemed content in a way she hardly ever was, the haze in her eyes clearing as she studied you. 

“You’ve changed a lot since I met you,” she commented, not unkindly.

You looked down into Wednesday’s face, at the night air drifting through her hair again. You could feel the sting from the little crescent shaped marks that her nails left. It was a warm contrast to her cold hand in yours, clasped between you. “You changed me, Wednesday.”

--

wednesday: you have bewitched me, mind, body, and soul… i love, i love, i love you. 

reader: huh?

a/n cont’d for those brave souls that made it this far: yes, wednesday’s dress has pockets. isn’t that wonderful?

I’m SO BAD at writing fluff. plus, reader is the most unreliable narrator to unreliably narrate. should’ve put “painfully oblivious” as a warning for part one too.

please do not repost, reproduce, copy, translate, or take from my work in any way. thank you!

masterlist

[regionalpancake]

For the Star Trek asks:

48. Name a song or music genre you think Seven would like.

38. The La Sirena crew is thrown back in time to the Cretacious period. How do they handle it, who threatens the timeline the most, who is saddest when they have to leave, who is most knowledgeable, who stands out the most, etc.?

Send me Star Trek Asks 🖖💕✨ WHAT AN ASK! 🥳✨ Let’s start with the music one before embarking on what I can only describe as “Hey you, what if you combined your special interests? You're welcome! <3”

Name a song or music genre you think Seven would like.

If I’m being biased, I’d say Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, because that’s what she plays on the piano for Raffi in my Saffi fic Overlap. But Seven and music is a hard one because we have so little to go on. The only time (I think) that we see her choose music for herself is in Human Error (S7E18) where the episode opens and she’s practicing the piano on the holodeck, playing Chopin's - Nocturne Op. 72 No. 1 in E minor. I’m EXTREMELY NORMAL about this choice of song. (hang on - we need visual aids…)

Continued under the cut!

RIGHT. So this was composed in the early 1800’s when the piano was going from a concert instrument to something that you could own (if you were, like, extremely rich) so there was a shift in what composers were producing from stuff that could only be played by virtuosos, to music that could be played by someone recreationally as part of high society social life. Also, the sustain pedal was a fairly recent development in Piano Technology™️, so the piano could now sound smoother and the notes could blend into each other more. (Stay with me here - we’re getting to it)

LET’S LOOK AT THE NOTATION SHALL WE The piece (and the Voyager episode) open with only the left hand playing the bass clef. It’s in a minor key, so it sounds tragic and the instruction says this should be played ‘Sempre Legatissimo’ - which is SO EXTRA because ‘Legato’ is ‘the notes have no space between them’, and ‘Sempre Legato’ would be ‘there should ALWAYS be no space between notes’. But the ‘issimo’ suffix adds ‘VERY’ into this so ‘Sempre Legatissimo’ is ‘there should ALWAYS be no space between notes LIKE- NONE AT ALL BITCH- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED’. In practice this means each note is held for a little bit longer after pressing the next one, so there’s a high degree of overlap. Under the notes we can also see ‘Ped’ and ‘*’ for when the pedal should be depressed and lifted; it’s very regular and very mechanical.

As for the melody we can see it’s labeled ‘Expressively’ and ‘<’, so played expressively, emotionally and increasing in volume. Later on the melody also has examples of contrapuntal writing, where there's more than one ‘voice’ in the melody that weaves together. (I’m getting there, I promise!)

LET’S PUT IT ALL TOGETHER: We have a mournful sounding bassline that arrives first; one that is by design constant and unbroken, played as smooth and connected as possible; something which is achieved through the application of new technology used in a very regimented way. THEN after we hear this on its own, the melody comes in, very quiet but expressive and gaining in confidence, and during the piece we have that melody take on different voices but that work together (sometimes even in a major key) moving the tone from tragic to uplifting.

For me this is some BEAUTIFUL Borg/xB imagery. That baseline represents the unbroken, technologically interconnected, regimented and ultimately tragic nature of The Collective, and the melody mirrors Seven’s difficult journey to individuality. It's also interesting that Seven chooses a piece written at a period of social change in terms of the use of the piano; and specifically one where the type of music was written as something to be preformed as part of the socialising rituals of the upper classes - and in this episode she uses it as the background of her fantasy romance with Chakotay.

The fact that (even though in the episode, Seven is on the holodeck with no visible Borg implants) the ‘Borg’ part of the nocturne is played with Seven’s left (augmented) hand, while the melody is played with her ‘human hand’. This make me completely feral and leaves me wanting to chew furniture.

OK, ON TO THE NEXT ONE

The La Sirena crew is thrown back in time to the Cretacious period. How do they handle it, who threatens the timeline the most, who is saddest when they have to leave, who is most knowledgeable, who stands out the most, etc.?

First off, this question is everything! There are a few things we need to straighten out before it can be answered properly. Unlike PIC S2 I care about time travel consistency (pardon the shade) and while going from the 2400’s to the 2000’s is still a big jump, it’s nothing compared to going back millions of years. Our arm of the galaxy isn’t remotely in the same place it was during the cretaceous. Dr. Jessie Christiansen has a great video demonstrating this here.

So if the Earth is at 6pm on this galaxy map, then the cretaceous period was between 3pm and 11am. To put that in Trek context:

That's as far away as Earth is (6pm) from the Delta quadrant (12-3pm) That’s A Long Way.

So for this experiment, we’ll have to assume that the Sirena crew are traveling a considerable distance in space AS WELL as in time.

With that settled we’ve got to think about where they’ll go. Historically the Motley Crew end up either in France (La Barre specifically) or California. So we’ll check out both options.

In the cretaceous period the sea level was much higher, and so lots of Europe was underwater. So here’s La Barre:

Aaaaaan it looks pretty underwater in the Anglo-Paris Basin. The islands around here are full of examples of island dwarfism (with ‘regular’ dinosaurs getting smaller to adapt to less resources) but the skies had FUCKEN HUGE azhdarchids, flying around between islands and eating dinosaurs, sometimes WHOLE. Behold my ultimate fear (not the giraffe):

(Illustration: Mark Witton/www.markwitton.com) ...No thank you. So how about California?

The same high sea levels that have La Barre underwater also split what will be the Americas into a collection of island continents. South East Canada and the North East of the US are in Appalachia. In the west the spine of the Rockies makes what will be the Pacific NorthWest, Mexico and Guatemala into the continent of Laramidia. Where Starfleet Academy will be (and most of California) is underwater, and even if Sirena landed on the western coast of Laramidia there would likely be some Very Steep Mountains and harsh weather as it's where the ocean meets the landmass. A better landing spot (if Rios can even land his ship - which is debatable) would be on the east of the continent. This coast bordered the Western Interior Seaway - a shallow sea that covers what will become the Great Plains.

With the ship landed… on to the actual questions!

How do they handle it? Knowing the Motley Crew… probably with a high degree of competence, with some utter idiocy thrown in. I’m imagining they’d need to figure out some sling-shot-round-the-sun-situation before its ASTEROID TIME. It would be fun if the replicators don't work and for them to have to hunt or forage food. Bonus if Emil gets to say “I’m a Doctor, not a paelo-botanist”

Who threatens the timeline the most? Probably Hugh. Either of the xB’s presumably have elements in their implants that are non-native to the planet, and that’s without considering if their nanoprobes are operational or not. Hugh’s reclamation results (and others at the BRP) seem a lot less sophisticated than Seven’s, so I’ll go with him. Can you accidentally transfer nanoprobes to a T-Rex? No one needs to find out. (A T-Rex with an eye laser would be amazing though, even if it did destroy the future.)

Who is saddest when they have to leave? Elnor for sure. He’s much more suited to the Very High Temperatures than the rest of the crew and I have no doubt that he would befriend a small hadrosaur and want to take it home.

Who is most knowledgeable? Gonna assume it’s Seven, Hugh or the Holos. It’s interesting to think what they would know about dinosaurs - our own understanding has come so far in only a few hundred years. We only got the WORD ‘dinosaur’ in 1841. Who knows what the average person in 2399 would know about the past. I’d love to know!

Who stands out the most? Well most of them are bipedal mammals (ish. Are Romulan’s mammals? Are synths-that-are-medically-indistinguishable-from-humans, mammals? If you can make mucus you can make milk, right?) so I guess they all stand out. The holo’s are another matter, because of their lack of matter! I wonder what the increased oxygen in the atmosphere would do to the refraction of the holo emitters - if they left Sirena’s door open for the breeze?

Thanks @song-spero for letting me ponder these things! I had a blast. Congrats if anyone makes it all the way to the end ;)

[sunfoxfic]

Alya headcanons that are most certainly not projection, nope, not at all, no way

"Volume control" is one of the few things not in Alya's vocabulary. She's always kinda loud, but when she's in big groups, it gets a lot worse. Miss Bustier is constantly shushing her and while she loves Miss Bustier, it frustrates her to no end

Nino is very conscious of "less" vs "fewer" and whether to use "me" or "I" because she always corrects it. She's not necessarily being malicious or even a smartass; she does it subconsciously bc she always stays vigilant of it in her own writing

She'll do free grammar checks on essays and such for Nino and Marinette, but anyone else has to pay. Or at least that's what she tells Adrien just bc he has the means and he literally does not mind at all

She really does not enjoy babysitting at all, which is why either Nino or Marinette will usually try to help her out. She's usually snappy and irritable by the time she's done watching kids, and most people take it personally. In fact, when Alya and Nino started dating, Marinette went out of her way to warn Nino of that, and he made sure to bring her pastries from the Boulangerie Patisserie to have at the end.

If allowed, her sleep schedule will be absolutely terrible; she'll sleep from 3 am to 1 pm. Red foxes are nocturnal, and so the Fox Miraculous does NOT help with this.

She listens to a lot of classical music because anything else distracts her while she's working. Adrien notices this and offers to teach her some piano, to which she responds, "Oh, that crap? I just put that on to study. Why would I want to learn that?" before realizing how mean that is.

Her hair is dyed red when the show takes place but it's been dyed all different colors before; just before she came to school she had it dyed the color of the bi flag. She misses it but it was a lot of maintenance and with just one color she can use color depositing conditioner and mostly not do anything.

She's learning Arabic so she can impress Nino's parents. And also because that will take her total language count up to 4 and Arabic is a hugely beneficial language to know if she's gonna be a journalist, but mostly because she wants to impress his parents.

She tends to parrot who she's talking to subconsciously. She curses a lot and her use of the word "dude" increases tenfold when she's talking to Nino, and her speech becomes weirdly formal when talking to Adrien. The only one this doesn't apply to is Marinette, whose speech pattern can hardly be called "speaking" so much as "struggling."

Alya was a Warriors kid. Her OC was a brown tabby named Brindleberry. This information goes with her to the grave. Until she tells Nino, but ONLY after he tells her the name of his TMNT OC.

She's allergic to cats and one time while fighting an akuma she ended up with her face stuck in Chat Noir's head and she ended up sneezing on him. He was super nice about it but she's genuinely unsure of how far his cat-ness goes (it COULD have been a coincidence - the burning of her eyes, too!) and she's unwilling to say anything until she's gotten more evidence.

She cannot stand the color green and doesn't have the heart to tell Nino.

[who-wants-chicken-nuggets]

I need hc’s of ballroom dancing with goemon I am 😭 I wanna be held! Love ur writing, hope you have a great day!! 🌹 have a rose!

ah isn’t that the dream…being held…

This is such a lovely request that I just might have to give you a bouquet in return for the rose 💐

I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it!

(Goemon and the reader are in a pre-established relationship for this) 

Goemon noticed the way that you hummed and twirled around with yourself every time a classical song came on the radio in the safe house, and it warmed his heart, he loved how free and happy you looked while dancing

Every time you caught him watching you with that glint of admiration in his eyes, you would ask him if he’d like to dance with you, and he would always refuse in an almost frenzied way, his entire face growing beet red

However one day, when the two of you were alone, and classical music was playing softly on the radio, he approached you with a sheepish look on his face

“I beg your pardon if I offended you by refusing your offers to dance, I am afraid that I don’t know how to in the manner that you do.” He stated plain as day, refusing to meet your eyes

“Well would you like me to show you how then?” you inquired softly while trying your best to hide the giant, dopey smile that was threatening to spread across your face at just the prospect of dancing with him

He nodded shortly as he watched you turn the volume on the radio up and allowed you to take his hand in yours and position his other on your waist

“just do the opposite of what I do, when my feet go forward, yours go back. But when our feet go horizontally, they match. The idea is that you’re making the shape of a square on the ground,” You explained

“Ah, I see now,”

And with that, you slowly led him through the steps of a basic waltz

At first he was stiff and awkward, and would step on your feet occasionally

“Oh…my apologies.”

“No need to apologize! you’re learning!”

However, Goemon retains information very quickly, Not only that, but he is naturally very nimble on his feet from his training. So within 15 minutes or so of going through the steps, he was able to master them with expertise, and for a moment you forgot that just a little while ago you were teaching him the basics

“Wow….” you said in astonishment as you looked down to see him going through the movements of the waltz so smoothly that you would have thought he had known them his entire life if you didn’t know better

When you paused for a moment, you felt the hand on your waist grow a bit more firm and gently push you closer to his body, chest to chest. You looked up at Goemon expectantly

“….may I?” He asked in an almost meek tone

“Huh?” you were confused by his vague request

“May I lead you in the dance now?”

You giggled a little bit “I didn’t realize that you weren’t! but of course,”

He couldn’t help but to smile at the sound of your melodious laughter as he picked up the waltz once again, his steps firm yet graceful as he swept across the room with you in his arms

And for what felt like the longest and most beautiful moment of your life, there was nothing else in the world but you, Goemon, and the harmonious music filling both of your ears as you twirled about together 

Eventually the music changed to the mellow Nocturne No. 2 In E-Flat Major by Chopin. And along with the music, you faded out of the traditional waltz and simply held each other while swaying in place to the light, somber keys of the piano

You could feel Goemon’s steady breathing against your cheek as you rested your head on his chest 

For the second time that evening, Goemon wrapped his arms around you tighter, and you wondered if he felt as euphoric as you did in that moment. The uncharacteristically dreamy tone in the seemingly plain words that followed his actions confirmed your suspicions

“Please do not tell anyone, but I quite enjoy dancing with you, dearest,” 

You smiled and pressed yourself further against him “As do I, and don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul...This is for us only.” 

Goemon let out a happy sigh and pressed his lips to the top of your head

Both of you knew that this would certainly not be the last time you would be spending your time dancing. Whenever the two of you were left alone, whether spirits were high or low, both of you somehow always found yourselves locked in that special embrace, just as you were that evening

[kirua9]

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

cactus ⇢ something you’re currently learning (about)?

sage ⇢ what ‘medium’ of art (poetry, music, fiction, paintings, statues etc.) is the most touching to you? why do you think that is?

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

most special ones for me for my most special one vik vik <3

0. Already answered about siblings

1.What I'm currently learning... Well, soon I'll be learning russian literature with tutor to pass the governmental exam + to enter the conservatory))) This exam is hella hard tho bruh I'm not scared, I have 9 months to prepare lol🤔

2. I LITERALLY CRY WHEN I SEE GUSTAV KLIMT'S WORKS 😭😭😭 My favorites are "Kiss", "Danae", "Adele". This technique of usage decorative (?) golden paper/gold is just fantastic. I can't really explain. It's astonishing how woman's beauty is dissolves in this gold surroundings, the little patterns, ornaments, it looks like everything is shining in harmony of idyll. Especially the "Danae". It's the symbol of rebirth, the golden Era of what? Of mine amazement I guess. The image looks flat as a mural, yet has the volume in the gold...........

I adore the movie by Peter Weir " picnic at hanging rock". That. Is. Magical. The atmosphere, the symbolism, it's boring for a viewer from a category... I mean I really like arthouse to interpret this according to my soul. Picnic is a mirror of my soul, idk.... Also any of Claudia Liosa's movies. They are about life in Lima, in general. I love "the Milk of Sorrow" and "Madeinusa".

I love Lermontov's poetry... also Alexander Blok, Boris Pasternak, Fyodor Tyutchev( "Silentium" – the best poem...) .

And music oh...... I'm a J.Bach fan. This music is so wholesome, it came straightly from outer space. My soul cries, I love it. F. Chopin, also, genius, his piano nocturnes, concerts and ballads are heartbreaking. Shuman, an innovator of the romantic epoch, a true master of harmony, love his "Carnival" cycle. Shubert, oh, and his vocal cycles are amazing too, I love the cycle "The Miller's daughter". Still remember "the beloved colour " as a very tragic romance...

3. Answered here

4. I actually have a very twitchy mimics (remember Cristen Stuart and her acting as Bella? That is me.) so when I'm nervous I'm Bella, when I'm sad I'm a stone mask, happy – crooked smile. Peoole say I have an empty gaze or I look very dope all the time, idk why, that's just my eyes. But the most common emotion – bitch face. :)

5. I love receiving money/certificates etc. Or food.... Actually if my dearest friends don't buy me anything, but say some warm words I'll be on cloud 9. Everything is easy.

[nerdy-emo-royal-dad]

I dare you to write sad logan crying into stuffed animal but then stuffed animal hugs back and then he realizes it's either roman or remus-

HEY FOLKS! So yeah that took forever and I have four more prompts. Anon, I do apologize greatly for how long this took. Going to school in your country’s top university apparently means no time for anything else eyyy (I’m dying someone punch college in the face for me). Anyway aaaa I hope you still enjoy it even if took so long. Love y’all!

Feelings of the Mind, Thoughts of the Heart

Warning/s: None but feel free to inform me of you see one

Word Count: 1679 words

Pairing/s: Platonic/Romantic Logince (Logan x Roman) (totes up to you)

~~~

Logan would rather fade than admit that he was this close to breaking. 

He didn’t mean the kind that made his face heat up or his nostrils flare while his taut knuckles shook at his side and his teeth clashed with each other. Though he might have just preferred that. Unfortunately when Logan said “breaking,” he meant it in a way that left an uncomfortable mini-hurricane wreaking havoc within his ribcage while he tried his hardest to contain it inside. 

Logan’s entire frame shook from the effort it took to maintain his composure in front of his fellow sides; not that they were paying attention in the first place, anyway. He didn’t really quite understand why he was having such a reaction right now when this blatant disregard for him, this… this ignorance was something he encountered every single day.

And so he left.

He was willing to bet that no one even noticed him sinking out. If they did, They probably would have just chalked it off to his reputation for having such a short fuse. He could barely make out the room around him as he blindly made his way towards the bed; the tears welling up in his eyes doing nothing to help his vision. He never remembered the bed being that far from his door before, nor his floor being carpeted and soft enough that it silenced his footsteps, but that was the least of his concerns.

If he could scold himself, he would. He felt pathetic and weak and emotional and disgusting as he closed his eyes and released the contents of his tear ducts the second he came into contact with the unrealistic softness of the bed. Eyes still wrenched shut, Logan leaned forward, desperate to find any form of solace or comfort; or at the very least anything he could use to muffle his cries. He felt very much like the polar opposite of logic as his damp forehead finally came into contact with an unidentifiable something, his glasses pushing uncomfortably against the frame of his eyes and the bridge of his nose. 

His vision stayed dark as he forced himself to take any semblance of logic he could. He clasped a hand over his mouth as he buried his face into the smooth, fragrant fabric of this… pillow? Curtain? Blanket? Sheet? Stuffed toy? He wasn’t exactly certain. All that mattered was that he was Logan. Logical, calculated, reserved, put-together, proper, objective Logan; and crying was not something the embodiment of logic should be doing. So he stayed there doing his best to muffle his cries, never daring to open his eyes. He hiccupped, gasped, and heaved in the lowest volume he could. He fisted his hands on the sheets below him and held his mouth as tight as he could. 

Logan tried remembering methods of calming an individual down. They could point out all his errors, but he would never allow them to take his identity from him. He scoured the filing cabinets of his mind ‘till he found a suitable suggestion. Focus. He needed to focus. Logan zeroed in on the feeling of the cloth in his hand. He let it slide through his fingers as he crumpled it, allowing his fingertips to recognize the material -- satin. Wait… satin? His sheets weren’t satin. His sheets were cotton. The thin kind of cotton that felt cool against his skin, comfortable and not all at once. 

He internally winced as a particularly loud sob pushed past his lips, and so he put his focus back on the softness he was leaning on. It simultaneously felt all too cold but oh, so warm. It smelled of flowers; of chrysanthemums and daffodils swaying along a gentle breeze. He took the hand on his mouth away and placed it on the material in front of him. He rubbed the cloth on his fingertips and identified it as...silk. But that… didn’t make sense. Not at all. As he brought up hypotheses in his head and sifted through possibilities, he felt a little pinprick of dread. He looked back on all the little pieces. The carpeted floor, the distance of the bed, the satin sheets and the silky material of--

All the thoughts died down like a flat-lining cardiogram when he felt a tentative hand rub against his back.

Logan dared to lift his forehead off the comfortable something to open his eyes, breath hitching in the process, and all he saw was red. There were many, many shades of red. There was maroon, rose, cherry, garnet, scarlet, currant, and a whole variety more that probably didn’t even have proper names. But Logan recognized the rich crimson of this red all too well; knew how the familiar color matched perfectly with the smoothness of the silk. He’d be an imbecile if he didn’t recognize Roman’s sash by now.

And maybe he already was, considering he made it this far without realizing he sank down into the wrong room. And maybe he was more than just an imbecile for forgetting that Roman had not been summoned for this session, and that’s why he wasn’t up there with the others at the moment. Maybe he was positively beyond an imbecile if he’d been cryi-- trying to stop himself from crying against Roman that entire time.

Logan shot up, consequentially bumping Roman’s hand away, his probably red eyes lookin at the prince’s own wide irises, creased forehead, and damp sash through fogged up spectacles.

“Roman! I-- I deeply apologize. I had not realized-- I should’ve checked first-- It was faulty of me to sink down into the wrong room I apologize greatly, I--”

His stream of words and possibly his airflow were cut off by the same hand coming to rest on Logan’s shoulder and Roman’s eyes looking back at him with such an indistinguishable amount of emotion locked up inside the hues of his iris.

“Logan, it’s okay. I don’t mind. Really.”

He… what? He didn’t mind what?

“I-- I don’t understand--”

Roman’s brows only furrowed further and the hand squeezed his shoulder just the slightest bit harder. “Logan. Let go.”

For a long stretch of time they simply sat facing each other, one cross-legged on the bed and the other with his knees folded in; waiting for… anything to happen. But nothing needed to happen because the sheer weight of Roman’s words digging into Logan’s chest and the warmth of his hand seeping through his black polo was enough to break cracks into the meticulously put up walls around his heart.

It started with a singular sob and a hand unconsciously flying to his mouth. When Roman gently took that hand off Logan’s lips and held it within his own, the walls crumbled down.

This cry was far from the soft, held-back sobs from minutes ago. This one was loud, messy, hoarse, pitiful, and ugly. Before he knew it, his eyes were back closed as he shuddered and snivelled before the fanciful side who was more than willing to take the logical side in his arms. 

Roman scooted closer to Logan, allowing him to melt and break within the embrace, both uncaring for the mess it’ll leave on the prince’s clothes. He continued to run his hands in circles on Logan’s back, making every hicc and whimper heard. It terrified Logan, honestly; opening up to someone like this, making every vulnerability known and presenting his lowest points for all the world, or Roman in this case, to see. The terror was suffocating, the shame was unbearable, and the regret was overwhelming, but Logan couldn’t stop the tears even if he tried.

A long, soft, gentle shush came from Roman as one of his hands lightly set on the back of Logan’s head; his fingers absentmindedly playing with the strands. The shush soon turned into a low hum, and Logan found himself drowning in the waves of Roman’s voice. He recognized the tune, even as he bawled the eyes out of his muddy brain.  It was a piece by Chopin-- Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. The dynamics and the anatomy of the piece often took Logan’s breath away as it did, but something about the fact that it was Roman, Roman who always seemed to strike every chord and make anything sound infinitely more pleasing made the composition sound like an entirely different thing. It wasn’t perfect, no; as the human voice can never truly replicate the delicate sounds of the piano. But the lullaby-esque hum still resonated just as sweetly in Logan’s mind and sent ripples of comfort in his chest that spread to the rest of him. 

And when the last sigh finally left Logan’s lungs, and he finally had the energy to lift his head back up to meet the prince’s eyes once more, he found he felt lighter than he ever did before. He thought maybe that’s what releasing approximately months or years worth of locked up sentiments within an hour did to an individual. Perhaps that hypothesis could be put on hold ‘till another opportunity.

Later that day they’d talk about that. They’d discuss the sheer ridiculousness of Logan stumbling into the wrong room, Logan mistaking Roman for a stuffed toy, and Roman letting all of it happen without complaint. They’d talk, share, and open up about insecurities, sensitivities, exhaustion, and frustration. They’d exchange “thank you’s,” “sorry’s,” but also laughter and banter. Later in the day they’d take a long, much-needed walk in the imagination while they poked fun at the other sides and named every creature they encountered and every flower they walked past by.

But for now they were here, in Roman’s room, with a tissue box being handed over by a Roman who had a hint of a genuine smile grazing his lips to a swollen-eyed Logan whose face was caked with dry tears.

For now, Logan was glad he stumbled into the wrong room. For now, Logan allowed himself to be a little less than who he was.

For now, Logan allowed himself not to think, but to feel.

~~~

Don’t forget to hit reblog!! HMU if ya wanna be added/removed from the tag list. Stay safe and hydrated folks!! Love y’all!! <3

Tag list:

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[thenightling]

The one disappointing thing about drifting from the Lucifer fandom to The Sandman...

I am a Lucifer show fan who accidentally got obsessed with Sandman when reading The Sandman to research the Lucifer show character’s origin back in 2017.

And since that drift over, I have to say only one thing truly disappoints me about the Lucifer show’s fan base.  ...How few Lucifer show fans want to give The Sandman comics a fair chance.  

It’s like they’re either discouraged because they’re told The Sandman is very different from the show and so they dismiss it by taking that as code to mean “It’s bad.” or they act like there’s some sort of invisible rivalry between the upcoming Netflix adaptation of The Sandman and the Lucifer TV series. 

 There’s even the very stupid rumor that The Sandman is why the show Lucifer is ending.  That rumor existed back when Lucifer was canceled the first time, by Fox, at the end of season three, by the way.  Somehow (this was before the Netflix Sandman show was even announced) a rumor had started that an upcoming adaptation of The Sandman was why Lucifer was being canceled and so the majority of the “Save Lucifer” Facebook groups got flooded with “BOYCOTT THE SANDMAN!!!” sort of messages. 

There are Lucifer show fans who genuinely don’t know that the story where Lucifer quits ruling Hell, and he and Mazikeen both go to Earth, where he opens Lux, and takes up piano, is in The Sandman comics.  Some of them know there are Lucifer comics by Mike Carey but don’t know that Lucifer is a spin-off of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and that the story where Lucifer quits Hell is in The Sandman.  

I have nothing against these fans.  They just haven’t done the research but there are others that actively and aggressively avoid The Sandman like it’s some sacred duty or like The Sandman is their enemy.

Some even act disgusted by The Sandman because they have this misconception of comic books being lowbrow.  When I was in one of those Save Lucifer Facebook groups I remember being very annoyed by someone who kept calling The Sandman comics a “comic strip.”   A comic “strip” is specifically a row of comic panels in a newspaper.  A very different thing entirely.   And even one person saying “Lucifer show fans would NEVER like the comics.  It’s far too different of an audience.”  But... that’s how I fell in love with The Sandman, because I had liked The Lucifer TV show and then read The Sandman comics...

In 2017 I had been asked to play Lucifer for a DC comics Role Playing game on IMVU and was only familiar with the show.  But I did know that he originated in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and that was where I’d find the story where he quits ruling Hell.  I learned he quits ruling Hell in the fourth volume of The Sandman but I figured if I started there I might be confused so I started at the beginning. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes.   To my surprise it felt like a Gothic fantasy story or old Gothic Horror novel, at least in the first two issues (chapters  if you’re listening to the audible audio drama version).  It did not feel like a comic.

And by the time I got to issue 4 of The Sandman, “A hope in Hell” where we first meet Lucifer of this continuity, I realized I was hooked and reading something truly special.  I realized I cared more about the story’s protagonist at this point than I did about finding out comic Lucifer’s backstory.    

I’ll confess when I first read The Sandman I fully anticipated skimming the drawn outfight scenes or explosions because I find those boring, only to be very surprised that those... don’t exist in The Sandman at all.  Morpheus never even throws a punch.

The Sandman is not taking away Lucifer, nor is it in direct competition with Lucifer.  Resenting it and avoiding it does no good.  The Sandman is what gave you the version of Lucifer that you love so much. It is not your enemy.   

Remember those conversations with Linda and later Amenadiel where Lucifer talks about how he doesn’t buy souls, and how there are masochists in Hell who only go there because deep down inside they feel they deserve it and they’re just giving them the punishment they want?  That’s all dialogue originally from The Sandman, from a conversation between Lucifer and Morpheus when Lucifer was explaining why he was shutting down Hell.

Another example of how some Lucifer show fans have reacted negatively to The Sandman is in one of those Save Lucifer groups, back when season three had just ended on Fox, I recall one person even saying “I like the angel of Death on Lucifer better than the one from The Sandman because Goths are mean, jaded, cynical, and cold.  I like our friendly, nerdy, Azriel, the Angel of Death, a lot more than some bitch Goth.”  And I was like “...You didn’t even try to read The Sandman, did you?  You just saw a picture of the character somewhere and jumped to conclusions by appearances.”  

Death in The Sandman is a perky Goth girl who loves and quotes Mary Poppins.  She tries to be friendly with everyone.  She’s just as (if not more) friendly as Azriel from the Lucifer TV show.  The biggest difference (besides her Goth fashion) is she says “Be seeing you.” instead of that “Smell ya later” they gave her in the Lucifer show.  She even helped save the domestic relationship of a lesbian rock singer she liked.  She likes Disney films and happy endings.  She has pet goldfish.  And she hits her younger brother with a loaf of bread when he’s being annoying.  She’s generally supposed to be seen as sweet.  Being a Goth doesn’t make you a bad person or “mean’ by default.  I was a bit taken aback someone had said something like that.

The Lucifer show fans who have gone out of their way to avoid The Sandman or make up excuses to not read it are doing themselves a disservice. They’re also missing out on a glorious opportunity to ship Lucifer and Dream (AKA Morpheus)...

TL:DR:  Lucifer show fans need to stop making excuses to avoid The Sandman or resenting it (even on a subconscious level) and need to give The Sandman a fair chance.   

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 13

Trees

It’s four in the afternoon and already getting dark, a foot of snow on the way. One year is nearly over — and yes, we’ve got some essays on that coming up after the holiday break — and another one is taking shape in our inboxes, mail chutes and hard drives. But for right now, let’s take another look at 2020, doubling back on the records that caught our ears without exactly fitting our schedules, the ones that almost got away. Here are the usual free improvisations and long drones, hip hop upstarts and cowpunk also-rans, a harpist, a cellist, a tabletop guitarist and at least one stellar punk record that has us hoping for sweaty live music again in 2021. Contributors this time included Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Andrew Forrell, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Arthur Krumins, Ian Mathers and Ray Garraty, heck let’s call it a quorum, and see you again in the New Year.

Mac Blackout — Love Profess (Trouble In Mind)

Love Profess by Mac Blackout

Mac Blackout owes his surname to his membership in the Functional Blackouts. That’s a garage combo that was once the subject of an article about how they’d been banned from various venues on account of the destructive chaos of their live performances. But you can’t do that forever, and nowadays Mac’s a painter and solo recording artist. His latest sounds are unlikely to make anyone want to put a chair into the mirror behind the bar, but they might send you flipping through your record collection, looking for the sounds that you and he have in common. Love Profess opens with a burst of piano-pounding, sax-overblowing free jazz, but that lasts for about nine seconds before it gets swallowed by some John Bender-worthy synth throb. Give “Wandering Spheres” a couple more minutes, and Mr. Blackout goes full La Dusseldorf on us. By turns spacy, spooky and seriously compelled to vent nocturnal loneliness, this half-hour long LP is both as familiar and as unknown as a well-shuffled deck of cards.

Bill Meyer

 Ross Birdwise — Perfect Failures (Never Anything)

Perfect Failures by Ross Birdwise

Vancouver-based electronic improviser Ross Birdwise rails against spatio-temporal norms. The concepts of tempo and rhythm are malleable in his universe. Architecturally, Birdwise is Antoni Gaudí, working in fluid lines to build incomprehensible structures. With Perfect Failures, he leaps even further away from the orthogonal grid of musical construction, dissolving beats into grains of sound. The warped rhythms found on Frame Drag are divested in favor of an approach that more resembles electroacoustic composition. As a matter of fact, the title track comes on like a digital recreation of a piece of classic musique concrète. Birdwise avoids venturing into purely ambient territory yet borrows some signifiers from the genre: keyboard melodies, elongated tones, washes of sound. He overlays these seemingly innocuous elements with crashes of noise, oblique jump cuts and hyperkinetic sequences, constantly forcing us to shift focus to make sense of his soundscapes. The febrile nature of the music is what intoxicates, but the discordant melodies are what enthrall.

Bryon Hayes

 C_G — C_G (edelfaul recordings)

C_G by C_G

Belgium-based French electronic artist Eduardo Ribuyo (C_C) and Israeli drummer Ilia Gorovitz (Stumpf) join forces on C_G, a one-take collaboration of molecular machine noise and improvised percussion. It opens as a slow creep, Gorovitz playing minimal rhythms that sound like someone walking through the pre-dawn streets of an awakening city. Ribuyo accretes whirrs, cracks and electrical pops to evoke the dread of a night not over. On “Normalising Cruelty,” for instance, the discomfort builds, the drums tumble in flight, the noise intensifies. The relative conventionality of the percussion tracks seems intentional and serves to focus attention on the granular details Ribuyo conjures from his machines. Think the experiments of similarly minded Mille Plateaux and Raster Norton artists. When played through headphones at volume, its full queasy Room 101 buzz and grind squirms most effectively into the brain. Easy listening this is not, but if and when home gatherings resume this would be an ideal way to clear the house.

Andrew Forell

  Che Noir — After 12 EP (TCF Music Group)

If you’ve been paying attention to hip-hop in the last few years, Buffalo’s Griselda camp has dominated the “old heads” conversation away from whatever the kids are vibing to on TikTok. But there’s life away from an Eminem partnership, and not just in the form of Benny the Butcher: Witness Che Noir, who has been on fire throughout 2020. After starting off the year with the 38 Spesh-produced Juno and following it up with the Apollo Brown-produced As God Intended, Che’s closing things out with this self-produced seven-song EP that covers a wide range of territory without dipping into tales of street hustling, just the age old struggle to get some respect. “Hunger Games” is an early highlight that shows her chemistry with Ransom and 38 Spesh, while she completely takes over in speaking to the times on “Moment in the Sun,” which is the clear emotional highlight of the EP. Amber Simone’s pleading chorus on closer “Grace” is another stylistic turn and closes things on a high note. The last words you hear are Simone’s as she sings, “Imma go get it”; the lingering effect is that you know Che Noir is already showing you as much. Miss this one at your own risk.

Patrick Masterson 

 Cong Josie — “Leather Whip” b/w “Maxine” (It Records)

Leather Whip / Maxine (AA single) by Cong Josie

Frankie Teardrop rides again in this smoking synth punk single from Australia’s Cong Josie. “Leather Whip” is about as menacing and minimal as synthesizer music gets, braced by the hard slap of gate-reverbed drums and a claw-picked bass sound (maybe electronic?) and Cong Josie’s whispery insinuations. “Maxine” is just as stripped, with blotchy bass sound and swishing drum machine rhythms framing a haunted rockabilly love song. It’s very Suicide, but isn’t that a good thing?

Jennifer Kelly

   Divine Horsemen — Live 1985-1987 (Feeding Tube)

Divine Horsemen “Live”1985-1987 by Divine Horsemen

With Divine Horsemen, Chris D of the Flesh Eaters had a brief but memorable run in vivid, gothic, country-tinged punk. This disc commemorates two red-hot live outings from 1985 and 1987, the first at Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach, California, the second at Boston’s The Rat. A sharply realized recording shows how this band’s sound fit into the cowpunk parameters set by X, with strident guitar clangor and hard knocking rock rhythms (the ax-heavy line-up featured in this recording included Wayne James, Marshall Rohner and Peter Andrus on guitars, the Flesh Eater’s Robyn Jameson on bass). The secret weapon, though, was the ongoing and volatile vocal duel between the front man and his then-wife Julie Christensen, a classically trained soprano with an unholy vibrato-laced belt. You can hear how she transformed his art by comparing the Flesh Eater’s version of “Poison Arrow” with the one here. It’s as aggressive as ever, musically, and Chris D. is in full florid, echoey, goth-punk mode. Christensen, however, is molten fire, letting loose cascades and flurries of wild vibrating song. There’s a scorching, stomping romp through the vamping “Hell’s Belle,” and a lurid rendering of mad, howling “Frankie Silver,” and, towards the end, a muscular take on the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” Christensen later made a mark as one of Leonard Cohen’s favorite backup singers, and Chris D is still knocking around with a reunited, all-star Flesh Eaters, though there’s some talk of getting this band back together as well. I’d go.

Jennifer Kelly

 Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger — Force Majeure (International Anthem)

Force Majeure by Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger

Harlem harpist Brandee Younger and bassist Dezron Douglas faced down New York’s early months of quarantine with a series of live broadcasts recorded in their apartment on a single microphone. This document of intimate resilience collects highlights of the Friday ritual. Younger and Douglas perform covers of spiritual Jazz, soul and pop songs as well as the delightfully titled original “Toilet Paper Romance.” The music is so close you feel the fingers on the strings and frets. Younger’s harp playing is a revelation, pianistic on John Coltrane’s “Equinox”, pointillist yet robust on his “Wise One” which they dedicate to Ahmaud Arbery. Douglas provides vigorous and sympathetic accompaniment and his solo rendition of Sting’s “Inshallah” is a tender tough exploration of his instrument. Along the way there are lovely versions of pieces by, amongst others, Alice Coltrane, Kate Bush and Clifton Davis. Douglas closes with the words “Black music cannot be recreated it can only be expressed” and Force Majeure demonstrates that the same goes for humanity and creativity.

Andrew Forell

Avalon Emerson — 040 12” (AD 93)

040 by Avalon Emerson

It’s been a big year for Avalon Emerson, who started 2020 prepping a move from Berlin to East Los Angeles and ends it back home stateside with an almost universally acclaimed DJ-Kicks entry to her credit. This three-song 12” for the label fka Whities is a nice way to close out a triumphant year, illustrating her penchant for bright melodies and percussive detail. “One Long Day Till I See You Again” is a welcoming slice of beatless percolation to close; “Winter and Water” leans heavily on rhythmic tricks in the middle. That makes A1 “Rotting Hills” the ideal lead as a balance between them. There may not be so obvious a gimmick as a Magnetic Fields cover, but that makes it no less valuable for showing what Emerson can do. Call it one more fluorescent rush.

Patrick Masterson

 End Forest — Proroctwo (Self-released)

Proroctwo (The Prophecy) by End Forest

For some of us, the fusion of folk music forms with crust and metal mostly issues in obscenities like Finntroll (yep, a Finnish band that makes folk metal songs about…trolls) or in politically toxic, Völkisch nationalist fantasias. But some bands get it right; see Botanist’s remarkable work, and see also End Forest, an act just emerging from Poland’s punk underground. Singer Paula Pieczonka employs a traditional Slavic vocal technique that roughly translates to “white singing” — but before you get creeped out by any potential fascist vibes, please know that the “whiteness” at stake in the phrase is purely an aesthetic value. And her voice is really great, open and soaring. “Proroctwo (The Prophecy)” has the sweep and drama of a lot of contemporary crust, and all of the genre’s interest in symbolic violence. The lyrics envision a future wrought and wracked by social conflict, a coming conflagration of torn bodies and of piles of dislodged teeth housed in some horrific archive of viciousness (that’s quite an image). It’s harrowing stuff, big guitar chords accented by sitar and flute. The track is available on Bandcamp, along with several inventive remixes by Polish musicians and DJs, like Tomek Jedynak and Dawid Chrapla. End Forest indicates that a full record is forthcoming sometime in spring. Looking forward to it, y’all.

Jonathan Shaw

 Lori Goldson — On a Moonlit Hill in Slovenia (Eiderdown Records)

On A Moonlit Hill In Slovenia by Lori Goldston

Goldson creates movement and tension in an arresting way with a rough-hewn approach to the cello. This could be a good entry point to her solo work, which is varied and bridges the gap between DIY attitude and elevated levels of musicianship and considered approach. The flow of her playing here evokes the almost brutal scrape of the strings, which gives a welcome texture to the melodic squiggles.

Arthur Krumins

Hot Chip — LateNightTales (LateNightTales)

The LateNightTales series of artist-curated mixes has seen a fair bit of variation over the years since Fila Brazilia first took up the torch in 2001, which makes a certain amount of sense; how we spend our late nights can differ wildly, of course. Hot Chip’s instalment in the series hits some of the expected notes (at least one cover, in this case a deeply moving one of the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says” they’ve been playing since Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard were in high school together; a closing story track, in this case Taylor’s father reading a bit from Finnegan’s Wake) and otherwise depicts the kind of late night Dusted readers might be more familiar with than most; one where a clearly voracious and eclectic listener is keeping their own private party going just for another hour or so, but always keeping things just quiet and subtle enough to not wake up anyone upstairs. The three other, non-cover new Hot Chip tracks all make for standouts here but there’s plenty of room for accolades, whether it’s for the smoothly groovy (Pale Blue, Mike Saita, Beatrice Dillon), the more avant garde (Christina Vantzou, About Group, Nils Frahm) to just plain off-kilter pop (Fever Ray, PlanningToRock, Hot Chip themselves). The result works as both a wonderful playlist and a survey of the band’s sonic world; and it does work best when everyone else is in bed.  

Ian Mathers

Annette Krebs Jean-Luc Guionnet — Pointe Sèche (Inexhaustible Editions)

pointe sèche by Jean-Luc Guionnet, Annette Krebs

Annette Krebs and Jean-Luc Guionnet recorded the three long, numbered tracks on Pointe Sèche (translation: Dry Point) over the course of three days at St. Peter’s Parish church in Bistrica ob Sotli, Slovenia. Location matters because this music couldn’t happen just anywhere; Guionnet plays church organ. Krebs was once part of the post-Keith Rowe generation of tabletop guitarists, but since 2014 she has abandoned strings and fretboards in favor of a series of hybrid instruments called konstruktions. Konstruktion #4, which appears on this record, includes suspended pieces of metal, a handful of toy animals, a wooden sounding board, vocal and contact microphones and a couple touch screens that manage computer programs. While both musicians have extensive backgrounds in improvisation, this recording sounds more like an audio transcription of a multi-media collage. Guionnet plays his large instrument quite softly, extracting machine-like hums, brief burps and dopplering tones that flicker around the periphery of Krebs’ fragments of speech, distant clangs and unidentifiable events. The resulting sounds resolutely defy decoding, which is its own reward in a time when so much music can be reduced to easily identifiable antecedents.

Bill Meyer

 KMRU — ftpim (The Substation)

ftpim by KMRU

If you happened to catch Peel, Joseph Kamaru’s wonderful release on Editions Mego in late July, but haven’t paid attention before or since, early December’s half-hour two-tracker ftpim done for (and mastered by) Room40 leader Lawrence English is a Janus-faced example of the Nairobi-based ambient artist’s power. As Ian Forsythe put it in his BOGO review of both Peel and Opaquer, “Something that can define an effective ambient record is an ability to disintegrate the perimeter of the record itself and the outside world,” a line I think about every time I listen to KMRU now. “Figures Emerge” feels more immediately accessible to me as a relatable environment where the gentle, pulsing drone is occasionally greeted by sounds outside the studio, while “From the People I Met” is more difficult terrain, a distorted fog of post-shoegaze harmonic decay — no less interesting, but perhaps more metaphorical in its take on the outside world. (Or not, given how 2020 has gone.)

Patrick Masterson

  Paul Lovens / Florian Stoffner—Tetratne (Ezz-thetics)

Enough years separate drummer Paul Lovens and guitarist Florian Stoffner that they could be father and son, and Lovens membership in the Schlippenbach Trio, and Lovens role as drummer in the legendarily long-running Schlippenbach Trio establishes him as an august elder of free improvisation. But the partnership they exhibit on this CD is one of equals committed to making music that is of one mind. Whether matching sparse string-tugging to purposefully collapsing batterie or burrowing sprung-spring wobbles to an immense cymbal wash, the duo plays without regard for showing us one guy or the other’s stuff. The point, it seems, is to how they imagine as one, and their combined craniums generate plenty of imagination. They operate in a realm close to that occupied by Derek Bailey and John Stevens, or Roger Smith and Louis Moholo-Moholo, but their patch of turf is entirely their own.

Bill Meyer

  Mr. Teenage — Automatic Love (Self-Release)

Automatic Love by Mr. Teenage

Melbourne, Australia’s fertile garage punk scene has squeeze out another good one in Mr. Teenage, a Buzzcockian foursome prone to short, sharp riffs and sing-along choruses. A four-song EP starts with the title track, whose arch talk-sung verse erupts into rabid, rip-sawing guitar, like Devo meeting the Wipers. “Waste of Time” piles palm muted urgency with explosive release, with a good bit of the Clash in the crashing, clangor. “KIDS” struts and swaggers in a rough-edged way that’s close to the violence of early Reigning Sound or Texas’ Bad Sports. “Oh, the kids these days,” to borrow a phrase, they’re pretty good.

Jennifer Kelly

 Nekra — Royal Disruptor (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Royal Disruptor by Nekra

Remember punk shows? Remember half-lit, dusty basements and fully lit, dirty kids? Remember your sneaker soles sticking to scuffed, gummy linoleum? Remember greasy denim battle jackets and hand-drawn Sharpie slogans? Remember warm beer (watery domestic suds in cans and cups) and cold stares (angsty bravado and bad attitude for its own sake)? Remember anarchists arguing with nihilists, and riot grrrls arguing with rocker boys? Remember people laughing and people smoking and people shouting and people spitting, all without masks? Remember the anticipation that crisps the air when the amps switch on? Feedback from the cheap-ass mic stabbing your ears? Beefy dudes elbowing through the press of flesh? That volatile, stomachy mix of happiness and truculence? Those warm-up thumps of the bass drum and the initial strums of crackling guitar? Remember all that? For the time being, in the United States of Dysfunction, here’s the closest thing you’ll get: an EP of feral, fast punk songs that sound like they’re happening live, right in front of your face. Thanks, Nekra — I really needed that.

Jonathan Shaw

 Neuringer / Dulberger / Masri — Dromedaries II (Relative Pitch)

Dromedaries II by Keir Neuringer, Shayna Dulberger, Julius Masri

Yes, Dromedaries II is a sequel. It follows by three years a debut cassette which was sold in the sort of microquantities that 21st century cassettes are sold. So, it’s more likely that you have heard another of the bands that the trio’s alto saxophonist, Keir Neuringer, plays in — Irreversible Entanglements. While the two combos don’t sound that similar, they share a commitment to improvising propulsive, cohesive music that will put a boot up your butt if you get in the way. While IE focuses on supplying music that frames and exemplifies the stern proclamations of vocalist Camae Ayewa, the trio plays instrumental free jazz that balances individual expression with collective support. Neuringer, double bassist Shayna Dulberger and drummer Julius Masri play like their eyes are on the horizon, but each musician’s ears are tuned into what the other two are doing. The result is music that seems to move in concerted fashion, but usually has someone doing something that pulls against the prevailing thrust in ways that heighten tension, but never force the music off track.

Bill Meyer

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song (Smalltown Supersound)

One of the distinctive things about Kelly Lee Owens’ marvellous debut LP a few years ago, as noted here, is that it felt so confident and distinct that it could have easily been the work of a much more seasoned producer. That impression, of a deftly skilled hand at the controls and a keen artistic sensibility and taste shaping it all, certainly doesn’t recede on Inner Song, whether it finds Owens homaging the grandmother who provided support and inspiration (“Jeanette”), gently but firmly rejecting unhealthy relationships (the utterly gorgeous “L.I.N.E.”) or teaming up with John Cale to make some bilingual, deep Welsh ambient dub (“Corner of My Sky”). And that’s one pretty randomly chosen three-song run! Owens continues to excel at both crafting gorgeous, lived-in productions and maybe especially with her handling of voices (her own and others), and she’s comfortable enough in her own skin that if she wants to open up the album with an instrumental Radiohead version (“Arpeggi”) she will, and she’ll make it feel natural, too.  

Ian Mathers

San Kazakgascar — Emotional Crevasse (Lather Records)

Emotional Crevasse by San Kazakgascar

You won’t find San Kazakgascar on any map, but give a listen and you’ll know where this combo is coming from. Geographically, they hail from Sacramento CA, where they share personnel with Swimming In Bengal. But sonically, they are the product of a journey through music libraries that likely started out in a Savage Republic and sweated in the shadow of Sun City Girls. They likely spent time in the teetering stacks of music collections compiled in a time when the problematic aspects of the term world music were outweighed by the lure of sounds you hadn’t heard before. More important than where they’ve been, though, is the impulse to go someplace other than where they’re currently standing. To accomplish this, twangy guitars, rhythms that straighten your spine whilst swiveling your hips, bottom-dredging saxophone and a cameo appearance by a throat singer who understands that part of a shaman’s job is to scare you each take their turn stepping up and pointing your mind elsewhere. Where it goes after that is up to you.

Bill Meyer

     John Sharkey III — “I Found Everyone This Way” (12XU)

Has Sharkey mellowed? This early peek at the upcoming solo album from the Clockcleaner legend and Dark Blue proprietor suggests a pensive mood, with liquid jangle and surprisingly subdued and lyrical delivery (albeit in the man’s inimitable hollowed out and wounded snarl). But give the artist a power ballad if that’s what he wants. The song has a graceful arc to it, a doomed romanticism and not an ounce of cloying sentiment.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sky Furrows — Sky Furrows (Tape Drift Records/Skell Records/Philthy Rex Records)

Sky Furrows by Sky Furrows

Sky Furrows don’t take long to match sound and message. As Karen Schoemer drops references to SST Records and Raymond Pettibone, bassist Eric Hardiman and drummer Philip Donnelly whip up a tense groove that could easily have been played by Mike Watt and George Hurley. Mike Griffin’s spidery, treble-rich guitar picking is a little less specifically referential, but does sound like it was fed through a signal chain of gear that would have been affordable back in the first Bush administration. The next track looks back a bit further; Schoemer’s voice aside, it sounds like Joy Division might have done if Tom Herman had turned up, pushed Martin Hannet out of the control room before he could ladle on the effects and instead laid down some space blues licks. Schoemer recites rather than sings in a cadence that recalls Lee Ranaldo’s; pre-internet underground rock is in this band’s DNA. The sounds themselves are persistently cool, but one drawback of having a poet instead of a singer up front is an apparent reluctance to vary the structure; it would not have hurt to break things up with some contrasting passages here or there.

Bill Meyer

  Soft on Crime — “You’ve Already Made Up Your Mind” b/w “Rubyanne” (EatsIt)

7'' by Soft on Crime

These Dublin fuzz-punks kick up a guitar-chiming clangor in A-Side, “You’ve Already Made Up Your Mind,” which might have you reaching for your old Sugar records. Sharp but sweet, the cut is an unruly gem buoyed by melody but bristling with attitude. “Rubyanne” is slower, softer and more ingratiating, embellished with baroque pop elements like flute, saxophone and choral counterpoints. “Little 8 Track” fills out this brief disc, with crunching, buzz-hopped bass and a bit of guitar jangle under whisper-y romantic vocals. It’s a bit hard to get a handle on the band, based on such disparate samples, but intriguing enough to make you want to settle the matter whenever more material becomes available.

Jennifer Kelly

Theoxinia — See the Lapith King Burn (Bandcamp)

See the Lapith King Burn by Theoxenia

Students of Greek mythology will grasp it right away, but in the internet age, it doesn’t take anyone long to figure out that when you name your record See the Lapith King Burn, you’re casting your lot for better or worse with the party animals. The Lapiths were one side of a lineage that also involved the considerably less sober-sided Centaurs, and the two sides of the family had a bloody showdown at a wedding that has been taken to symbolize the war between civilization and wildness. Theoxinia is Dave Shuford (No-Neck Blues Band, Rhyton, D. Charles Speer & the Helix) and his small circle of stringed instruments and low-cost repeating devices. If you were to dig through his past discography, it most closely resembles the LP Arghiledes (Thrill Jockey) in its explicitly Hellenic-psychedelic vibe. But, like so many folks in recent times, Shuford has decided to bypass the expanse and aggravation of physical publication in favor of marketing this LP-sized recording on Bandcamp. If that fact really bugs you, I guess you could start a label and make the man an offer. But if fuzz-tone bouzouki, sped-up loops and unerringly traced dance steps that will look most convincing when executed with a knife between your teeth and the sheriff’s wallet poking mockingly out of the top of your breast pocket sounds like your jam, See the Lapith King Burn awaits you in the realm of digital insubstantiality.

Bill Meyer

 Trees — 50th Anniversary Edition (Earth Recordings)

Trees (50th Anniversary Edition) by Trees

This boxed set presents the two original Trees albums from the early 1970s, The Garden of Jane Delawney and On the Shore, with the addition of demos and sundry recordings from the era. Here the band took the UK folk rock sound emergent at the time and drew it out into its jammy and somewhat arena rock guitar soloing conclusion. It’s good to have all of this in one place to document the myriad ways that Trees wrapped traditional material into new forms and with a bracing, druggy feel.

Arthur Krumins 

 Uncivilized — Garden (UNCIV MUSIC)

Garden by Uncivilized

Guitarist Tom Csatari presides over NYC-based large jazz ensemble known as Uncivilized, whose fusion-y discography stretches back a couple of years and prominently incorporates a cover of the Angelo Badalamenti theme from Twin Peaks. This 27-track album was recorded live at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works space in 2018 with a nine-piece band, who navigate drones and dances and the multi-part Meltedy Candy STOMP, a sinuous exploration of space age keyboards and surging big band instruments. Jaimie Branch, who lives next door to Csatari and was invited on a whim at the last minute, joins in for the second half including a smoldering rendition of the Lynch theme. It’s damn fine (though not coffee). Later on, Stevie Wonder gets the Uncivilized treatment in a pensive cover of “Evil,” led by warm guitar, blowsy sax and a little bit of jazz flute.

Jennifer Kelly

 Unwed Sailor — Look Alive (Old Bear Records)

Look Alive by Unwed Sailor

Johnathon Ford, who plays bass for Pedro the Lion, has been at the center of Unwed Sailor for two decades, gathering a changing cohort of players to realize his lucid instrumental compositions. Here, as on last year’s Heavy Age, Eric Swatzell adds guitars and Matthew Putnam drums to Ford’s essential bass and keyboard sounds. Yet while Heavy Age brooded, Look Alive grooves with bright clarity, riding insistent basslines through highly colored landscapes of synths and drums. The title track bounds with optimism, with big swirls of synth sound enveloping a rigorous cadence of bass and drums. “Camino Reel” is more guitar-centric but just as uplifting, opening out into squalling shoe-gaze-y walls of amplified sound. Ford, who usually leans on post-punk influences like New Order and the Cure, indulges an affinity for dance, here, especially audible on the trance-y “Gone Jungle” remix by GJ.

Jennifer Kelly

 Your Old Droog — Dump YOD Krutoy Edition (Self-released)

Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition by YOD

American rapper Your Old Droog has been releasing solid music for years. He never had ups for the same reason he never had downs: he never left his comfort zone. Dump YOD Krutoy Edition (where “krutoy” stands for “rude boy” or “badass”) may be his breakthrough album. He always kept his Soviet origins in check, and here for the first time he draws his imagery from three different sources: New York urban present, Ukrainian folk and Soviet and post-Soviet past (even Boris Yeltsin makes an appearance). In this boiling pot, a new Your Old Droog is rising, among balalaikas and mean streets of NYC, matryoshkas and producers with boring beats, babushkas and graffiti writers.

Ray Garraty

[noctisfishing]

Write Your Melody (Music-Themed Writing Prompts)

Originally posted here. These were created as daily prompts for the month of November but I am now posting them on Tumblr for anyone to use.

Below the cut is a list of 30 terms and phrases that will each have its definition followed by the inspired prompt. The wordcounts for each are guidelines; write as many words as you wish.

fanfare - an introduction with a short and lively sounding of trumpets; or, a lot of chatter showing that people are excited about something. Use the word in either context. (200 words)

dissonance - lack of harmony among two or more musical notes. Otherwise, it's clash of opinion or personalities. Write a scene where at least two characters are in a disagreement about something. (300 words)

forte - In music, it is a dynamic meaning to play the note "loud or strong". Similarly, one's forte is an area or talent that is their strength. Showcase your character's forte today. (400 words)

music to my ears -  something that is pleasant or gratifying to hear or discover. In today's prompt, incorporate the phrase. (200 words)

ostinato - A repeated musical phrase or rhythm. A repeated musical phrase or rhythm. Have a character repeat what they said, or include a phrase twice! (200 words)

flat - 1) lower in pitch; 2) smooth and even; 3) lacking interest or emotion. Use the word with one of these definitions (or more, for a challenge). (400 words)

toot one's own horn - to brag or to talk boastfully about oneself. Who's doing it today and why? Do they mean to? (300 words)

tone deaf - One of your characters may lack the general perception of their surroundings, of other's opinions.. or of their pitch when they sing. In today's prompt, include this character's tone deafness, or mention the term. (200 words)

allegro - music is played in an upbeat, cheerful, brisk tone. Someone feels this kind of way. What prompted this feeling? (400 words)

crescendo - a dynamic in which the music gradually increases in loudness and intensity; i.e., the sound, the action, or the emotion escalates. Write a piece in which a crescendo occurs. (100 words)

sing a different tune - change one's opinion about or attitude toward someone or something. What has got your character(s) singing a different tune today? (300 words)

bridge - a musical passage that connects one section of a song to another. It can be the connector of paths, scenes, and ideas. Incorporate the term, figuratively or literally. (200 words)

unison - coincidence in pitch of sounds or notes, i.e., they sang simultaneously, or they said the same thing at exactly the same time! Include a moment where something occurs in unison. (400 words).

the world's smallest violin is being played today (see: photo). Who is it playing for? (200 words)

song and dance - an unnecessary fuss, or a misleading story or statement. Make a character give the old song and dance today. (300 words)

harmony - a simultaneous combination of notes that is pleasing to the ear. Similarly, an agreement, or an internal calm. Write a moment in which everything seems to be going the right way. (300 words)

shuffle - rearrangement of tracks in a random order, or, a confused jumble. Something is shuffled in your 'verse today. What caused it? How do your characters react? (200 words)

the jig is up - The scheme has been revealed! The deception has been foiled! Work this expression into today's scene. (200 words)

instrumental ‐ This version of a song has no singing, no lyrics. Write without dialogue and focus on sounds today. (400 words)

nocturne - a piece, typically for solo piano, that evokes the moods and images of nighttime. Write a scene that is set long after the sun has gone down. (400 words)

call and response - a style of singing in which a melody sung by one singer is responded to or echoed by one or more singers. Today, when someone "calls", will others "respond"? (100 words)

sharp - 1) higher in pitch; 2) having a thin, cutting edge or fine point; 3) having a clever or astute quality. Like its musical opposite, use the word with one of these definitions (or more, for a challenge). (300 words)

face the music - be confronted with the unpleasant consequences of one's actions. Write about the character(s) who has to "face the music" today. (200 words)

a capella - choral music with no instruments. Harmonies come from voices, and percussion comes from hand claps or beat boxing. Today, focus on character actions and/or interaction alone, such as dialogue and/or contact between characters. (300 words)

obbligato - essential to the piece of music and should not be omitted in performance. Think about a character's obbligato perhaps an item, a trait, or a person that is essential to their character. What happens when they discover it/them missing? (200 words)

strike a chord - affect or stir someone's emotions. Have something "strike a chord" with someone, use the phrase, or both! (400 words)

mute - a device used to muffle the tone and volume of an instrument. Include an instance where a someone or something becomes muted. (100 words)

pianissimo - dynamic instruction in music that tells musicians to play very softly or quieter. Write a scene in a quiet setting. (200 words)

end on a high note - To finish, complete, or leave (something) at a successful, impressive, or climactic point. Do this for your prompt today; include the phrase if you’d like! (300 words)

encore -  The true last opportunity for your audience to enjoy your creativity! Your choices for the end: 1) incorporate the term; 2) Have a favorite earlier prompt? Write an extension of it, or its next scene; 3) Extend a scene from canon, or any one of your other fics. Choose one or a combination for your prompt before you take your final bow. (400 words)

[continuo-docs]

Music reviews by Laurent Fairon

Dumama + Kechou – Buffering Juju (2020) DuoSerpe – Piovono Santi (2020) R. Weis – Cassette Assembled Scores for Dance (1991–1993) (2020) Plank & Ishq – Nine Maidens Circle (2020)

Dumama + Kechou – Buffering Juju (Mushroom Hour Half Hour) https://dumamakechou.bandcamp.com/album/buffering-juju Wonderful collection of songs by South African duo Dumama + Kechou from Johannesburg, composed of singer Gugulethu Duma and multi-instrumentalist Kerim Melik Becker with a number of guests on clarinet, trombone, piano, vibraphone, etc. The duo's idiosyncratic vision of what constitutes a song is what surprises first, whether they re-interpret sad songs, lullabies, or folk traditionals, but always with a playfull, personal twist. Then there are the very original and exciting arrangements and instrumentation, including great percussion work by Kechou on a number of African instruments, and unexpected guests like Siya Makuzeni on trombone (#2), Nobuhle Ashanti on piano (#03) or Angel Bat Dawid on clarinet (#05). Some tracks have rather sparse arrangements that border on ethnic music, like #6 Umzi, with a simple string bow accompanyment grounded in traditional Zulu music (or, umculo). The most elaborate track is #5 Uveni with a full ensemble including clarinet, vibraphone, synthesizer and great afro guitar by Kechou. Songs are mostly sung in South African dialect, occasionally in English (#7). Other releases from this label are also worth investigating.

DuoSerpe – Piovono Santi (Plus Timbre) https://plustimbre.bandcamp.com/album/piovono-santi DuoSerpe is an Italian duo composed of Paolo Acquaviva on trombone and Cristiano Bocci on sound processing, synthesizer and spoken word. This album contains 3 long tracks, each the result of studio improvisations, and each composed of various sections woven together seamlessly in the post-production phase. So that, despite track lengths and limited instrumentation, Piovono Santi is quite varied yet consistent throughout. The music is sometimes immersive like a film noir soundtrack, while Bocci's sound treatments (loops, sound effects and samples) bring diversity and surprises to the music. His interventions sometimes even verge on avantgarde, like the ring modulator transfiguring the trombone on track #1, or even electroacoustic music, like the radical synthesizer work on #2 and great synth sequence on #3. The trombone sound is remarkably well integrated into the mix, thanks in part to the sound effects, but also because Acquaviva refrains from soloing or getting too excited, like trombonists are prone to do – the same level of understatement can be found in Paul Rutherford's or Stuart Dempster's own trombone playing. This excellent album, preferably played at high volume or with headphones on to fully appreciate the details in sound processing, will not appeal to fans of improvised music, but should interest fans of avantgarde and electronic music.

R. Weis – Cassette Assembled Scores for Dance (1991–1993) (TQN-aut) https://tqzine.bandcamp.com/album/cassette-assembled-scores-for-dance-1991-1993 Active since the early 1980s, R. Weis is a US composer from Pittsburgh known for his sampler-based music focusing on specific sound sources for each project (kitchenware, glass, a parrot, etc). This CD collects compositions dating from when Weis was living in NYC from 1982 to 1998. These tracks were composed for choreographer Jaime Ortega in the early 1990s and premiered during performances at Judson Church and Performance Space 122, NYC. Using an early keyboard sampler and multi-track cassette recorder, Weis creates a weightless, semi-detached music attempting to reveal the poetic potential of sampled sounds through simple loops and minimalistic arrangements. Some dramaturgy is provided by long-held synth notes or sound build-ups, in accordance with the choreography, one suppose. Overall, sounds are used sparingly, loops rarely become rhythms, and the music remains fairly minimal throughout. Thanks to this composing strategy, the music is rather timeless and aged quite well, I think, better perhaps than similar early cheap sampler experiments by the likes of Nocturnal Emissions (Spiritflesh, 1988) or Victor Nubla (Piedra Nombre, 1989).

Plank & Ishq – Nine Maidens Circle (Fantasy Enhancing) https://fantasyenhancing.bandcamp.com/album/nine-maidens-circle Ambient techno music by a duo from Wales released in February 2020. Seasonned musicians separately active since the mid-1990s, Plank (aka Lee Norris) and Ishq teamed up for this mammoth double CD release composed of nine, 10–to–24mn-long tracks on average. The entire project is a revival of 1990s British ambient techno via progressive electronic beats, lush ambient synths, found vocals and occasional drone-y cum environmental recordings ambience. Full of great atmospheres, interesting samples, loops and sound effects, Nine Maidens Circle expertly resucitates the unique sound alchemy of UK's ambient techno classics like The Orb, Andrew Weatherall (in Two Lone Swordsmen or Sabres of Paradise, say) and the KLF's Chill Out album. Plank & Ishq take their time in both track duration or album construction generally, and, to be honest, some tracks seem elongated like bubble-gum. The openning track, for instance, is more than 24mn-long and starts with 10mns of field recording plus droning church organ, before a proper beat is introduced without further development. The following tracks progressively introduce more punchy synth sequences and ambient techno beats, until we reach the massive, assertive track #6 Kebab Swerve, a kind of homage to The Orb's Assassin EP, when the band reached their techno-id peak. The three remaining tracks resume the more ambient vibe of the beginning, though, to be honest, at 48+mn they seem like a long anticlimax after the high energy of Kebab Swerve. Regardless, Nine Maidens Circle is an audio time capsule from the 1990s to which I've kept returning to in previous weeks, enjoying the entire album as a continuous 2-hour ambient techno program.

[etherealblasphemy]

You Never Seemed So Tense, Love

(what’s this? some actual content? on my blog? it’s more likely than you think)

hello again, y’all! it’s been a while since i’ve posted any writing, but at last, i’ve finished another fic! i hope y’all enjoy this one, i found it really fun to write. (title from “gives you hell” by the all-american rejects)

Trigger Warnings For: mild language and mentions of alcohol

Summary: Logan Guiscard loves his simple, mundane life. He most certainly does not love his next-door neighbor, Virgil Savage.

Length: 7,476 words

Kudos are appreciated, reblogs are adored, comments are loved!!

Logan Guiscard loved his life. Honestly. He loved his little suburban house that looked like almost every other home in his neighborhood. He loved his shiny car that he had to wash every weekend because if it wasn’t shining then obviously someone would think something was wrong and wouldn’t take him seriously. He loved his job as an astronomy professor at the local university where nobody cared about what the constellations were named because the Greeks were all dead, and it’s not they couldn’t just Google the names, anyways. He loved waking in the morning to see a lawn full of native plants and a little garden, because he might live in the affluent suburbs, but that didn’t mean he’d give into lawn culture, the horrid thing.

The only thing he didn’t love was his unfortunately next-door neighbor, Virgil Savage. Everything about him was simply illogical. The first thing the imbecile had done after moving in was paint the house bright purple, a stark contrast from the pastel grey every other home sported. He had a rather irritating habit of playing music a decibel too loud for Logan’s taste. He had absolutely no sense of self-care; Virgil seemed to throw on whatever clothes were clean— they were mismatched and rumbled, as if he had just taken them from his floor—and his skin was dull and most likely caked with makeup, which could easily be fixed if the man would just wash his face in the morning. Virgil Savage also had the miserable mannerism of being at least partially nocturnal.

Logan first found out about this “lifestyle” within a week of Virgil moving in. At first, he thought his neighbor was simply having trouble adjusting to his new house. And then the music started. Had it been any other time of day, perhaps Logan would have learned to let it by, to continue with his daily life. But because it was nine-thirty on a Wednesday night and Logan happened to teach Introduction to Astronomy on Thursdays at seven a.m., he marched over to the Savage house with a glare that burned hot enough to set Pluto alight, and knocked three times on the heavy door, tapping his foot incessantly as he waited for a response.

Virgil had opened the door with tired, bleak eyes the color of the Milky Way, full of enigmatic monachopsis that seemed to scream for human contact like an abandoned astronaut, and all arguments fled from the tip of Logan’s tongue. The music was even louder with the door open; the most prominent instrument was a piano that sounded like someone was slamming their fingers down on the keys in a desperate rage. Someone was screaming about friends and not wanting to leave, their voice raspy and broken.

“Do you… need something?” his neighbor had asked with a gruff voice, clutching at his elbows as if the sooner Logan left, the better. Logan had snapped out of his daze, pushing his glasses back up as he looked up at the man standing in the doorway. He couldn’t see much from where he stood on the porch.

“Yes, actually, I would like for you to turn your music down. It is impeding my ability to sleep, and I have to teach a class in the morning,” Logan explained crisply. Virgil looked him up and down, sizing up his new competitor with a smug smirk.

“Well, I dunno, teach.” Logan’s heart stopped for a full second at the nickname before his face morphed into a mask of contempt. “There’s a party going on right now, and what party is complete without music?”

Logan’s eyes narrowed as he glanced inside. He couldn’t see much besides a very much empty living room. “Apparently, a pity party,” he replied, his tone harsher than he intended. For a quarter of a second, a single frame in the movie of life, Virgil’s face had contorted, full of hurt, before quickly losing its emotion, replaced with cool nonchalance. Logan had had half the mind to apologize for his unsympathetic behavior before the song grew louder and Logan was reminded that it was late at night and he was too exhausted to deal with this sort of tomfuckery.

He was about to launch into a full debate to convince this heathen to turn his music down to a respectable volume when another figure came careening through the living room by way of an unseen doorway, crashing into Virgil with raucous, drunken giggles.

“Broooooo…” the newcomer slurred, his arms wrapped around Virgil’s neck for support. “You gotta finish that assignment of yours. You wanna pass the class, donya? Come ooooon,” he wheedled. Virgil’s face flushed as the stranger whined.

“Roman, how much have you drunk?”

“…a bottle.”

“A bottle?! Dee let you drink a whole bottle?!” Virgil’s eyes were the size of dinner plates, his mouth hanging open in disbelief as he turned, facing the living room that still held no-one despite the “party” raging on inside. “Dee! I’m gonna kick your ass!” he yelled as he unwrapped Roman’s arms from his neck. Virgil’s eyes glanced back at Logan. “Sorry about my friend.”

With that, Virgil pushed Roman further into the house, muttering in exasperation as he shut the door without another word to Logan. The teacher blinked before he regained his senses. He scoffed at the sudden cut-off from his neighbor, rolling his eyes. There was nothing else he could do now besides head back home and shove a pillow over his ears to muffle the music.

It was only when he finally slipped into bed that he realized he could only hear the sound of crickets and someone’s air conditioner whirring in the late August night heat.

The music had been turned off.

He hated himself for believing that it would end that night with a simple confrontation. The next week, the music was up again. Logan was too busy grading incomplete and frustratingly incorrect constellation maps to tell off Virgil, and let it be. But then it happened again the next week. And the next. It seemed to Logan that Virgil was just trying to get a rise out of him at this point. When he called his brother he ask for advice, the only promising words he got was “talk to him.”

“Patton, you don’t understand. I have talked to him, he just won’t listen,” he sighed as his brother listened intently over the video call, constantly adjusting his round glasses.

“Now, Logan, you know that everybody communicates in different ways. Maybe he is listening, but he just can’t communicate in a way you understand.” Patton adjusted his glasses again as he tilted his head, a thought striking him. “Maybe he’s trying to get your attention?”

Logan sighed, thinking about Virgil. Would he really be the type of person to annoy him just to get his attention? Virgil didn’t need to play music at an irritating volume for Logan’s consideration of him—those sonderous eyes plagued him almost as much as the music did.

Hold on. What did he just think?

“Are you alright, Logan? You’re making face you always do whenever I correct on your grammar. You know—like someone just ate all the second cookies,” Patton giggled. Logan heard someone talking in the background as Patton turned away from the camera, listening to the person off-screen. “Yep! Do you wanna come say hi to him?” Logan heard a sound of acquiescence and the pounding of footsteps as someone ran down the hallway of his brother’s apartment.

“Hiya there, Logan!” He flinched as Patton’s partner, Emile, popped up in front of the camera. “I heard you were in a jam!” The psychiatrist held up a jar of jam as Logan groaned at the pun, massaging the bridge of his nose.

“I don't know which is worse—your puns or Virgil’s music,” he grumbled goodnaturedly as the partners collapsed into laughter that sounded choppy in the low quality audio of his laptop. He ran a hand through his hair as he checked the time, cringing at the late hour. “I’m sorry, Patton, but I’ll have to sign off now. It’s getting late and I have the wonderful blessing of teaching a morning class tomorrow. I’ll see you next weekend, correct?” His brother nodded as he and Emile wished Logan goodnight.

As he turned off his computer, his mind wandered back to the original topic of his and Patton’s conversation—Virgil. He couldn’t possibly be engaging in this childish feud because he was, what, interested in him? Logan snorted aloud, shaking his head. Virgil was obviously only toying with him.

“Well, then,” he whispered aloud as he slipped into bed, ready to fall asleep. “Two can play that game.”

He wasn’t able to put his plan into motion until the following weekend, just before he had to pick up Patton from the airport. It was quite simple, in Logan’s opinion, but then again, he reminded himself, he had to be on the road by at least nine so he could pick up Patton from his eleven-o-clock arrival, so complex schemes were out of the question until he had the time and reason to do such. Thus, he found himself setting a heavy speaker down on the edge of his front porch, his phone already connected to it. He had deliberated for a while on what song to use before settling on the timeless classic of “Hooked on a Feeling”.

He was about to turn on the speaker when he felt his phone vibrating in his hand. He turned it on to see a text from Patton: “So… I might have told you the wrong arrival time…” Immediately, he called his brother.

“What do you mean, ‘wrong arrival time’?” he questioned as soon as Patton picked up.

“Well, I’m here now. At the airport. It turns out the flight isn’t as long as I thought it was…” He could hear incessant chatter in the background and could clearly picture the dismal little airport that never seemed to stop renovating one wing or another, resulting in utter chaos when it came to an orderly flight schedule. “If you’re busy, don’t worry. I can wait a few hours—”

“Don’t be silly, Patton,” Logan interrupted. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes if the traffic’s alright.” He was already grabbing his keys from inside, throwing on a jacket, and unlocking his car doors. “Have you eaten yet?” The silence was answer enough for him. “There’s plenty of options around. Just be sure to eat something healthy, alright? And remember to get your bags,” he sighed as he started the car, the engine a gentle thrum beneath him.

“Alright, Logan, I will. See you in a bit. Thanks for picking me up.” The call disconnected, leaving Logan in the silence of his car before he decided surprisingly that he couldn’t stand the quietude and turned on the car radio as he backed out of the driveway, unaware of the jet black eyes that watched him go sadly.

Logan made to the airport in forty minutes, actually. He found Patton sitting at the counter of a small shop selling dumplings and baobaos, giddily eating the delicious food. He watched with a soft smile for a moment as Patton snuck a bite of a dumpling to the golden retriever laying on the floor beneath him, her vest proudly displaying her role as a service dog. As Patton straightened, he finally noticed his brother standing several feet away.

“Logan!” he called excitedly, waving him over. Logan’s feet moved on their own, small steps turning into bounds as he ran to his brother and hugged him tightly. “I’ve missed you, too, Logan. It doesn’t seem that university can end soon enough.” Logan’s grip tightened before he released his brother. He felt something nose at his leg and looked down to see Lola nudging at his leg, staring up at him with puppy eyes, despite knowing full well she was not a puppy, by size nor age standards.

He crouched down and ran a hand through her fur as Lola’s tail began beating excitedly. “Hello to you, too,” he said as Lola barked softly in greeting. “You’ve got your bags?” he asked as he stood up. Patton nodded, finishing the last dumpling, and clambered off his stool, thanking the shop owners as he grabbed the handles of his two suitcases in both hands. “I’ll hold on to Lola.” He grabbed the golden retriever’s lease, untying it from the chair’s leg, and began guiding the dog and his brother through the dim airport to the parking lot.

It was nine forty a.m. when they got home. The sun was glimmering, bearing down with no qualms onto the earth with a fierce intensity that seemed to rake across their backs with a near unbearable heat. Patton took one look at the speakers still set up on Logan’s porch and turned around, stopping in his tracks.

“Logan, what are you planning?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to listen to some music while I washed my car,” he explained, even though he knew his car was clean and it was pointless to try and wash it when it was supposed to rain that night, anyways. Patton’s eyes narrowed with a ghost of a smile crossing his lips.

“You’re going to play music, aren’t you?” he proclaimed, twirling around and pointing at Logan with one finger and a sly smile as though he was a detective who had just solved the most difficult case ever presented to him. “Oh, I knew that look meant something! You looked so starry-eyed when we were talking about Virgil!” Logan blanched as he gasped in indignation.

“I did not look starry-eyed! He’s not even my friend, he’s just my neighbor!”

“A neighbor who you call on every Wednesday night,” Patton teased as Logan brushed past him with a groan of frustration, unlocking the door and shoving it open.

“It’s his fault, Patton, he’s the one who plays punk rock from the 2000s and 70s and 80s pop songs played on what I think might be an organ louder than a plague of cicadas at ten-thirty at night.” Patton could only laugh at Logan’s description as he made his way into the kitchen and opened the fridge, already making himself at home.

“Sure, Logan.” Patton’s brow furrowed as he surveyed the fridge and its contents. “How many jars did Mom give you last time?”

“I counted twenty—wait, don’t change the subject, Patton!” Logan chastised. Lola spoke—or, rather, barked—up, woofing at the brothers as if to say, “stop talking about your neighbor and feed me.”

When at last Lola was fed and Patton had dropped his suitcases down in the guest room, it was nearing ten a.m.; he was finally able to step outside and stretch in the sun. Out of habit, he glanced at Virgil’s house, half expecting to see strobe lights flashing wildly behind the curtains, and saw nothing. He paused, his thoughts turning to the speaker still sitting abandoned on his porch. Was Virgil still asleep? An evil grin split across his face as he pulled out his phone, finding the song easily.

“I hope you like the taste of your own medicine,” he mumbled as he pressed played. Immediately, sound poured out of the speaker, the lowest notes tapping a familiar rhythm on his heart. He could just barely hear the sounds of confusion in the other house, following by the door slamming open as Virgil stumbled out in his pyjamas.

Well, he couldn’t really call them pyjamas. Virgil was covered—thankfully, of all the bad habits Virgil partook in, sleeping in the nude was not one of them—but just barely. He wore grey boxers beneath a violet tank top at least two sizes too big for him, and not much else. And perhaps Logan blushed furiously at the sight of sunshine on Virgil’s lanky arms and pale legs, but it was just from the heat. Just the heat.

Not that any of that mattered. Logan was too busy watching Virgil nearly trip over his feet as he shambled about in his lawn, momentarily blinded by the sun, to think any more about Virgil’s limbs. As his eyesight adjusted, Virgil noticed Logan standing in his own yard, then saw the speaker blasting music, and put two-and-two together.

“Do you know what time it is?” Virgil groaned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Logan snickered.

“It’s nine-fifty-two a.m., which is a more reasonable time than ten-forty-five at night,” he shot back. Virgil snorted before covering it with a cough. “Even if you wake up late, you should at least go to bed at a reasonable time. A good bedtime is crucial to a healthy life,” he lectured as Virgil raised his eyebrows with a smirk.

“Oh, getting worried about me, now? Careful, teach, or someone will think you’ve caught feelings for me,” Virgil chaffed, his eyes bright now in the daylight, intelligent and unrelenting in their mirth. Logan spluttered, unable to form a proper response. “Beware, Logan Guiscard. You’ve opened up a Pandora’s Box now.” Virgil’s voice was deep and full of laughter—like Logan was missing out on the funniest joke ever told. “I hope you like punk rock.”

He couldn’t stop himself from saying, “It’s you’ve been playing, how could it ever get old?” This time, Virgil snorted for real, chuckling uncontrollably as he backed away towards his house. Logan knew he wouldn’t get that sound out of his head for weeks. Virgil paused as he reached the doorstep of his home, glancing back over his shoulder.

“…I was finishing a report for my theoretical astrobiology class, by the way. I finished a little past midnight. Sorry for wanting to sleep in. I’ll make sure to let my professor know next time that I wasn’t able to finish my paper because my neighbor cared about me.” Logan physically stepped back, stunned. Virgil was taking university classes? And astronomy-related classes at that? Sweet heavens. Somehow, Logan’s face grew even more heated in the August sun.

Too bad Virgil had already left before Logan could find out more.

It wasn’t like Virgil hadn’t warned him. Logan could clearly recall him referencing Greek mythology (which another one of his passions that just so luckily gave him an advantage in astronomy) as he swore to wreak havoc on Logan’s life. Now, perhaps he hadn’t used those exact words, but it was exactly what was happening at nine p.m. on a Tuesday night in the middle of his late-night astronomy class. The class was too far gone now to be reigned back in, the music was still pouring in through hidden speakers, and all Logan could do was stare at Virgil like his whole world had been shattered as his neighbor laughed with his whole body, the sound loud and full of life and shaking Logan’s very core.

He had been in the middle of explaining which constellations appeared during which seasons—it was the beginning of the semester and he had learned the hard way to always begin with the basics—when the music first started. He had been so envirgorated in his explanation of the importance of the North Star that he hadn’t heard it until one of his students asked if whoever was listening to Fall Out Boy would please turn the volume down. Logan had stopped in his tracks, eyes snapping back to reality with a sinking feeling of déjà vu, and listened.

Unfortunately, his dread was well-met. The sounds of Fall Out Boy’s “Thnks fr th Mmrs” were pouring in from all sides of his classroom; Logan scowled, already searching for the familiar pair of inky eyes that bedeviled his dreams and late-night musings. “Virgil Savage!” he yelled, praying that the incident was actually Virgil’s fault and not some poor student who just happened to have the exact same music interests as his neighbor. “You better show yourself before I make you!”

The laughter was more of a giveaway than anything else. Virgil slumped in the doorway, his smirk so infuriating yet charming all the same. He gave a two-fingered salute to the professor as he held up his phone, waving in his trademark teasing manner. Virgil paid no mind to the students staring at the occurrence with rabid curiosity; his focus was on Logan as he bit his bottom lip and held out the phone towards the professor as though inviting him closer.

“You want the music off?” he asked, his deep voice gliding out of his mouth and wrapping itself around Logan’s body like venti of the ancient age. Logan nodded silently and unceremoniously, unable to think of a good retort. “Come and turn it off yourself.”

That was what had sent his class into chaos. One of them had yelled “Dance party!” immediately after, jumping up from his seat and flailing his arms around in what Logan could only assume to be dancing—an attempt at dancing, at the very least. Logan glared at Virgil as he stalked slowly towards the interloper, the sounds of students nothing but background noise at this point. He leaned closer to Virgil, his eyes full of wrath.

“Turn that music off right now,” he hissed.

“You’re staying up too late. If I can’t sleep in, you can’t stay out,” was Virgil’s only response. Logan stuttered.

“You—I—I am teaching a class!”

“And I’m not turning the music off,” Virgil continued. “I told you, if you want it off—” Virgil other hand grabbed Logan’s waist, pulling him into a dip as the professor yelped in surprise and the students cheered Virgil on. “—you’re going to have to do it yourself.”

It took a full five seconds to pass before Logan’s brain rebooted, shutting down the moment Virgil’s warm touch had met his starved skin. Once his reason returned, he wrangled himself out of his neighbor’s arms with several muttered swears and all but ripped Virgil’s phone out of his hands, turning the music off quickly and shoving the device back towards his neighbor. He glared daggers at the interloper for good measure as he retreated back into the comforts of his classroom with a scowl on his face.

“You’re not getting enough sleep either, teach. What was it you said? Yeah, I remember now: ‘a good bedtime is crucial to a healthy lifestyle.’” Virgil smirked as he watched Logan try to reign in his class, to no avail, those dark irises of his eyes holding something mysterious Logan would love to unravel if it weren’t for the classroom of fifty students in the process of losing their minds. “Of course, not letting loose every once in a while and refusing to humor your everloving neighbor really takes a hit on you, doesn’t it?” Logan glanced at Virgil as he paused from removing a recording phone from particularly stubborn student, focusing on the annoyance swirling through him instead of the rapid, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it wave of warmth that overcame him at the sight of Virgil’s eyes, half hooded by his black-painted eyelids and full of curiosity—curiosity for Logan. That particular feeling he shoved back into the recesses of his mind.

“Virgil Savage, escort yourself out of this room or I will have security do so. We will continue this at a later date.” Virgil only grinned wickedly as he saluted once more and slinked behind the door frame, disappearing in the myriad of hallways.

“How about we continue it tomorrow at Bourbon Coffee? I hear they make great croissants!” Virgil shouted back. Logan stopped dead in his tracks, his head whipping towards the door in shock. But in true Virgil fashion, he was gone before Logan could find out more.

His only hope to gain another piece of the puzzle that was Virgil Savage was to meet him at Bourbon Coffee tomorrow morning.

He prayed he would survive their encounter.

Logan woke up to the mouth-watering smell of french toast the next morning, a smile already on his face. He found his brother in the kitchen, slipping Lola little bites of bacon as he cooked.

“What is all this for, Patton? Don’t you trust me to make my own breakfast?” he asked as he patted Lola, who showed off her canines with a beam.

“One of Emile’s former patients is one of your students. They told a little story on Twitter, and Emile found out and told me!” Patton swiveled around, almost whacking Logan in the face with his spatula. “How come you didn’t tell me you were going on a date?” Logan huffed, swiping a slice of bacon from the plate where they were cooling.

“It’s not a date,” he argued. “This might be my only chance to actually deal with Virgil besides throwing a pillow over my ears.” Patton chuckled, leaving the conversation as he finished cooking and slid two slices of french toast onto a nearby plate and handing it to Logan, throwing a smaller slice on the floor for Lola to wolf down. He continued his points as he ate. “Besides, I wouldn’t even call our relationship a friendship—”

“Alright, first off, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Patton interrupted as he maneuvered them both to sit at the dining room table. “Second of all.” Patton waited until Logan looked up at his brother, holding his gaze. “Do you want it to be a friendship?” he asked gently, knowing the look that was growing in Logan’s eyes.

“…Truth be told, Patton… I do. Virgil…” Logan sighed, unsure how he could ever explain his interest in Virgil if he couldn’t explain the greatest mysteries of the universe, which were far more comprehensible than the mind and soul of his neighbor. “…Virgil is unexplainable. I try to understand him. But I can’t… Am I wrong to want to understand him?”

A ghost of a smile crossed Patton’s lips as he regarded his brother. “No. Not at all.” Patton’s grin turned mischievous. “But date or not, I still get to be excited! You never go out, it’s nice to see you having fun for once.” For once, Logan did not respond to Patton, allowing himself to genuinely grin.

Fun…

It wasn’t a foreign word in his dictionary, but its page wasn’t dog-eared the way other words were. It didn’t have the significance of ebullience (bubbly enthusiasm—it reminded him of his brother), it didn’t have the importance of syzygy (the alignment of celestial bodies—he always found some way to weave it into his lectures), it didn’t roll across his tongue with the same effortlessness of hiraeth (homesickness for a place that never was or cannot be returned to—plus, it tied into his efforts to learn the Welsh language). Fun was not an unknown word, but it was not one mulled over like wine as he pondered his place in the universe.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t reintroduce it to his vocabulary, relearn the way it sounded, the way it felt running along his vocal cords.

Patton could tell what was going through his brother’s mind. He sat back lazily as he ate his breakfast, his smile just barely concealing his pride. “It’s almost nine, by the way,” he added. “You should get ready soon.” Logan nodded, only a little disappointed that they had to end their moment of peace so quickly.

Far too soon, he found himself ready to go, with the exception of a stomach that wouldn’t stop churning. Logan had no idea why he was so nervous—at best, he and Virgil would get coffee and talk without tearing each other’s head apart, and at worst they would just continue their feud like normal. It wasn’t like things going wrong would ruin his life irreversibly—so why did Logan feel the need to impress Virgil, to make things go perfectly?

He pushed those musings to the back of mind for later analysis. He headed outside to be met with the uncomfortable heat he was so used to yet hated all the same. Wearing a black cotton button down did nothing to relieve the suffocating heat against his body. Silently, he cursed the sun as he glanced about, wondering where Virgil was. It hit him that they had never agreed to a specific time. For all Logan knew, Virgil could already by at the coffee shop waiting for him.

Swallowing thickly—he didn’t know why, he had no reason to be nervous—Logan walked over to his neighbor’s house and rapped his knuckles against the door, tapping his foot incessantly as he waited.

The door opened to reveal… not-Virgil. Logan vaguely recalled him as the drunken man who had popped up behind Virgil the first time he had given his neighbors a visit, though he could not remember the man’s name for the life of him. The man yawned, staring at Logan.

“You’re that teacher Virgil’s obsessed with, right?” he asked.

“…Yes?” Logan wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that, even if his heart did flutter a little bit at it. “Is he inside? We’re supposed to meet at Bourbon Coffee, but he failed to give a time. I thought it would be logical to go with him so we arrive at the same time.”

The man at the door chuckled. “Virgil’s got a date, eh?”

Logan flushed against his will. “Alright—first of all, it is not a date, and second of all, would you please just tell me where he is?” he pleaded. The man nodded with a lopsided grin, glancing behind him.

“He’s still asleep. Probably thought the date would be a late one,” he drawled, laughing at the way Logan grumbled at the continued use of the word “date.” The man stuck out his hand, at last (re)introducing himself. “I’m Roman. Nice to properly meet you.” Logan took his hand politely, shaking it as he tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as he looked inside the house to hopefully see Virgil.

“I’m Logan Guiscard. Pleasure to meet you as well,” he said, biting back his frown when he couldn’t see his enigmatic neighbor. He drew his hand back with an awkward sigh. “Well, please let me know when Virgil wakes. I would rather go with him to the coffee shop than wait for him.” Roman nodded, saying he would, and closed the door to leave Logan standing on the porch with a heavy heart, though he decided it was better not to analyze why he felt disappointed that he wasn’t able to see Virgil.

Logan felt his phone vibrate and saw a text from his brother. Are you there yet? it read. He texted back a quick response, smirking devilishly when a notification from his music service popped up, giving him a positively evil idea. He tapped on the notification, opening the app, and scrolled until he found a song Virgil would adore waking up to.

“Would you mind if I listened to some music while I waited?” Logan asked Roman as innocently as possible. The neighbor shrugged. He bit back his sly grin as he subtly turned his volume all the way, connecting to his speaker, which remained on the porch from their last morning encounter. He pressed play, and let himself smile at last as chaos erupted to the sound of My Chemical Romance’s “Planetary (GO!)”.

The first thing to happen was Roman bursting into laughter as he realized what was happening. The second thing to happen was a series of shouts from inside Virgil’s house. Two people emerged from the shadows—someone Logan had yet to meet, and Virgil. He felt himself smile without thinking at the sight of his neighbor. Virgil’s eyes were hooded and full of exhaustion, bent on the murder of whoever woke him up so early. They cleared upon seeing Logan, lighting up like fireworks, but quickly narrowed as he put two and two together and realized Logan was behind his early wake-up.

“Y’know, if it weren’t for the fact that I love this song, I would be throttling you, you damn player,” Virgil mumbled with a tired laugh. He was murmuring along to the lyrics, holding out a hand to the teacher. “Come on, aren’t you going to dance with me?” For a moment, Logan felt like he had landed on an alien planet, because in no galaxy would this ever happen, but the moment passed as soon Logan realized, foreign planet or not, there was no way he would ever refuse.

He took Virgil’s hand with a sheepish smile, a silent apology for his lack of skill when it came to the aesthetic movement of his awkward limbs. Virgil didn’t seem to mind as they danced—well, to call it dancing would be pushing it. It was more like what Patton had once described as “moshing”, a frantic but energizing thrashing of arms and legs with no regards of what others thought. It was fun. Logan found that he actually liked it—or perhaps it was only because Virgil was dancing with him, and in a few minutes they would be grabbing coffee together like a real couple… of friends.

When at last the song ended, both of them were gasping for air as they laughed like the idiots they were. Logan was grinning so hard it hurt, but he found he didn’t care. I like him. I really like him a lot.

For once, the thought didn’t scare him.

“I’m guessing you want to head to Bourbon Coffee?” Virgil was asking him. Logan nodded wordlessly, unable to speak as he regained his breath. Virgil smiled softly. “I’ll go change, then. I’ve shown up wearing pyjamas too many times, they’ll probably kick me out this time.” Virgil hurried inside to change out of his night clothes, leaving Logan alone with Roman and the new person.

“We haven’t met before, I’m Logan Guiscard,” he introduced, holding out a hand to them. Their eyes flickered over Logan for a moment.

“Desmond Inoni. Call me Dee. You’re the teacher Virgil’s obsessed with,” the man stated cooly, amused as Logan blushed furiously, spluttering incessantly. The teacher was unable to voice his objections further, as Virgil came running out, hopping on one foot as he shoved a black sneaker on. “You two have fun,” Dee called as they set off. Virgil flipped him off playfully over his shoulder as Logan motioned for him to get in the teacher’s car.

In ten minutes, they were sitting down in the cafe with their hot coffee. Logan had gotten a simple black coffee, with about a bucket of added sugar, and Virgil had ordered some complex drink the bartender seemed to have had memorized. They sat in a corner booth by the window, enjoying the company of some calming, though probably fake, spider plants. Logan tried his best to be inconspicuous as he studied Virgil Savage, the mystery himself. He studied the way Virgil bobbed slightly to the cliché electro swing, the way the sunlight lit up the dusk in his eyes, the way his lips curved when he smiled as he spoke about his short-lived endeavor to become a musician to pay his way through college.

“What about you?” Virgil inquired. “How did you pay for college?”

“I won a scholarship by writing about astronomy. Being a teaching assistant helped to pay for the rest,” he explained. “I had to work quite hard to keep my scholarship, so I never had as many chances to make relationships—platonic or otherwise.” He caught Virgil’s gaze as he mumbled, “This is actually the first time I’ve been out with someone besides my brother and his partner…” Virgil’s eyes visibly widened in disbelief.

“Never?!” Logan shook his head, less melancholic than the last time he had mused over the young adulthood he never had. Somehow, sharing his woes with his neighbor lessened their meaning. Virgil took a sip of his drink before continuing, looking out beneath his thick eyelashes. “…I’m glad you thought my company was worthy enough for you, Logan.”

Logan knew he would treasure the way Virgil said his name for eons, forever and ever until the final star burned out and left the universe dark. He would always remember the way his heart skipped a beat, something slotting into place. Even if nothing came of this experience, even if by some reason he never saw Virgil again, even if the world ended right that moment and he was the last being alive, he would know that he had fallen in love with Virgil Savage.

But his neighbor was not meant to be his soulmate. Virgil didn’t love him.

“Logan? You okay?” Virgil was waving his hand in front of his face, worry swimming in his eyes. “You kinda disassociated for a moment. Don’t worry, I do it all the time.” Logan almost chuckled at Virgil’s small blush. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he promised. “Just… glad you think my company is worth an early rise.” Virgil cracked a smile with a huff, shaking his head.

“Don’t think this changes things,” he warned. “I have a whole playlist you’re going to fall asleep to.”

“That would sound adorable and affectionate if I didn’t know what a scoundrel you truly are,” Logan fired back with a smirk of his own. “I promise I’ll have my own songs to share with you in the early morning hours.” Virgil laughed loud enough to draw the attention of other patrons, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

They sat and talked for what must have been hours, trading anecdotes, questions, and life advice. He learned that Virgil had grown up half an hour away in the backwoods of suburbia, that his favorite color was violet, his favorite animal was a bird of paradise because their dances were beautiful and stupid at the same time, that his parents were divorced but were still friends, that his biggest wish as a young, dumb kid was to be an astronaut and die among the stars. In return, he told Virgil about himself, how his mother had died when he was nine but he loved his stepmother just as much, how his adoration of space began when an astronaut came to his school, how his favorite article of clothing was an old baggy sweatshirt from his first year teaching.

Yet all good things must come to an end, and eventually Virgil had to ruefully apologize that he had an appointment he needed to go to, and had to leave.

He watched Virgil leave wistfully, stirring what remained of his coffee with a cheap plastic stick as he let his thoughts wander over mountains and meadows. Somehow, by some chance, he was in love with Virgil Savage.

Even if Virgil never loved him back, he would make sure to cherish him. He would love and he would lose, yes, but he knew it would be better than to love and to imagine what could have been.

The climax to it all came about a week later, after many continued meetups. Virgil had been hinting at some big finale to it all for the past few days, and Logan was both incredibly excited and incredibly terrified of what his neighbor was planning.

It happened on a clear October night, just as Logan was winding down from a particularly tiring day. Patton was packed and ready to leave tomorrow morning, already sleep despite the early evening hour, and as much as his puns and jokes exasperated Logan to no end, he was going to miss his brother.

The teacher was sitting at the dining room table, finishing up reading a student’s paper. He rubbed at his fluttering eyelids, trying to keep himself from falling asleep as he took another sip from his water, determined to have all his papers graded before he went to sleep. He glanced at his watch every few minutes, chastising himself for checking so often as though he were waiting for something, quickly righting his course of focus back to his yet-to-be-graded papers.

He was about to call it a night and resign himself to an early morning finishing yesterday’s work when it happened. Through the window, which he had left open so he could enjoy the sounds of the night, came the telltale beginnings of trouble, a faint rumble Logan had come to recognize as a bassline emanating from his neighbor’s house.

As he began to hear the lyrics, he tipped back his head with a groan that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be exasperated or amused. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me…” he muttered as he pushed away from the table to stumble to the window and stand bewildered at the apparent absence of life in the Savage household. Not even a bedroom light was on inside, and it seemed either Virgil had fallen asleep to The All-American Rejects, or this was Virgil’s finale. He knew it was the latter.

Sighing, he pushed away from the table with a clatter of his chair. Running a hand through unkempt tangles of hair, Logan all but shoved the door open and walked out into the brisk night, letting the overwhelming intensity of the song wash over him and take all worries of the papers on his kitchen table away from his mind. Then he noticed movement from one of the windows, and Logan knew to prepare himself for an overly dramatic performance that would have cemented his love for his neighbor if the secret space enthusiasm and the wistful eyes hadn’t already done so.

Logan’s hypothesis proved correct when the bridge of the song began, and people poured out of the house, just like in the music video—which he had watched dozens of times, in a long playlist titled “virgil’s favorites -- memorize!!”, because if he was going to be in love with the man, he might as well know more about what he liked.

And, just like in the music video, they began chanting the ever-plaguing verse as Virgil, playing the role of Tyson Ritter, strutted slowly and calmly down the steps to the teacher’s driveway, where Logan was waiting for him, an exasperated smirk greeting his neighbor.

As soon as Virgil was within an earshot, Logan called to him. “Is this your finale, then?” Virgil’s eyes lit up with playfulness as he stood toe to toe with the teacher, his grin bigger than a full moon.

“Was it too predictable for you?” Virgil retorted with a glimmer of affection in his voice.

“Perhaps,” Logan replied in the same dramatic air as Virgil. “Though I’m beginning to think maybe it’s because I’m rubbing off on you.”

“And maybe it’s because I’m letting you rub off on me. Maybe I like it,” Virgil laughed as he stepped but an inch closer. Logan could see the little discolored speckles in Virgil’s eyes now, from how close they were. Almost close enough to kiss, his brain supplied (un)helpfully.

At once, Logan’s entire demeanor changed. They were close enough to kiss, weren’t they? He’d been fantasizing about it on more than one occasion, though Logan always classified them as nothing but. Nothing but fantasies to tuck away for reminiscing. But here, under starlight, with Virgil looking like a Lunar Queen, with those mesmerizing eyes trapping his, those fantasies seemed more like memories.

“Logan,” Virgil whispered. And like that, the spell was broken. Logan broke from his dreaming to hear a silent night once more, the song having ended without his notice. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Virgil beat him to it. “Look up.”

And, oh, wasn’t that a sight.

“I was wondering why you weren’t outside watching the meteor shower, and when I texted Patton, he said you were grading papers. Can you believe it? Missing the coolest thing in the world for a couple of dead trees?” Virgil was saying, his voice soft and gentle as a blanket.

Logan, of course, was too busy looking to hear him.

Not looking at the meteor shower—oh, no, no. As gorgeous as the black-blue-purple swashes of paint across the heavens was, as breath-taking as the falling stars were, as inspiring as the night sky captured in pure happiness was, none of it compared to the beauty he was so enraptured by—the beauty, of course, being the look of pure awe in Virgil’s eyes as he watched the meteors shoot across the sky.

Without thinking, Logan leaned over, and kissed him.

It was brief, but as soon as he pulled away, he said, “I think I love you.” Just to cement it, of course. To make sure Virgil knew.

The man in question stared at Logan, his eyes wide with surprise, and lips parted in an unspoken gasp. Virgil said nothing. He only grabbed the back of Logan’s neck and pulled him for a second, better kiss.

Two shooting stars crossed the sky together above them, as if in love.

[btsoutsold13430]

The Oncoming Storm // BTS Hogwarts AU

Chapter 1 - Arrival

10:45 AM

Only fifteen minutes until the Hogwarts Express took off from the dreadful city. Yoongi walked away from the brick wall quickly as more and more families started piling in. His two large suitcases occupied both hands, and when asked for his ticket, he wasted time digging his pockets for the crumpled paper. He hates wasting time. After passing the checkpoint, he started loading the suitcases. But, he’s stopped midway of loading on his second when an aristocratic voice five feet away from him asks, “Isn’t it school regulation to only have one suitcase? Can’t be upstaging the poor mudbloods now, can we?” Yoongi turns to see his housemate Jimin smirking, his left hand in his trousers’ pocket. After fixing the second suitcase onto the train, Yoongi smirks at the younger boy and states, “Looking rather lavish for a train ride.” He stares at the all black ensemble Jimin donned, a tailor-made suite with Chanel broach attached against the breast pocket. “A muggle company? Thought you knew better?” “And, I thought you knew better. You know Chanel is owned by wizards now. Honestly, Min. I thought you would be dressed nicer. Must make a nice impression to all the drooling first years.” Yoongi rolled his eyes, and the two stepped onto the train to head towards the Slytherin compartments. Well… it isn’t necessarily theirs, but their house loves to stake claims. As the two took their seats in the compartment-less seats, Jimin began his idle small talk. Yoongi likes speaking to his younger housemate a lot, but at times, Jimin’s conversations bored him to tears. He mindlessly nodded appropriately to Jimin’s statements, looking out the window at the vast expanse of mountains. “You know I think squid ink is perfectly edible,” Jimin said, looking at Yoongi with piercing eyes. Yoongi nodded, but then the realization of the statement caused him to squint his eyes at Jimin. Jimin laughed and said, “You weren’t paying attention to me. And, there’s important things to be discussed. Namely,” Jimin paused and folded his hands across the table, “recruitment…” “Recruitment?” Yoongi asked impatiently. “For the dark lord,” Jimin said in a volume quieter than a whisper. Yoongi leaned back against his seat and shook his head. Jimin raised a brow at the reaction and elaborated, “No one’s asking you to join. I know how nonpartisan you are, but regardless, don’t get in the way of others joining.” “You mean you.” Yoongi sighed.  “Jimin, you’re fifteen. Think practically.” “I am!” Jimin exclaimed, and the other Slytherins turned to stare at them. Yoongi held up his hands in apology and turned back to Jimin to glare at him. Jimin gritted out, “Listen, Min. I’ve looked at other options. I would rather jump off a roof than work for my father, and as far as a ballet career goes, I’m going to save myself the embarrassment. I have nothing going for me. My marks are barely nonexistent. This is my only option.” Yoongi flared his nostrils but didn’t say anything more to the boy. When the night settled in, the two went off to change into their school robes. Yoongi opted to keep his tie untied around his neck. He rested his head against his seat and noticed keenly Jimin’s clenched jaw the rest of the ride until they finally stopped at Hogsmeade station. Yoongi exited the train without Jimin in tow. Entering a random carriage, he saw that two boys were already seated, waiting for the carriage to move. Yoongi moved passed them to sit towards the edge closest to the thestrals. He loved the creatures ever since he began using the carriages in second year. When his father died at the hands of a muggle robber, Yoongi was only eight, and he perfectly comprehended what had happened. Shaking his head to take himself out of the foul memory, he looked back at the other boys more closely. One he recognized, the Head Boy. “Heard you were made head boy while I was in the Bahamas, Kim. My mother was rather upset by the fact that I wasn’t made prefect, but I do appreciate that a sensible person was made head boy,” he said with a smirk. The boy in question chuckled and replied, “Please, Min, call me Seokjin. Namjoon over here was giving me the most confused expression.” The other boy blushed and went back to reading his book. “Oh, this isn’t the first time, Namjoon, ease up. British culture doesn’t suit Korean names now, does it?” He gave a squeaky laugh that was contagious enough to elicit a small chuckle from Yoongi. The carriage took off a few minutes later, and the more Seokjin talked, the more Yoongi wondered why he wasn’t friends with him sooner. But, the glaring, red emblem on his school robes was enough reason. The three stepped off the carriage and headed off to the dining hall.

It was late in the evening, but Yoongi didn’t have any desire to sleep. He gazed at the flames in the fireplace and thought of the upcoming war. There was no point in denying it; any sensible person could sense it coming. He really wanted to lay out all his anger on Jimin, but it would just drive the younger boy faster into a deep descent. There had to be a better approach in convincing him to not sell his soul to a half-blood dark lord with empty promises.

Yoongi rubbed his face and sighed. He got up from the couch, and the hearth immediately lost its flames. Quietly going up to his dormitory, he took out his larger second suitcase from under his bed. He unclasped the suitcase to reveal piles of sheet music, organized of course. One stack were the classics, another modern, separated by decades, and the last of his own pieces. A sensible wizard would have shrunk them to fit into a pocket, but Yoongi feared for the fragility of the paper. He grabbed some pieces and creeped out of the common room, quickly casting a Disillusionment Charm over himself. Making his way all the way up to the Room of Requirement, he paced in front of the area, and an ornate door appeared after a few moments. It was a bare room aside from one grand piano made of a deep brown wood with no added lacquer. Spiral designs went up the feet and along the wood closest to the ivory keys. A little too ¬wood-nymph for Yoongi’s tastes, but it was better than nothing. He set Chopin Nocturne op.9 no.2 in front of him and began playing the mellow tune, his fingers gliding across the keys. He breathed deeply as he pressed the pedal and felt the music consume him. Immediately, he was transported to his family home, his father playing the piano in front of him early Christmas morning when he was seven. He had unwrapped his final present of the day, from a distant cousin of his. A child’s racing broom, very expensive, as he recalled. His father smiled at the joy in his son’s eyes until he saw his wife coming into the room. He abruptly stopped playing the piano, and Yoongi was taken out of the memory. He stopped playing the song at the exact moment his father had. 

[chloespolandblog]

5 Interesting Nonfiction Books

1.) Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment by Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski

“The 14,500 Polish army officers, police, gendarmes, and civilians taken prisoner by the Red Army when it invaded eastern Poland in September 1939 were held in three special NKVD camps and executed at three different sites in spring 1940, of which the one in Katyn Forest is the most famous. Another 7,300 prisoners held in NKVD jails in Ukraine and Belarus were also shot at this time, although many others disappeared without trace. The murder of these Poles is among the most monstrous mass murders undertaken by any modern government. Three leading historians of the NKVD massacres of Polish prisoners of war at Katyn, Kharkov, and Tver—now subsumed under “Katyn”—present 122 documents selected from the published Russian and Polish volumes coedited by Natalia S. Lebedeva and Wojciech Materski. The documents, with introductions and notes by Anna M. Cienciala, detail the Soviet killings, the elaborate cover-up, the admission of the truth, and the Katyn question in Soviet/Russian–Polish relations up to the present.”

(amazon)

2.) The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–1945, by Wladyslaw Szpilman

“On September 23, 1939, Wladyslaw Szpilman played Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor live on the radio as shells exploded outside―so loudly that he couldn't hear his piano. It was the last live music broadcast from Warsaw: That day, a German bomb hit the station, and Polish Radio went off the air. Though he lost his entire family, Szpilman survived in hiding. In the end, his life was saved by a German officer who heard him play the same Chopin Nocturne on a piano found among the rubble. Written immediately after the war and suppressed for decades, The Pianist is a stunning testament to human endurance and the redemptive power of fellow feeling.”

(amazon)

3.) White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 and The Miracle on the Vistula by by Norman Davies

“In White Eagle, Red Star, distinguished historian Norman Davies gives us a full account of the Polish-Soviet War, with its dramatic climax in August 1920 when the Red Army—sure of victory and pledged to carry the Revolution across Europe —was crushed by a devastating Polish attack. Since known as “The Miracle of the Vistula,” it remains one of the most crucial conflicts of the Western world. Drawing on both Polish and Russian sources, Norman Davies shows how this war was a pivotal event in the course of European history”

(Goodreads.com)

4.) Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning

“Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of  RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.”

(Goodreads.com)

5.) The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City by Barbara Engelking,  Jacek Leociak, Emma Harris (Translator)

“The establishment and liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto has become an icon of the Holocaust experience. Remarkably, a full history of the Ghetto has never been written, despite the publication over some sixty years of numerous memoirs, studies, biographical accounts, and primary documents. The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City is this history, researched and written with painstaking care and devotion over many years and now published for the first time in English. The authors explore the history of the ghetto’s evolution, the actual daily experience of its thousands of inhabitants from its creation in 1940 to its liquidation following the uprising of 1943. Encyclopedic in scope, the book encompasses a range of topics from food supplies to education, religious activities to the Jundenrat’s administration. Separate chapters deal with the mass deportations to Treblinka and the famous uprising. A series of original maps, along with biographies, a glossary, and a bibliography, completes this masterful work.”

(Goodreads.com)

[dendre]

Hanglemez 2019/01

Rina Mushonga: Into A Galaxy  9.0  (pop) Andrew Wasylyk: The Paralian  9.0  (instrumentális pasztorál) Nivhek: After...  9.0  (ambient-dreampop) Sharon Van Etten: Remind Me Tomorrow  9.0  (dalszerzőpop) DJ Healer: Lost Lovesongs / Lostsongs Vol. 2  9.0  (ambient-broken beat) Yak: Pursuit Of  Momentary Happiness  9.0  (pszichrock) Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba: Miri  8.5  (mande) Stats: Other People’s Lives  8.5  (gitáros groovepop) Joose Keskitalo: En lahde surussa  8.5  (finn psychfolkpop) Rustin Man: Drift Code  8.5  (posztjazz-artrock) Nkisi: 7 Directions  8.5  (future techno) Angel Bat Dawid: The Oracle  8.5  (jazz) Dave Harrington: Pure Imagination, No Country  8.5  (artrock-postjazz) Lemonheads: Varshons 2  8.5  (feldolgozáslemez) DAWN: New Breed  8.5  (r&b-pop) Bigwave: Romantic  8.5  (japán future funk, disco) Emily King: Scenery  8.5  (szofiszti neosoulpop) Sister John: Sister John  8.5  (szép gitárzene) Woman’s Hour: Ephyra  8.5  (dream-szintipop) Methyl Ethel: Triage  8.5  (indie-szinti-pop)

Ultramarine: Signals Into Space  8.0  (ambient house) LCD Soundsystem: Electric Lady Sessions  8.0  (dancerock) Juan Wauters: La Onda de Juan Pablo  8.0  (uruguay-i indiefolk) Lifafa: Jaago  8.0  (indiai deephouse) Jay Mitta: Tatizo Pesa  8.0  (singeli, tanzániai juke) TOY: Happy In The Hollow  8.0  (pszichpop) Lip Talk: Days  8.0  (artpop) AJ Tracey: AJ Tracey  8.0  (grime) Jessica Pratt: Quiet Signs  8.0  (kamarafolkpop) Cosey Fanni Tutti: Tutti  8.0  (techno) YMA: Par de Olhos  8.0  (brazil indie-dreampop) Ian Brown: Ripples  8.0  (monkeyman) Girlpool: What Chaos Is Imagenery  8.0  (indiepop) Malibu Ken: Malibu Ken  8.0  (absztrakt hiphop) Mavis Staples: Live In London  8.0  (soul) Xiu Xiu: Girl With A Basket Of Fruit  8.0  (indusztri-experi) Deerhunter: Why Hasn’t...  8.0  (indierock) Maurice Louca: Elephantine  8.0  (arabjazz) Ill Considered: 5  8.0  (jazz) Jards Macalé: Besta Fera  8.0  (MPB) James Blake: Assume Form  8.0  (art&b-pop) Kele Okereke: Leave To Remain  8.0  (dancepop) Jonny Nash: Make A Wilderness  7.5  (ambient) The Specials: Encore  7.5  (skapop) Tallies: Tallies  7.5  (dreampop) Lau: Midnight And Closedown  7.5  (brit folk) Ustad Saami: God Is Not A Terrorist  7.5  (khyal, hindusztáni zene) Jungstötter: Love Is  7.5  (kamarapop) Sundays: Wiaca  7.5  (jangle-dreampop) Pavo Pavo: Mystery Hour  7.5  (dreampop) Bossy Love: Whiplash EP  7.5  (elektrorock) Graham Costello’s Strata: Obelisk  7.5  (jazz) Blockhead: Free Sweatpants  7.5  (absztrakt hiphop) The Telescopes: Exploding Head Syndromes  7.5  (spacerock) Swervedriver: Future Ruins  7.5  (shoegaze-rock) Ladytron: Ladytron  7.5  (elektro-dreampop) Steve Mason: About The Light  7.5  (posztpop) Biiri: Nihiloxica EP 7.5  (bugandai techno) Lowtec: Light Surfing  7.5  (house) Passarani: W.O.W.  7.5  (technohouse) Joe Jackson: Fool  7.5  (piano rock) Cass McCombs: Tip Of The Sphere  7.5  (psychfolk)

Mercury Rev: Bobbie Gentry’s Delta...  7.0  (psychcountry feldolgozáslemez) Czarface & Ghostface Killah: Czarface Meets Ghostface  7.0  (hiphop) Boy Harsher: Careful  7.0  (darkwave-szintipop) Uluru: Acrophilia  7.0  (stoner-psych) Ariana Grande: thank u, next  7.0  (pop) Better Oblivion Community Center: BOCC 7.0  (indiefolkpop) Panda Bear: Buoys  7.0  (avantpop) Blood Red Shoes: Get Tragic  7.0  (gitárpop) Michael Chapman: True North  7.0  (folkrock) Steve Gunn: The Unseen In Between  7.0  (folkrock) William Tyler: Goes West  7.0  (instrumental americana) Sarah Louise: Nighttime...  7.0  (experifolk) You Tell Me: You Tell Me  7.0  (kamaraindie) Sound Stream: Love Remedy  7.0  (discohouse) Lealani: Fantastic Planet  7.0  (artpop) Jorge Velez: Roman Birds  7.0  (ambient elekrtonika) Jay Glass Dubs: Epitaph  7.0  (ambient dub) King Midas Sound: Solitude  7.0  (ambient-dub-poetry) Bob Mould: Sunshine Rock  7.0  (powerrock) Pom-Pom: Untitled II  7.0  (techno) Curren$y & Wiz Khalifa: 2009  7.0  (déli hiphop) Black Dresses: Thank You  7.0  (elektro-glitch-pop) Sneaks: Highway Hipnosis  7.0  (indiehiphop) jonatan leandoer127: nectar  7.0  (hypnagogicpop) The Twilight Sad: It Won/t Be Like This...  7.0  (szindie-pomp) Ossia: Devil’s Dance  7.0  (techno-dubambient) British Murder Boys: Fire In The Still Air  6.5  (industrial techno) Cherry Glazerr: Stuffed & Ready  6.5   (indierock) Sunflower Bean: King Of The Dudes EP  6.5 (indiepop) Polkadot Stringray: valami  6.5  (japán indierock) Savage Mansion: Revision Ballads  6.5  (indierock) Pedro The Lion: Phoenix  6.5  (indierock) Queen Zee: Queen Zee  6.5  (garagepunk) One Step Closer: From Me To You  6.5  (poszthardcore) Lost Under Heaven: Lova Hates What You Become  6.5  (artpop) Sir Babygirl: Cruch On Me  6.5  (electropop) Spielbergs: This Is Not The End  6.5  (noise pop) Beirut: Gallipoli  6.5  (indiefolk) Massimo Volume: Il Nuotatore  6.5  (olasz posztrock) Guided By Voices: Zeppelin Over China  6.5  (indierock) Maggie Rogers: Heard It In A Past Life 6.5  (elektropop) Nina Nesbitt: The Sun Will Come Up...  6.5  (pop) Black To Comm: Seven Horses...  6.5  (dark ambient) Tree & Vic Spencer: Nothing Is Something  6.5  (trap) Silk Road Assassins: State Of Ruin  6.5  (uk bass)

Keuning: Prismism  6.0  (softpoprock) James Holden: A Cambodian Spring  6.0  (filmzene) Vangelis: Nocturne  6.0  (modern classical) Hauschka: A Different Forrest  6.0  (modern classical) G Herbo: Still Swervin  6.0  (gangsta drill) Sada Baby: Bartier Bounty  6.0  (trap) HEALTH: Vol 4: Slaves Of Fear  6.0 (electro-industrialpop) Fidlar: Almost Free  6.0  (garagerock) Rat Boy: Internationally Unknown  6.0  (indierockrap) Toro y Moi: Outer Peace  5.5  (szintifunk) Angelic Milk: Divine Biker Love  5.5  (lofi indie garage) Diva Sweetly: In The Living Room  5.5  (emopoppunk) Croatian Amor: Isa  5.5  (posztindustrial) Xosar: The Possessor...  5.5  (industrial techno) Pavel Milyakov: La Maison De La Mort  5.5  (ambient) Rival Sons: Feral Roots  5.5  (retrobluesrock) Bring Me The Horizon: amo  5.5  (pop) Lucki: Freewave 3  5.0  (cloud trap) Future: The Wizrd  5.0  (trap) Broods: Don’t Feed The Pop Monster  5.0  (elektropop) Weezer: The Teal Album (muhaha)

+++ Kankyo Ongaku - Japanese Ambient, Enviromental & New Age Music 1980-1990  9.5  (csodás ambient válogatás) Terre Thaemlitz: Comp x Comp  8.0  (DJ Sprinkles válogatása digitálisan kiadatlanokból - kimerítő, de sok erős félórával) Leon Vynehall: DJ-Kicks  8.0  (jó dance mix) VA: All The Young Droogs  8.5  (glamválogatás)

(Ezeken kívül még volt sok tucat lemez, amibe belehallgattam, és maximum 10 percet töltöttem velük, mert annyira nem nekem szóltak vagy szimplán borzasztóak voltak, ezeket nem is sorolom. És igen, ez amolyan laza sorrend.)

Ahogyan fogy az idő, úgy lesz egyre jelentéktelenebb egy közepes valami. Amikor tanulókorszakban vagy, akkor számít a közepes is, a rossz is, része a megismerési folyamatnak. Később persze már időpazarlás. Hasznosabb majdnem bármi (például újranézni a kedvenc filmjeidet), mint közepes dologra szánni az időd. De ettől függetlenül persze egyszer MÉG hajlandó vagyok végighallgatni majdnem mindent (lásd fent a sok közepes dolgot, úgy 6.5-től lefelé). Másodszor meg amúgy is nagyon keveset kell. A megismerési kedv nem csillapodik. De ez nem teher. még. 

A popzene nekem már nem annyira érdekes, hallgatom úgy 35 éve, és persze igyekeztem (sőt, igyekszem) végighallgatni, ami volt 1985 előtt is - lehet, hogy bármilyen korszakban elég lenne belőle ennyi, pláne ebben a lefelé tartó ágban. (Ettől még érvényes mellé az is, hogy még mindig nem unom, és nem látszik, hogy valaha is fognám unni.) Az viszont kétségtelen, hogy ami most érdekes lehet benne, az inkább az, hogy miről szól. Amelyik album harminc év múlva érdekes lesz ebből, az az, ami arról szól, hogy mi van most itt. Most viszont nem olyan egyértelmű megmondani, hogy melyik szól a legjobban arról, hogy mi van most. Harminc év múlva sokkal könnyebb lesz rálátni. Jelenleg ezt inkább csak érezni lehet, hogy ez, vagy az _például_ érdekes, ám lehetséges, hogy mégsem mondd annyit, amennyit majd harminc év múlva egy másik olyan, amelyik éppen a jelenben vehető észre nehezebben. Vagy persze csak adott esetben én nem veszem észre így.

Általában az van, ami évek óta van. Túl sok lemez van. Túlontúl sok (az évi 15 ezer lemezt lehet mondogatni a kétezres évek közepe óta, de ma már ez simán a duplája, ha nem triplája - csak február közepéig a Rate Your Music listáz 1000 db 2019-es lemezt és nyilván közel nincs itt az összes, és nyilván az év eleje még nem is olyan sűrű időszak). Ekkora mennyiségből könnyebb az átlagszínvonalat jó-közepesre kihozni, vagyis inkább kihozni egy látható(an nagyobb számú), mennyiségű jó-közepes albumot, mint abban a korban, amikor a sokszor nagyon mellélövő, rosszul számító számító lemezkiadók adott mennyiséget jelentettek csak meg, nehogy maguknak kavarjanak konkurenciát. Azaz teszem azt 1988-ban több volt a kimagasló LP, de értelemszerűen kevesebb mennyiségű a hasonló színvonalat képviselő tűrhető, ‘még érdemes hallani’ típusú zene. Most viszont a minőségi kontroll helyett működő bátorítás: “persze add ki, művész vagy, megcsináltad” rengeteg lelkes, de finoman szólva is fejlesztést igénylő albumot eredményez. Az évtized második felének nyilvánvaló nemtökéletességét képezi le a popzene? “Nem baj, a világ sincs rendben.” Mondjuk például 1996-ban elég sok szögből úgy nézett ki, hogy a Földön innentől már csak jobb lesz, abban a pillanatban nem szabadott félkész dolgot kiadni. És akkor hülyét tettetve megfeledkezem a 3T-ről és a Bush-ról.

Szóval, amelyik a legérdekesebben szól arról, ami van itt most, az zenei értelemben eddig 2019-ben talán nulla lemez volt. Ehhez zseniális újszerűség kellene, olyasmi, ami évek óta alig akad. Jól, szépen, megkapóan, érdekesen, egészen frissen megvalósított viszont mindig rengeteg lesz.

Eddig - ebben a vastagon kibővített januárban (február végén jóval rövidebb lista lesz) - egyrészt Rina Mushonga lemeze tetszett a legjobban. Nem tökéletes, a 9.0 kicsit túlzás, de a szerethetősége van akkora, hogy ellensúlyozza a nem annyira nagy hibákat. Ami engem zavar, hogy néha levakarhatatlanul florence-es az ének, de ez alighanem kevesek baja. Néha túl egyszerűek a szintihangok, nagyon kicsit befejezetlen hatásúak egyes részek. Viszont majdnem olyan jól gyúr egybe zsánereket, mint tavalyi lemezén Kali Uchis és ebben a popos melankóliában valahogy benne van 2019 eleje. Nem hallgattam még annyira sokszor, hogy meg tudjam fogalmazni, pontosan mitől mai, és mitől érdekesen mai amit mond, de van benne mit hallgatni, érdekel, fejteni akarom.

A másik eddigi idei kedvencem egy teljesen másmilyen lemez. Andrew Wasylyk albuma a békés félrevonulás zenéje, szemlélődő, pasztorálos. A kiindulás amolyan akusztikus gitáros-zongorás folk, amire a szokásosnál több ambient/drone-réteg került, de aztán még erre is egyre több fúvós-repetitív hangszerelés passzol tökéletesen. 

Nivhek, azaz Grouper szokásos magas színvonal, téli lemez, ami lehet jó lesz nyári éjszaka is. Sharon Van Etten pedig olyat csinált, amit sokat kell hallgatni, hogy igazán hasson. DJ Healeren annyira rajta maradtam tavalyról, hogy még ezek a szösszenetek is nagyon tetszenek. A Yaké végre egy olyan angol rocklemez, ami maradéktalanul tetszik. Super Furry Animals ugrott be róla többször is, a Spiritualized-szálat csak utólag fedeztem fel. Bassekou Kouyate egyértelműen az elmúlt bő évtized egyik legnagyobb világzenei sztárja, mindegyik lemeze jó, ez most talán azért is tetszik annyira, mert a tempósabb, néha már rockkal is flörtölők után ez ismét akusztikusabb, elmerengőbb. A Stats amolyan 2010-es évekbeli Hard-Fi, Joose Keskitalo a finn szuperpszichedelikus, imádnivaló Paavoharju egyik tagja volt, eszetlen az egészen egyenes vonalú, friss szólólemeze. Rustin Man LP-je kicsit olyan, mintha az utolsó Talk Talk és az első .O.Rang között készült volna, némileg dalosabb szándékkal, nagyon jó.  Nkisi a legjobb, friss tánczene eddig, Angel Bat Dawid nagyon erős szellős jazz, Dave Harrington jobb mint a Darkside-ban. A Lemonheads szuper feldolgozáslemezt adott ki, jobb mint a tíz évvel ezelőtti, Evan Dando bármikor úgy hangzik, mintha a saját dalát énekelné, tökéletes interpretáló. DAWN szokásos nagyon magas színvonalú r&b pop, mindig egy nagyon kevés hiányzik nekem ahhoz, hogy őrülten zseniálist kiáltva dobjam el tőle az agyam. Bigwave japán future funk-őrület, pc music-os diszkó, nem zárom ki, hogy hamar megunom, de egyelőre rajta vagyok. Emily King a neosoul felől szofisztipoposodott, amikor (ritkán) túl direkten haimos, akkor kevésbé, amikor organikusabb hangszerelésű, akkor nagyon tetszik. A Sister John egy kis skót indierockzenekar, egyszerű, nohipszter, notwee, klasszikus underdog, szép dalokkal. A Woman’s Hour egy beteljesítetlen reménység: az első lemeznek sokkal jobbnak kellett volna lennie, aztán meg nem kellett volna belerokkanniuk ennek a második lemeznek a készítésébe, amit most évekkel később mégis befejeztek és nagyon jól tették. Az ausztrál Methyl Ethel pedig lemezről-lemezre egyre jobb artpop, pontosabban szintis indie.

Ezek tetszettek a legjobban eddig. A második kupacban még olyanok vannak, amiket szerintem abszolút érdemes meghallgatni annak, aki bírja az adott stílust, a harmadik kupacban viszont már azok szerepelnek, amikhez rajongónak kell lenni és úgy sem kizárt a csalódás. Legalul meg, azokat hagyjuk. 

[cinful-stories]

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor (Robert x MC)

Angst? Angst. 

No warnings! Thanks for reading!

I press my ear to the door, waiting for the music just as Giles had said. “Be gentle enough not to alert him of your presence. An artist can become quite temperamental when disturbed.”  

I swallow hard on the lump forming in my throat. My eyes burn. I am too afraid to blink and interrupt his thoughts with the fluttering of my lashes. There was only silence hanging deftly in the air, and I began to believe he was absent from his studio until I heard the arm of the record player settle on a disc.   

“There’s a pattern of symphonies, my dear,” Giles had said, grinning at me with sympathetic eyes and a chagrined smile. “Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9 no. 2 is safe, as is Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Those are better days for him.”

“And Mozart’s Paris Symphony?” I asked, offering up the only knowledge of symphonies I had acquired from dancing lessons with Louis. 

Giles’s countenance fell grim. “Oh, definitely not. Entrance is not an option if you hear that one. He’s either received very unfortunate news or ran out of his morning tea.” 

There were many times when I did leave. The Paris Symphony was almost always on these days, ringing throughout the halls like a haunting melody--a reminder of his suffering. My heart would ache for him as the song played, sometimes for days on end. Those were the days when I considered knocking on his studio door but decided against it. Those were also the days were I felt the most guilty and had trouble sleeping, but it was for the best. 

Robert Branche liked to grieve in privacy. After his hibernation was over, there was no mention of it. Memories of a time spent in sadness were locked away somewhere in his brilliant mind, never to be reopened in front of anyone. Being in love with someone was already a difficult task, but being in love with Robert was even harder. 

The music begins to play at a deafening volume. It is one I am unfamiliar with, and I remain at my post, wracking my brain for what little knowledge I have concerning symphony composers. The jarring striking of fingers against the piano keys sound like gunshots. Violin strings hiss in agony while bows scrape across them like a knife on a cutting board. 

I recognize it. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor. 

“Shit,” I mutter, clenching my hands into fists. I recall my conversation with Giles. 

“That’s the only piece you must never enter when hearing it played. Robert is a mild-mannered and patient man, but do not mistake his restrained demeanor for an absence of rage. His fury is unrivaled by any tempest, unable to be calmed. Your presence will only make matters worse.”

I release a trembling sigh. Months of living in the castle have gone by, and not once have I not heeded Giles’s advice; however, today is an exception. Robert had summoned me to his studio. 

I consider leaving. He had not noticed my presence, and it would be easy to pretend that I had fallen ill. In fact, there was an arsenal of excuses at my fingertips that I could use at any time. I decide it is in my best interest to vacate the premises.

“You can come inside, you know.”

Robert’s flat voice strikes me in the gut. Air decompresses out of my lungs so quickly that I have a coughing fit and have to stabilize myself against the door frame. There is no avoiding it now. My hand wrestles with the brass doorknob, warm and clammy, until it twists. I am surprised by what I find inside. 

“My God, Robert, what happened in here?”

It’s the perfect murder scene, but the blood is tempera paint and the bodies are shredded canvases. A conglomeration of colors blends together in puddles, coating the surface of the hardwood floor in a rainbow of dripping paint. Brushes are strewn across his desk, snapped in half into wooden shanks. 

His hazel orbs never meet mine. They linger on the catastrophe around him. “I happened.” A look of utter dismay is stitched onto his face. His clothes are disheveled and bare an abstract pattern of stains. I cannot tell if they are from paint or other sources.

“You did this?” My voice peters out to a hushed whisper. I step closer to the wounded artist, wading through the sea of paint that laps at my ankles. “But why?”

One painting remains in front of Robert. It sits anxiously on its easel, afraid to join the others that had been torn to shreds or ripped down from the walls. The color scheme is bleak but stark in contrast. Chiaroscuro was an element of art used often by Robert that showcased abrupt transitions of dark to light, black to white. I had never seen it used to aggressively before. There is a lot of texture visible in the painting. Glops of undried paint leak down. Contoured lines coat the canvas, and one can clearly see where his wild brushstrokes had struck it over and over. I am unsure of what the image was supposed to be, but my immediate thoughts are of seething rage. 

“I’m not meant to be here, Princess,” he sighs. “I’ve been living at the palace for so long, leeching off of Giles’s kindness when I do absolutely nothing to repay him.” He tugs on his hair. The blonde mane is mangy and tangled with dried paint. “Sure, I’m a decent artist, but I serve no purpose to benefit him or anybody else for that matter. I do nothing but paint these wretched pictures for people and use up your time by making you sit for portrait after portrait when you could be doing other things like running a country! I serve no benefit to you either.”

At this moment, his eyes lock on mine. They are desperate and glittering with more colors than are present on the floor. His hands grab my shoulders roughly. 

“You are so fortunate, you know that?”

I nod hesitantly. “Y-Yes, Robert. I’m very grateful for being in the position that I am. I’ve always said that.”

“Yes, I know that, dear. That’s why you deserve every bit of this life. You’re kind, diligent, charitable, respectful. A beautiful, mature woman with sex appeal that drives men utterly mad with lust. You’ve only been Princess Elect for a few months but, by God, you’re already a queen in my mind.”

A blush paints my face a deep crimson. I am unable to move from his commanding grasp. His face, lost in darkness, inches closer to mine until his forehead presses hard against my own. The pain swimming in his eyes is clear. 

“You have learned so much in your short time here. Giles, Leo, Louis, Alyn--hell, even Nico teaches you things of value. They pour so much of their energy into you and have shaped you to be a fantastic ruler for Wysteria. But what have I taught you, Princess? Tell me what I have contributed to your life here.”

I am rendered speechless. My mouth hangs open, still reeling over his acknowledgement of my sex appeal. 

“See?” he cries, laughing cynically. “I’ve taught you nothing. Nothing except how to shut out your feelings. I’ve taught you to fear me when I’m sad, when I’m angry.”

“Robert, stop,” I demand, twisting away from his grip. He quickly brings me to his chest, holding my face against his breast. His heart pounds against my ears and almost drowns out the screeching music.

“Don’t you get it? I can’t stop. I can’t stop feeling this way, and I sure as hell can’t stop myself from wanting to do this.” He gestures to his arms wrapped tightly around my spine. “I can’t stop feeling like I want to touch you and ravish you, even though I know I don’t deserve to see you in that way. You don’t want to be around me, and I don’t blame you. I could never love someone like me. At least not in the way that I love you.”

“Robert, don’t say things like that!” I protest, tears welling up in my eyes. “Of course I love you!” Hearing my own voice form the words I had been wrestling to say for months is a foreign concept to me, but it feels right. Especially in a moment when he obviously needed to hear it.

He pauses in his outpouring, a wave of shock washing over his face. It quickly fades into inward conflict.

“Oh yeah?” he barks, pushing past me and marching toward the door. Paint sloshes onto his shoes and splatters against the hem of his pants. He slams the door shut. The din clatters down the hall, and I shudder in fear. “Then why didn’t you come inside?” 

His voice trembles then. The anger melts into sorrow and suffering. Tears begin to stream down his face as he slides down to the floor, knees tucked up to his sternum. 

“You never came inside. You never came to see me. Why didn’t you?” he whimpers. “I asked for you.”

I shatter into pieces. For months I have been warned not to disturb the artist in his time of pain, that he preferred the isolation, the lockdown. The picture of the broken man sobbing before me tells me otherwise, and I cannot help but feel responsible for not acting on my impulses to visit him during the late hours when the Paris Symphony played. He didn’t need silence. 

He needed me. 

Without a word, I walk toward the crumpled artist. I sink to the ground beside him, ignoring the damp paint soaking into my dress, and nestle my head into the curve of his neck. His blonde hair hangs in my face, and his body rocks as he cries. I allow him the right to cry and give him time before speaking again. 

“Do you know why I didn’t come inside?” I ask. I feel him shudder, stifling a sniffle. He shakes his head, and I continue. “I thought that I was doing you a favor by letting you grieve in peace. I thought that I was being a friend to you by letting you process your pain in your own ways, even if I disagreed with those ways. I wanted to honor your privacy and respect your space, but I see now that I should’ve paid more attention. I needed to open my eyes, Robert, and be here for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t.” I am crying now, tears spilling down my face and intermingling with his. “I’m so sorry.”

We stay like that for a spell and watch the sun set through the open window of his studio through blurry eyes. 

“I love you,” he whispers into my hair. “I love you so much.” He is a broken man before me.

I cradle his hands in mine. “I love you too, Robert. We’re going to fix this, you and me.”

He nods and weeps harder. I do not know how to remedy his turmoil, and somewhere deep within me, I know it is something beyond my control. Giles was right: nothing can calm him. But I want to try. 

Robert settles down in my lap, the back of his head pressing against my abdomen. My fingers comb through his locks, attempting to break apart the paint intertwined in them. As we sit in his studio, the paint dries around us and on us, anchoring our limbs to our spot on the ground. In the background, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor drones on, smothering the sounds of our grief.