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castiel-left-his-mark-on-me · 3 years

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Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!

Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."

It was a wild time haha.

In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.

We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.

After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.

Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.

Who isn't being optimistic though?

Jared Padalecki.

When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"

As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.

However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.

The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.

Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.

The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?

In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.

But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.

So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!

💖💖💖

#omg #I don't even know if this makes sense #this took way too long to write #j2 #cockles #long post #spn family #so glad you see you back again my dear #welcome to hell #it's hotter now

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lunapaper · 3 years

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Album Review: 'Screen Violence' - CHVRCHES

I’ve said it a lot over the years, but it bears repeating: I thought Love is Dead was awful. Most people did, in fact.

Working with super-producer Greg Kurstin, CHVRCHES’ 2018 album saw them go from sinister wordplay and cinematic soundscapes to repetitive hooks, vague platitudes and bland, Imagine Dragons-style EDM pop.

Needless to say, it didn’t go down well. In their attempt to appeal to mainstream audiences and Spotify algorithms, the Scottish trio had managed to disappoint critics and alienate longtime fans. Accusations of ‘selling out’ get thrown around all too often, but it really did feel like a betrayal of sorts.

And it only got worse from there, with the band collaborating with pop’s Kiss of Death, Marshmello, on the tepid ‘Here With Me’ (a decision they later came to regret).

Lauren Mayberry didn’t take kindly to the criticism, even accusing Stereogum’s Chris DeVille of supposedly using the record as a ‘symbol or scapegoat for something.’ What the frontwoman had a problem with is not entirely clear, though she seemed to chalk it up to politics, writing in a series of now-deleted tweets:

‘You can write a crappy album review and feel smart and what do I give a shit. But don’t minimise the ‘resistance’ as a comical joke/a stupid thing that you think is funny or smart because you are privileged enough to not actually have to think about it in real terms. It actually matters to people who live outside of you moment/life/world view, so shame on you. Maybe I live in my ‘inter personal comfort zone’ but at least I give a fucking shit. What can you say in exchange?’

DeVille’s take was, in my opinion, quite fair, even if he does admit that Love is Dead is ‘not a faceplant, but it’s definitely a stumble.’

Mayberry’s knee-jerk reaction, unfortunately, left a bitter taste in my mouth, impacting my already low opinion of Love is Dead. As I’ve also stated time and time again: What’s the point of responding to a negative review without looking petty as fuck? If you don’t want your art judge by the masses, then being an artist is probably not for you.

It’s also pretty rich of the band to try and make excuses for why everyone hated Love is Dead. No one made you produce a generic pop album. No one made you write and record a ‘tacky pop song’ with Marshmello. How could you not know that he’s a sleazy EDM bro, the rest of us did! Don’t take your shitty creative decisions out on everyone else – that's on you.

So, have CHVRCHES been able to rectify the damage on Album No.4? For the most part, yes.

Keeping production duties in-house this time around, Screen Violence combines the dystopian feel of their 2013 debut with the sleek gloss of later releases.

Written and produced through screens between LA and Glasgow in the early stages of the pandemic, the record explores the horrors that play out on screens via social media and how they translate into real-world feelings of fear, isolation and hopelessness.

On the ‘depressing but hopeful’ Asking for a Friend,’ Mayberry admits ‘'Cause I sunk some ships with selfish lips/And it all came back to me/I was terrified//I never told them why,’ riddled with self-loathing and regret. On ‘He Said She Said,’ she reckons with industry sexism and social contradictions, the track recalling the heady euphoria of the trio’s earlier singles.

‘Killing your idols is a chore/And it's such a fucking bore/'Cause I don't need them anymore,’ she asserts on the glistening ‘Good Girls,’ obliterating the pedestal that some male artists sit upon. Insecurity, however, gets the better of her on ‘Final Girl,’ wondering if she should just ‘quit, maybe go get married’ before she becomes yet another victim of the Hollywood machine.

Repetition is also employed a hell of a lot better than it was on Love is Dead. When Mayberry tells you she feels like she’s losing her mind on ‘He Said She Said, it’s like she’s in the grips of madness while trapped in a cybernetic void. Fear grips her by the throat on standout track ‘Violent Delights’ as she begs ‘I don't want to see it’ over and over again.

Screen Violence also lives up to its name music-wise, proving a lot darker and more foreboding than 2015’s Every Open Eye and even The Bones of What You Believe.

There’s jangling indie rock on ‘Violent Delights’ that give the track a foggy sense of nostalgia. On the menacing ‘Final Girl,’ they drive Mayberry’s sense of panic as she stares back in disbelief at a flickering screen, while the thumping New Wave angst of ‘Lullabies’ sees her vocals soar. Final track, ‘Better If You Don’t’ is almost straight-up grunge, evoking the feel of a rainy Glasgow morning.

And apparently ‘Nightmares’ was ‘too metal for German radio,’ suitably chilling as Mayberry asks: ‘What is it like to be the apple of your own eye?’ It could almost be mistaken for a Poppy track. Darkest, though, is ‘How Not to Drown’ with The Cure’s Robert Smith, their dissonant tones rising from the murky deep like a haunting spectre.

Screen Violence doesn't reinvent CHVRCHES, but it does help to reinvigorate them, even if the record feels a little samey at times. Some mediocre lyrics also manage to slip through the cracks, yet Mayberry’s commentary is overall cutting, brutal and sometimes tragic.

From trying to seem perfect on Love is Dead to realising things aren’t so fucking perfect after all, the trio discover that there’s ‘freedom in failure.’ Though they might never reach the dizzying heights of The Bones of What You Believe or even Every Open Eye again, CHVRCHES have found a groove that works for now just as the world finds itself in the grips of an ongoing nightmare.

Hopefully they’ll be able to sustain this momentum in the long run...

- Bianca B.

#music #chvrches #screen violence #new #reviews #albums #Bianca B

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uwunnie · 4 years

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Hello, everyone.

To recap: There are new fans, and old fans as well as recently turned fans, who truly believe you have to choose Monsta X or Wonho otherwise you’re not a “real” fan. It has reached a point where toxic idiocy is spewed all over Twitter — not really that surprising, but still very annoying — and it has now reached Tumblr; the one place I felt was pretty neutral.

Initially, I wasn’t going to say anything because I felt like it’d only add to the drama. However, as time passes, I see the fandom heading into a direction that is very...well, doomed. Of course, this is merely my opinion and I don’t really expect anyone to hold it to a high regard because I am not God, nor do I believe I am a God-like figure. However, I do think I can still state my opinion upon the matter and try to shed some knowledge that may be utilized positively.

Before I begin, I’m going to try and insert a ‘Read More,’ but should I not be able to make it to a laptop in time before my patience completely disappears, I will tw it as a “long post.” If you dislike long posts and don’t have them filtered, though, and this pops up on your dash and annoys you — I apologize, kinda.

Anyways, let’s go.

—

I don’t really know what happened. Or well, I do, unfortunately.

In the beginning, Monbebes stuck together. We all came together and showed our support as a united body of like-minded individuals who shared their love and support for Monsta X — whether they were seven or individual.

Things went well. Petitions were signed. Billboards were funded. Zoo’s were created.

But at some point, Monbebes began idolizing other Monbebes — and I don’t mean looking up to sensible fans, but ones who are problematic.

Allow to me to repeat this to avoid misunderstandings: It’s okay to look up to fans who are NOT problematic. It really is — be friends with them, aspire to be more like them, I don’t care; do you so long as it’s positive.

But....but....to choose problematic fans to look up to? To choose ones who are known to fetishize a culture? To choose ones who are known, and praised, to fetishize sexualities? To choose ones who provide false hope in exchange for clout while simultaneously invading REAL people’s lives?

Yeah, that’s where everything went wrong.

The wrong people built platforms and their voices were, inevitably, elevated. Everyone began dividing and forming cliques in the name of “unity.” Everyone began losing sight of the big picture — the big picture being a positive resolution.

People stated they wanted a positive outcome, but only if it was on their terms.

Greed. Greed. Greed.

Selfishness replaced selflessness.

Various Monbebes began inserting themselves into the narrative as if it was their own personal emotions that mattered more than Monsta X’s — and that’s not to devalue anyone’s feelings, but I mean...it’s the boys who were directly affected by what happened.

Wonho was the one who had to receive backlash for past events that don’t equate his worth.

Shownu’s voice was silenced despite being a victim to sexually implicit lies and harassment.

Minhyuk sacrificed his own emotions and began keeping hardships to himself.

Kihyun was forced into voicing over his friend’s song lyrics, and is also continually made fun of despite him speaking out and asking fans to not refer to him as “small” and “tiny.”

Hyungwon received, and continues to bear, backlash because certain fans think he’s a liar and also like to criticize him for being “lazy” as if the dude doesn’t work his ass off every day.

Jooheon’s mental health issues were pushed under the rug by many people within the fandom and as soon as he returned, various fans demanded he work more — try harder, be louder and more energetic.

Changkyun’s emotions were disregarded — many fans stating he has an “attitude problem” and seems cold despite the dude literally trying to make everyone around him happy and also sticking up for Monbebes.

Monsta X, regardless of the number, were all continuously pushed past their limits; treated as machines and play-things rather than human beings.

And this is only what has been shown to us. Think about everything that’s transpired that we haven’t seen.

—

I understand that those months were hard, I really do. I was right there with everyone not getting any sleep and trying to balance school, work, projects, etc. I understand it was very emotionally upsetting and I am not devaluing anyone’s feelings because I know it was hard.

But a line has to be drawn.

There has to be a realization that it is Monsta X who has endured the worst of the entire situation. It is not fair to say that the fans had it worse when MX’s actual jobs, lives, health, and futures were all tampered with, endangered, and victimized.

And to top it off — as positive of a resolution that could be made in the situation has been met and people continue to complain.

I understand it may not be ideal — everyone wanted them to come together as seven again and I know how disheartening it is that that isn’t an option right now, but...they’re still here.

Wonho get’s to continue with his career. He can still interact and talk to us. He can do what he wants — I mean, the dude literally has a whole Instagram account to himself when it took a year or two, maybe more, just for SSE to give MX personal cell phones.

The six active members get to continue as well. They released an album that is more than likely going to be nominated for a golden disc award and they’re all, seemingly, recovering. They’ve been able to vacation and from the looks of it, the company is going a little easier on them with their schedules — in a way.

In other words: All seven of them are content.

And for the fandom, we still get to see them. We get to listen to their voices and see their faces. We get to interact with them and watch new shows, etc.

They’re still here — and honestly? It’s a miracle.

Do you know how hard it is for a people to continue considering what transpired? How unusual it is for an artist to be able to overcome legal battles that usually deem unfavorable in the position he was in?

I’ve been in the Kpop fandom for nearly 12 or 13 years now and this is the first time I’ve ever seen legal cases turn out okay for an idol.

History was made and a positive resolution was met, but yet — hardly anyone wants to celebrate.

Instead, a big chunk of the fandom now wants to dive into more drama — separate Monbebes and Wenees from each other and build more cliques.

Say stupid shit like “you’re not a real fan if you only support Monsta X” and “you’re not a real fan if you only support Wonho.”

“Wenees are superior.”

“Monbebes are superior.”

“Wenees love Wonho!”

“Monbebes love Monsta X, and Monsta X only!”

“Let’s listen to boycottbebes!”

“Let’s listen to problematic tarotbebes!”

“Let’s listen to akgaes!”

Just...shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut. Up.

—

I hate to break it to everyone who believes the quotes above, but we are all the same.

Monbebes are Wenees, and Wenees are Monbebes.

There is no competition.

There is no Monsta X without Hoseok, and there is no Hoseok without Monsta X.

—

You cannot hate the root and only love the flower just like you cannot hate the flower and be fascinated by its roots. In the same regard, a leaf cannot hate another upon the stem because to do so would be the leaf despising itself.

—

TL;DR: Stop the fan wars before you ruin damn near six years of love and (relatively abundant) peace.

#i have said my peace #tw: long post

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tothedarkdarkseas · 4 years

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D'you feel like Gorillaz has become more gentrified? Like, they've really reversed a lot of the character design from Phase 1 imo. I can sort of see where "soft boy Stu" is coming from; looking at Humility versus Tomorrow Comes Today, there has been a huge departure of character. Same with Noodle (who is showing more cleavage than any other phase) and Murdoc (who seems to take himself MUCH less seriously). What do you think?

Hi anon! This has been tough for me to answer because there’s such a tension in the fandom right now, and as ever, I’m sort of the most useless type of person who falls a bit in the middle. I’m just doing a bit of stream of consciousness here, so I’m sorry if it’s ever unclear!

To start, I want to clarify that I do understand what you mean by “gentrification” in a more colloquial media setting like this, and I don’t want to seem pedantic, or like I’m picking on you or disagreeing-- but for me, “gentrified” is not really the word I would use to describe Gorillaz. Again, that isn’t me try to point to the dictionary and contest the meaning on paper, words evolve with us as our usage of them evolves, and in this context I’d infer it as meaning the project is being made more profitable for white and upper-class voices at the chief cost of devaluing marginalized people. Now, I know we’re talking about the characters here, but... Gorillaz is always a bit weird to talk about because it’s such a multi-faceted project, and I do have some regretful feelings that the work of hundreds of people often goes dismissed in the full scale of the “is Gorillaz bad actually” conversation. I do apologize if it seems like I’m willfully misconstruing the question to push the subject, I promise that isn’t my intent and I’ll get back on topic-- it’s just something I’d like to express some appreciation over while we’re discussing the good and bad of the project. There aren’t many bands in existence, and none on their level of mainstream fame in the English-language market, who bring this many POC artists to the forefront, heavily featuring not just superstar crossover collaborators but smaller indie or unknown artists performing on a larger stage without being asked to compromise the culture in their music. The fact that Song Machine has three non-English languages featured on different tracks, including Xhosa, is pretty cool and not something you often stumble across. That doesn’t mean the band, real or fictional, is perfect by any stretch-- but I’ve never gotten the sense that the collaborators are being used by Gorillaz or asked to follow only what they’re told, but that the band backs the collaborators in making the music they bring to them.

I recognize that’s not entirely on topic for this question, but it’s sort of aimed at the broader conversations happening right now I guess. Like, we’ve all been seeing a lot of strong feelings about the band by now, haven’t we? So er, y’know, hot on the heels of this album, I just wanted to ramble about my opinion on the band’s side of it, and whether Gorillaz as a band has lost what makes them special. As far as the music goes, no, I don’t personally feel that way, so I’m still pretty jazzed on this album.

As for whether the characters have been moving in reverse or stagnating-- I’d have to agree, yes, I look at soft boy Stu and it feels pandering. That isn’t necessarily to discount that anything of value has come from Gorillaz since then, they’re just... rather inconsistent. Truthfully, it’s difficult to speak to because I do have to take into account that my vision of the characters isn’t really entirely in-line with canon, even the older canon, but is much less so with the newer stuff. I can’t say there aren’t moments that have frustrated me, between art or interviews-- and it’s the things I know earn me ire to express because it is a selfish want, it’s the cute stuff people like that I often don’t, and so I have to step back and assess what is an objectively (or as close to objective as we’ll get) disagreeable direction, and what simply doesn’t gel with what I want the characters to be. I think it’s very often the latter, but of course there’s part of me-- as there is with near everyone in the fandom-- who thinks that something I really dislike is inarguably not as compelling. On the flipside, there have been bits scattered here and there that did gel with my ideas of the characters (this refers primarily to Stu and Murdoc) that seemed completely reviled and rejected when they happened. Er, so the wishy-washy thing I’m getting at is: yes, Gorillaz is surely different. In particular Stu is written and drawn quite differently, to the extent that there is a completely fractured image in the fandom of what “in character” means for him, and I’m not always happy with everything we get. I’ve had to just “distance” myself from canon-- which, to be quite honest, even though this is a popular mindset with shippers I don’t actually say it with much pride. I do have a sense of embarrassment at how it sounds for me to say it “doesn’t matter” if it’s in-character when I guess I’ve wished that I was... I don’t know, doing some kind of good and thoughtful thing for the character and his potential, rather than just writing him as an OC, which is what it increasingly looks like I’m doing. (Hell, it increasingly is what I’m doing, and I don’t love to feel that way but in the effort of honesty I do recognize it.) For Murdoc, I don’t personally mind his presentation nearly as much, though I can see how he’s leaning more cartoony by the day. While there were some missed opportunities for better Debunked sessions, better interviews, or better videos, I haven’t been totally wrong-footed by him either. At worst, the jokes we’ve gotten from him have felt a bit toothless, and at best I’ve also felt like there were some winners in there. I’d be glad to simply ignore the “plot” around the portals, but even when engaging with it, I can see the idea behind having Murdoc aimlessly chase them-- maybe for profit, maybe for control, maybe just because they exist around him and it is his core driving need to take and to have. That isn’t to say it’s handled as well as it could be, but I sort of just... look past it to be frank with you, haha. It hasn’t been spoiling me on Murdoc, I suppose. That’s just my own feeling, though.

I’m staying optimistic that the almanac will have some funny Murdoc bits, but I’m more nervous about Stu’s parts of it. I have hopes and fingers crossed, but I also have a lot of fear based on the direction Stu’s gone in for a while now. Yes, it does bum me out quite a lot, I admit. Hope springs eternal, though, and I do still perhaps foolishly believe that Jamie and the writers have a bit more love for mumbling, zombie-faced, “a bit thick” laddish Stu than they do for the soft boy and they might make some efforts to give us something. Touch wood.

If I’m being honest though, despite taking issue with a lot of choices I haven’t lost my love of Gorillaz as a project partly because I sort of think we’ve had rose-tinted glasses toward previous phases, and there is some extent of editorializing that goes on about the band’s history. I think Gorillaz’s plot writing now is pretty bad, but I also think Gorillaz’s plot writing has always been pretty bad. I think it rides on the characters like it has always ridden on the characters, and it is uneven in that respect because it has always been uneven. I think these statements-- that it is worse now, and that it is not actually a steep decline-- both feel true for me, but I can’t say how true they feel for you! And that’s alright! Just my two cents. It’d be a lie to say I’m thrilled with everything over the past two years or so, but it’d also only be hurting myself to lean into the frustration and force myself to become more upset if I have the ability to compartmentalize and make my peace.

#long post #this isn't meant to step on toes! i just have some compacted feelings... which i shove down because i still enjoy a good joke #thank you for the question anon! i hope you know that i was not aiming to disagree or put words in your mouth!#Anonymous #i keep trying to insert a read more and it just isn't working so i'm v sorry about that

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lukehemss · 4 years

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( i will follow you into the dark - luke & ashton. )

WHO: luke hemmings & ashton irwin & michael clifford.

WHEN: 03/13/21

SUMMARY: luke and ashton have a heart-to-heart after luke wakes up.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: mentions of a car accident, mentions of drunk driving, cursing, hospital setting.

@xash-bloomx & @clifford5sosx

Ashton: Luke was supposed to be home at midnight. Now he knew better than to truly count on that. It could be one or two, but there was also the prospect of dinner, or maybe Ashton just wanted him home. He tried not to be the clingy boyfriend, but he didn't want to overdo and wake old habits when they went out to party. He also didn't want to tell Luke what he thought he should do since it was a personal choice. There were just a lot of things on his mind lately. He wasn't sure what set him off the way it did when Luke didn't show up, but there was something that felt off. As time wore on, a cute text became more frantic, and soon he was a ball of panic. By pure luck he remembered how to use the Find My app to locate his missing boyfriend. He could feel his heart tighten in his chest. The hospital. He knew. There was something, likely the paranoia that came with a missing boyfriend, that told him Luke wasn't a visitor. Michael had agreed to pick him up as Ashton was making the phone calls to find Luke's room, confirming what he feared the most. While Mikey tried to convince him that Luke wasn't dead, Ashton's mind was doing a thousand miles an hour, trying to fend off the worst thoughts. Mikey had to help him in the car. He actually didn't remember the trip to the hospital at all. He's only remember that it was really one of the first times Michael's car wasn't full of chatter or music. He stumbled out, dressed in sweats and a hoodie and made it to reception to find the room. He was informed that visiting hours were over, but since this was a new patient just brought in, they allowed the frantic boyfriend to go down the hall. Ashton informed the nursing staff immediately that he would be staying.Once he had heard about the injuries and was finally left alone, he pulled up his chair and dropped his head against Luke's for a minute, avoiding the wires and tubes still connecting him to machines. "I'm sorry," he whispered, not sure why he was apologizing at all. The tears fell that he'd been holding in. He was exceptional at keeping his feelings bottled up, but now they weren't about to be contained. "Why, baby? I love you. I do. You even said that to me. Why?" He really wasn't going to get an answer very soon. According to the next nurse to check, the morphine would keep him out for several hours. Ashton curled up in the chair and she brought a pillow and blanket. It didn't matter that he was entirely too tall and cramped. This was home for the duration. He wasn't sure when he drifted off, fading in and out when the staff wasn't checking up on Luke, but he did manage a little sleep.

Luke: luke was exhausted.it had been approximately fourteen hours since he had arrived at the hospital, a mixture of morphine and other various pain meds keeping him under from the moment he had been wheeled past the ER doors. his nose had been set and his arm had been placed in a sling to keep him from moving and disturbing his broken collarbone. his once flawless face was adorned with stitches, a chest tube settled between his ribs on his naked torso. to say he looked like hell was an understatement, but his appearance was the last of his worries. as he woke, glad the hospital lights had been dimmed, luke’s first worry was alex. his friend had been seriously hurt and it was entirely luke’s fault. the guilt squeezed at his heart, reminding him over and over about how bad the previous night had been. he had fucked up. bad. mouth dry and throat sore, luke could only assume that he had a breathing tube in earlier but it had been removed at some point during the day. thankfully. “ -- alex?” he mumbled, still hazy from the drugs in his system. blue eyes flickered around the room, circled in a ring of a bruises. yeah, his nose had definitely broke from the impact. “alex?” he lifted his head, careful not to disturb the tubes and wires that wrapped around his body like vines. it wasn’t alex that his gaze settled on, but ashton.fuck. fuck. fuck. if luke didn’t hate himself before, then he did now. “ashton?” he didn’t dare raise his voice above a whisper, afraid that speaking louder would only unleash the wrath he was so afraid of. he deserved it, though. he deserved the anger and the hurt. he knew this. “fuck, ash. i’m so sorry.”

Ashton: Ashton didn't really know about Alex, or that they had been together. Not that way, but hearing the other name as the first one out of Luke's mouth had an impact that wouldn't be quite evident by his face. Ashton was the master of hiding pain. Listen to the album, then look at his face. The two didn't match, but they did. A green eye opened under the dark curls that flopped over it. He brushed it away and sat up. He swallowed thickly and shoved that lump in his throat back down. "Hey. You're awake." He took the unsuspended hand, and held it. All those tubed looked terrible. "It's okay." No, it really wasn't. "They say you are going to be fine. The wreck was pretty bad." He didn't know exactly. Technically he wasn't family, so they couldn't tell him everything. "Do you remember what happened?" He looked down after a moment, unable to handle all of this. He knew Michael was angry, but he still lurked around the hospital. Michael was like a sentinel, always the vigilant watchman until it was time to attack. His presence had helped a lot.

Luke: "i'm awake." luke confirmed, letting his head rest back down against the soft pillows. his head was killing him, a faint throb always present. it would've been so easy to slip back under and let sleep claim him again, but he didn't dare. he wanted to be with ashton. "mmm. i wish i didn't, but yeah. left jack's party and hit a cement pole on the way home." he gave ashton's hand a squeeze, thinking over his next words. luke's main worry, aside from alex and his condition, was ashton's reaction. "i was ... uhm." he paused, swallowing. fuck. luke didn't want there to be any secrets between them, but it killed him to be truthful. "i was drunk behind the wheel."

Ashton: Ashton swiped at his cheek where a stray tear had fallen. He was angry. Really he was hurt, but there wasn't much difference. He was being selfish and stupid and he chastised himself silently. Of course the hour of sleep that he had dozed off wasn't doing him any favors. Green eyes stared back at his boyfriend while he chewed the inside of his lip until he tasted blood. Slowly he let go, and stood and walked to the window. For a minute, he just couldn't look at Luke. It was way too much. He wasn't surprised. He was more surprised that it hadn't happened sooner, but he was hoping that it would change while things were good between them. They were both healthy, or in a much better place, so those things would follow. He was wrong. He was at a complete loss for words. "You are going to be fine. That's the biggest thing, but then what?"

Luke: luke's fingers curled around the open air before he let his hand fall back to his side. there it was -- that moment of abandonment that he feared. he had always been his own worst enemy. emotions were buried in drugs and liquor, keeping himself comfortably numb. he always had to be the life of the party, always had to make sure everyone had their eyes on him. it was finally catching up to him. he watched ashton walk towards the window, silent before he let his own eyes focus on the wires that were taped to the back of his hand. he was nervous, wondering if he'd be leaving the hospital single and more alone than ever. "-- then what?" he frowned, finally glancing up at the back of ashton's head. "then i get to go home. i get to fix this mess."

Ashton: Ashton didn't have any plans on leaving, but he just couldn't look, couldn't touch or anything right now. He was overloading, but he wasn't going anywhere. He'd stay, kind of like the Greyhound in his song. He ran around and around never getting anywhere until Luke broke them up. He rested panes on the cool glass. He forced himself to breathe. "What about me? What about us? Didn't we even matter to you? I swear," he turned to look, catching his breath at the miserable mess that he was, "Were you gonna just leave me like that, or go to jail or what? Then what? Do you even think before you do stupid shit what it could do to us, or does it even fucking matter?" There were tears that came and slipped past the defenses.

Luke: there it was. there was the verbal lashing he had been expecting. luke glanced away, taking in each and every single word. usually such anger would be met with his own, but he didn’t have it in him. ashton had every right to be angry and all luke could do was sit there and take it. “ash...” his chest ached, but not from anything related to his injuries. “i’m sorry. i’m so fucking sorry.” he could say it until he was blue in the face, but he wasn’t sure it mattered. ashton deserved better. “of course you matter. you’re the only one that matters. i never meant to hurt you. i wasn’t thinking. i—“ anxiety took over, that empty feeling in his chest very present. “i never wanted you to doubt that. i never wanted you to question if i cared. it literally kills me that you are. i just — i understand if you don’t want to be here.”

Ashton: Ashton looked at him and exhaled, close to a sob that wasn't as hidden as he liked. "You don't get it, do you? I'm not leaving. I love you." His voice caught and he shook his head. "I fucking love you. I can't - ." His hand was in his hair, pulling down curls to cover tears. "You're always sorry."

Michael: "Hey," came a voice from the other side. Michael had two cups of coffee. He came around the bed to Ashton, seeing the upset in his face. "Take this. Go calm down for a few." He wrapped a large hand around the back of Ashton's head and kissed his forehead. "Give me a few okay." Ashton seemed reluctant, but he left, watching Luke every second before he hit the door. "Good morning, Sunshine," Mikey smiled sarcastically. "What is up with the look on his face?"

Luke: luke knew the arrival of michael wasn’t good news. he knew his friend, knew how he reacted to such situations. he bit his tongue, the familiar taste of blood returning. “he’s upset with me. and understandably so.” he replied, silently trying his best to calm down. it felt like everything was slipping through his fingers, getting closer to tears with each passing second. he needed to relax, needed to remember how to breathe. “how long have you been here?” luke asked after a second, eyes on michael.

Michael: Michael also looked pretty ragged. They were the oldest friends. Michael was the original rebel, the punk that didn't fit in except here with this band. He was the awkward turtle, but also the protector. He sipped at the mocha, and rubbed tired eyes. "He loves you. You scared the fuck out of him. You should have seen him though. He came flying in here. If I didn't let him out of the car, he was going to jump out and run in on his own. He was up here before I even came in the door, and he was telling the nurses he was staying the night." He exhaled and came a little closer. "I've been around, mostly drinking coffee and doing some puzzles that someone left on a table. Oh and late night infomercials. They're great." He took another drink. "Now what the fuck would you have done if that was Ashton in the car with you?"

Luke: luke didn’t bother with the other drink, too distracted and distraught to really care. “thank you for driving him.” luke replied, forcing a small smile. he was at least thankful for that much. “why are you asking me that, mikey? i would’ve fucking hated myself for that mistake. you know that.” luke shifted in his bed, uncomfortable with the entire situation. “it wasn’t him and i’m thankful for that. but it was my friend and i’ll have to live with that regret for the rest of my life.” he could feel the emotion building again, hate blooming deep within him. not towards anyone but himself. “i fucked up.”

Michael: "Because I don't believe you," Michael shrugged. His aloof attitude could rattle people. He didn't show anger until it exploded and hands were thrown. "See I thought about him before I got him in a car, or got in a car myself. I knew he couldn't drive because he wouldn't be paying attention, and all he wanted was to see you." He shook his head, taking a drink again. "When do you stop being a selfish prick? Maybe that's the real question. You do whatever the fuck and you don't care who you hurt then go back and apologize for your mistake. Dude, that was a fucking choice, not a mistake. Your friend could have been Ashton, or Cal, or me. I wish them the best, but fuck, you just don't fucking get it. Being sorry doesn't make up for you if that other person is dead because of you. We all party and get all wasted, but you are just fucking stupid about it." That was Mikey, blunt and to the point, protective of Ash who was a mental health twin in a way.

Luke: luke didn't know why, but everything always seemed so much worse coming from michael. maybe it was the bluntness of it all. "you're not wrong." he rubbed at his face, careful not to bump any of the stitches. "i get it -- i'm a selfish prick. i ruin everything for everyone, and i'm ruining ashton now. you got your point across, so you can go now." maybe he was being rude and selfish, but he was exhausted. fighting with his band mates was the last thing he wanted right now. "we can argue it out when i get home, mikey. just ... not right now."

Michael: If that was all it took, that would be great, but it wasn't. Michael was way too stubborn for that. "Look at you playing the sympathy card. I ruin everything. Shut the fuck up and listen. What you do, all this bullshit, affects all of us. This band is all I've got, and honestly, it saved me. My head was never in the best place, and here we are, and I'm doing this good because we've stuck together. Calum too. We didn't know about Ashton until after that album then whoa, there's shit going on. I knew a little but not all. We all need this, and you give no fucks. You can decide to give a fuck after you've already fucked up. Now you lay there and fucking think about it." He was about to walk away and then turned back. "He really does love you. He won't leave here until you leave. You better know what you have. Sierra and the thing were temporary. Ashton - you better fucking fix this." He turned again, "I'm going to check on Alex then I'm going to take a shower."

Luke: luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes, keeping his gaze straight as he listened. michael was right about it all. maybe luke was trying to play the sympathy card, but he hadn’t been lying when he said he was exhausted. he’d been awake for only a short time, but he felt entirely drained both emotionally and physically. “thank you for your input, mikey.” he mumbled, watching as the other headed towards the door. he was slightly happy that his friend was leaving, not quite enjoying being called out and put in his place. “i’ll fix it. i promise.” he would stay true to his word, of course. he wouldn’t lose ashton. he couldn’t.

Ashton: Mikey walked out and combed a hand through his hair. He leaned against the wall and breathed. He didn't like being a hard-ass. Hated it in fact. He was angry, but deflating fast. Where were they when he struggled? Likely right where they always were when he wasn't talking about it. Fuck it. He did what he had to do. He needed to go sleep somewhere. He'd probably have to find Cal first. "Are you alright?" Ashton asked, looking at the blond who was adjusting the hat on his head. "Good," he said, but the real answer didn't matter anyway. He'd live. "He's waiting for you. Sleep when he sleeps, okay. I'll text you later." Ashton was back in the room a moment later. "Hey," he said. "Looks like you didn't lose any more blood." With Mikey who knew what would happen. "The nurse was going to bring you a tray of liquids in a little bit. She warned me against smuggling in the good stuff."

Luke: the sound of the door opening made luke glance up, not surprised to see ashton had returned. it was nice to have him back, but luke didn’t really have any words. he let himself get comfy, pulling the blankets over his torso. “thankfully. think he wanted to punch me, but maybe he’s saving it for when i get home.” he chuckled, able to find a bit of humour in it all. “sweet of her. hopefully i can find my appetite for it. if not, at least i’ll be getting a jump start on my tour diet.”

Ashton: Ashton really had needed a minute to just breathe. All the emotions were swelling, making him want to dive into a bar until he couldn't see straight. He pulled the chair over and reclaimed the hand that he let go of. His head leaned against what he could. He was angry, but he loved his boyfriend, and likely had for years - really had for years. The last two weeks he'd been so happy, just staying together. There were concerns, and this brought them all to the front. They had similar demons, and a deep fear of being left alone, and a very similar crutch in the booze and other things. "Everyone's got room for Jello," he mumbled. "I'll help. Maybe the nurse thought I was cute enough to bring me a tray too." He tipped his head up to look into blue eyes. "I'm gonna have Mikey bring back some clothes."

Luke: there was a sense of relief when ashton took his hand again, emotions extra high. luke had been convinced he was going to be left alone, that his band had truly had enough of his bullshit. he wouldn’t have blamed them for it. everyone needed a little break every now and then. “look at us having a romantic lunch date in the hospital. it’s practically peak romance.” he chuckled, winching a little at the effort. broken ribs really were the most painful thing he ever had to deal with. “think you can talk him into bringing me my toothbrush, comb, and other hygiene stuff too? i feel like hell. maybe a shower will do me some good.” he wasn’t entirely sure how he was meant to shower with his new little body additions, but he would figure it out.

Ashton: Ashton would have to admit it was strange when he had more time to think about it. He'd really never been in love. He'd take breakups with his usual shots at the bar, then he was kind of over it in a very detached way. Now he found himself sticking like glue. Yes, he was hurt, but he didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay, and he wanted them to be okay. "Oh it's so sexy. We can share a straw." He waggled his eyebrows at Luke and his other hand found the curls that showed through bandages and tubes. "He's pretty stubborn. I'll have him bring it though. I get to help with the shower. I don't want the nurses doing all that. This body is mine, tubes and everything."

Luke: luke was silent for a moment, watching ashton as he spoke. he had always been fond of the older boy, always looking up to him and seeking his approval. he had been able to convince himself it was because he saw ash as an older brother, but it had obviously been so much bigger and deeper than that. now, sitting together in the silent hospital room, he was finally able to take it all in. he loved ashton. it was different with him than it was with sierra or anyone else. well, yes, sierra did hold a special place in his heart, he wasn't foolish enough to turn a blind eye to the ways that she had ruined him. but ashton was different. ashton was gentle and kind and sweet. he looked at luke in ways that had the lead singer falling head over heels all the fucking time. "can't say it's not original." he smiled, coming back down to earth. he was glad that ashton hadn't left him, his anxious heart slowly settling. one day at a time, one step at a time. they would get through this and come out stronger than ever. "look at you stealing their chance to see me fully nude. bet they're gonna be heartbroken about it." luke teased, the hand in his hair making him visibly relax a little. "you should fully join me. shower might help you relax and feel a little better."

Ashton: Ashton shrugged and smiled as much as he could. He hated the situation, hated the tubes and wires everywhere. He was trying to ignore it and ignore the reason he was angry in the first place. It didn't matter. "It's pretty sexy. That straw is getting a lot of tongue," he teased. He probably didn't need to make Luke laugh, but he tried. "Hey, I'm not sure that's what we should even do in the shower at this point, not that I don't need one. I do. But I think giving you a blood pressure boost is probably not the right thing to do. I'm going to be there though. That I promise, breaking hearts one shower at a time." He stayed right there, both hands occupied. His face turned serious after a minute. "I can't lose you, you know. You can't do this to me again. Not once." His voice was barely over a whisper and there was a grittiness to it while he battled another flood of worry.

Luke: he appreciated the light moment, appreciated that ashton was kind of making an attempt to make him laugh. it worked, of course, and a little chuckle escaped his lips, but it quickly died out as the conversation turned serious again. "i'm not going to do it again. i promise, ash." he was determined to stay true to his word, already swearing off liquor and drugs. he could do this. he could keep himself in line and make his band proud. "you don't have to worry about losing me anytime soon. you've got me. i'm here to stay. i know it sounds like a load of shit considering the fact that we're sitting in a hospital room right now, but i mean it. i want to do right by you, ashton. you deserve better than the bullshit i've been pulling these last few years."

Ashton: Ashton smiled sadly. "I wish you wouldn't but I'm not sure you won't." That was just the truth. Trust was earned, not free. He trusted Luke in a lot of things, but not this. "I need you to try. You know how much it would hurt if you weren't here? Mikey, Calum, me -- we wouldn't be us without you." He bit his lip. "Sometimes I wonder how much I matter to you because you just go away like this. I'm trying to be healthier, but I want to do it together. I wouldn't be healthier without you. I'd be worse." He was worried that Luke might push him away, or think he was bad for Ashton who was managing his own recovery. "I don't want to have to be okay without you."

Luke: "can i ask you something? and i want you to be one-hundred percent honest with me." fuck it. might as well rip the bandage off now. luke was determined to be the best version of himself, but it was growing increasingly clear that nobody really had faith of him. did he blame them? well, no, because this was his biggest fuck up yet. he made a horrible choice and it resulted in horrible consequences. taking a deep breath, he did his best to keep the self-deprecating thoughts at bay, nervous about falling back into that familiar dark place. his fingers twitched, resisting the urge to pull his hand away. "do you even trust me at all? it's fine if you don't and i understand if that's the case. i'm just ... curious."

Ashton: Ashton sighed, but looked at him. It was important to see someone's eyes when you are saying something important. "Yeah, I do, most of the time, except stuff like this." He gripped curls a little harder just to draw attention. "I've been through bottles, done a lot of stupid shit that none of you know about. I thought I was being so sly for a lot of years. When you dropped on my doorstep, I was wrecking day by day on my own, but you needed me, and in a way you pulled me out and I had to be a better man. That sounds like a song someone sang." His own - Scar. "I had to pull myself together not only for me, but for you. I know how amazing you could be if you wanted to. I know I can't give up on you, and I won't. I just wish you'd think of me sometimes instead of the next drink."

Luke: luke noticed the tight grip in his curls and said nothing of it. the moment was tense, his heart beating furiously as ashton spoke. he knew this little confrontation was needed. ashton had a complicated history with alcohol, one that had been planted from a young age, and luke hated that he had added to it. sometimes it was easier to replace emotions with vodka, letting the alcohol numb him and keep him from having to deal with anything. it was a cheap way out. "i'm not going to argue it. i know i'm quite .... messy when it comes to drinking. always being cut off and dragged home. i just -- i never meant for it to go this deep." the confidence he usually held had faded, blue eyes flooded with tears that he refused to shed. "i'm sorry, ashton. i can sit here and promise that i'll do better, but i know it won't matter until you actually see it happen. i'm going to stay true to my word. no more drunk nights. no more putting you after whatever drink i'm going to have next. i promise. i really fuckin' promise."

Ashton: "I know you promise." Ashton was staying right there. He was showing him that he wasn't going to run. "It was funny that when you came, I was pretty low. I needed something to focus on other than all my bullshit and you were there. I could focus on what you needed, and heal myself at the same time. You didn't need to know all that, but I did. Taking care of you helped me." He leaned in as far as he could, and kissed his forehead. "I started writing my album then. I didn't do all of it, but I started. I wanted to be that for you. I wanted to be that one that kind of gave you enough so you could start to come out of all that. I need you to be okay." A rogue tear slipped out. He knew he didn't quite believe all the promises. Hell, he'd promised himself that long before he'd toned it way down and he'd broken all the promises. "I want us to be okay. Not just as us, but all of it."

Luke: luke sighed, a feeling of defeat washing over him. maybe it was just the overall exhaustion of going through something so traumatic. "you liked taking care of me?" a frown crossed his lips, surprised at the little confession. he didn't know why it was so surprising, but it was. "i mean -- why? i was never really any fun to be around. always crying about the end of things and how fucking shitty it turned out to be." he shook his head at the thought of it all. luke hated his low moments, hated that he usually dragged someone down with him. "don't get me wrong, though. i appreciate that you took care of me and let me stay with you. it's truly the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." he reached for the hand in his hair, taking it into his own. "we'll get better. one step at a time, ash. now kiss me again."

Ashton: "I did. I needed that, and I really needed to be needed. I also wanted you to be okay. When you were feeling better, so was I." He hadn't minded in the slightest. It wasn't an invasion on his life, not that he really had one at the time. "It wasn't a burden at all. I'd do it all again, and I don't even have to think about it." Ashton would consider this a much lower moment than that, and obviously he was now going to do it again. He leaned in and kissed him again as told. "I can't wait until we lose some of these machines. They are in the way."

Luke: "you're too good to me." it was a simple statement that held so much truth to it. luke had never really been the best person around. always so caught up in his own devices and his own plans. he was just grateful that ashton was willing to take a chance on him then.... and now. he probably didn't deserve it. "it was nice living with you the first time. i'm glad we're doing it again. we've got a place together, a dog -- i don't want to be the one to fuck that up." he smiled at the kiss, feeling a little better with each passing second. well, emotionally. "mmm. fingers crossed that they take a few off on their next rounds."

Ashton: "I know," Ashton teased, and to him it was just a tease. "I know it's not going to be easy, and I'm not going to try to control you, or make you do what you don't want to do. I'm going to help with whatever you need." They had a place together and a dog, almost two dogs, and likely would once Luke was back to moving around again. Those good moments had become priceless to Ashton. "Yeah, you better not. We have another dog on the way. We have to take care of them." He considered the space for a moment. "Maybe if they move enough of them I could fit up there with you." It was likely not allowed, nor could the bed accommodate two six foot tall boys, but it was a nice idea.

Luke: "another dog on the way." luke chuckled, already knowing that petunia was going to hate it. she was much too spoiled to share, but that was all going to change. "makes it sounds like we're expecting a child or something. it's cute." he really couldn't wait until he was released and reunited with his dog again. something about the animal always made luke feel better, petunia proving to be 'home' for him. "i could move over and you could take up the space on my good side? i mean, i should be getting the green light to go home tomorrow, so we'll be back to sharing a bed soon enough. thankfully. hospital beds are by far the worst beds i've ever had to lay in, and that's saying a lot considering how many hotel beds i've slept in. i'm sure you know that, though."

Ashton: "Have you ever tried a chair? This chair is way too small even if it reclines a little." It was an older recliner, not in the best shape. Ashton managed with legs hanging off the end. He'd probably be stuck over there again. "We are expecting another, so you better behave yourself, Mister. We have a growing family." He'd have to text the boys and have them make sure Petunia was fed and let outside. Mikey might have done that already, but he didn't know if he had a key. "I could probably get up there for awhile. Talk puppies, and stuff." It might not be the best idea until some of the hookups were removed, so he was patient.

Luke: “i’d rather the floor. looks way more comfy to me.” however, depending on certain things, luke knew the broken collarbone might have him sleeping in a recliner for a few weeks. lame. “i’ll be on my best behaviour. for you, the new addition, the band, and tour.” he wasn’t going to promise it, but that part really went unsaid at this point. “any names for the dog in mind?” luke asked, happy for the small talk. he was calm, relaxed. any tension had left his body, just happy to be having a conversation where someone wasn’t yelling at him.

Ashton: "We can do one more night. It will make our bed that much better when we get home," Ash told him. If he needed the incline, Ash would go buy one from the medical supply store. That way they could sleep snuggled up. It was funny how quick he adjusted to having someone there every night and had no desire to sleep alone. He just nodded and continued the affections that came with the relief that his boyfriend would be okay. There would be consequences, but they were fine. He'd wait and see on the rest and hope Luke could do it for himself and for them. "I'd love to name one Kitty. Is that overdone too much."

Luke: "gonna have to keep petunia off the bed for a bit. you know how she loves to be a spoiled baby and wake us up." luke smiled at the thought. he was already longing to go home, hating the hospital setting and the heavy cloud that hung over his head. was he stupid enough to think that it would go away upon his release? no, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it. "a dog named kitty? i like it. don't think i've ever met one with that name before, so i'm gonna say no to it being overdone. it's cute, original." he let himself get comfy, careful of everything connected to him. "thanks for coming, ash. it's nice having you here." he mumbled, words soft and just above a whisper as though their perfect little moment would be ruined if anyone heard them. "i love you. maybe it's too soon to say it, but it's how i feel. you don't have to say it back. i just ... -- it feels right to me."

Ashton: "You tell her that. Good luck." That dog had a mind of her own. She was lazy, but persistent when she wanted something, and if they were sleeping, they couldn't stop her. He couldn't wait to go home, even if he wasn't in the bed he was here for all of it. "I think a dog named Kitty is perfect. Here Kitty!" It was cute. Of course the name would have to fit the dog. "I've seen it twice." He shook his head and almost missed the words. Luke didn't have to thank him, like somehow it was a choice. He HAD to come, it was that simple. He didn't miss them though. "Not too soon," he whispered back, eyes bright as they could be on no sleep. "I love you, too. We've known each other forever anyway, but yeah." Now he felt awake and happy. They would have a lot to face, but they could do it.

#para: i will follow you into the dark.#para: ashton.#car accident tw #drunk driving tw #hospital tw #005

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calumcest · 4 years

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you can tell a lot about someone by the type of music they listen to 🎵🎶

rules: hit shuffle on your media player and write down the first 20 songs, then tag 10 people. no skipping!

ta @clumsyclifford for tagging me despite knowing what shambles my music taste is honestly a brave woman <3 also before i start this off i want to say this playlist is 15 hours long and only has like 40 britpop songs on it so just in case spotify keeps spitting britpop out at me i want to put a disclaimer here

all i need - radiohead. this is a BANGER god maybe i would die for thom yorke...maybe i would

tomorrow’s money - my chemical romance. okay i know lots of people dont vibe w this song but it was actually my favourite mcr song for a while i think it SLAPS i love the ‘i stopped bleeding three years ago while you keep screaming for revolution’ bit

backseat serenade - all time low. i stand by this being one of their best songs simply for the ‘aren’t you sick of sleeping alone’ and the final ‘oh god i’m sick of sleeping alone’

song 2 - blur. i wont apologise for this its a fucking ANTHEM and that aside ‘i’m never sure why i need you’ is one of my favourite lyrics

lost in reality - 5sos. okay this is literally one of my top 3 5sos songs it fucking goes off so hard i dont care what anyone else says and yes the lyrics are shocking but its no just saying this song is almost on par w babylon and lwh for me

slide away - oasis. now this song slaps i have to say i love the way its played on definitely maybe very dirty and raw but noel did an acoustic version of it and i think i prefer that one although i prefer liams voice on it @ liam odds on a cheeky slide away acoustic?

take on me - a-ha. this song goes off theres nowt better to dance around the kitchen to w your housemates while you try to make a lasagne but forget the pasta layers and just end up doing bolognese-bechamel-bolognese-bechamel for like 4 layers

the carpal tunnel of love - fall out boy. i think i have almost the entirety of infinity on here bc its genuinely such a banging album top to bottom

durch den monsun - tokio hotel. HAAAAAA okay this song fucking goes off thats all i’ll say about it everything tokio hotel released up to humanoid was wall to wall bangers

that’s the truth - mcfly. the verses of this leave much to be desired but thats made up for by what a SEXY chorus it has danny jones you have my whole heart

rockafeller skank - fatboy slim. i will not apologise for this one it fucking goes off its on an advert right now and me and my housemates would sit watching the chase and scream this out when it came on during the ad breaks good memories

the boy who could fly - pierce the veil. i cant lie to you selfish machines is a fucking class album i always dither between that and cwts for best album but i think sm edges cwts out a little for me anyway ptv havent done anything worth listening to since 2012

the good the bad and the dirty - panic!. again doab...solid fucking album only edged out from the top spot by how fucking brilliant v&v is nearly witches...tune of the century

canals - all time low. this is one of the best songs off dp and its annoying that they only put it on dpiln but its fine because we got it and also they released dp on my birthday so i have to forgive them for anything they do

dani california - rhcp. WHAT A SONGGGG i’m not really big on rhcp generally but they have some absolute fucking TUNES and this is one of them you tryna tell me youre not gonna scream out BLACK BANDANA SWEET LOUISIANA

karma police - radiohead. goddd this song...is a tune and a fucking half i remember when i saw rh it was the last song they played and the entire bus back to where we needed to go people were singing it on the bus and it was just lovely

playing with fire - ndubz. okay listen...i’ve been on a bit of a kick w this song its actually a fucking banger except in the chorus where it goes yes you did it (eh) the eh just sounds like he’s doing finger guns yk. i cant explain it but it really does

vegas girl - conor maynard. GODDD okay i wont actually take criticism on this one i know its conor maynard but its a fucking BANGER it sucks but it slaps

unorthodox - wretch 32 (ft. example). i forgot this song existed until like 2 weeks ago and ive been listening to it loads bc its fucking brilliant although it gives me slight rizzle kicks vibes

if we shadows (demo) - oasis. only right that we end on oasis maybe spotify is respecting me today...i fucking love this song except the bit where he says me and my brother with the fucking biggest plosive ive ever heard anyway this is just lovely i love noel’s voice i really do and i love him doing acoustic things very pretty...

god i think literally everyone has been tagged at this point so i’m just going to tag people even if you’ve already been tagged you’re getting tagged again @calumsclifford @kaleidoscopeminds and @pxrxmoore

#text #i cant believe i actually only got what was it 3 britpop songs here #thats truly exceptional from spotify given that last time i shuffled this playlist for the asks it gavem e 400 in a row #yes i am doing this at 9am because what else do i hve to do #waiting for my covid test results this is my 3rd day cooped up inside im already going insane #literally so stir crazy that going to shove a huge cotton bud down my throat felt like a treat

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arcanesupern0va · 5 years

Text

Rick In The Water; Ch7: Shameful Metaphors

Summary: There’s some fluffs, there some action. I might be just a little too proud of how this chapter came out.

A/N: Rickshank Rickdemption? Never heard of him. CW: Bastardization of a whole ass episode for my own selfish gains tbh Pairing: Rick Sanchez/Reader Word Count: 5529

My ao3

Masterlist

|Ch6: Do You Feel It?|

Rick looked like a goddamn kid in a candy shop. When we crossed the threshold, his pockets bulging with his Monopoly money, he took off ahead of me, shouting about someone called Roy.

“Rick! Rick wait!” I called after him, trying to cut through the crowd and keep up with the oversized child that Rick had suddenly become. He paused briefly, allowing me to finally catch up. I surveyed the room, astounded by how it enormous it seemed. To our left was an expansive bar. Two large arcades ran adjacent to it, emanating with sounds of laughter and loud sound effects. The building had multiple stories, all accentuating the large planetary statue situated in the center of the room. More sounds of mirth and excitement rained down on us from above, leaving me to assume it was multiple levels of rows and rows of video games.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Rick looked proud like he had come up with the whole place himself.

“Ah, if it isn’t my friend Rick Sanchez,” a large slug-like creature called warmly as he slithered over to us.

“Slitherino, buddy! How the hell are you?” Rick greeted him jovially, shaking the creatures… hand? I guess?

“Doin’ great, my friend. Business is booming ever since that commercial you did with us. Who would’ve thought an interdimensionally wanted criminal could bring in so many kids?” Slitherino chortled. “And who do you have here tonight?” He raised his brow at Rick as he regarded me.

“Slither- this is Nova, Nova this Siltherino Slimeofogus the Fourth, owner of the greatest establishment this side of the galaxy,” Rick boasted.

“Now, now Rick. You’re not trying to get extra flurbos out of me are you?” Siltherino asked, eyeing him seriously before breaking out into a huge smile. “Because it’s working. Here you son of a bitch, you guys have a great time.” He handed us a large bucket of coins from within his apparently gelatinous body. He bid us farewell as he slithered away, leaving Rick to count the contents quickly.

“One thousand ninety-nine, two thousand. Two thousand flurbos Nova!” he exclaimed as he slid the coins back into the bucket. “Are you hungry? They’ve got zurbos here now, so fucking good Nova.” Rick gushed. I barely recognized the man next to me as his eyes flitted all around the room. I shook my head, earning me a one way trip to a game called Roy 2: Dave. “The line was ridiculous last time I was here,” Rick marveled, “You should play!” He deposited some of our flurbos in the machine before sitting me down in the chair and dropping a helmet over my eyes.

“Dave! Come out here and eat dinner with us!” a voice called out to me. I closed my binder, rushing out to the living room to find my big brother Roy and my parents sitting at their TV trays. “Oh sweetheart, you’re just in time! We’re getting to watch the newest episode of Planet Music!”

In high school, I met a girl named Arabelle, an outcast just like me. We spent nearly every day after school hanging out by a waterfall where we got high and talked about music, art and anything else that came to mind.

I didn’t stay friends with her for long, my parents didn’t approve of her dark sense of humor and overuse of sarcasm. I knew they just wanted the best for me. They bought me a guitar and lessons instead and allowed me to spend all hours of the night practicing. My brother Roy and I formed a band, along with a couple of his friends from school. Our first single was a smash hit, propelling us into the limelight.

Arabelle and I reconnected after a show one night. I forgot how much I missed her and we stayed up the entire night talking like we used to. She told me how heartbreaking it was to lose my friendship. I apologized and worked my way into her pants that night.

Our second album flopped, and Roy and I started fighting constantly. Arabelle and I had started dating, and she insisted I was the talent of the band. I listened to her, leaving my brother and his friends to seek new highs and new ways to become creative.

I joined the twenty-seven club, dying of an overdose.

GAME OVER.

“What the fuck?!” I screamed as the helmet was removed from my head.

“Only twenty-seven?” Rick commented, reading the stats on the screen. “You at least led a fun life I suppose,” he shrugged.

“Everything was so real. I felt myself die,” I trembled. My knees shook as I stood up and tried to reorient myself with my real body.

“You’re alright Nova,” Rick smirked, “Now get outta my way, it’s my turn!” He tore off my reward tickets, handing them off to me and depositing a couple more coins into the machine. He fitted the helmet over his head and his eyes unsettlingly rolled back in his head. I watched the screen, watched the body I had thought was my own as it fought with its sibling Roy, become the most popular kid in school before completely running from home at the age of sixteen.

“You didn’t do much better, Mr. Age Twenty-Five,” I teased as Rick pulled the helmet off in frustration, grabbing his own tickets. My grip on reality had finally returned after watching Rick’s version of Dave’s life and I was actually eager for another go.

“How was I supposed to know the bungee cord was going to break!?” he shot back. “These games, some of them really just want you to keep pumping flurbos into them,” he growled, stalking off toward what I could only assume was the space equivalent of Skee Ball. He pumped more flurbos into the game, picking up the hovering puck and chucking it skillfully. It bounced off of the holographic mountains before hitting a secret passageway and setting an alarm off.

“I take it you’ve played these games a couple of times,” I mused, watching him perform trick shots as the machine produced ticket after ticket.

“Well, if you look at the screen, that’ll be my high score,” he pointed proudly at the marquee that read ‘HI-SCORE: ARSE” followed by a series of illegible symbols.

“Arse, really?” I asked, trying to stifle my giggles to sound terribly unamused.

“It stands for Actually Rick Sanchez,” he told me flatly.

“Oh, what’s the E for then?”

“Yeah, I mean, come on Nova, I had to,” he shrugged.

“I mean, if you already went that far…” I trailed up, grinning up at him.

*+*

When he had finally spent his last flurbo, he begrudgingly walked us out to the ship to head home. Today had been incredible, with its high and low points but weirdly enough, the trip to Blips and Chitz felt like an actual date. I was going to comment as such, but we were being approached by an alarming number of bug-like creatures.

“Rick Sanchez, we have you surrounded,” one called out. Rick froze, scanning the area to find the bug creatures claims were true. “If you come quietly, I can assure you no danger will befall your Nova.”

“Rick, what is going on?” I hissed as he pulled me in close and pulled out his portal gun.

“Don’t even think about it, Sanchez!” the bug shouted, “We have you in our sights, and you’ll be dead before you even try.”

“Goddammit, Slitherino,” Rick snarled, releasing me to confront the bugs.

“You’ve committed numerous crimes against the Federation. I urge you to stand down,” the bug declared again as he closed in on us, close enough for me to make out his furry legs and large wings.

“Let me send her home,” Rick demanded. “I’ll come with you, just let me send her home.”

“Rick, no-” I protested before he cut me off

“Nova, just be quiet, please,” he glared down at me.

“If you come peacefully, you may send her home in your ship,” the bug compromised nonchalantly.

“Yeah, that’s not how it’s going down,” he snarled, pulling out his portal gun again. As the bugs opened fire around us, he deployed a shield around us. “This is not going to last long enough for me to explain any of this to you.” He opened a portal on the ground behind me, discreetly shoving his portal gun in my hands. “Nova, just trust me, I-I’m sending you somewhere safe,” he murmured, kissing my forehead before shoving me through the opening. I heard the shield shatter as I fell through, gunfire coming to an immediate stop as the portal closed above me. Shellshocked, I realized I was in an oddly familiar, dingy hallway and a door with a rusted peeker stood in front of me. I stood quickly, knocking urgently on it. When I received no answer, I sighed in frustration knocking the same knock that Beth and I shared. The peeker slid open to reveal the same pair of angry eyes before quickly opening, Scar Rick grabbing me as I crumpled to the floor.

*+*

“Rick!”

The world was spinning around me as I came to, Scar watching intently from across the room as I sat up in a panic which served to only make the spinning faster. I was on a thin cot, surrounded by similar weapons to the ones I’d seen in Rick’s garage. Rick. The thought of him propelled me from the cot, heading for the door. I had no idea how I was going to save him, but damn if I wasn’t going to try.

“H-Hey, Nova, it’s okay. Calm down,” Scar said gruffly, soothing me simply by sharing the same voice as Rick. My legs were weak as I stood, and he grabbed me hesitantly before I fell again, sitting me back on the cot.

“The hell it is! Some fucking b-bug creatures took Rick- They’re gonna kill him,” I shouted hysterically, making another move to stand. Scar grabbed my shoulder, roughly forcing me back onto my cot.

“Nova, I know. This is the third time you’ve woken up screaming about it,” he assured me, grabbing a dirty canteen and offering it to me. My mouth was a desert and I drank from it greedily. “H-Hey, calm down. Drowning won’t bring Rick back,” he remarked smartly, gently tugging the canteen out of my grasp.

“Wh-What am I going to do? I have to get him back,” I panicked, bunching my legs up into my chest as I slowly rocked myself back and forth. I had always thought of Rick as untouchable like he was always five steps ahead of every potential foe.

“Why don’t you tell me everything that happened after you left here three days ago,” he asked with surprising calm.

“Three fucking days ago? How long have I been passed out?” I asked, breaking out of my grasp on my legs, moving to stand up again.

“You passed out at my door,” he said, his gruff tone returning as he blocked me from making my way to the door by outstretching his arm across my chest, resulting in me stumbling back onto the cot. “You’ve been in and out these past few days, screaming about Rick and monster bugs when you were conscious. This is the most lucid you’ve been yet.”

“Wh-What were those creatures?” I asked him, just the memories of the way they surrounded us stilling me to my core.

“Those were most likely the Groflamites,” he sighed, standing up and returning to the other side of the room. A portal gun laid in pieces on the table he approached, the glass on the top completely shattered. He noticed as I stared at in horror, my only way directly to Rick completely destroyed. “You fell on it when you passed out,” he explained, “I’ve been trying to fix it, but I haven’t had one in over a decade.”

“Y-You can fix it though, right?” I asked nervously, unable to take my eyes off of it.

“I should be able to, I have to go out and get some parts. I just hadn’t been able to yet, I didn’t want you to wake up alone,” he admitted sheepishly, “I-I know my N-Nova wasn’t a fan of that.”

“Oh.”

Clearing his throat, he continued, “If you think you’ll be okay for a couple of hours, I can run out now. There are just a couple of pieces that need to be replaced, I promise I’ll be quick.”

“C-Can I just come with you?” I asked anxiously, not trusting myself enough to be left alone with my thoughts.

“Sure.”

+𝚁𝚒𝚌𝚔+

Fucking asshole. That fucking piece of fucking shit. I’m gonna- I’m gonna burn every fucking Blips and Chitz to the fucking ground when I finally get the fuck out of here.

The first order of business, unfortunately, figuring out where in the hell here was.

It looked like I was in my garage, but that couldn’t be right. Key details were missing, my newest tinker toy, for instance, not to mention Nova’s crudely drawn smiley face on my work desk.

“Alright assholes, what in the fuck are you waiting for?” I shouted into the ether. There was no response at first until a tall Groflamite knocked on the garage door.

“Hello, Rick,” he remarked coolly, leaning against the door as he closed it behind him. “That was a cute little trick, sending your Nova off with your portal gun. You know we have to hunt her down now right?” he told me perfectly politely, although the threat of it was apparent.

“Good luck,” I remarked darkly, turning back to my workbench even though there wasn’t really anything to focus my attention on.

“We already have a good idea of where you sent her, hard to believe a Rick would trust another Rick with his most treasured possession, but I guess you’re an odd one through and through,” he commented, inspecting the fur on the back of his hand.

“Tr-Treasured- possession?” I sputtered. He had to be bluffing. Scar was an old friend, back from before the council formed. The council hadn’t been very sympathetic to the kidnapping of his Nova, ultimately opting not to rescue her to keep themselves laid low. He wasn’t going to let another Rick go through that.

Well, fuckwad better not.

“Come now Rick, let's not pretend. We both know you love that human girl,” The Groflammite told me flatly.

“Love is just a chemical reaction,” I recited, bored.

“Mmhm, but yet you still love her.”

“I-I do not!” I lied.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Rick,” he shook his head, “Go ahead and lie to yourself all you want, but we’re in your head. I’ve seen a lot more of your dirty thoughts than I ever wanted to, and somehow they all featured her. And a couple of giraffes I won’t be asking any questions about.”

“Get to the point, bug.”

“I’d think the smartest man in the universe would know what I wanted.”

Jesus fucking christ this fucking douche.

+Nova+

I stuck close to Scar as he led us through the bustling city of Shingrap. He didn’t have much to say, not completely unlike my Rick on a bad day. Through a particularly tight crowd, he grabbed my hand tightly, and for a moment, I forgot where I was and who he was. His hands exhibited the same coarseness, and for even the smallest second I felt safe. Maybe that’s why he sent me here? Did he know he was going to die? Did he send me to this Rick to offer him something he’d lost?

No.

He was far too cocky to allow for such planning. He must’ve known this Rick would be able to help, or something. I just wish I knew what to do. Scar must’ve realized I had started spiraling because he turned around quickly and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Nova, I need you to focus, we’re almost there.”

‘There’ was a filthy pawnshop. Why was I always ending up in the dirtiest parts of space? All of these people with their illusions of grandeur when it came to space should feel lucky to not have a Rick in their lives to completely shatter them. Scar and the clerk spoke in low tones as I investigated the shop, never straying out of Scar’s eyesight. He grabbed my hand again, his transaction apparently complete as he led me back through the city. As we cut the corner to the alley that would lead us back to his safe house, I spotted a Groflammite scanning the city gun in hand.

“Rick,” I whispered sharply, pulling on his hand sharply as the bug’s gaze was moving in our direction. Scar found him immediately, breaking into a sprint down the alley, shooting one of the lecherous bulbous headed creatures my Rick and I had encountered our first time here. We made it safely back to his building, but as Scar sealed the door behind us, a quiet fluttering of wings assured us they had spotted us. We ran up the stairs as they slammed their weight into the door. Scar locked his safe room door behind us before starting on the repairs to the portal gun. A large slam from the floors below told us they had made it through the first door and it was only a matter of seconds before they were at this one.

“Start grabbing anything you see with a trigger,” Scar growled as he inserted the glass bulb on the top of the gun, opening a small door to work on the circuitry. I grabbed every weapon I could get my hands on, shoving them into a small pile in the center of the room. A loud bang on the safe room door made me jump out of my skin, but Scar was slamming the panel on the gun shut, smirking. “Let’s get the hell out of here baby girl,” he murmured tenderly, grabbing me by my waist and shooting a portal under the pile of guns. We followed the guns through just as the bugs broke through the door, dropping us right onto a marble floor.

Goddammit.

“Nova N-682,” Riq IV called from behind me. I brushed my hair out of my face, huffing as I turned to face him. “Where is your Rick?” he asked curiously, looking around as if he expected him to erupt from another portal.

“Rick Alpha-392,” Scar growled up at him viciously.

“Oho, you’ve renounced your Rick for Rick Beta-125?” Rick Prime grinned down at us, “Now there’s a match I never even thought to put money on.”

“There’s a name I haven’t heard in centuries,” Riq IV laughed darkly. “What brings you back here? Want to put this Nova’s head on the chopping block too?” Scar roared, picking up one of his guns and aiming at the council member.

“You fucking killed her, not me,” Scar snarled. I reached up gently, lowering the gun with a gentle look.

“Not here, not now.” I soothed him. He relented, turning away from the sneering Ricks atop their thrones. “Rick- N-682 has been arrested by the F-Federation.” Riq IV’s face darkened as he regarded me, before turning to his fellow council members. They deliberated a moment, before coming to a decision and turning back to me.

“So he dies. I’m sorry Nova.”

+𝚁𝚒𝚌𝚔+

“So they’ve spotted Rick Beta-125?” The Groflammite spoke into his watch smugly. “Excellent, were they able to apprehend Nova and the portal gun?”

Shit. Fuck. Shit fuck fuck shit.

Nova.

The bug’s watch murmured again, his face falling as he listened. “They got away? What do we even pay you assholes for?” he spat angrily into the watch. He sighed, regaining his composure before returning his even gaze to me. “Looks like you got lucky Rick, but this is your last chance to be useful.”

“I’m never useful if I can help it,” I told him darkly. Nova being safe was enough to keep me from throttling the stupid bug, but the option was still there. He approached the garage door, watching a memory play in front of him.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” he pointed. The memory on full display was the two of us in my ship, her mounted on my lap and kissing me like it was the last kiss we’d ever share.

It might be.

“Yeah,” I murmured, forcing the dark thought away. I watched the memory, trying to resist the emotion it was instilling in me, the doubt, the fear. What if we never got to finish what we started? What if I couldn’t get out of here?

“You can watch this right now and tell me you don’t love her?” he asked conversationally, as though we were old friends discussing curtains.

“I-I can,” I lied again, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. The memory switched, playing the memory of saving her from Rick U-236 and having to see that fuck on top of her, touching parts of her I still hadn’t had the pleasure of infuriated me.

“Ah, I see. Of course. You still think she doesn’t care for you the same way.” The same conversational tone, but now I just wanted to rip his voice box out. The memory changed again, this time of the first time I took her out into space.

“St-Stop!” I begged, tearing my eyes away from her awestruck face.

“Just tell me how you figured out portal technology Rick and I swear, I’ll let you see her one last time,” he urged gently. A door appeared between us.

“If I show you, you have to promise not to hurt her,” I conceded weakly, trying to ignore the moisture accumulating around my eyes.

“No harm will befall Nova, Rick. You have my word,” he assured me. Still, I knew he was lying. I decided to play along, opening the door to step into another garage, this one being from the home I shared with Beth’s mother.

Another Rick stood before us, scribbling furiously onto a notepad in front of him as he made adjustments to the crude device that I would soon turn into the portal gun.

“H-Hey Rick,” a voice came from the doorway. A twenty-year-old Nova stood there, eyeing the Rick in front of her nervously.

“O-Oh hey Nova. Beth’s not here,” Past Me brushed her off callously. Her face fell as she approached the workbench to investigate what I had been working on.

“I-I know, I came to see what you were working on,” she told me timidly. God, this was too much, too hard to watch.

“It’s a portal gun,” I told her, extending the device for her to inspect. “I think I almost have the formula right. Just a couple more days and I should be able to traverse the galaxy in an instant.”

“Wow,” she murmured, eyeing the scribbles I had made. “R-Rick, I think your equations wrong here,” she told me hesitantly, pointing to a small error in math I had made.

“Shit, you’re right.” I picked up the portal gun, adjusting the error before pulling the trigger. A green circle appeared on the wall, another four inches to the right. I tossed an apple through, only to have it reappear through the second portal in the same condition. “I-I did it,” I murmured, awestruck. “W-We did it.” I looked at her, beaming as I pulled her into a tight embrace only to quickly push her away. “Hold on,” I paused, sticking my arm through the hole only for it to also appear unharmed on the other side.

“So that’s it?” The Groflammite asked eagerly, running up to my desk to start taking pictures of the equation scribbled on my notepad. He uploaded it quickly, announcing to his superiors that’d he’d gotten it. A devilish grin erupted on my face as the bugs on the other end of his headset stopped replying.

Thank God.

“You know, watching that brilliantly concocted lie made me realize something.” I grinned wickedly at the smug bug.

“L-Lie?!” he exclaimed.

The walls of the garage fell around us as my current garage formed around the fake memory. “You’re probably right, I do love my Nova, I love her more than I’ve loved anything before,” I conceded with a shrug. “But if you’d done any research, you would’ve realized two things.” He tried contacting his supervisors again, to no avail. “I left Nova when she was sixteen you idiot, and more importantly, for all of the strengths she has to offer me, she knows jack shit when it comes to science. That math would have looked like absolute gibberish to her.”

“What’s happening, what did you do?” the bug panicked.

“I didn’t do anything, you were the one who uploaded a virus from a fake memory,” I told him with a shrug.

“Get me out of his head!” he shouted into his watch, “It was fake, it was all fake!”

“They won’t be answering,” I told him simply. I raised my own watch to my mouth, mocking his serious tone as I spoke, “Go ahead and pull me outta here guys.”

It was a curious feeling, being in a bug body, but I played it off well until a team of SEAL Ricks descended from the ceiling, shooting every Groflamite they saw. I ducked down behind the chair, reaffixing the brain switching helmet to my head as they shot my original body directly between the eyes.

Well, that kind of sucked. Poor old bastard.

Since they weren’t exactly here on a rescue mission, I aimed the device at one of the SEAL Ricks. I injected my conscious into his brain, surprisingly thankful for the roominess of it. I took out the Groflamite I had been previously occupying before taking out the remaining SEAL Ricks, grabbing the brainalyzer and climbing the rope back up to their ship.

After a series of Rick switching, I was finally back on the Citadel, at the helm of Control. I portalled the entire fucking thing directly into the galactic federal fucking prison.

God, I’m such a fucking badass.

Chaos poured around me as I made my way to the council, knowing if Scar was going to take her anywhere, it would be here. Despite his history with the council, it was still the safest place to hide from the federation. I just had to hope my hunch was right. Worst come to worst, I was going to be able to kill two birds with one stone. Take out the Federation and that stupid ass council, sure, why not. I found Quantum Rick trying to flee amongst the chaos and knowing my only way in there with the least amount of resistance would be as a Rick they recognized, I performed one last swap, smashing the brainalyzer as I took off down the Council hall.

“Get your hands off of her,” I bellowed, crossing the threshold to a confusing scene. Riq IV and Zeta Alpha Rick were pulling her in opposite directions, apparently trying to decide which would be escaping with her. Scar laid dead on the floor and with the surprise of my appearance, they released her abruptly. Nova fell to Scar’s side, openly weeping as she looked up at me with a fury I’d never seen before.

“Did you come to finish the job?” she screamed at me. “You don’t have to worry. He’s fucking dead.” She stood up, grabbing one of the, surprisingly, many guns littering the floor. “You killed my Rick, you fucking piece of shit.”

“N-Nova, wait-”

“I loved him you fucking piece of shit. And now I’ll never get to fucking tell him,” she sobbed. To my luck, the gun she chose had a harsh kickback, causing the shot to miss my head, but only by a hair. I mussed my hair, returning to the look she was accustomed to before pulling the pretentious council robe off, showing I was strapped with as many stray weapons I could grab from my previous bodies.

“Nova, please don’t fucking shoot at me,” I shouted, more annoyed than angry.

“R-Rick-” In her shock, Riq IV was able to grab her, holding his gun to her head.

“You just can’t keep a dumb Rick down can you?” he seethed, backing away to the window. I quickly took out the other Ricks surrounding us, leaving only one shit stain left.

“Let her go,” I growled through gritted teeth.

“Let me tell you what’s going to happen here, N-682.” Riq IV started, slowly getting closer to the window. “I’m going to take your Nova, and you’re not going to shoot at us because you’re not going to risk her insignificant life,” he sneered. My eyes locked with Nova’s trying to find the best course of action that would kill Riq IV with minimal damage to her.

“Who’s to say I won’t let that happen, dick. You truly underestimate how badly I want you dead,” I told him darkly, not looking at her.

“Rick!”

“You won’t kill her, not every Rick can just kill their Nova. Especially not when they love her,” he taunted. “Luckily for me, I never had a Nova, I have no attachment to her kind.”

“I’ve only had her for a couple of months, I lived my whole life without her, I think I can go a couple more decades,” I sighed and turned to her, “Nothing personal sweetheart, I’d just rather have him dead.”

“You fucking asshole,” she sobbed, turning away from me into Riq IV’s chest.

“Oh, maybe I could get used to this,” Riq IV said deviously, lowering his weapon for the briefest of seconds as Nova stared up at him before kneeing him right in the groin. As she ducked out of the way, I took my open shot, getting him directly between the eyes. The shock stilled us as we watched the Council leader fall gracelessly to the ground dead. We stared at each other before she came to her senses and launched herself into my arms.

“Nova, I’m sorry,” I murmured, kissing her desperately. “I didn’t mean it, I promise. I’m so sorry.”

“Rick, I know it’s okay, I know,” she assured me, burying her face in my neck as she clung to me. “Please, please just take me home.”

“I will baby, I will,” I told her, “I just have to finish what I started.” I pulled my portal gun away from Scar, silently thanking him for protecting her for as long as he had.

“He saved me, you know,” she murmured, staring down at him sadly. “I was going to kill them, the council a-and I think they knew that. H-He sacrificed himself for me.”

“I knew he would.” I kissed her head, opening a portal into the level nine control room. A groflamite appeared, trying to stop us but I shot him quickly.

“Wh-where are we?” she asked nervously, staring at the dead bug on the ground.

“This would be the level nine control room, I came here to topple a government,” I told her with a shrug. She stared at me with wide eyes as I typed into the computer, accessing their economy with far too little button clicks. “What?” I asked as she gaped at me. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t have to do this again.”

“S-So are you gonna like, redirect their missiles? Or disintegrate their space fleet?” she suggested.

“You sound like Morty and Summer,” I rolled my eyes. “No, I prefer to do things the easy way. Like, change a one to a zero.” The operation complete, I opened another portal, this time directly into my garage, pulling Nova along behind me just in time to watch as ships took off from Earth. Damn, they moved fast.

“D-Dad? Nova?” Beth said, sounding stunned from the doorway. “Where have you been? We haven’t seen you in over a week! There was a new government, they gave Jerry a job but apparently, their entire economy just collapsed. So, it looks like he’s out of a job again.”

I looked between Beth and her best friend, opting to just shrug. “I was out.”

“By the way Nova, Ryan’s been looking for you. He wants you to come home,” she rolled her eyes. “You know you’re welcome here as long as you need, right?”

Nova nodded, still shellshocked from waging a brief but entire war against two different governments. “M-Maybe it's time I go home,” she murmured sadly. She remained silent as Beth sighed at us both, shaking her head as she left the room.

“Y-You okay?” I asked hesitantly as she stared blankly ahead. She shook her head sharply, breaking herself from her train of thought and smiled weakly.

“Are you?”

”I’m better now that you’re safe,” I murmured, pulling her into my arms. We were silent for a while, just enjoying each other’s embrace. “I love you, Nova,” I murmured into her hair as we swayed. She stopped, looking up at me longingly before returning her face to my chest.

”I love you too.”

+Ch8: What It Is To Burn+

#rick and morty #rick and morty fanfiction #rick sanchez x reader #rick sanchez/reader

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rkxsungwoon-blog · 5 years

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☆ mga5 callbacks; june 27 ! performance: the last of the real ones by fall out boy (singing + piano) ↪ song reference ( 0:06 - 1:11, 2:42 - 3:33 ) / piano reference ( 0:07 - 1:14, 3:08 - 4:01 )

when the email arrives, sungwoon is preoccupied, which is what he’ll call being elbow deep in kimchi for posterity’s sake. the kitchen looks like the scene of a bloody murder, and he grimaces at the thought of having to clean it up alone (unless he can rope any of the guys into doing it for him). it’s one of those things that just had to be done during his day off from work, however, like… laundry, or cleaning the bathroom, or washing the floors. to be clear, sungwoon is not a fussy person by nature; he just feels better when he has a lot on his plate. keeping himself busy with a thousand different things means he has no time to dwell, and sungwoon has too much to dwell on these days. the mgas aren’t even first on his list of ‘shit sungwoon is very obviously and determinedly not touching with a ten foot pole’.

but they are there, a persistent reminder of decisions he’s made, for better or for worse. decisions they’ve all made, since this year is about more than just him and daniel. in some ways, he’s a supporting character this time around; the bulk of the anxiety, the nervousness, the fluttering feelings that come with your first performance ought to belong to woojin, kenta, and minhyun. sungwoon is a little older, a little wiser, no longer the wide-eyed newbie with shaky knees from last season. he wonders what it says about him that he sort of misses that. not the shaky knees part, but being excited for what’s to come—for the beginning of a journey, not a stroll down a familiar path.

unlike the rest, he’s not waiting on the results of their audition with the same fervor. his lack of interest isn’t born out of confidence; rather, the experience of having gone through all this once already mellows him out and makes him less desperate for the news, knowing it’ll come when it comes. thus, when the first member of empty enigma receives an all-important email from mnet, sungwoon is in no haste to check if he received one too. “i’ll do it later,” he says, turning his attention back to his work. neither kenta nor minhyun seem eager to open it anyway—until daniel arrives and shatters the calm with his exuberance.

sungwoon is only tangentially aware of the results (and the celebrations), but he can’t stop the smile from spreading over his face as he hears the other celebrate behind him. he’s thrilled on their behalf, obviously. in his biased opinion, all his friends deserve to make it till the end of this competition. from his self-imposed exile in the kitchen, he makes it a point to look over his shoulder and say, “i always knew you guys had it in you,” the way all gruff-but-proud dads do in the movies.

but otherwise, sungwoon is, once again, elbow deep in kimchi no matter how much kenta and daniel bother him to check his phone please (“do you guys just not want to eat, then?” sungwoon grumbles). they’re too persistent for him to ignore, so he washes up and takes his sweet time in pulling out his phone to check the inbox (just to mess with them).

and maybe there is a brief moment where sungwoon’s throat constricts because he can’t see anything from mnet there, and he thinks, wildly, about how funny it would be if he was the only member of the band so far who didn’t actually qualify. but he refreshes and there it is, the callback notice with all the details he needs for the second round of pre-show performances. he keeps his expression impassive as he turns the screen to show the rest of his friends. “i’m in,” he says in his best hacker voice. and later, once they’ve bothered woojin into checking his emails as well, he can say, “we’re all in.” no dream-like disbelief to spare here; sungwoon believes that empty enigma deserves at least this much. it’s not full confirmation of all their hard work—they’re not on the show yet—but it’s a step forward.

and they’re all taking it together.

sungwoon takes a few more days off work to figure out his performance. his boss doesn’t buy his cryptic, half-assed excuses for why he needs the vacation; she simply tells him to consider the time off his belated birthday gift. the kind edge to her smile makes sungwoon feel marginally better about being selfish here. if he really pushed himself, he could’ve managed to put something together while working days, but sungwoon wants to give the callbacks his entire focus. unlike daniel or kenta or even woojin, he doesn’t instinctively know what he’ll be performing. the back ups (and their back ups) from his first audition are obsolete or sound boring to him now. sungwoon feels the need to start over.

daniel’s doing an original song, from what he knows. sungwoon wonders if he should go the same route too. maybe do a song off the album, since they are meant to promote it whenever they can. hunched over his desk, he goes through the album tracklist multiple times in search of a potential song—and comes back to sleepless in phoenix and winter everywhere each time. it would be the ultimate power play, right? to perform his own released song on a platform like the mgas? as squall, as empty enigma’s frontman, this should be his job.

but after spending a couple of hours reworking the songs to fit the two minute limit, sungwoon decides against it. they’re too blatant, too personal. he almost tells himself they belong to squall, but he knows that’s not entirely true. the album and these songs were the first time he tried to reconcile squall and sungwoon into one person. the results are… still a little confusing, but sungwoon made the attempt and feels better about harnessing them both overall. maybe they aren’t so different—all personas, all facets that ultimately combine to make him who he is.

searching for a replacement is a daunting task, mostly because it forces sungwoon to confront what type of performer he wants to be in front of the judges. the risky play would be to sing and dance, but it feels like a risk for risk’s sake and nothing else. he could just sing a powerhouse ballad or something (sungwoon knows he’s good enough to pull it off), but that doesn’t feel like him either—it’s too safe. the answer lies somewhere with squall, who all but shoves sungwoon to the song he eventually settles on. it’s… almost perfect: rock, with a sick piano accompaniment sungwoon quickly makes his own. it combines the best parts of him.

sleepless nights pile up as he works on the rearrangement, settling for nothing less than perfection. there is quite a bit to work through; his first attempt at the rearrangement is too dramatic, so he shifts gears and tweaks until he’s happy with the way it sounds. the big worry following that is pronunciation. doing a song purely in english is always tricky, but sungwoon has done enough covers with empty enigma to feel comfortable with it. the rest of the band members are busy with their own preparations in the meantime, and while he’d never call their house quiet, it does feel a little lonely. he consoles himself by thinking about how good performance day will be, to see them all come together.

(in his weaker moments, sungwoon nearly texts daniel, the lyrics from his chosen song swimming in his head. he’s not sure why it resonates with him so much. the translation into korean is clunky, the original meaning lost, but when he thinks of that ultra-kind of love you never walk away from, daniel’s face pops into his mind. at the end of the day, he doesn’t. it seems too much too soon, a blatant acknowledgement of whatever there is between them. sungwoon wishes he could name it, but it’s still too uncertain for him to believe in wholeheartedly. maybe one day, when he confronts the feelings he’s been avoiding, but for now—he thinks, and dreams).

“i’m not playing a keytar for the callbacks.”

at certain times in a young man’s life, he has to put his foot down. for sungwoon, this is one of those times. in his eagerness to pull off the best performance possible, he forgot to consider the logistics of… well, everything. specifically, how much effort and sheer physical strength it takes to lug a keyboard across town for a two minute performance. kenta suggests the keytar instead, and sungwoon almost warms up to the idea until he remembers how fucking stupid a keytar looks on anyone. this is not the time for sungwoon to look fucking stupid.

minhyun offers to help, which is nearly enough for sungwoon to insist on doing it himself, but god knows he can’t afford to be petty today. so he swallows his pride and accepts minhyun’s generous offer, promising vaguely to pay him back somehow. smiles, a little, when minhyun’s back is turned, so faintly that he doesn’t even know it until the moment passes. the whole band is dressed in empty enigma t-shirts, courtesy of kenta, to try and get some promo in where they can. it feels like they’re outfitted for a war, which might be fitting in the case of the mgas. at least

they arrive at the venue together with time to spare, though sungwoon doesn’t linger where he’s not meant to—he has a whole fucking keyboard to take care of. maybe he regrets insisting on bringing it, but it’s too late now! instead of focusing on his questionable upper body strength, he takes some time to survey the crowd gathered around. empty enigma are only five out of a hundred. it seemed like such a large number, but sungwoon has worked bigger crowds as squall before. still, this isn’t a dimly lit club, the haze of the smoke machine obscuring the audience’s faces. he actually spots quite a few familiar ones as he makes his way over to some free seats with the rest of the band.

which places them near people sungwoon is mildly uncomfortable to see here. he ends up seated directly in front of eunji and turns around briefly to offer a half-hearted smile. somehow, he doesn’t feel like it lands the way he intends it to. joohyun is further away, saving sungwoon the awkwardness of having to say hello, but she’s right behind daniel. and there is, despite his best efforts, a heavy weight settling on his shoulders as he thinks about the reality he’s been desperately trying to avoid by keeping busy and not allowing his mind to drift to daniel’s confession of a few weeks ago. sometimes sungwoon wishes he were more ignorant and less likely to pick up on the glaringly obvious clues in front of him.

this is not what he wants to think about during callbacks, not when he’s spent so long studiously ignoring the ramifications of whatever the fuck it means to be in love with someone who tells you he’s split between two people. in his darker moments, sungwoon wonders if he’ll ever be enough for someone on his own. while he knows daniel’s indecision doesn’t come from a place of cruelty, if he allows himself to dwell on it, he just feels like shit. in his lighter moments, sungwoon wonders if he could ever be selfless enough to retreat and make the decision that much simpler on daniel, to cut himself out of the equation altogether before he has a chance to get hurt, but—

(“i really, really like you.”)

if only he weren’t greedy. if only he didn’t want so desperately to be chosen this time.

his heart might be a mess, but his head is still alert enough to note the entrance of the five ceos and the hush that descends throughout the room. sungwoon recalls their faces with startling clarity from the previous year, and thinks wryly that he might have an edge on most others here. he’s familiar with being judged by them. but with that comes regret as well; he’d felt inadequate for the first time in a while in front of their eyes during the last season. if sungwoon knew they would be present for this round of judging, he likely would’ve done something different to show he took their criticisms to heart and worked hard to improve. sing and dance, damn the risk, just to make it clear he respected them enough to work on their notes.

it’s too late now. resting a hand on the keyboard propped up beside his chair, sungwoon swallows a sigh and plasters a smile on his face. at the end of the day, he’s still excited about his performance the direction he’s chosen to take. sungwoon just hopes his oversight won’t come back to bite him in the ass. his earlier confidence taking another hit, he’s a little quieter than normal as the ceos begin calling individual performers up one after another. the people in front of the band are rowdy enough on their own; sungwoon makes a face in their direction, then leans over to woojin to whisper, “you’d think the loud crowd would tone it down for the cameras,” to have woojin nod in agreement.

the performances blur together soon enough. a few stand out enough for sungwoon to straighten up in his seat in interest, and some have him slumping down and cringing. kenta’s chatty, likely because he’s nervous, so the bulk of sungwoon’s commentary is directed at him. part of him misses the familiarity of daniel, the long-suffering patience with which he endured sungwoon’s reactions last year. he wants desperately to talk to him, but he’s scared of looking over and seeing something he doesn’t want to. so he contents himself with talking to kenta and woojin, laughing and critiquing and expressing excitement for their performances, until—

he glances over by accident in time to see joohyun lean forward to whisper something in daniel’s ear. sungwoon blinks hard and tears his eyes away, ignoring the voice in his head that whispers, they look so good together. it’s different knowing daniel cares about joohyun and different seeing it in front of him, the easy way in which they both seem to fit, like two puzzle pieces put together at last. maybe this is what love should look like, the proper fucking kind of love. whatever sungwoon feels still seems unnatural some days, like he’s going against nature and everything right in the world and this heartache is his punishment for it. maybe he’ll hurt a thousand times over for the slimmest glimmer of hope—

running a hand through his hair and destroying the hairstyle he carefully worked on this morning, sungwoon tells himself to snap the fuck out of it. this is not the time or place for personal problems. compartmentalization is a wondrous skill, and he retreats into the safe, protective nonchalance of squall. but even squall is morose and annoyed and burning with the bitter kind of jealousy sungwoon specifically does not want to engage in, so he breaks away from him as well and finds himself drifting.

when daniel’s name is called, sungwoon is still a little distracted and dazed, able to offer only a hasty, “good luck,” before he’s gone. he barely notices minhyun has moved into the seat beside him until his hand wraps around sungwoon’s, and he’d laugh at how regular this seems to have become if it weren’t for the tight feeling in his chest. if he didn’t need this and the cheap comfort it provides. whether it’s minhyun or just the physical contact itself, the brief moment anchors him more solidly to the ground and he thinks, it’s okay. i have this.

daniel’s performance is as good as sungwoon expects it to be, and he’s so proud of his friend for having the courage to do an original song. he wishes he had enough courage to lean over and say so, but something keeps him rooted in place. kenta and minhyun perform shortly after, with sungwoon jokingly telling kenta to “hit ‘em with the high and low,” before his performance. they’re both good—minhyun, especially, is much better than sungwoon expected—and he can’t help but think that this is his band. all these talented individuals are his friends. woojin absolutely kills it with his dancing as well; sungwoon genuinely didn’t know he was that good. giving woojin’s shoulder a gentle, congratulatory squeeze when he returns to his seat, sungwoon turns to the front and awaits his turn.

by some twist of fate, hyun bin is the one to call his name. it’s ironic enough that he feels like it might be on purpose. hyun bin was the one to deliver his elimination sentence last year, his complimentary words offset by the harsh truth. sungwoon sucks in a deep breath and stands up to answer the summons, keyboard in tow. full circle, right? he resolutely does not look at daniel or joohyun or any of his friends as he stands in front of the judges, his back straight and head held high, focus narrowing on the stage and only the stage. no time for bullshit—this is his spotlight.

“hello, my name is ha sungwoon.” diligently, he sinks into a bow before throwing the ceos a smile. “i didn’t think we would meet again so soon.” or at all, but life has a funny way of working out. “i’m no longer the tiny giant from last year; i’ve grown.” literally, because shoe lifts, which he points to with a sheepish laugh, but in skill as well. he hopes that much will be obvious on its own. “i will be performing the last of the real ones by fall out boy today. thank you for this opportunity.” with practiced ease, he slips his keyboard out of its cover and finishes setting up, mind calming as he stands poised to begin.

the first notes he plays stand on their own, bereft of sungwoon’s vocals. he’d thought about cutting straight to the first verse initially, but the initial moment of accompaniment grounds him, puts him in a familiar territory. everything else falls away, like a crumbling cliff-face into the dark sea below. thinking (or overthinking) is not necessary when he plays the piano; it comes from somewhere within, his fingers guided by an unseen force. the piano rearrangement is a lot softer than the original, but sungwoon intended it that way on purpose. the stripped down version allows his vocals to stand out more without sacrificing the integrity of the song. but it’s still representative of him and the things he loves best: singing, playing the piano, and getting creative with his music. he can’t think of anything else that could better express the artist he is and wants to be.

i was just an only child of the universe and then i found you and then i found you you are the sun and i am just the planets spinning around you spinning around you

you were too good to be true gold plated but what's inside you but what's inside you i know this whole damn city thinks it needs you but not as much as i do as much as i do, yeah

the ghost of a smile touches his lips as he flows easily into the first verse. initially, it is slow, a gentle confession he pours his heart into. eyes fluttering shut, sungwoon channels his own feelings of discovery and sense of wonderment at falling in love so intensely for the first time into his words. it’s supposed to be tentative and meek. you’re supposed to get swept up in the tide, especially when the person you care about burns more brightly than you do. his eyes snap open as he transitions into the second part of the verse, growing louder as the near accusation that pours from his mouth. the fear and anxiety is something sungwoon knows well, and for now he embraces it. a song is always about more than the words and the voice singing it—it’s about the emotions it elicits in the singer and the audience. and he’s peeling back the layers here to leave himself bare.

his gaze drifts to daniel momentarily as he sings the final three lines of the verse, maybe because he’s feeling brave (maybe because he’s just feeling it). and it’s no longer than the span of a heartbeat, but the heat in sungwoon’s eyes morphs into something delicate as he thinks, you know what i mean, right?

'cause you're the last of a dying breed write our names in the wet concrete i wonder if your therapist knows everything about me i'm here in search of your glory there's been a million before me that ultra-kind of love you never walk away from you're just the last of the real ones

the small pause as he sings, yeah, gives sungwoon a chance to collect himself before launching into the chorus. his voice reaches a crescendo while his fingers fly across the keys. the chorus is the highlight, the culmination of all that lovesick desperation. sungwoon doesn’t know if he’d call this a typical love song, but he doesn’t want to sing a typical song for a typical love. he needs more—that ultra fucking kind of love. his mouth twists into a smirk at the word glory, courtesy of squall. there’s been a million on the stage before him, likely, but as sungwoon looks at the judges near the end of the chorus, he wants to be more than just a number.

i'm here at the beginning of the end oh, the end of infinity with you i'm here at the beginning of the end oh, the end of infinity with you

i'm done with having dreams the thing that i believe oh, you drain all the fear from me i'm done with having dreams the thing that i believe you drain the fear from me

he softens once more for the first part of the bridge, his voice growing quieter to match the gentle accompaniment. in his mind’s eye, sungwoon is the only one in the room, singing to himself. and maybe he should be scared of being so vulnerable when more than a hundred people are looking at him to judge. the second half of the bridge all but punches through his apprehensions, face splitting into a genuine, unabashed grin as he sings without any fear. he can’t relate fully—sungwoon still has too many dreams he’s not ready to put to bed just yet, but the thing he believes in is himself, his own capabilities. most of that is thanks to himself. he thinks about how he’d run away after the last mgas, lost and broken and embarrassed, but he’s changed now. fortune favors the bold. it should favor him.

because of the way he rearranged the song, sungwoon decides to play around with the ending. the final line builds into a high note he holds for a few seconds, the accompaniment lingering as it fades. his heart is in his throat as he blinks and sinks into another bow, thanking the audience for watching his performance. without his voice and the piano, he suddenly feels a little exposed and hastens to get offstage. heading back to his seat on unsteady legs (not just because of the keyboard’s bulk; he bets he looks hilarious trying to drag something of that size along with him), sungwoon all but collapses in his seat. the post-performance buzz fades slowly, awareness creeping back in at a snail’s pace, but then—

sungwoon starts as daniel reaches for his hand, his fingers curling open to receive him of their own accord. a jolt runs down his spine at the moment of contact. eyebrow raised, he glances over in question, wondering if he’s okay, wondering if he didn’t mean to reach for someone else. but daniel’s hand wraps around his own, steady and sure, and sungwoon’s eyes soften despite his own scattered misgivings.

maybe he’s destined to end up here every single time, feeling foolish and embarrassed by his own thoughts yet accepting whatever daniel gives him anyway like he hasn’t been waiting for it. maybe he’s destined to take it all—the ugly and the confusing parts, the truths that hurt and the lies daniel won’t say. maybe if sungwoon could do it all again, he’d do it exactly like this. he’d choose to be here. he’d choose to fall in love with daniel (but, his heart supplies, that was never really up to him, was it?)

sungwoon brushes his thumb over daniel’s knuckles before squeezing tightly, fiercely, leftover courage from the performance making him bold. he doesn’t know exactly where they are or what to expect, but for now he’ll take this moment and hold it in his heart.

that ultra-kind of love you never walk away from—

yeah, he thinks. it might be.

#rkmga5 #rkmga5callback #( c: solo )#danielxrk #rkminhyun #rkkenta #rkpwj #joohyunrk #rkeunji #( because mentioned )#( wc: 4237 )#( i'm so sick and tired of myself!! )#( sorry mods ily )#( my f key is basically broken so apologies in advance if a word or two looks weird )

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byjayr-blog · 5 years

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Divine Femininity, Power of Her Aura - Ella.

I’ve been in the arts and music industry for about 4 years or so now, and inevitably saw how the rise of women in the creative industry hasn’t been getting as much attention, so I’ve decided to start a series based on women all around the world who are in the creative industry. I ask them to share their story with me (and you :) ) as to how they got to where they are today. The series will introduce a new divine woman once a month, as my first post to this series I’d like to introduce July’s divine woman my friend Ella.

Ella is a Fashion Model currently based in Montreal, I’ve asked her to share her story with me, enjoy.

byjayr - Walk me through your story, and can you recount any specific pivotal moments (as much description as you can remember on where you were and how you were feeling)?

Ella - My story is a long one. I guess it’s not just one story at all, there’s a lot of events and challenges that have led me to where I am today. For this interview I’m going to specifically talk about the part of my story that concerns the journey I’ve been on regarding my physical appearance & health.

I’m not really sure how to start this, so I guess I’ll start at the baseline. I was a happy person. Grew up without financial burdens in a suburban white family. I kept honours in all of my classes at school, loved theatre, had very high muscle strength for my size from ballet & gymnastics, was super fit and healthy, conventionally attractive person. Everything changed in November of 2011 when I had to become a tough bag of knuckle and grit, being flown by air ambulance to Halifax for an extremely rare auto-immune disease (Rapidly Progressive Glomerulonephritis) that had given me stage 5 (end stage) kidney failure. I was a young body filled with dreams but my body disagreed with me. You lose a lot of trust in yourself when your own body turns on you.

For the first three months or so of my sickness I was undergoing chemotherapy as a method of trying to suppress and reboot my immune system in order to get my kidneys to work again. During this time, I had huge diet restrictions (basically all I could eat was white bread, gummy bears and water) and became extremely malnourished. On top of that, I was on high dose steroids with horrible side effects, making me extremely weak. All I know is that I spent the last hours of 2011 sitting on the floor, staring at my legs, being astonished by skinny they were. I was strangely proud of how undernourished and skeletal they were, I had always wished I had the will power to intentionally be that skinny- but that’s another story. Both physically and mentally my functions were imbecilic. That night I blacked out and received the a blood transfusion that saved my life, but gave me a rash from hell. Physically, you honestly couldn’t recognize me.

The transfusion helped me in gaining my strength back from the months of crawling on the ground like a helpless baby. Despite my new found dividend of health, everything I was going through at this point made me ugly. Chemotherapy had taken away my thick, luscious locks of strawberry blonde, it took away all of my fingernails and toenails. The rash that covered me head to toe was gruesome. My entire body kept shedding it’s skin like a snake, leaving behind fragile pink tender skin that wasn’t even ready to be exposed to air. I felt like an unflattering cardboard cutout of an ugly caricature of myself.

I stopped leaving the house for a solid chunk of my precious time. Alone and sad, waiting for the day I could finally close my eyes for the last time. I don’t think I saw anyone but my family and my friend Mia for at least three months. No photos exist of this time. Evidently this made it hard for me to keep up with my then “boyfriend”. In fact, I remember him asking if I’d take him back when I recovered, but all I said was “I’m not getting better”, and proceeded to ignore him. I couldn’t accept that he had the nerve to still adore me, I was so painstakingly un-sexual. How dare he want to kiss me. I knew I was no longer the girl who was all the perfect fashion, and eventually I really started to mourn for myself. I would never be glamorous, I thought, but at this point I desperately sought being able to be something completely ordinary and unremarkable. Staring at my familiar, tragic limbs- I believed my cold pink hands would never again feel pretty.

One very vivid memory I always think about is when I left to go to the mall for the first time since being sick. I slathered on a coat of the makeup watching actual centimetre parcels of skin peel like a million meaty sunburns that oozed out makeup. I started peeling and picking off the scabs but the more I peeled the more I bled. I came to the conclusion that I would have to peel off my entire face if I wanted to even out the texture of it, so I gave up. I slathered it in vaseline to glue the drooping flakes back onto my face in attempts to mimmic a smoothness and then used half the bottle of foundation to even out the colour. I gazed at my reflection in the mirror for what felt like hours. My face was the texture of a golfball; but more uneven and porous. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t even close to me. Even my eyes had grown so passive, my lids that were once a flirting device batted still- but with their sparsely fallen out lashes they were so dim, so dead.

By late February of 2012, they realized my kidneys just weren’t going to start working from the chemotherapy. They stopped the chemo and I was put on peritoneal dialysis. In a nut shell, that means they put a tube in my belly, the tube connected to a machine every night at home and ran for 8-12 hours, depending on what the circumstances were. Essentially, dialysis does the work for your kidneys, but its more of a temporary thing, and as I found out the hard way, it has lots of complications. Years went by and I had plenty of brushes with death. Plenty more stories to be told about that. But this story is about the growing pains of my confidence & beauty, not my psychical pain.

It’s 2019 and it’s been five and a half years since I received my life saving kidney transplant. My mind has a weird complex built up around how I see myself in the mirror. I often find myself comparing myself to who I was before I ever got sick. I have this way of idealizing who I was before the sickness came, and I’m always seeing the world through rose coloured lenses when I think about my childhood. Sometimes I take a look at myself in the mirror and it’s really hard. I’m so quick to notice how frayed I am at the edges like I’m some kind of hand-me-down lace. Sometimes I just feel like all of my bones are too old for me, that they creak like a dusty house full of empty photo albums because I lost so much opportunity to fill them up with all the teenage memories I had to miss out on. People tell my all of these experiences make me strong but for the most part I just find myself thinking they make me heavy. I had to grow up too fast and it hurts. It hurts but it’s going to be okay. The ocean is fucking heavy, mountains are fucking heavy, but they’re so perfect and beautiful and that’s all I should be seeing about myself too.

Today I feel secure, complex, and empowered. Maybe I won’t tomorrow, but taking things day by day is the best way I’ve learned to navigate through this world. There will always be people who take me for face value & my looks alone. It takes serious courage to love yourself in a world, in an infrastructure strategically set up to make people who have suffered trauma feel isolated, unworthy, and heavy. The caliber of experience I have endured has done nothing but expand my emotional intelligence, even if it isolates me. Our dominant culture is filled with violent myths. Break them.

J - What inspired you to do what you love?

E - The internet, contemporary situations, and people I surround myself with can be a source of inspiration/influence, but they can also be a huge form of intimidation/comparison. I used to try so hard to impress people but ultimately it just created huge insecurity blocks. Seeing other people competing for acceptance is toxic. I think it’s important to keep some things to yourself. Deconstruct the social construct of what “talent” is. You don’t have to cater to other people. The world doesn’t have to be this finite, limited space you think it is. Don’t let people devalue your creative ability and worth just because they don’t understand it. It’s their loss. My mom is the biggest loner I know and she inspires me every day. I think I work best alone and I get that from her. Maybe this sounds selfish to you but I think that more than anything, I inspire myself. My life has been one dark struggle after another and somehow I crawl my way out of it every time. I’m strong enough now to realize that being alone isn’t a bad thing at all. Isolation breeds individuality. Once I realized that, the world became a safer place for me.

J - What do you find yourself daydreaming about, and can you recount a specific daydream you’ve been having lately?

E - I want to be somewhere new. I’m so tired of Montreal. I dream of being somewhere where absolutely nobody knows my name or where I’m from or how I got there. I don’t want to talk about myself. I want to learn about other people. To get inspired by them. Lately I’ve been working on music lots. It’s something I’m really passionate about and I can’t wait to share it with people who are open to listening. All I daydream about is being somewhere warm and somewhere exciting. The last few years have been really hard on me. I struggle with a lot of issues that I’m not going to delve into right now, but my biggest dream is just to be happy. To be able to look at myself and be proud, and to make my friends & family proud too. Life moves really fast and I’m making lots of changes. Things are changing for the better, I have to believe they will. <3

Thank you Ella for sharing your inspirational and moving story! <3

Come back next month to see August’s Divine Femininity. :)

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 3 years

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Behind The Album: Comedown Machine

The Strokes fifth studio album was released in May 2013 via RCA records. This would be the final release as part of their original contract signed with the label. In many ways, this represented the strangest album from the band due to the fact that upon its release they enacted a media blackout. Members of the band did not participate in any interviews, tours, TV appearances in promotion of the release. They would release a music video for the track “All the Time,” which showed archival footage of the band throughout the years. The idea of a blackout represented a rather interesting concept since conversation around the band always seemed so constant even in the midst of their hiatus. People had been very interested in whether or not they got along, what they wore, who they were dating, and whether or not they were overrated or not. The band had heard all this noise throughout their career, so they decided to let the music speak for itself on this record. Comedown Machine had absolutely no focus on the commercial market whatsoever, which really illustrated itself in the sales. Due to the cryptic nature of the release, the homage to the past video, and silence from members, many believed that this final Album for RCA would be the band’s last anyway. The group even took it a step further as to place artwork inside the album that held a striking similarity to their 2001 debut Is This It. The cover of the LP represented an image of an old RCA reel box.

As for the music itself, there existed a lot of their early sound on some tracks, while other tracks reflected them experimenting and venturing into territory foreign to many longtime listeners. For example, the song “One Way Trigger” introduced Julian Casablancas in a falsetto for the very first time. Many critics would say that the album seemed much more organized and put together than the previous effort Angles in 2011. If you look in the liner notes, this album also saw the band start to use a much more collaborative songwriting process, while previous albums had all been dominated by lead singer, Julian Casablancas. One of the most unique tracks comes in the finale entitled “Call It Fate, Call It Karma,” which referenced a line from the film, Ghostbusters. The song co-written by Casablancas, Albert Hammond Jr., and Nick Valensi saw them delve into a more improvisational bossanova song that has a very strong jazz feel to it. The main takeaway about this record comes in the fact that all five members were actually in the same room for the recording’s entirety. Julian Casablancas would refer to this in a recent interview about why they never toured the album. “Because we weren’t in harmony. You know, maybe in a few years it really won’t matter and I’ll just say it… I could explain it, it’s not a big deal, but…The need to not be contractually bound” to a band that was “limiting to our personal lives. I guess it’s not that controversial, really. There was conflict and there was fear and we got through it and we made records, but it wasn’t, you know, out of pure brotherly love and musical inspiration.” He would go on to say in the same interview for The Guardian that some of the tension might be caused by his own need for control over the music. “I think wanting to be in charge and wanting something to be good are different things. One is about selfishness, the other is about something objective. Is this person just an egomaniac wanting control or is it someone who can actually make it better? And that’s just life.” Yet, one would be wrong to call it simply a Casablancas’s solo record or the band going through the motions because without this record's existence, The New Abnormal probably never gets made. Along with their 2016 EP Future Present Past, they focused anything Strokes related on coming to terms with their past, while exploring a new musical future.

Critics for the most part did like the album saying that it displayed some of the qualities that the Strokes had been known for in their early days. A key observation being that this album improved upon the uneven Angles. Clash would say, “Whether you're in an Is This It vortex or not, this is the Strokes and they've returned with their most thought-provoking, strange and sexiest record yet." BBC Music also liked what it heard on the album. “Although plenty of the group’s signature sounds are present and correct, they form the backdrop to an unexpectedly wide range of styles and approaches." Commercially, Comedown Machine would perform the worst on the charts from their entire catalog only selling 41,000 in the first week, while debuting at number 10.

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grimelords · 7 years

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Hello and god bless, I have finally finished my November playlist a week and a half into december. Disco, Guns N’ Roses, an entire doom metal album and everything in between. Please enjoy.

Extraball - Yuksek: Aside from the extremely nice electro bass I think what I appreciate most about this song is that the chorus seems like the sort of thing you could sing in a round, or as some kind of children’s clapping game.

Mirror Reaper - Bell Witch: Let me be the first to apologise for putting an 80 minute doom metal album as the second song on this playlist. I’m sorry. It was selfish and it won’t happen again. That said, please listen to this because it is transformative. I’ve listened this a lot this month and it’s really affected my mood I think. Doom metal is one of the only genres that takes itself seriously enough to release an album that’s just one 80 minute track but I really can’t fault them for doing it. This is a piece of music that demands to be listened to in full, and while it does naturally divide into movements like anything else this long would, it would be weaker overall if it were split into individual tracks or listened to individually. A lot of the playing on here, which is very sparse in long sections feels like ritual music of some kind - a feeling that’s compounded by the length when you’re absolutely lost within it. It makes electric bass and drums feel like modern ritual instruments and this album feels like an invocation of the spirit of loss itself.

Sixteen Tons - Merle Travis: For some reason I keep thinking about and listening to different versions of Sixteen Tons. This is Merle Travis, the orginal songwriter, but this is a new recording he did in 1989. Notably I love the very plaintive solo in the middle of this, but I especially love that he changed the lyric at the end to say “I owe my soul to Tennessee Ernie Ford” which feels like an agressive rebuke or a solemn nod but I can’t tell which.

Looking Up - Michael Smith: My girlfriend sent me this song because she heard it on the podcast Good Christian Fun which as I understand it is an exploration of the bizzare world of american evangelical christian media. Anyway this song rocks. It sounds like Todd Terje remixed the theme to some lost 80s sitcom and I really can’t get enough of it.

Wild - Beach House: This is such a beautiful song. I love the tinny drum machine and the live drums that sound programmed constrasting against the huge wall of guitar and synths. I used to listen to this album a lot a few years ago when I worked night shift and it reminds me of standing on top of wine tanks in the cool night air at 2am texting my now girlfriend as she went to bed. Sorry.

Piano Concerto No. 3 In D Minor, Op.30: 1. Allegro ma non tanto - Sergei Rachmaninoff: I had a friend in school who did his licentiate degree in piano in year 12 and was obsessed with this piece. One day he took me through the whole first movement and showed me how the theme is established and comes back in different forms over and over again throughout and basically taught me how to listen to classical music which was very kind of him because it’s something I’m only really appreciating now.

Verklärte Nacht, Op.4: String Sextett for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and 2 Cellos - Arnold Schoenberg: This is an early Schoenberg piece before he got into that good good atonal serialism, but it does still have moments that presage what was to come. I don’t really have much to say about this other than it’s a very good place to start with Schoenberg because it’s like proof that he was a human man at one point.

Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) - Harry Belafonte: I’ve really been thinking about how work songs like this and like Sixteen Tons become international hits. This one especially, in the 50s, was it because it was a really good song (which it is) that a lot of people related to or was it a sort of exoticism about funny banana song (which to be fair, it also is).

Boogie Wonderland (12" Version) - Earth, Wind And Fire: This is the song you hear playing from the other side of the door when you get to heaven.

Apollo’s Mood - The Olympians: This album is basically a collection of Daptone All-Stars under the name The Olympians just doing their thing and it’s really amazing. I especially love the harpsichord in this, an instrument that doesn’t get nearly enough of a workout in soul music. Also, I don’t really know how to describe it but I really love the way the snare roll that starts it off and comes back a few times sounds - buzzy and busy without rushing anyone.

Saturn - The Olympians: This is the song you use for your montage at the end of a James Bond movie that’s just four minutes of him relaxing and drinking different cocktails by himself that the critics called ‘wholly unneccesary’. In the drums and bongo break he does a little dance and falls over.

November Rain - Guns N’ Roses: As far as overblown classic rock epics go, I really wish November Rain had the cultural place of bad song Bohemian Rhapsody or Stairway To Heaven because underneath the 9 minutes of stings and bullshit it’s actually a very beautiful and sad song written by an idiot.

Sisters Of The Moon - Fleetwood Mac: With the current wytchy cult that Stevie Nicks has around her it’s easy to forget that she wrote songs like Sisters Of The Moon, a song explicitly about a witch converting other women to witchery. I love the big extended phrase of guitar chords in the chorus and I’m very mad about how this song fades out just as it’s absolutely going off.

When The Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin: Rounding out this unexpected classic rock trio is When The Levee Breaks which I was thinking about because I was thinking about The Big Short. This song sounds so good and there’s been so much written about the famous drum sound and the production but what I only learned this month is that it was apparently recorded at a faster tempo and then slowed down afterwards, which explains a lot about a lot of the sounds in here.

Bad Liar - Selena Gomez: This is maybe the pop song of the year honestly. It’s so good in every single aspect, especially the when she says’ oh baby lets make reality, actuality, reality’ which is a very weird lyric. So is 'you’re taking up a fraction of my mind, every time I watch you serpentine(?)’. Great stuff all around.

Hello Miss Lonesome - Marlon Williams: I saw Marlon Williams a year or so ago and it was one of the best gigs I’ve been to because things just kept going wrong. Broken strings and misunderstandings and all that sort of thing, and the highlight for me was in this song the drummer got overconfident and started pushing the tempo near the end and eventually tripped over himself so badly they had to stop and start again.

The Voice Of Q - Q: Here’s how you can tell a song is good: you can only find it on Spotify on a compilation album called 'Cocaine Boogie: 24 Kilos Of Underground 80s Dance’. This song seems like a classic case of 'somebody bought a vocoder’ and it’s very very good, another fantastic entry in the canon of interplanetary disco. I also love the children sadly pleading with Q to come back at the end, because the song hasn’t really given you any understanding of who or what Q is other than a being with a voice who is from space.

Take A Trip - Rev. Utah Smith: If I were, hypothetically, to start, for example, a UFO cult, I would definitely have my congregation sing this song. I love it so much. Outside of the fun premise it does what good gospel music should do and completely uplifts my spirit by promising a better life after this one, and if I get to go there by rocket ship, well that’s all the better.

Normal Person - Arcade Fire: I love the little 'do you like rock and roll music? 'cause I don’t know if I do.’ he sings at the start because it sounds like they’re into their 13th hour of recording or something. I love the lead guitar that sounds like it’s severely undernourished but trying its best and I love how strangely heavy the bass and rhythm guitar is compared to a lot of their other songs. A good song to sing along to while you’re driving.

Top Of The World - Kimbra: I don’t know exactly how or why but Kimbra made a Kanye song. Playing the dual roles of Kanye and Featured Artist she does a great job and once again defies whatever I thought she was going to do next. I can’t wait for the album, I hope it has even more Raps.

Eric’s Trip - Sonic Youth: I’ve never gotten much into Sonic Youth because they seemed way too New York Cool for me, so imagine my heartbreak when I found out the lyrics to my favourite song of theirs are wholesale lifted from an Andy Warhol film. I still have a lot of love for 'my head’s on straight, my girlfriend’s beautiful, it looks pretty good to me’ though.

I Hope I Sleep Tonight - DJ Seinfeld: God I’d be embarrassed if I blew up on soundcloud with the name 'DJ Seinfeld’ and then had to keep it when I put my album out. This album varies pretty wildly in quality but I really love this track, the synth melody that just careens around wildly while the rest of the song happens nearby is what does it for me I think.

Problem With The Sun - Nicolas Jaar: “In an interview with Self-Titled Magazine, Jaar said “I was watching a documentary about bugs. It said that if they looked at the sun, they’d die. I thought ‘Oh, that’s funny; that’s cute’ and I wrote a track about it (…). If you find something really special in a tiny story about bugs, it could have a much bigger meaning than that. I like the idea of turning life into this miniature thing”.” He’s used this particular voice modulation on a couple of song and it really cracks me up because it so thick and textured and just plain silly but somehow it suits the song perfectly.

Long Strong Diamond - Baggsmen: This is a song I remember seeing on Rage late at night years and years ago. The guy was dressed up as a werewolf and kidnapping some girl but he gets so distracted by his song about being a werewolf that she ends up escaping. Extremely mad to find out that the guy in this song from years ago that I love is none other than personal enemy of mine Jake Stone from Bluejuice.

XO/The Host/Initiation - The Weeknd: Trilogy could well be the best album of the decade. Remember when The Weeknd was this mysterious anonymous guy who was firmly a character and not an actual guy who seems to actually believe what he’s singing? I love Trilogy because the progression across the three discs from like 'cool indifferent party guy’ in House Of Balloons to extremely deranged cult leader in Echoes Of Silence is very satisfying. Initiation especially is great because it’s like a cool fun song about a party mixed with some extremely dark shit about the clocks not working so you can’t tell the time and the blinds not working so you can’t see outside in a scary pitch shifting voice. “And all I wanna do is leave 'cause I’ve been zoning for a week and I ain’t left this little room, trying to concentrate to breathe” but you absolutely MUST meet my boys.

This Guy’s In Love With You - Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass: Anyway here’s a change of pace. A very peaceful song about just fucking dying if she won’t be your girl. I love how dramatic this song gets before completely stopping and starting again into a very relaxed trumpet line.

Jasmine (demo) - Jai Paul: I’m obsessed with the cult that develops around guys like Jai Paul and Jay Electronica, who put out two songs that are so good that it drives people insane when they don’t put out any more. There’s apparently a bunch of stuff happening with Jai Paul currently that I haven’t been keeping track of but The Fader had a really good article earlier this year about how the Jai Paul leaks and how insane it made everyone. Aside from all that, the song is pure magic - just listen to it and you can understand why everyone was obsessed as they were.

Freaking Out The Neighbourhood - Mac Demarco: I remember I saw an interview with Mac Demarco talking about this song and he described the riff as just some dumb little thing he made up which is shocking to me because I am totally obsessed with how good it sounds. It’s perfect!

Bob - “Weird Al” Yankovic: Yes baby it’s Weird Al’s all-palindrome Bob Dylan parody! I was telling my girfriend about how this is actually really good songwriting because even though it’s essentially gibberish it has enough good imagery and fun sounds that it works anyway and really how different is 'may a moody baby doom a yam’ to 'transient jet lagged ecto-mimed bison’ from the Mars Volta which also appears on this list? Anyway she hated it, and rightly so.

I Have Good News To Bring - Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live from the basement church of my UFO cult, a beautiful version of Take A Trip that sounds like it was recorded on the organ of an empty baseball stadium at night.

Julia - Jungle: I have been desperately waiting for three years now for another Jungle album and they finally posted about new songs the other day and I got very very excited. This is an amazing song, every sound in it is so perfectly placed and the vocals are very beautiful and have such a rich bass for such a high tenor. I love the way the drums subtly get very busy in the last few choruses, I could listen to this song for hours.

Ray Gun (feat. DOOM) -BadBadNotGood & Ghostface Killah: I love that this song is maybe 20bmp faster than Ghostface or Doom are expecting. Doom especially sounds far more excited than he has in years and they both do really well with it. Also, I was certain the melody it breaks into in the last third was some Lalo Schifrin bit I’ve heard before but I can’t seem to find any info corroborating that. If it’s familiar to you or you know where it’s from, please reply to this post because it’s been driving me crazy.

Confessions Pt. III - BadBadNotGood & Colin Stetson: Any song where Colin Stetson has to play with others is funny to me. He’s such a self contained ball of power that him joining a traditional group like it just wouldn’t work. Sure, this song does sort of sound like him doing his own thing for seven minutes while the band sort of reacts to him but it is absolutely fantastic anyway.

Everyone Nose (All The Girls Standing In The Line For The Bathroom) - N.E.R.D: Remember when Pharrell was crazy? This song is total chaos. The pitched down sample in the hook, the two note bassline, the sax that just hoots once a bar. And I absolutely love the contrast of the beautiful bridge, especially the 'achooo’ backing vocals.

Parties - Shlohmo: Bad Vibes was such a moment. It is such a beautiful album, and a very easy album to fall asleep to and then wake up 20 minutes later terrified and choked by your headphones because Trapped In A Burning House, the song that sounds exactly like its title and nothing like the rest of the album, came on. I have such a strong emotional reaction I really can’t explain to the cutoff samples of people laughing near the end of this song.

Bering/Human Till Born -Talkdemonic: I have no idea how I came across this album but I’ve been listening to it constantly for ten years now and I still find new things to appreciate in it. The drums especially in Human Till Born are a source of obsession for me.

Don Caballero 3 - Don Caballero: For a long time I never 'got’ Don Caballero or Hella or any of these supposedly legendary math bands, despite loving so many bands obvously influenced by them. But then one day this album, and this song especially just clicked for me. It also happened to coincide with one of the most surreal weeks of my life when I was on a cruise ship and all I listened to was this and a field recording album that seems to have completely deleted itself from my computer since then. The best advice I’ve heard for listening to this is, and bands like it is that it’s backward. The drums are the lead instrument and everything else works around that, if that helps. This song has a twisted sort of morose quality that’s really hard to pin down. Some days it is absolutely heartbreaking, which sounds silly but it’s true.

B.Y.O.B. - System Of A Down: There’s a few reasons I was thinking of this song. First and most importantly it’s because of that dog vine but the other reason is I was thinking about how there hasn’t been a good anti-trump song yet outside of YG’s FDT, and that came out before the election. This and American Idiot came out in 2004/5, and I suppose it’s only been a year since the election so we’ve got a few years yet until the real hits come out I guess. Or I suppose he’d have to actually properly declare war, which, you know.

4D/MTI - Koreless: These songs are so intertwined in my head I feel like you can’t have one without this other. 4D is such a simple, beautiful piece of music. The synth that sounds like glass and the chopped vocals getting more and more contorted as the song goes on contrasted with the propulsion of the drums is so great. Both of these songs have a meticulousness and restraint to their sound, every single piece is perfectly where it should be and nothing else is allowed. Even MTI using so much white noise feels incredibly controlled and when it totally drops out it feels like coming up from underwater.

New Lands - Justice: Remember when Justice took 4 years to write a follow up to their album that lit the world on fire and instead of doing the same thing again they made a classic rock album? Everyone was so mad. Luckily this song is incredible and everyone was wrong once more.

You Discovered The Secret And Juiced It For All Its Majesty - Venetian Snares: This is from an EP called Cubist Reggae which I think a lot about in concept alone. This is probably the song that illustrates the idea worst but I love it a lot. My incredibly unpopular opinion is that Venetian Snares is miles better of Aphex Twin and whoever but everyone’s written him off as the Rossz Csillag guy so he doesn’t get no respect. I love how detailed his music is, how every one of the million sounds seems to be perfectly placed. I think he’s in a similar position to Autechre where he’s been making and listening to only his own music for so long now that he’s forgotten how normal music sounds, which is good.

Blues Run The Game - Jackson C. Frank: I made a playlist a couple of years ago of all the songs I sing to myself when I’m just walking around or whatever and it turned out about 6/10 had 'blues’ or 'hard times’ in the title, which is tough but it’s ok, and this was one of them. If you want to read a wiki article that’ll make you cry, read Jackson C. Frank’s, but mostly you should just listen to this, his only album.

Thermal Treasure - Polvo: I played this song for my girlfriend and during the intro she said 'you have such a wide variety of tense, off kilter music seeminly designed just to put people on edge’. I’m a huge fan of this very defensive sentence in Polvo’s wiki article 'Their sound was so unpredictable and angular that the band’s guitarists were often accused of failing to play with correctly tuned guitars’.

FML - Kanye West: This is such a strangely affecting song and it’s hard to be sympathetic to Kanye as a narrator sometimes (especially when he insists on doubling down on dogshit lines like “'I'mma have the last laugh indian cause I’m from the tribe called chekaho’”) but against all odds you can identify and relate to his struggle to hold onto the woman he loves and not be undone by his own worst instincts. Musically this is the best The Weeknd has ever sounded and I already love him a lot, and the way the drums lead into the sample at the end is just perfect.

Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) - The Mars Volta: This is the album I’ve probably listened to the most in my life. As a teenager I would listen to this album every night for easily a year and somehow there’s still something new to hear in it. It’s almost hard to listen to it now because I have so much Teenage Feeling attached to it but it’s still an incredible piece of work. Jon Theodore deserves a statue for his drumming on this album, and this song especially, in my humble opinion.

Life’s A Beach! - Studio: God I love Studio. I think if you tried to describe them on paper you could never make it sound like good music. “It’s sort of, balearic , reggae, guitar-led dance music and the songs go for about 15 minutes most of the time.” But it is good music! I absolutely promise it’s incredible music!

The Number Song (Cut Chemist Remix) - DJ Shadow: I love this remix because it feels like theseus’ ship as demonstrated via remix. How many parts can you swap out for similar but not identical parts before it’s a completely different song. The drums are almost the same beat, but a totally different sample.The Jackson 5 horns in the original that signal the transition to the second half are still here with the same function, but it’s an entirely different horn sample, and an entirely different second half save for 'the party’s already started, and it’s about to end’.

listen here

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daggerzine · 5 years

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Sleater-Kinney- THE CENTER WON’T HOLD (MOM + POP)

Ok here it is.. Another f*cking Sleater-Kinney review where the author pontificates over whether Annie Clark’s influence has helped or hindered what they think the band should stand for and/or sound like based on their own sentimentality around idiosyncratically random points of entry into the band’s modest oeuvre and then snarkily jabs at the gals for driving Janet out of the band…

Umm not quite exactly, but sorta fer sure. (At least I’m not another Millennial who got into the band from watching Portlandia.)

First of all, my introduction to the grrrly bands scene took place in a college dorm room around 1995 with a fellow campus radio station nerd who was playing the Kill Rock Stars earlier catalog repertoire with the debut recordings by Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney for me on a shitty boombox. If you know those records, they were kinda like raw as sushi but still vital, even prescient, at the same time. My friend knew it better than me since he was a year or so younger, and so he actually helped me to get it. I think we giggled a lot too out of nervousness because it got intense even uncomfortable for a moment or two. (No, there was nothing “funny” between us because we were both total losers.)

It wasn’t until I seriously listened to Dig Me Out when released in 1997 that this band truly “clicked” for me. Of course, you know that DMO was Janet’s debut recording with them. So that album solidified a lot for us in following this new kind of rocker girl group (as I like to consider myself among the more dedicated Sleater-Kinney fans of that era). At that time, they were covered substantially by the Sunday New York Times’ Art section and lauded (I believe) by the likes of David Carr which is interesting to ponder since the Sleater-Kinney reunion show in Denver was the very day Mr. Carr passed away and so they performed “Bury Our Friends” which was dedicated in his memory.

With that point of entry in mind, and a weirdly desultory personal epistemology, I have assiduously followed their careers (pre, post, and now reunited) and the myriad side-project permutations of all 3 steadfast members up until and including the recording of The Center Won’t Hold. And, for me, this record makes perfect sense based on their record of experimentation with different styles of rock’n roll (e.g. math rock on One Beat, classic rock on The Woods) plus an uncanny ability to infuse a real sense of currency in response to contemporary issues and ideologies (both lyrically and emotionally).

This means that every song on every record hasn’t entirely worked for me all of the time, exactly (The Hot Rock in particular made me feel that way). However, the cohesive whole is always unequivocally successful and this endeavor is frankly no different. (I may be in the minority opinion with this, but I really don’t care.) In other words, there really should not be any waxing nostalgic rhetoric about how this doesn’t compare to say All Hands on The Bad One as an indie rock classic in this review. Instead, I can hear them forcing us to look at where we are right now in this crazy, chaotic, perhaps even post-feminist world. These post-modern girls are no longer ranting about the sexist bullshit they endured in the insular indie boy-centered punk rock scenes. None of that is relevant or compelling anymore -- and to be fair, they haven’t done that in a long time.

Instead, they are imploring us for help as they ominously and astutely proclaim that “the future is here and we can’t go back.” They admit their own dreadful states as “unfuckable” even “unlovable” (“Hurry on home”) as indelibly part of this chaotic sinking technology-obsessed cultural ship. They even admit to “losing their heads” and “being stuck on the edge” (“Reach Out”). They complain about how we are all “wired to machines” and seem justifiably reluctant to face where we are trepidatiously headed (“Can I Go On”). They admit that they want to love “the ugliest things” (“Restless”) because the world is no longer pretty -- nor are any of us, apparently. In fact, they may even want “something pretty to ease the pain” (“The Center Won’t Hold”). The outlier and closing track in this bleak pastiche (“Broken”) seems to bring us dedicated fans some closure as we have wondering if they/we are still trying to grow up as they croon: “I feel like I’ll never be done” since we definitely remember the tantrum laden cries in “I’m not waiting” (til I grow up) urgency from their sophomore album “Call The Doctor.”

This pessimistic amalgamation of clangy quasi-industrial darkness (that completely lacks any and all sense of “rock and roll fun”) makes it impossible to ignore that this band should probably renamed St. Vincent-Kinney. Of course, this kind of evolution is nothing new whatsoever in the music realm. (In fact, it happens all the time: Jim O’Rourke joining Sonic Youth seemed like exactly the same kind of thing and I don’t remember it being quite so contentious...but to be fair, O’Rourke was not a Grammy winning artist either which seems to be worth mentioning.) Nor should it be used as commentary to dismiss the fact that it is indeed a great and exceptionally timely album – and a much needed call to arms (much like Masseduction). However, it does stray significantly further away from what we vaguely might consider to be essentially Sleater-Kinney; which obviously feels disappointing for us selfish and nostalgic diehard fans as we will whine about how they are no longer our Joey Ramone…but it doesn’t seem like they want to be that any more. Nor do we need that, right now. I’m fine with that, really I am… Dang. I just contradicted that initial disclosure, didn’t I?! www.momandpopmusic.com DINA HORNREICH

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ladysqueakinpip · 7 years

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every. single. one. of those OC questions, and the ones that you have to have a specific OC pick whoever you want, but make sure a couple of them are Darrvi and Taffel and Abbe and I think you have a fairy lady? or a dryad lady? or both? do them too, for whatever ones you want

i’m going to talk about so many ocs.

1. Do any of your OCs have a speech impediment?

heykel talks with a stutter! i’m not sure if this counts as an impediment but amytis’ voice is naturally very quiet so she has a hard time contributing to large conversations or arguments not because she doesn’t want to say anything but because people never hear what she says haha.

2. Do any of your OCs have a physical disability?

hmmm well my side fantroll syddie (who i hardly ever talk about r i p) has bowed legs from a trauma injury. she has to wear leg braces to talk. again, i’m not sure if this counts as a disability but since elian’s epileptic & not medicated he has to be careful going up and down stairs or swimming/bathing and it does put a limit on the types of activities he can do in the day.

3. What is your OCs favorite band if they have one?

okay well since u said darrvi first here he comes. darrvi would like music similar to john mayer and jason mraz. he probably knows a couple underground bands but they’re like. pop underground. they’re not really underground just sorta underground. it’s also a little known darrvi-fact that he enjoys listening to ke$ha music.

4. Does your OC have anything they take pride in? (like an award or collection?)

and taffel is next. is it bad to say i feel like he likes his stupid ripped up jeans? the ones he literally just cuts with a chainsaw? he probably likes that dumb varsity jacket i’m always drawing him in. so i guess the answer is a couple clothing items but he’s not a very materialistic person. other than the jeans and jacket i feel like he’s really proud of his physical fitness. he works really hard to keep it up lol.

5. Does your OC have a favorite film?

abbe’s favorite film…. uh…. hard to say since they don’t actually have movies in EG? abbe strikes me as the type of person who would like those cheesy family-oriented hallmark movies. he marathons the christmas movies in december.

6. How tall is your OC?

i’m assuming by “fairy lady” you mean maya! i haven’t made official heights for them yet but judging from my character reference sheet she’s near 5′9″ or 5′10″!

7. Does your OC have any celebrity crushes?

by dryad-lady do you mean lia merson? if so i don’t think she does! she was made for @pidgenerd ‘s story and i don’t think there’s an easy way to spread news in her world like we have in ours with TV/phones/radio/internet and all that media. i doubt lia really knows much about the world outside of her small tree community lol. besides, even if she had time for celebrities, she’s got a crush on @topazpearl ‘s kurama anyway *u*

8. Do you ship any 2 of your OCs?

um….. ya. a lot. elianXanneliese, abbeXrosalie, rolandXjeannine, irenaXdwayne the rock johnson, darrvitaffel, heykeltaffel, bodrumamytis, akhettalekah, whatever the heck is going on between fidias/paatni, and even though heykel/amytis blackrom is literal filth i still like the idea of it bye.

those are just the ships with ONLY my characters lol come back later for more swaggie shipping.

9. How would you describe your OCs fashion taste?

i’m gonna go back to maya on this because i really love her and i don’t talk about her a lot. maya likes dresses! bright colors and intricate, detailed patterns. this is a good example. also this. i feel like everything she wears could be described as a maxi dress or a sun dress.

10. Does your OC have any special talents?

u wanted more darrvi and taffel??? i’ll give you more darrvi and taffel. darrvi’s a decent baker? he sticks to making pies and cupcakes. i bet darrvi’s super secret talent is being able to find really good albums/movies/games in those giant “discount” bins you see at walmart. he goes to the clearance section or to thrift stores and gets really nice pairs of pants for $3. taffel on the other hand is a sculptor. he’s made a couple trinkets for leaena. he likes to work with clay and wood the most i bet he always has dirt under his nails. or splinters in his hands. his super secret talent is bumping up against vending machines and being able to knock a soda or a bag of chips out for free. he’s the guy who checks the slot to see if someone left a soda there and he always finds one.

11. Is your OC really bad at something?

darrvi is really bad at styling his hair. it just floofs up and poofs all over the place and he’s sick of it but he’s given up. he seems like he’s bad at making a decision and sticking with it good grief i feel like half of his life problems stem from the fact that he just doesn’t know what he wants.

taffel is really bad at cooking oh my gosh. no wonder darrvi can bake he had to learn for the both of them. i think taffel’s issue is that he’s that person who thinks “oh yea i can multitask i’ve got this” and before he knows it dinner is burnt, the laundry’s been sitting out for 2 hours, he didn’t vacuum up that mess in the living room and he forgot to call leaena back.

12. Does your OC have both of their parents?

maya’s dad died before EG starts. i’m sure her mother is still around but after her dad died she just left home and the rest of her family for something bigger.

lia does have both her parents but her dad is out working & traveling a lot since he’s a merchant. she lingers around her tree home with her mom and waits for dad to bring them treats and money from his travels.

13. Does your OC know their parents?

I HAVE TO KEEP ANSWERING THESE FOR LIA AND MAYA BECAUSE TROLLS DON’T HAVE ANY PARENTS RIP!!! but yes! they both know both of their parents.

14. Does your OC have any siblings?

maya has a lot of siblings! i’m thinking her family might have five children total, though i haven’t decided entirely on the birth order + genders of her siblings. i was thinking 2 older brothers and 2 younger sisters? this could change don’t hold me to it.

lia doesn’t have any other siblings. :’( it’s very sad and lonely but when your mother is a dryad and your father is a human obviously things aren’t going to work out perfectly.

15. Do any of your OCs have pets?

my oc kate has a pet canary! i’ve been toying with the idea of giving elian a service dog. his brother roland has some horses.

i don’t think trolls really have pets? so i guess none of my trolls have pets.

16. Do you have any nonhuman OCs?

no one from EG is a human and none of my trolls are humans haha. lia merson’s a dryad…. talise is some weird otter-anthro furry…. i think my only human ocs are my fankids? and faige and kaleb.

17. Do you have any OCs you haven’t posted about?

i have a couple of new dryads in the works for lia’s world, actually! but i don’t know anything about them i just wanted to draw more tree girls so i did.

i’ve also been thinking up a couple phoenix ocs from another part of the EG map but there’s not much happening with them.

18. How would you describe your OCs nature in one word?

watch me do darrvi and taffel again because i’m predictable. i think darrvi’s word would be “hopeful”? he wants the best for himself and for the people he loves so he comes up with elaborate schemes to make everything work out haha. he wants to believe that there’s some goodness in a world that’s so dark and violent. he gets let down a lot but somehow he’s muscled through.

i think taffel’s word is “self-centered”, but in more than one way. i mean he is pretty selfish and a lot of his actions are thoughtless and only benefit himself but i think that’s because he has a hard time connecting & understanding other people on an emotional level? so he ends up having this little world that’s just his and he doesn’t consider the impact of his actions on other people until after he’s done something.

19. Who is your youngest OC?

paseri! she’s only 11.

20. Who is your oldest OC?

i guess technically bodrum is the oldest since he’s like 200+ years old but um. we don’t talk about that and physically/mentally/emotionally he’s around 15 so uh. yea. otherwise i think my oldest is elian’s doctor/irena’s dad? he’s somewhere in his 50s-60s.

21. What race is your OC?

since most of my ocs aren’t human i don’t think i can answer this one? no one’s technically white/black/asian/etc. heck, maya is blue. all my fankids are just white. kaleb’s white. faige is biracial but i haven’t decided if her mom is black and her dad is white or if her dad is black and her mom is white.

22. Would your OC like you?

of course they like me everyone likes me -shot-

#Anonymous #oc stuff #lets T-A-L-K-A-B-O-U-T about ocs #THIS TOOK SO LONG KDJALKJLDAJKLS but i enjoyed it thanks #if u read thru all that u deserve to know every spoiler in EG bye

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