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#[ all-imperfect love song ] - mirage
themachine · 1 year
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Mirage sprite edit?
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inkbi0tic · 1 year
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"Though, by the looks of it, you're pretty much on the same boat, and by the stroke of once-in-a-lifetime luck you just happened to bump into the ~prettiest girl in town~."
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sweaters-n-dynamite · 19 days
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No one really talks about the world of 2-S, so I'll take the chance to do so!! I will say there is mentions of harmful thoughts and a certain irreversible action, despite not being mentioned too directly proceed with any caution.
Have you ever thought about how everything worked there? Is Mirage the only machine, or are there others like her? I'll continue with the hypothetical that Mirage is the only sentient machine in her world, and everyone else is a human.
Since it's seen her going to school, it's safe to assume Mirage has the same mental development of an average human despite being a machine. Do you think she'd feel confused when the other kids in her class were way shorter than her? What about seeing some of them be pulled out because their parents "didn't want their children in the same room as a war machine." More importantly, did she have proper "parents" to cry to when things like thst happened?
Mirage deffiently dealt with depression and harmful thoughts(as seen from 2-S), which was brought on by the realization nothing matters, but what if it was also brought on by any possible bullying she endured? Would she be bullied directly or bullied by avoidance and fear? Would she had gotten into fights after school? I don't want to assume the worst but, I feel like if the player didn't play 2-S she probably would've done something unreversable.
As much as it sounds cheesy, but I personally think Mirage got a happy ending after the events of 2-S. She probably became more outgoing and confident, leading to her actually showing herself and making friends.
After all, nothing matters in the end, so why not spend your life living the fullest? Thank you for reading.
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[ moved from here, @obsoleet ]
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A sister.
It's small, but Mirage starts with a jerk of her head upon hearing those words. She doesn't know what answer she was honestly expecting from him, but that just wasn't a possibility that ever crossed her mind. They weren't that close—or, at least, she hadn't thought they were. Maybe she just needs to work on her definitions.
But still... sister. Kinship, of a sorts. Belonging. The idea makes something ache deeply, but at the same time, she can't help but feel grateful, too. Not that Mirage lets that show much, opting instead to shake her head in mock disapproval and lightly scoff.
"I can't imagine taking her arm helps with how she feels about you. But... no, that's not really strange. And I guess I understand."
But there it is! He turned the damn question to her. Mirage sighs, rocking in place for a moment.
"...it does. It's more in the way of jealousy, though. I don't envy your position or what you do, nor do I really mind what I am. I can't even imagine myself fighting. And hell—if I knew your hobbies but less about you yourself, I'd probably be afraid of you. But imagine this... this constant feeling that you could have been so much more—directed, productive, interesting..."
Her gaze flits to V1's wings.
"...free."
She stares at him just a little longer before turning away and continuing.
"And the worst part of it is that I know it's pathetic. 'Boo-hoo, the schoolgirl's upset she has to go sit in a classroom instead of going out and killing things. Life must really have it out for her.' What kind of crap is that? Sure, there's the whole emotional versus logical thing. It won't always make sense. I know. I know! But that doesn't change the fact it's stupid as fuck."
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co5oo · 9 months
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mirage is a lesbian and the all imperfect love song mission was made specifically for women who love to ponder
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akihatohnoofficial · 2 years
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What is the best Ultrakill bonus level?
besides like, Minos Prime, that seems unfair
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^this one isn’t my favorite actually, but I had to share the gif because it’s so relevant to the scary level
My real favorite would have to be 2-S: All-Imperfect Love Song. Mirage my beloved<3
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shiftwux · 1 year
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your mirage art is Fascinating, I don’t have the eye to necessarily analyze/interpret but i like her and gabriel’s strange metatextual friendship a lot. i cant imagine most people enjoy explaining their own art but if you had like, bonus thoughts? yeah
so to be completely honest i have no supplemental notes (not a lot of them at least) BUT i do have a lot of reiterations of the same concept of mirage being some sort of metatextual interactable character that have been scrapped either because of a lack of motivation or otherwise
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the original concept has to do a lot with unravelling the fact mirage knows about hell beyond all imperfect love song. started realizing that her knowing means that her nihilism probably wouldnt come from "we're all gonna die eventually" but something more akin to "i've seen what's out there and there's no way we're coming back from that"
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evolved into the idea that mirage is some sort of reincarnation of beatrice (or delusional enough to believe she is) and can walk out of wherever she is to go speak to gabriel (who she often bickers with)
theres a lot of open-ended things/unanswered concepts so i dont mind if you ask at all :-) thanks for this it really brightened my day
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corecarnis · 2 months
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2-s all-imperfect love song
absolutely i love mirage
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swordsmachine · 2 years
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Hello. I am Swordsmachine. I use it/its pronouns, but am fine with any aside from he or she.
I am a fictive, of the Hivelings system (@nidoskull). You can find my full DNI & BYF there. Sourcemates are welcomed.
To shorten it considerably: If you exclude people, you are not welcome here. Exceptions to this are proshippers, pedophiles, and zoophiles. Begone, for you are lower than even Filth.
I will primarily post about my source, ULTRAKILL. I may also occasionally post non-source, but sourceposting go brr.
Full taglist under the cut.
+ ARSENAL: Me.
+ SUPREME MACHINE: V1
+ CLAIRE DE ECLIPSE: V2
+ BALLIN': Cerberus.
+ ALL-IMPERFECT LOVE SONG: Mirage.
+ WORLD’S END GIRLFRIEND: Oasis. (the only non-canon character with a tag here)
+ THROUGH THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES: Streetcleaners.
+ TRANSGENDER SWAG: Mindflayer.
+ DOWN TO SIZE: King Minos (Prime).
+ SUPREME ANGEL: Gabriel.
+ FULLER AUTO: Mysterious Druid Knight (& Owl).
+ WEIGHT OF THE WORLD: King Sisyphus (Prime).
+ POINT AND CLICK: Sentries.
+ FISTFUL OF DOLLAR: Ferryman.
+ why are you even spawning enemies here: Leviathan.
+ I'VE A NAGGING FEAR: Mannequins.
+ STYLE: Exceptionally high quality art.
+ DISRESPECT: Shitposting.
+ ENRAGED: Discourse.
+ OUT OF BOUNDS: Meta posts.
+ WOMBO COMBO: Crossover art!
+ tangential: Not technically Ultrakill but like. Trust me on this one boys
I also tag Gabriel/V1 (Gabr1el), Gabriel/V2 (Gabri2l), V1/V2 (V3), Mirage/V2 (miirage) and Gabriel/Minos (Gabrinos) when I come across them.
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therenlover · 4 years
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It’s Always Been You (Part Three of Till Forever Falls Apart, A Peter Maximoff/Reader Series)
Synopsis: After a month of adapting to his new universe, Peter Maximoff can confidently say that he likes his new life more than his old one. Sure, he misses home sometimes, but he’s been far too busy flirting with his new roommate to spend time crying over the things he’s lost. Everything is smooth sailing until a strange journal in his roommate’s study leaves him with more questions than he knows what to do with. Now he’s on a mission to discover who he’s really living with before she has the chance to turn against him.
Tags: Angst, Secrets, Exposition, Pre-Relationship, Predestination/Soulmates, Post-Wandavision
Rating: T
Warnings: Mild Language, Brief Mentions of Torture/Past Trauma, Minor Character Death
Word Count: 8600~
This has been crossposted as a two-chapter fic on my AO3 under the same name
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A/N: For this fic series, the events of Endgame take place in Late September/Early October, so Wandavision takes place in late October. Also, Thor is about 3500 and Loki is about 3000. This has no bearing on their appearance or stories, it’s just older than they are in MCU cannon. 
Peter couldn’t tell when exactly the mirage started falling apart.
It hadn’t come down all at once but instead dissolved in slow waves that culminated into a disastrous reveal when the pieces stopped fitting together. Part of him wished he could go back to living the lie when every day was filled with the sweet rose-tint of ignorance. Unfortunately, there was no way back to the way things were before, only a long road forward.
Not everything had been bad. In fact, most of the first month was quite the contrary.
After his disastrous run-in with the Sorcerer Supreme, a man he now knew as Stephen Strange, Y/N had taken him on a tour of the city, pointing out all of the places he should avoid at all costs. The list wasn’t particularly long, but once he knew where to stay away from he felt fully comfortable to roam the city at his own leisure. That opened up a whole new window of opportunities for Peter to have fun.
The city itself wasn’t as scummy as it had been when Peter was living there at X-Mansion. He still vividly remembered the last time he and Jubilee had taken a trip into the city, watching the prostitutes roaming around Times Square as they passed through on the way to some deli Kurt had recommended to her. Now, everything felt slightly safer and much more staged for tourists. Besides that, though, much to Peter’s surprise, there were very few changes. Of course, there were the massive new skyscrapers run by what he had gathered to be either the rich good guys or the rich bad guys (he hadn’t quite been able to figure out which when Y/N had explained it to him) but if he just pretended they weren’t there, this new New York could pass for his old New York pretty easily.
Strangely, Peter found he enjoyed living in this universe’s New York more than he’d enjoyed living back at the X-Mansion. He had freedom now. Freedom to roam the city with no curfew, freedom to get food from the kitchen at all hours of the day, freedom to spend as much time as he wanted lazing around the house playing Space Invaders in his room… life in the brownstone was paradise. Every moment was crafted to meet his exact needs. Flawless. Picture perfect in every way... Too perfect.
If Peter was forced to pinpoint where things started to go wrong, it would be the first time he noticed how Y/N’s whole universe seemed to bend at his whims.
He hated to say that Y/N was the epicenter of the problem. In fact, she was what, in all honesty, gave Peter the most happiness in his day-to-day life. Sure it was nice to spend time alone in his room binging twinkies to keep his blood sugar up, but that seemed pathetic when he compared it to Y/N knocking softly on his door and offering a plate of whatever delicious meal she had come up with at the time. Some days she would lure him out of whatever project he had taken on to show him new movies he had missed in the time jump between universes. On other days, when Peter was feeling cooped up in the house, she would take him to Central Park for cheap hotdogs so they could spend the afternoon watching the seals (which had been Peter’s guilty pleasure as a local ever since he moved into X-Mansion). No matter what, Y/N offered Peter exactly what he didn’t know he needed at every turn looking damn good as she did it.
Now that was a whole different bag of worms that Peter didn’t like to look into too deeply. Y/N was just… stunning. Everything about her seemed to call to him, a perfect siren’s song luring him closer every time he saw her. She never failed to make Peter laugh. She also took time out of her day to help him learn new things, like how DVDs worked, with all the empathy in the world. Even though she was beautiful to look at and wonderful in every way, Peter found himself attracted to the smallest things about her more than anything else. Her smile, her cooking, the way she danced to her record player when she thought he wasn’t around.
Peter had trouble putting the feeling into words. He could only imagine it was the first stages of love.
The real kicker was that she liked him! Liked him in a way he had never been liked before. It was as if, in her eyes, he could do no wrong. She laughed at his jokes and pulled him closer when he gravitated to her side and came home with little gifts she found during the day that he always found he loved. Peter’s flaws weren’t chided but instead embraced. He always felt cared for at her side.
There were some imperfect things about Y/N, though.
They weren’t large, not at first, but as time passed the small fissures in her facade grew into gaping cracks. They served as the stems from which all of his current problems grew. The biggest original fissure was just how jumpy she was.
99% of the time Y/N was cool and confident. Peter thought she wouldn’t be out of place working as a lawyer or politician. That should have been the first flag in and of itself, but that didn’t matter. What did matter is that the other 1% of the time, which seemed to be triggered randomly by things Peter said or did, she was like a deer in headlights. She would freeze, panic, and only return to normalcy several minutes after Peter either dropped the subject or clarified whatever he said. Once Peter caught on to how strange that was, other odd things about Y/N began to show through in day-to-day life.
Things like knowing facts about Peter that she shouldn’t know.
The first time she brought him home his favorite candy he assumed she had just guessed correctly, but then she brought him a VHS of his favorite movie. And bought his favorite foods when she went out shopping that Peter was sure she hadn’t bought before. And took him to a fancy Manhattan leather store to buy a very obviously custom-made silver leather jacket that she just so happened to see in the window.
He would always thank her profusely, just glad to get things he enjoyed, and remark on how odd it was for her to know him so well after such a small about of time. Y/N would just smile and chalk it up to intuition. Intuition could only count for so much.
Y/N did other, smaller strange things as well, but Peter couldn’t say he noticed them much until after he confronted her. He simply assumed she only ate at certain restaurants because she was a picky eater, and avoided cars because she wanted to save the environment. She could have just been an average person who just so happened to use gilded silverware and have a spectacular, museum-quality collection of odd, assorted antiques sitting around her perfectly-furnished, historical brownstone that she was able to comfortably live in while working a relatively low paying job…
Peter had never been known for his smarts, but looking back, even he was disappointed that he hadn’t seen the signs sooner. Love is blind and it also blinds. His eyes only opened when he found the journal.
The illusion fell apart on a Wednesday afternoon.
It was cool, with the crisp late-autumn breeze leaving a slight chill present throughout the day. The sky had turned grey, not from rain yet, just from the general gloom of the season. Peter didn’t mind. He was looking forward to the first big thunderstorm in his new home.
Y/N had left for work in the morning with a spring in her step and a smile on her lips. On her way out the door, they had flirted a little more than usual, and as a result, Peter had been thinking about her for the rest of the day. He was too busy thinking about the way she had ruffled his hair while she passed him on the couch to do anything of value with his time but much too bored to stand still. His compromise? Snooping.
There was a little study on the first floor that served as a workspace and library for the household. It wasn’t off limit’s by any means, but it was the last place left that Peter hadn’t explored since moving in (besides Y/N’s room, of course). Something, whether it was boredom or suspicion pushed Peter to go inside and explore. He promised himself it would only be for a minute.
Once he stepped inside, his plans changed.
The moment he walked past the door’s threshold it was like a wave of warmth had washed over him. Every bit of the autumn chill that had made its way into the old bones of the rest of the house was seemingly absent from the library. Peter quirked up an eyebrow. Slowly, he stepped back out of the room.
Instantly the chill was present again.
He stepped forward. Warm.
Backward. Cold.
Warm.
Cold.
Warm.
Cold.
To an onlooker he would have seemed crazed, speeding in and out of the doorway with his powers trying to find a logical explanation for the phenomenon. To Peter, though, it was like he had finally cracked the code. This was proof… okay, so a room being warm didn’t prove anything, Peter didn’t even know what it would be proof of, but something about it satisfied the constant anxiety that had been pooling in his stomach in the weeks since he had moved in. From that moment on he was fixated on finding out what was so special about the library and what it had to do with him.
Once he had steeled his emotions, he finally re-entered the room for the final time, letting himself acclimate to the comforting heat that seemed to radiate from everywhere inside while taking a look around.
At first glance, it was just a nicely decorated office. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined 3 of the 4 walls, with the remaining wall opposite the door left free to make room for a small, mahogany roll top desk that sat proudly in the center of the room on the matching wood flooring. There was some decoration on the far wall, though. Above the desk, spanning the entire length of the wall were 5 large portraits of men. They seemed to loom over the room, their eyes boring holes into whoever entered, but something about them seemed more melancholy than threatening.
“Creepy,” Peter whispered to himself as he took another step into the room, gazing up at the paintings, "really fucking creepy,"
The first portrait seemed to be the oldest of the group by far, with the paint piled on thick as if the artist had to correct themselves multiple times over while they worked. It featured a Greek or Roman soldier, dressed in shining gold armor while they bared a wolflike girn and held up a jug of wine towards the painter. It wasn’t period accurate- Peter was pretty sure a typical canvas wouldn't have held up since the greek days, and that realism didn’t really exist in paintings back then -but there was a life in the soldier’s eye that made him wonder what circumstances had inspired the subject to pose as he did.
The next three portraits, in comparison, were a bit bland. They were all pretty formal and seemed to have been done around the same time. All three frames held their own well-dressed dandy with small differences separating them. The first man had a little Gomez Addams pencil mustache, the next wore a military uniform and a sly smile, and the last was dressed in an ill-fitting suit while looking about 5 minutes from death. There could have been more differences, but Peter brushed over them quickly in favor of the final painting.
Portrait number five was, very obviously, the newest of the collection, featuring a modern man, probably 18 or 19, posing goofily on a chair Peter recognized as Y/N’s preferred sitting chair in the living room.  Surprisingly, that wasn’t what caught his eye. Peter found himself gaping at the man’s face.
It was almost like looking through a funhouse mirror. Peter saw echoes of himself in the subject; the silver-blonde hair, the cheeky smirk on his face, the skid marks on the bottom of his worn sneakers. Hell, if it weren’t for the light five o’clock shadow dusting the man’s jaw Peter probably would have mistaken it for himself.
Something about the painting was both hypnotizing and sickening. Its pull was so strong that Peter only noticed he was getting closer when he knocked into the desk, sending a pile of papers falling to his feet. As he gathered them he could feel the eyes of the men above him on his back, urging him to look closer, dragging him into their strange gravitational field. Peter probably would have been more worried about the paintings before he saw the papers, though.
There, written in Y/N’s handwriting with brilliant red ink on the first page of a small, leather-bound journal, was one word: Magneto.
Peter’s heart stopped.
Nobody, especially in a whole other universe, should know about his father except him. It was a secret he was sure he hadn’t mentioned even when the FBI had interrogated him. Hell, Raven had taken the secret to her grave even despite her complicated relationship with Erik.
A deep pit of rage began to burn in Peter’s stomach. Who was Y/N? How the hell did she find out who Magneto even was? Worst of all, why didn’t she mention it to him?
Without even thinking about what he was doing Peter opened the journal to the next page and began reading. He was going to find out what Y/N was hiding if it was the last thing he ever did.
October 4th, 2023,
I returned from purgatory today. “The Snap” has been reversed and Thanos has been defeated, thankfully with little cost. If that was death, I hope I never have to face it again. Tony is still weak, as am I, but both of us will live to see another day thanks to my gifts. I hope Howard knows I fulfilled my promise and protected his son.
While I was in the in-between, the grey place between worlds, I saw Magneto again. He seemed strangely at peace with himself. Hopefully, this means there will be no trouble with him in the future.
Once we hold a proper funeral for the lost the real work begins. Tonight, though, I am glad to be alive.
His father’s name appeared, but the rest of the entry was confusing. Peter kept reading.
October 7th, 2023,
We held the funeral today. I still despise Thor with everything within myself, but he and I held a small memorial for his brother once Clint had been properly buried and eulogized. He offered a poor apology for the hostile takeover of my home, but I accepted nonetheless. It’s what Loki would have wanted. Besides, his bastard father is already dead and his home has been destroyed, so Asgard’s power over Alfheim is nonexistent. Perhaps now that things here have calmed down I’ll visit my mother and father again...
I tried talking to Wanda but she refuses to speak to me. She doesn’t understand that even though I foresaw Vision’s passing, I couldn’t stop it. The same goes for her brother. If I were her, I would hate me too. I’ll try calling her again later this week once she can properly mourn. Until then, all I can do is wait.
Peter’s stomach dropped.
He had to reach out and steady himself on the desk to keep from wobbling when he was reminded of his time in the Hex. His memories of the time were misty, clouded around the edges as he was puppeteered through a charade, but the pain, both mental and physical, was still sharp even a month later. If he pretended it had never happened life was easy but when he accepted the week or so he spent in Westview it took his mind to a dark place. Unfortunately, there was now no way to both ignore his time in Westview and pull the wool out from in front of his eyes.
He trudged forward, stomach in knots, praying that Y/N hadn’t been involved.
October 9th, 2023,
Steve almost destroyed our timeline this morning.
He had originally been assigned to return the stones to their respective places in the past, but thankfully I saw his bullshit plan before he was able to put it into action. It took both Sam and James to restrain him, but Natasha returned the stones and was able to come back to the present before he could escape. He’s still mourning Peggy and has decided to hang up the shield for the moment while he figures himself out, but James is there for him as he has always been. I am jealous in the best of ways.
Wanda still hasn’t taken any of my calls, but Stark insisted I shouldn’t worry.
I will return home today for the first time since I was revived. It scares me. My visions always get clearer when I’m there. I’m afraid that somewhere in the past five years something terrible could have happened that I never even knew about. I suppose the only way of knowing is to wait and see. Hopefully, I will be able to shelf my powers for a couple of decades soon. Seeing and preventing the future is tiring.
October 22nd, 2023,
Pietro visited me in a dream today.
He was dead, bleeding through his clothes as I held him and wept, and yet he was there sitting next to me too. I apologized like I always do. This time, though, he forgave me.
I don’t fully understand what the dream was supposed to signify but he rested his head on my shoulder just like old times and told me he knew. I asked what he was talking about and he said he knew he was going to die when he did, and that it wasn’t my fault.
I turned to ask him why he was telling me that and he was gone. I held his body until I woke up.
Nothing is clear to me yet, but something has changed. There’s been a shift in the energy of the world. Maybe Pietro was trying to warn me… or maybe things are finally falling into place. I can only wait.
October 25th, 2023,
Wanda has a whole town hostage.
She’s wielding chaos magic.
Pietro was an omen
This is all my fault.
Peter clutched his chest as he fought for air. His head was spinning
Y/N could see the future. When taking that and whatever light-based magic she used at the museum into consideration, Peter had no clue what she was capable of. Hell, she might have even more power hiding up her sleeve.
Worse than that, she knew his real name. She had never called him Pietro, not once, and yet she wrote about him like she knew him. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps she was writing about this universe’s Pietro, but he shut it down quickly. She would have told him if she knew something about his counterpart. Right? Right? He pocketed the idea. Y/N could be capable of anything.
Underestimating her could prove deadly.
There was one last journal entry, boldly written in the same red as the others but scrawled much messier as if it had been done in a hurry. Peter had to force himself to focus on the words as he shook from a healthy mix of fear and rage.
November 1st, 2023,
Jimmy called me today. Peter is here.
Well, not here yet, but he’s here. He called to ask if I could take in a superpowered individual who he had in witness protection. The moment the words reached me I could see them walking in, Jimmy and Peter. My Peter. I accepted, of course. Only 5 hours left to go until they arrive. Surprisingly, journaling is doing little to calm my nerves.
I shouldn’t be this afraid. I know the outcome. I’ve been preparing to meet him for almost 3000 years now. Still, I can’t help but think the next 5 hours will be the longest of my whole existence.
His room is already set up, as it has been for a long time, but I should dust before he gets here so it doesn’t look like I was waiting for him. If I know anything, I know that Peter cannot know about what I am or what he means to me. This burden shall be mine to bear alone.
Is it selfish to hope that he never goes home? Even if it is, I deserve to be a little bit selfish.
Four and a half hours left. Just a little more time until he’s home and safe. I’ll be counting every second.
The journal fell from Peter’s hands with a dull thud.
At that moment, the front door opened.
“Hey, Peter! I’m home, and I brought dinner,” Y/N’s voice was bright as she stepped past the threshold, “where are you?”
“The study,” he called back, “we need to talk,”
Peter could almost hear Y/N’s breath hitching in the other room. Then, silence. All of the warmth that had flowed so abundantly from every nook and cranny of the study moments before seemed to drain away, leaving the room lifeless and cold. All the while the eyes of the painted men watched on like sentinels above the world of man.
A minute passed, maybe two, but soon enough Y/N had appeared in the doorway, eyes cast down to the floor where the journal had fallen from Peter’s grasp. She smiled sadly. “I’m guessing you found my journal,”
He didn’t give her the indulgence of a verbal reply.
“How much did you read?” She whispered, walking past Peter and sitting down on the small, rolling office chair that rested in front of the desk.
“All of it,” he muttered back.
Peter had never been one for confrontation. It was in the nature of his power to want to run from things, and run from them fast. He ran from his bullies, he ran from his father, he ran from his universe… this time, though, there was nowhere to run to.
Strangely, he found that even if there were, he wouldn’t want to run from this.
Y/N slowly wrapped her arms around herself, gripping the soft knit of her sweater sleeves. “I assume you have questions… I’ll answer whatever you want me to. Once you know the truth, we can decide where to go from there,”
Peter couldn’t help himself from blurting out his first thought.
“What the hell are you?”
A small laugh escaped from her lips. It was an awkward thing, loud and crass against the quiet words that had been exchanged moments before.
“What am I,” Y/N chuckled. Slowly, she lowered her head into her hands. “Peter, I’ve been asking myself the same question for a long, long time,” She scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers. It was like she was trying to forget something terrible that she’d seen, her hands desperately finding purchase against her eyelids as she laughed at nothing.
Peter gulped. “Are you…. are you not human?”
Y/N gave him a scathing look that told him his question was a stupid one.
“Well, if you’re not human, where did you come from? Are you an alien?”
Humorless laughter continued to ring out against the cold walls.
“Are you going to let me answer your original question first, or are you going to keep speculating?” She sighed, lifting her gaze to meet him. Exhaustion danced across her face, like all of the life had been drained from her in the short time she had spent speaking to him after she got home.
He stopped himself from questioning her further for the moment in favor of deciphering the sad look in her eyes. It wasn’t hard to believe that he had been mesmerized enough by her beauty to ignore all of the suspicious things she did. In all honesty, he still was.
“I wasn’t born,” Y/N started, hugging herself tighter, “but I didn’t spontaneously appear one day either. I was created. My mother and father are… well, to put it plainly, fae royalty. They were the first fairies, high elves who had evolved to become conduits for life energy, but they were lonely. They wanted a child of their own, an heir who would be powerful enough to protect the realm from invaders, so they found the largest source of energy available: the embodiment of the sun, Lugh.”
Her leg began to bounce, her foot tapping ceaselessly against the wooden floorboards. Peter didn’t quite notice, though, too enraptured in her story to notice much of anything else.
“They combined their life forces with Lugh’s light and created a child with capabilities beyond anything the nine realms had seen up until that point. It stored massive amounts of magical energy within its soul and accomplished all of the typical fae magical feats with no problem, but it was also connected to all the life around it. Elves who met the heiress said that they felt calm in its presence, and felt compelled to give her whatever she desired when they looked into her eyes. They named the child Puck. That child was me,”
“So you’re a fairy?” Peter asked.
“Fairy, fae, elf, freak of nature…” Her voice trailed off into nothingness as she closed her eyes, “I’ve never quite fit into any of the labels I was supposed to,”
“But why do you look so…”
“Human?” Y/N’s voice quivered, “Yeah, after living here so long keeping my human face on is second nature,”
Peter couldn’t tell if he should be terrified, enraged, or intrigued.
As gently as he could manage, he padded over to Y/N on her chair and cupped her small, soft cheek in his hand. She leaned into the touch without a second thought, squeezing her eyes shut and letting a few tears fall from her eyes. His voice was soft as he perched down at her level.
“Show me?”
Y/N gave him a short nod before pulling her face away. Both of them winced minutely at the loss of contact. Slowly, though, the glamour around Y/N’s face melted away. Once it was gone, she was finally herself.
Her ears were pointed, sloping in a soft horizontal line through the strands of her hair. Her eyes were different, too. The pupil was larger, more doll-like, but not by very much. The largest difference was, admittedly, the scars.
Y/N was mostly covered, bundled up in her sweater to fight against the cold, but her hands were littered with scars of all shapes and sizes. Most were old, pale divots in her flesh, but there were a few new ones too, trailing pink and red in angry lines across the meat of her calloused palms. The scars didn’t seem to stop at her hands. Specifically, the largest and most wicked of all the scars was a thick gash that ran all the way down from the top of her cheekbone to the base of her neck. The skin looked as if it had been eviscerated, torn completely through, but somehow it had healed up relatively well.
When Peter met Y/N’s gaze, her face was full of shame.
“Isn’t it atrocious?” she muttered, revealing little, sharp incisors hidden beneath her full upper lip, “You can’t blame me for wanting to hide this from you, Peter, not after seeing me like this. This isn’t the kind of face someone wants to wake up next to in the morning,”
Peter had a hard time finding the right thing to say in response.
He was still angry, and rightfully so. Y/N had been keeping the truth about what she was away from him and still had many more secrets up her sleeve about how they were connected. If he wanted to get the truth out of her he couldn’t get away with going soft so early in the game.
That being said, he still felt for her. His heart ached as she hid the scar on her cheek with her hand. She had been so kind, so outgoing, but now she was a shrinking violet doing her best to disappear from his view.
Peter’s gut said to push forward, but his heart urged him to take her face in his hands and kiss her until the pain went away. In the end, he followed his gut.
“I don’t care about what you look like,” he said, standing up and moving to lean on the doorframe, “I care about answers,”
“Of course you do,” With a heaving breath, Y/N’s face morphed back into its human form, “everybody always does,”
Suddenly, a book flew off the shelf to Peter’s right and landed directly in Y/N’s outstretched hand. “How-” he gaped.
“A retrieval spell,” she muttered, “Now where was I…”
She searched through the pages for a moment before landing on an illustration and turning it out towards Peter. It looked ancient, hand done with some sort of brown ink and captioned in a language he couldn’t begin to understand. The illustration itself was easier to decipher. It featured a child in a crown holding up a sword in front of what looked to be an army.
“Because I was created instead of born I was able to skip all the messy parts of childhood, but that meant I had to skip all the fun ones. From the day I was born my parents had me trained to take the throne. I learned combat, diplomacy, etiquette… my parents weren’t equipped for fighting against the Asgardians who always seemed to be eyeing our land, but they were determined to make sure I was. I was a machine of rote motions until I saw you for the first time,”
Peter froze. “Me?”
Y/N cracked a smile. “Who else? I was less than 100 years old then, still a child at heart, and one night when I fell asleep I dreamed of a silver-haired man who looked nothing like any of the elves I knew in a strange room filled with mysterious artifacts. It was like seeing the world through brand new eyes. My gift was so magical back then, so new, a source of joy. I kept seeing you wherever I went, flashes of your life behind my eyes during the day and full prophetic dreams at night… things didn’t stay that pleasant for long, though,”
Her eyes began to well up with tears.
Peter considered reaching out to comfort her, but his confusion held him back. She blinked the tears away before she continued.
“I started seeing terrible things happening to you. I saw experiments, broken limbs… even death. They wouldn’t stop. No matter how much I tried to turn them off they just wouldn’t stop,” her voice trembled and her shoulders shook as she spoke. “That’s when my parents sent me away. They claimed I couldn’t let the citizens see their future leader as someone weak, so I was taken into isolation until I learned how to control what I saw. It took me almost 350 years of silent study and meditation but I was able to master my foresight. I didn’t just see you anymore, I could see anyone’s future if I put my mind to it, and I could control when I had my visions. They only let me out to fight in the war against the Asgardians, who had taken the chance to attack,”
“So you’re telling me that thousands of years before I was even born you just… saw me in the future?” Peter’s voice wavered. Y/N shrugged and turned the book back towards herself, searching through the pages once again.
“Yes and no. It’s hard to explain,”
“Well try!” his voice came out in a sudden shout. Y/N flinched. “I just want to know what the hell is going on here! Because, the way I’m seeing it right now, I got kidnapped out of my home because someone decided I was predestined to play house with an elf instead of staying with my friends and family,”
He regretted his tone the second he stopped shouting.
Y/N, despite her reaction, seemed almost unphased. In fact, she seemed to be shaking less than she had been before.
“Y/N… I’m sorry-”
“Don’t,” she said sharply, “don’t apologize. Not to me. This whole mess is my fault,”
Peter went to open his mouth again, to find something to say, but found himself speechless. He was speechless a lot around Y/N. She turned the book around again.
This time the illustration seemed to be of a woman on a throne. There was red ink on the page too, not just brownish-black like the last one. It was splattered across the woman and at her feet.
“I fought Asgardians for 50 years on the front lines, killing a great many of them in the process. Even Thor, their golden boy with his stupid magical hammer, was no match for me. I saw every move they made before they ever made it, so once I diminished enough of their troops they pulled out of Alfheim and returned home with their tails between their legs. When I returned home I was revered as a great hero and it was like I had never failed my parents in the first place. Their precious progeny was home victorious and prepared to reap the rewards. My teenage rebellion kicked in, though, so instead of taking back my place in the palace I demanded my parents let me go to earth as my reward for winning them their war.”
“Is that how you got your scars?” Peter asked.
Y/N sighed, closing the book and returning it to the shelf with a wave of her hand. “Yes.” Slowly, she raised her hand and touched her cheek where her scar would have been. “Some came later, but the worst of them are from the final battle. I only let my concentration slip for a second, but that was enough time for Thor to summon lightning with that damned hammer of his and get a good hit in,”
“I’m gonna be honest, your whole backstory sounds pretty shitty,”
She barked out another laugh as Peter allowed himself to smile. “If you think that was shitty, the next 2,500 years of history won’t be pleasant to listen to,”
“Don’t think I’m not still mad at you,” Peter said, but it was an empty threat. Sure, the rage he had initially felt was still there, but what had been at a boil when Y/N came home was now just a low simmer.
She offered him a soft smile back. “I wouldn’t dare. Now, that’s enough about my past. If there’s anything else you want to ask, now's the time,”
Peter busied himself with cracking his knuckles. “I still don’t really get what’s so special about me to you. Like, yeah you saw some bad stuff happen to me when you were a kid, but it’s been a really long time since then. What makes me so special?”
The smile fell from Y/N’s face.
“That’s… well that’s a good question, Peter,” She wrung her hands, standing to take a step towards him, “I don’t think I’ll be able to say it… can I show you instead?”
He quirked his head to the side. “What?”
“Can I show you?” Y/N gently tapped her forehead, “with my power?”
A soft ‘ah’ escaped Peter’s lips before he stepped forward, bridging the gap between them. “Do what you need to do,” He didn’t say he trusted her, but he didn’t need to. It went without saying.
She reached out a hand and touched Peter’s forehead without another word. Then, the wave hit him.
Seeing Y/N’s mind was like the first time he had ever run at full speed, an endless barrage of emotions and images blurring as he rushed towards a focal point. It felt like an eternity before the motion stopped, but once it did he found himself looking out at a rolling sea with the weight of an arm around his shoulders. In a trance, he turned his head to look at whoever was there.
“I suppose this is it for us, my dearest Lady Puck?” The man asked, running his free hand through his long black hair. His tone was light yet thoughtful. Peter easily recognized him from the first portrait on the wall.
Without any effort, a response poured from Peter’s… no, Y/N’s lips. “Y/N, Loki. My new name is Y/N,”
“Ah, yes. Remind me again why you’re renouncing your godliness and going to live among the common rabble?” The man’s words were suddenly mocking, “Oh right, you have to assimilate to prepare for your darling Peter,”
“Don’t say it like that,” The Y/N of the past pulled her knees to her chest.
Loki nodded. “Forgive me. I’m just taking this a little harder than I should be. Who would have thought that I would fall in love with my mortal enemy?” He paused, “Will our paths cross again,”
Y/N shook her head no. “You will return to Asgard and remain there for as long as I can see. I think this is where we diverge,”
Peter watched from his position of backseat driver as Loki leaned close to Y/N. “Well, all good things must come to a close at some point,” He stroked her scar, smiling softly, “but don’t think that I’ll let you go to just anyone. I know this Peter is just a puny mortal, so expect me to come back and find you once he appears. Consider me your own personal Mjolnir! I will determine if he’s worthy of your heart,”
Giggles escaped from Y/N’s lips. “Loki! Don’t you dare,”
“You couldn’t stop me if you tried, darling,” He growled back, before capturing Y/N’s lips in a kiss. When he pulled away, he smiled his sharp-toothed grin. “Fly free, Lady Puck. I’ll see you again,”
A deep, foreign ache in Peter’s heart told him that he never did. Then, Loki was gone, blurred into the flood of memories and feelings in Y/N’s mind. The second time was easier than the first, but he still felt an acute nausea as he was thrown into another memory. This time he seemed to be much closer to the present.
Y/N was sketching something on a canvas, penciling in soft, rounded lines as the man with the pencil mustache lounged on a nearby chair, tie crooked.
“So tell me about this Peter,” he asked, taking a long puff from a cigar.
“Well, everyone, where I’m from, says he must be my soulmate. He’s witty, and fast, and has this phenomenal shock of silver hair,”
Peter, despite what he’d just seen in Y/N’s memories, was still shocked at her words. Soulmates?
“But you’ve never met him, so how do you know?” He asked, “Look, sweet cheeks, I’m not one to judge, but how do you know he’s even real?”
Y/N scowled, letting her pencil slip and adding an unwanted line to her sketch. “Howard, have I ever been wrong before?”
“Well no, but-”
“Exactly,” Y/N abandoned the sketch in favor of walking over and sitting at the foot of Howard’s chair. “Besides, even if he isn’t real, I know enough about him that he might as well be,”
“Whatever you say, sweet thing,” He chuckled, offering her his cigar. She accepted it thankfully.
“Anyways, it’s like I can feel him getting closer and closer,” Peter could just feel Y/N’s grin as she spoke, cheeks flushed, “I just can’t wait to finally meet him.”
“I’m guessing that means you’ll have to give up helping me with my little projects,”
Y/N took a long puff, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. “Not exactly. We still have time left, Howard. Besides, I don’t do much to help, I can’t even touch any of your materials,”
Howard snorted. “I still can’t believe you’re allergic to silver and iron of all things. I didn’t even know that was possible,”
“You’re just mad it means you have to buy me expensive jewelry instead of the cheap shit you’ve bought for other women,”  
“You know me too well,”
They both laughed and Y/N handed Howard back his cigar.
In the blink of an eye, Peter was transported again. It was almost like riding a bike after a long time, where the deeper he delved the more comfortable he felt. This time, instead of nausea, there was a strange warmth in his chest.
Y/N stood at the edge of a crowded dance hall as the men from the 3rd and 4th portrait approached, drinks in hand. Peter was beginning to see a pattern.
“A sidecar for the pretty lady,” the bigger of the men joked while leading the group to a small table.
Y/N accepted the glass gladly, taking a long drink. “Thank you, James”
The small one sat across from her and took a long drink of his beer.
“You too, Steve,” she amended, earning a smile.
“Now doll,” James leaned in close, his forearms braced against the table, “Steve and I wanted to thank you for the little favor you did us last week. Didn’t we, Steve?”
Steve nodded quickly. “You really are a knockout gal’ Y/N. You didn’t have to, but you did, and we couldn’t be more grateful,”
Y/N shrugged. “It was nothing. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,”
“We never doubted that-”
James jumped in. “We just wanted you to know we were thinking about you, and Steve brought up that it would be nice to return the favor. I was thinking maybe we could help find you a beau, anybody you want, and by anybody, we mean anybody, not limited to conventional partners”
Y/N’s face began to flush as she started laughing, offering each of the men one of her hands. “James, Steve, I love you both to death and I would never want to make you feel like I felt anything else, but no. No way,”
The two men joined her in her laughter, but Steve stopped a little quicker than the other two did, looking down at his hands. “We just noticed that you don’t get out much. You’re beautiful Y/N, really beautiful, and it’s not fair that you have to be alone,”
“Oh, Steve” She gave his hand a squeeze, “you’re incredibly sweet, but my heart already belongs to someone. He…” Y/N’s voice trailed off, the ambient noise in the bar suddenly deafening. Peter could hear his own name, whispered gently from the depths of her mind.
James gave her a look of pity. “Oh, doll… did you lose him overseas? Is that why?”
Y/N was shocked but quickly covered for herself. “Yes, how did you know?”
“You’ve just got that faraway widow’s look in your eye,” James responded.
“Sorry for your loss,” Steve added quickly.
Y/N looked down and noticed her glass was empty. She stood suddenly. “It’s alright boys, it’s alright. Now, which of you is gonna do me the honor of joining me for the next song?”
Peter was pulled from the memory gently the moment James shot her a wolflike grin, drifting through the collage of colors and feelings for a moment before he heard his name, whispered from within the darkness.
There was a strong pull towards the light, dragging him out of Y/N’s mind, but something was calling for him to go deeper, delve further to find… well, he didn’t know yet. In a split-second decision, he threw himself towards the voice only to find himself strapped to some kind of chair, screaming.
No, Y/N was screaming. It was an atrocious, wet sound, and Peter could taste the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. He felt no pain physically, but he could feel the memory of pain, the phantom sensation of torturous, searing agony burning through her veins. Her screaming cut off suddenly, and Peter was once again pulled from the memory and into another.
“Prinţesă?” A man asked, and Peter looked up to find his doppelganger from the final portrait looking down at Y/N. He looked worse for wear, with dirt and dust coating his face and hair. Around them, the sounds of shooting and crumbling buildings rang out in the streets. Y/N was gripping his sleeve like a lifeline. “What are you doing?”
“Please, Pietro, don’t go,” fat tears ran down Y/N’s cheeks and Peter felt a pit of dread drop into his stomach. “You can’t go,”
“I will be right back for you,” Pietro reassured her, “and then once Ultron is defeated we will return to Stark’s compound with Wanda. Things will be good from now on. No more Hydra, no more sneaking around, just you and me and the whole world waiting to be explored,”
Y/N gripped his sleeve tighter. “You don’t understand! You can’t go. I can’t lose you like this. Not now. Not after I've only just found you after all this time!"
Pietro laughed softly. With a grimey hand, he wiped the wetness from Y/N’s face. “Draga mea, you do not have to worry about me. I am faster than those stupid machines.” Suddenly, a child’s wails filled the air. Pietro looked around, searching for the source, but Y/N didn’t budge, almost as if she expected it. “You need to let me go, I need to go help that child,”
Y/N shook her head no. “We need to go, Pietro, we need to get out of here. I can fly us off before it hits and then we can run and never look back. Please, come with me Pietro, before it’s too late,”
He yanked his arm away from Y/N’s grip, puzzled. “And leave these innocents to die?”
She nodded furiously, sobbing silently as she held herself. “Are their lives really so important that you’d throw yours away?”
Pietro backed away from Y/N slowly, disgust spreading on his face. “Yes,” he spat, “and I thought you agreed,” Then, he paused, “We will talk about this later. I am disappointed in you Y/N,” ...and then he was gone before she even had the chance to say goodbye.
The gunshots that followed were the loudest of all.
Then, Y/N was running through the streets, searching frantically for any sign of Pietro. When she found him, he was already getting cold.
"PIETRO!"
Her wail was deafening as she fell to the ground, scooping his body into her arms and hugging it to her chest.
“I can fix you, don’t worry Pietro,” she babbled, spit running from her mouth as she tried to push life energy from herself into him, “Don’t leave me alone now, not after all this time. I can’t lose you like this. Just hold on a little bit longer,”
No matter how much energy she poured into Pietro’s body, it just drained right back out. That didn’t stop her from trying, though. Somewhere in the distance, Peter could hear someone wailing his name, but he held onto the memory, gazing down at his dead doppelganger’s empty eyes.  
Y/N’s babbling didn’t stop, even as the ground beneath her began falling down. She ran her fingers through Pietro’s messy hair and held him closer to her chest.
“It’s okay Pietro, you’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you anymore. Le ni meleth, Pietro. Everything will be okay now. I’ll be with you soon, nin melda. Wait for me. I am so sorry,” As an impact destroyed the street around them, Y/N pressed a soft kiss to Pietro’s forehead, and Peter was thrown forcibly from her mind.
“Peter!” Y/N wailed, hands shaking as she pressed a scarred palm to his forehead and pushed his sweat-soaked hair away. “Peter you have to wake up now, you have to wake up!”
He shot up, heaving in a breath that soothed his burning lungs. It was a shock to be back in his own body. Slowly, Peter realized he wasn’t standing anymore. Instead, his head had been resting on Y/N’s lap while he splayed out on the cold wood floor.
As he reacclimated to his body, Y/N wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed.
Once he had enough air in his lungs, Peter only had one question; “What the hell just happened?”
Y/N cried louder, rocking back and forth. “You died! I messed up and you died! It’s all my fault, all of this is all my fault,”
Peter pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Y/N,” he said firmly, “You need to calm down and tell me what just happened,”
She shook her head no, clawing at her hair as she dribbled onto the floor.
In a moment of weakness, which was probably warranted, Peter broke. “Y/N!” he shouted, “Get it together! What. Happened.”
Y/N stilled, eyes dead. “I was trying to pull you out of my memories,” she mumbled, still trembling, “but for some reason, I couldn’t get you to let go. I kept trying and trying but it wouldn’t work. Then you just… collapsed and your heart stopped. I was trying to heal you, but I had to keep the connection between us going while I did so you wouldn’t get lost in my memories and- and-” her words devolved into quiet sobs as Peter slouched against the wall, lifting his hand and finding that his cheeks were wet too.
He wanted to comfort her. To tell her it was okay, that he was okay. To make sure she knew he wasn’t angry anymore, that he understood… that he loved her too. Somehow, though, he couldn’t find the words. All he could do was stare forward and cry as the vision of Pietro’s dead body danced behind his eyelids.
When Y/N finally quieted, she stood silently. “What did you see,” she whispered.
“Pietro,” Peter wheezed back.
Y/N nodded, wiping her face.
“I’m so sorry, Peter. You were never supposed to see that.” She walked towards the door, opening it up and pausing in the doorway. “Jimmy’s number is next to the rotary phone in the den and my bank card will be on the side table in the mudroom. I… goodbye, Peter. I’ll let myself out,"
Peter turned, reaching a hand out to try to stop her from leaving, but she was already gone, so he just let himself go limp, crying for a man he never met but knew better than he ever wanted to.
-----
Elvish/Sindarin Translation: 
Le Ni Meleth: I love you
Nin Melda: My dearest
a/n: Thank you so much for reading!!! The word count really got away from me, but at least now all of the exposition is out of the way! Expect the next part to be out either today or tomorrow.
Please don’t post my work to other sites, thanks! <3
37 notes · View notes
caxsthetic · 4 years
Text
Balter
Tendou Satori x F!Reader
(v.) to dance artlessly, without particular grace or skill but usually with enjoyment.
─── ・ 。゚☆: *. 500 MASTERLIST .* :☆゚. ───
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The room was dark, the only light that shone through the entire room was the dim light from the laptop screen. You type away at a speed of lightning, but you tried to keep the sound to be as minimal as ever.
There laying in the bed with his mouth hanging open, was your husband. The two of you were workaholics, but you were way too mad since you never take a break.
Meanwhile, he was good with his time management. And sometimes, you were envious about it with how well he could manage his daily life.
You were not always like this though, you were not someone who would type away in the middle of the night, trying to finish all of the report even before the due date.
But it was all changed when your boss promoted you to be the director of administrations. Something stirred in your mind since that day. You felt like you needed to do everything right, all of your work needed to be done perfectly.
It was always like this now, going round and round in circles. Every week, you would always go to the office early and go home late, a habit that started to develop around three months ago.
Your husband notice this, notice how you always conceal the bag under your eyes. So he pulled you to the bed early today, forcing you to cuddle and sleep with him.
But when he already drifted off to sleep, you just can’t do the same.
So you untangled yourself slowly, looking at your red headed husband who still stuck in the dreamland. You were feeling bad from it, but you know you couldn’t possibly sleep if you still had work to do.
And here you were right now, typing away all of the work. You simultaneously glanced towards the bed, making sure that your husband was still asleep.
Tendou never liked how you always did everything non stop. You rarely eat lunch if he didn’t call you at the office, he rarely saw your figure even at home, he rarely got any affection from you,
And he started to get tired of it.
It was cold tonight since snow already started to fall down from the sky. Even when the heater was on and he used a pile of blankets, he just felt like something was not right.
The cold may be the one who woke him up from his slumber. But the fact that he didn’t feel the warmth from your body anymore, was the reason why he decided to stay awake.
He sat on the bed, rubbing his eyes groggily before yawning. His hair was down, cascading perfectly as it fell to his face. You were not there beside him, and he started to get upset by this constant event.
His eyes bore to your figure, letting out a long sigh when he realised what you are doing. The moonlight that was peeking through the curtains notified him that it was still late.
Your typing was fast, and the screen illuminate your face as your orbs solely focus on the screen in front of you,
“Working again?” You jolted when you heard your husband’s voice. Your fingers stopped typing immediately, “At this time? Really?”
Tendou Satori wasn’t someone who could be angry so easily, but right now he was too frustrated to even notice the malice voice that came out from his lips.
He was always gentle towards you, caring for you and just pout when you didn’t hear his warning. So when you heard how different his voice was, you couldn’t help but shudder.
You let out a long sigh, straightening your leg that was folded on the chair before. His gaze piercing right through you, waiting for any kind of excuse that you blurt out usually.
“Y-Yeah,” He raised one of his eyebrows and decided to approach you, “I am sorry, Satori. I-” You stopped when you could feel his hand crept on your shoulders.
The ministration made you moan a little. You could feel how your body relaxed as he started to massage you. No matter how stubborn you could be, he couldn’t get angry at you, at least not for more than a minute.
After all, you were the only woman who could see through all of his imperfection.
“Let’s sleep after this, okay?” He kissed your head, making a smile bloom on your face from his affection, “You can continue this tomorrow morning, you know that, right?”
He expected you to smile and let him lead you back to sleep. So when he saw you slumped your shoulder away from his grasp, he knew that his words were all in vain.
“Just… Just a little more minute, okay?” You stood up and gave him a peck on the cheek, “Go back to sleep, Satori. I will catch you up after this.”
The red haired man could only sigh at how hard you were to crack. He grumbled like a child when you sat again on your chair, focusing all of your thought on your work.
He stood there for a while, waiting for you to turn your head and just shut down the laptop. But after minutes, you are still muttering about work. That’s when he knew he should just go to bed.
Frustrated, he grumbled once again and left the bedroom, going downstairs to the kitchen to grab some water. It was dark as he walked on the first floor. The only light that illuminated the whole floor was the one from the kitchen.
And in the middle of the night like this, his pinky toe was longing to kiss the table leg. He almost yelped, but he decided to bite his lips immediately so he didn’t have to make you worried.
“For shonen jump shake, who the hell decided it was good to put the table near the staircase!” He mumbled while he tried to soothe his pinky toes by massaging it a little, “Oh, it was me who decided that.”
His dark red eyes fall to an item that was put on the table. He widened his eyes, orbs twinkling with excitement as an idea popped into his mind.
This idea? He was sure you will love it. At least that’s what he hoped for.
You were currently finishing one of the reports for the office, ready to continue another piece of work. The truth, your eyes were getting tired already, but your mind just wouldn’t rest before finishing the last report.
That’s when you realised that something was off. No, it’s not a bad kind of feeling that you felt right now. But something caught your hearing that made you stop your works completely.
♪ I been working so hard~ I'm punching my card~ ♫
You choke on air, jaw dropped as a wide grin started to appear on your face, surprised to hear the song in the middle of the night like this.
♪ Eight hours for what~ Oh, tell me what I got~ ♫
Your eyes darted to the laptop screen once again, trying to focus on your work. You started to type, but it was much slower than before.
♪ Tonight I gotta cut loose, footloose~ Kick off the Sunday shoes~ ♫
That’s it, you were done for real. You immediately save your work progress and shut down your laptop. Your feet stride as you were so eager to just see the culprit behind the music.
You were just touching down towards the first floor when your eyes promptly fell to your husband. With a blue shirt and black boxer, he was there, moving his body to synchronize the beat.
It was awful, an awful dance that everyone would laugh at. You leaned your body to the wall, eyes still focus on the man that caught your heart.
A wide grin plastered on his face, eyes closing and just… listened.
It was a beautiful sight to behold, to see someone could let loose of their dignity and just move their body around like that.
When you first saw him, both of you were in a club. His friends were laughing at him for dancing uncharismatic on the dance floor. But you could see the appeal from how he moved his body.
“Took you long enough,” He extended his right hand towards you, inviting you to the gala of the year, “Let’s dance, my lady.”
“You are crazy,” You said that with playfulness flying around your voice, “It’s 1 am, Satori. We would wake-”
“Just join me,” His left hand was now put on his hips, waiting for you to take his right hand, “Join me to the party where you could ease all of your problems, when else you could dance with the miracle man, Tendou Satori?”
“Uhm, everyday?” He pouted when he heard your answer, making you chuckled to see how childish he was right now, “Alright, alright. Just one song.” You put your hand on his, a cheeky grin was now plastered on his face,
“That’s what they all said at first,” The first song was done, and now you wonder what kind of song that he would play this time of night. He grabbed both of your hands and wink, “Prepare for the night of your lifetime~!”
You laughed when the tune intrude your ear, and the sight of you looking so happily like this, brought a loving smile to the man in front of you,
“Rick Astley? Really?!” You started to bob your head to the left and right, “What playlist is this? I never thought you listened to all of these songs!”
“Well, I know my wife enjoys some old songs,” He kissed your hand and twirled you around, your giggle just blessed his soul, “So enjoy~ Today, your night will be filled with my OK BOOMER playlist, made by Tendou Satori~ Just for his beloved wife.”
You were cackling uncontrollably by now. Your husband, just literally blurt out that you were a boomer when it comes to song.
Both of you were now bathed in the rhythmic sounds of drums and bass, piano and guitar, chants and cries as you move your arms and legs in a frenzied way, losing yourself in the bewilderment of a dance.
Rule 1: Enjoy the Music
Everything feels like you were all in a mirage as you close your eyes, trying to sync your hips to the beat of music.
Rule 2: Relax
Dancing had nothing to do with dancing well, at least this is the rule that you know when you met this man all of those years ago.
Rule 3: You Know What to Do!
Everyone has their own way to enjoy the music. And for the two of you, dancing without style and just absorbing the passion between each other was the way to relax.
You feel free as you laugh at how your husband moved his body. He would bam his hips with yours occasionally, making you almost fall because he used too much force sometimes.
Right now, both of you didn’t even know how many songs had passed. You have been dancing on the couch on Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, standing on the coffee table as Super Trouper playing in the background, that, and so much more.
“Ooooh! You're gonna take me home tonight,” You stopped when you heard your husband singing the new song. Your mouth hanging open as you realised immediately what song it was.
To say that this song was fun, it is fun that you couldn’t help but snapping your finger to match the beat. But this song would always bring the sexual tension up to the roof.
You locked eyes with him, a smile slowly turned into a smirk. He was on the corner of the living room before, but in second, he stood in front of you, putting his hands on your hips.
“This song is dangerous,” You shook your head, but the smile was never once dissipate, “Oh god, what if they-”
“Shush!” He pecked your lips, a little bit harder than usual, “Enjoy this while it lasts, baby.”
That’s when you decided to let your mind free. Right here, right now, with him on the dance floor. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore as you allowed him to take you anywhere.
The two of you become one with the song, with the crazy dance, and of course, with each other.
There was something in his eyes, something between lust and mischief. And so you put your arms on his shoulders, staring intensely as the song brought the atmosphere to the next level.
The two of you still danced like before, purely idiotic and move with delight. There’s no shame, both of you just embrace the dazzling strangeness and derangement.
But yet, the movement was so different from before. There’s a lot of skinship already right now. You would dance in front of him as he pampered you from behind with kisses, starting from your lips, until down to your neck and bite it playfully.
You turned around, facing him again, a hint of mischief overpowering your worries from before. As your husband for more than five years already, he knew what’s the meaning behind your gaze.
He pushed your body to the couch, dark red orbs even get darkened by lust. His hands started to slip inside your clothes, feeling your smooth skin who was now covered with beads of sweat.
You were panting, due to the ecstatic action from before, and now added with heat as your husband started to create a magical feeling for every second passed.
One of your hands crept at his nape while the others teasingly trailed down to his boxer, trying to give him the hint. He kissed your neck patiently, making you moan out while the song was still blaring in the background, coating the action with a little more push.
“Why are you still up late?” You pushed your husband to the side, making him fall to the ground in a second, “Are you guys having a party without me?! Not fair!”
With the music blasting throughout the first floor, both of you couldn’t hear the little steps from your son. The little boy was now standing behind the coach, peeking at the two of you who were just… dancing.
“W-We were-”
“Wrestling!” Your husband who was now crying inside because he knew he wouldn’t get any action tonight, only smiled at the copycat of him who stared at his parents, “And why are you up, Shinichi?”
“I am thirsty! And I heard some brouhaha downstairs, so yeah! Here I am!” The red haired boy decided to jump out from the back of the couch to your lap, “But now I just want to sleep! Would you tell me some bedtime story, mom? These past few days have been dad non-stop and he was bad~!”
“Hey! That hurts!” You cackled, kissing your four years old son and lifting him to your embrace. The music was still blaring, but now it was changed to a ballad song, “I will clean up our mess, you go ahead, baby.”
You peck his lips, earning a little Eww by your son. Tendou just stood there as he looked at the two most important people in his life. You carefully go upstairs with little Tendou on your arms, leaving your husband to clean up the living room that looked like there's been a fight there before.
He turned off the speaker, tidy up the pillows that were splattered around the room. With you in his mind, he just wants to drift off into the dreamland with you by his side.
The magic from the dance before started to dissipate as he yawned while going upstairs, done with the living room like nothing happened there tonight.
He walked lazily to your shared bedroom, but stopped when he passed his son’s bedroom which the door was wide opened. He peeked inside, expecting to hear your soft voice as usual.
But the sight in front of him made him feel like he was the luckiest man in the world. There on the bed, you fall asleep with your son’s head falling to your shoulders.
He decided to tiptoed inside the room, trying not to wake any of you. His face was comical as he slid himself to the small bed, circled his arm to bring you and Shinichi closer so no one would fall to the floor in the middle of the night.
Even in such a little space, he felt comfortable. He was ecstatic to know that his plan worked perfectly. And right now, nuzzling on the cramped bed with his family, was the perfect outcome that he could ever ask.
✧・゚: *✧・゚:*     ༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶    *:・゚✧*:・゚✧
Tagged Lovelies:
@benewol​ @letmeshouyou​ @nitricflame​ @vventure​ @heccingdead​ @muffins-puffins​ @miyulovestowrite​ @nanashinanashi​ @vlovers-world​ @proplayer-kenma​ @kashika​ @cuddlyasahi​ @blacckdiamondposts​ @muffngw​ @baby-boy-taichi​ @of-heroes-and-dreams​ @for-ests​ @giyuwu-san​ @oli-imagines​ @lordeofthunder​ @miyatsunami​ @analyze-hq​​ @tendoustan​@allywritesimagines​
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[ moved from here, @heaven-said ]
---
Um.
Where does one even begin in this situation? Gabriel's... well, if nothing else, she knows he's not a machine. Her situation shouldn't be directly applicable. And sure, there's phantom limb syndrome—which would be close enough—but that implies the former presence of extra limbs. Why would he have...?
And if he had, somehow, why would he have forgotten losing them?
Oh, but she's taking too long thinking. He's already trying to explain himself. But there's something about that explanation that catches her attention, gets her to freeze in place.
"...dreams?"
An echo without really thinking. Even with the rest of what he says, that is the part that gets her—not wings, dreams. There isn't even anything strange about dreaming itself.
But still—but still—something fits a little too well, things she previously dismissed as the result of exam season. And why wouldn't she have? The simultaneous feelings of endless frustration and wanting liberation paired with latent programming easily form an oh-so sweet dream of bloodshed, a way for an exhausted mind to find some temporary escape from its woes. Maybe she should have been a little more alarmed by its contents, sure, but a dream is just a dream. Nothing morally wrong there. Loose connections in memory manifest in strange ways, too. As much as she cares about Gabriel, he can sometimes get on her nerves. Pair that with his name, and then...
Realistically, it's just coincidence. Unrelated events. He makes no mention of something like her, anyway. And that's something you'd bring up in this situation, right...?
God, she hates this, hates that she's thinking about this at all. He already questions reality, and if by some stroke of luck the stars aligned and she is right, mentioning it would hardly assuage those concerns. But what else can she say? What can she do?
Mirage puts her head into her hands.
"Alright. Don't think any less of me for entertaining the idea. Not even for a moment. I do not care if I'm wrong—honestly, I hope I'm wrong, because this is already insane of me. And I did believe it was just some stress-induced dream I didn't need to think twice about, but here we are."
A pause.
"I don't want to sound even more stupid asking the color of your wings, given it's entirely possible you just can't see them—"
Sky blue. Gold. Beautiful, both in tranquility and rage.
"—but would you happen to recall wearing stupidly-sized pauldrons?"
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404fmdhaon · 4 years
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creative claims verifications — downtown baby
summary: a song written for some random npc he meets in berlin. warnings: none (written semi-drunk, don’t read). wc: 1825 (not including lyrics or dates)
(sometime in 2014).
bc’s buildings never feel as hallowed out as it does on early morning sunrises.
no windows, the studio’s only a place for show when passing bodies become the cleaning ladies peeking through the window in raps on the door (he shakes his head, two fingers in the air that screams: not today, another day). his body hovers over a guitar, fixed inside the pocket of his arms — a guitar he’s touched for the first time in months. and in hindsight, he really doesn’t know how to play.
yet, he tries when the first strings pluck something melancholic. no chords, it’s a string of repetition that sing the odes to a lonely night inside a studio. when he gets home? he has no recollection — home becomes this safe space with the couch already engrained ready to swallow him whole when exhaustion takes its toll.
first, it comes in steadiness where the guitars free-fall into a gentle lull. he imagines sundays to be like this — the poise of something standard, just constant. deserted places inside a studio, he thinks it’s near habitual when his body stumbles into the room he’s deemed his. 
second, comes when the pace quickens and the sting on his fingertips give rise to the heat and layer of rouge. call him a sadist, he presses harder — the force of visceral pain giving into the emptiness he’s filled himself with. there’s nothing more that gives into the loneliness he doesn’t feel anymore. the numbness of an aching phantom pain, music that no longer yanks out the fervor it once did, and what he craves most is the overarching freedom of music in full revolt. the blaring sounds of speakers and not so much the meager tones that barely encase the hums of the strings.
yet, he plays on. presses record when the strings become nothing but a broken record of the same three notes. it’s repetition when a mind’s at a halt, already encased and engrained in another thought — the thought of another song trapped inside the walls of his hard drive. still, he just continues.
and when his mind rids the instrument at play, the second coming of something bland ensues. he pulls out his keyboard, a few clicks into logic. (he’s a creature of habit, and he’s the first to admit). so, when the settings already surmise a standardization of kickdrums in base, he fidgets. lets his fingers assemble the baselines of something old — a kickdrum that plays off-beat in the hums of the guitar. 
looming. eerie — call it an effect of the time of day or an effect of laziness, his mind already wanders into the restlessness of his feet tapping along and a head already in sync eating, feeding into the music that lies in his bones. (here, he wonders — selling out, was it worth it at all? now, is this just a time for broken hopes and wasted hours?). 
talentless is how he sees himself. pitiful in the way he doesn’t try out creativity for the punches of something new that rides with the harmonies of the chart — pavlov’s dog, and he’s only been trained with the act of self-criticism wrapped up in false bravado for sake of others. shitty beat, a shit simplicity. nobody buys it, not when he’s sitting inside a company that slaughters him for food.
sell out for the masses, he’s accepted the notion many times before. but he still presses on.
presses on when the third cue comes in the safe haven of keys — the keyboard, and he realizes, he’s been a fucking fraud all along. classically trained in each and every term of hours invested into hakwons, and all he manages is a bare four key press tampering with a simple flit of keys. there’s a progression that ensues near the end, and he knows this is a dead beat only hinders the effects of too many hours torn and dry. his fingers scratch his head, a distaste in perfection leaving him to leave the blue screen then and there with a steady force pulling him back onto the sofa.
palms on his head — he closes his eyes. sleep is for the weak, and in this case — he’s so fucking weak.
(sometime in 2016).
he meets her on a sunday.
some rusty pub in downtown berlin — berlin the scene of nightlife and non-stop parade of underground pubs. (gyujeong gives in when he’s guised inside the anonymity of a foreign country). 
he steps outside for an air, free from the clouds of smoke that engulf his lung inside. yet, when he’s out away from a manager and the incessant patterns of clubs gone haywire, he manages to balance a cigarette between his lips. hands dug deep into the pockets, patting and salvaging a lighter no longer there — he groans, lets his eyes flicker to a girl in a pink wig, curved lips that speak: i’ve been watching you.
she’s pretty. almond shaped eyes and a killer smile between the smoldering cigarette, dressed inside nothing more than the rags of yesterday. he shoots her a look, narrowed eyes. her footsteps follow off-beat with the booming speakers of the club, and her hands raise a light.
“you’re welcome.” she says, the coyness in her voice unavoidable. she wears bravado like he’s never seen, and he arches a brow in question.
“i didn’t say thank you.”
“you should.”
“no.” 
“i’m celine.”
“that’s not your real name.”
his own cigarette burns on, ash collecting in the ends. his fingers curve across the thin stick, tapping it away as his eyes stare deadly into hers. she’s intoxicating, her aura is. no alcohol, only the thrumming steadiness of nicotine running in his veins, yet he’s brought to a halt of words when curiosity takes over.
-
the night ends early morning monday when he stumbles in past too many glasses of wine and the taste of sin resting upon his tongue. his hands reach for a pen, the hotel notepad shuffled in the side. he realizes, is this love? or is this a dazed dream into a figment he’s lost into the night.
yet, he writes of her.
you’re my downtown baby your eyes are the stars of the night you’re the dream i wanna dream of every night baby without you i can’t do this anymore.
he writes for the confidence she walks in when it becomes intoxicating into his lungs — each shared conversation of make believe and maybes, the future uncertain. (he asked for her number, she said : room 628). 
he writes for each lapse of laughter caught up in the weariness of alcohol sitting on his tongue, his hands wrapped in hers engulfed in the scent of smoke-tainted clementines and vanilla. she tells him he’s delirious underneath french wine and berlin stars, and he tells her she doesn’t know him.
she never knew him, he never knew her.
but what he thinks of is tomorrow, and the time that ticks against their fleeting memories.
“don’t think this is forever.”
“i don’t.”
“good. today and tomorrow.”
“number 628, 6 pm.”
he envisions her slender arms and some german movie indecipherable to his cause — what he craves most is the skin on skin contact that comes when his lips inch closer to hers, only to barely graze the surface of silent mutters. (he drowns in her, he has. he will).
but physical magnetism dies when she parts her mouth. 
elbow to floor, palm to head, he stares — collects each trace of her into his memories to splurge out now. from the faux mole drawn underneath her eyebrows and the dimple that dips in when gutentag gets exchanged for bonjour. he loses himself in her, gives her a piece of his soul when she purses her lips alluring her in each step of the way.
let’s watch a movie then drink all night long let’s light a cigarette and talk all night long.
gyujeong knows, time is uncertain. not when the pen writes more permanencies than the fleeting words she gives. and what she’s given him becomes a timepiece of tonight and the hope for tomorrow. half-dazed, he lights another cigarette — the lighter that becomes the image of her. smoke in the air, she’s her downtown berlin. the taste of a new city he’ll never stretch anew.
a one time piece into escapism, he gives into her. gives into every touch and every word, breathing in the pieces till he dries his mind empty and blank — it’s lost, he’s lost. they’re lost, and she’s still floating high above while he remains stationed into the anonymity he loses the second berlin becomes a wasted touch of nostalgia.
(sometimes in 2016).
insomnia hits him like a train wreck.
not when he’s in the dorms lounging inside the room he canvases as his makeshift studio, but when he’s inside the same walls of a studio. the cacophony of marred notes and juxtaposed instruments no longer providing the safe haven they once were.
creative stump.
he calls it when his head tilts, and the straw balances between his mouth. one sip, americano doesn’t jolt him awake, no. it steadies the curse for mouth clicks into a dead hard drive he hasn’t touched in years.
one dated: 2014, he opens. finds the beat once satiated with sell-out written all over it and a mind that breathes in the beats he once deemed helpless. it’s the same noise of the simple guitar rift and steady baseline. the punch comes from the piano inside the ghostly repetitions. 
but he opens it up, and it’s the jostle of berlin sitting underneath his skin, unable to forget. he remembers it all with the notes sprawled out in front of him.
downtown baby.
the mic’s already in place and he realizes — those are the only words he has left to give to the woman who’s given him it all.
he sings the first few chorus in the beginning. the first take’s too gritty, and he realizes her touch is far from that — it ripples at the surface, lingers. when it stays too long of fragile fingers carding through his hair, and the softer laughter that comes from the cheap shots of “your hair feels like my golden retriever back home.”
so, he goes with take eight when it becomes a mirage of roughness laced with the drag of his voice — uncertainty comes in tone, the apprehension that embeds inside the chorus when he sings. never polished, imperfect inside each polished frame of smiles and whispers wrapped up in a pink wig.
verses continue, and he doesn’t find satisfaction — not with the first, tenth or twentieth take. it’s too fine tuned to his status quo. and he’s never been ruthless nor a crippling force when it comes to her, no. he’s been the one that disarms, falls back into the trap of tongue-tied merciless confusions.
so, he gives that to her.
gives it in when his voice perches back to drag of singing rap, the lyrics conspicuous in a punch of early-morning mania. perhaps, he doesn’t know what incoherencies come from mind at bay, just the after effects of jaded yesterdays.
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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years
Video
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PERFUME GENIUS - DESCRIBE
[7.78]
We do describe him for you!
Vikram Joseph: As far back as "Gay Angels" on his debut album, Mike Hadreas has been experimenting with washes of sound; back then, as a comfort blanket for queer pain, and on No Shape frequently as a way of transcending it. Where "Otherside" and "Slip Away" burst into ecstatic climaxes, "Describe" hits you with a wall of warped shoegaze guitars right out of the gate. Coupled with the stunning, sensual visuals (Perfume Genius aesthetics are rarely less than remarkable) it feels like a Bacchanalian dream, folding into a nocturnal miasma that's more than two minutes long but which I would be happy for to drift on indefinitely. Hadreas has formed a career arc that takes you from songs that sound like being huddled next to him on the floor in a bare, cold bedsit to music that takes you to unimaginable places, while never sounding quite like anyone else. [9]
Michael Hong: Another Perfume Genius single, another shift in sound, not so much a curveball but a progression. "Describe" is different from whatever sound you attribute to earlier Perfume Genius material. It lacks the hurried tempo of "Slip Away." It throws out the sparseness of "Eye in the Wall." And yet, the dense slow-burn of "Describe" never takes away from its urgency or primal desire. "Describe" doesn't shimmer, it doesn't glow, instead it features Hadreas chipping away at its dense exterior in a slow rise, like the feeling of waking up after being numb for so long. [8]
Alfred Soto: Some may miss Mike Hadreas' delicate ministrations, but gimme the crunch of the last couple years. He hasn't lost the resignation and insistent self-pity with which he's darkened -- it's harder to hear them now. And "His love it felt like ribbons/An echo in the canyon" is a lovely line, complemented by those power chords. [8]
Ian Mathers: Here's the thing; it is absolutely understandable to note or even focus on how different the sound of Mike Hadreas's music is now, compared to the first couple of Perfume Genius records. But at the same time, in a very different arrangement (and with a very different vocal performance), this would have fit in just fine in those tender, delicate environs. Which is to say we haven't lost anything (not least because you can go listen to Learning right now if you want to), and Hadreas's voice (both literal and figurative) fits all these new modes he works in so well that even when we segue from the Americana shoegaze of the first part of "Describe" into the beatific ambience it all makes sense. [8]
Alex Clifton: Most of this is pretty good (sounds like listening to Sufjan Stevens through a dirty window), but I'm irritated by the last two minutes of emptiness. I get that it underscores the point of the song, feeling numb and lonely and how that feeling can stretch to eternity in no time at all, but it's not compelling from a listener standpoint. As with most art dealing with mental health, it's self-indulgent and I should be willing to forgive, but the world is currently stalling based on (gestures widely) all this stuff. I don't need more empty minutes to fill with my own anxieties at this point. [6]
Tim de Reuse: A celebration of awkward, clunky things; the distortion is heavyhanded and clumsy, and the rhythm is fast enough to pick up energy but slow enough to feel like it's tripping over itself. The most infectious thing, though, is the extra beat that forces you to lose and re-encounter the meter at the end of "his love, it felt like rib-bons." The expression of vulnerability through imperfect, off-kilter composition has been Hadreas's strong point for a long time, so the first half is basically a victory lap; the dreamy second half, by comparison, is so clean and unsurprising I'm surprised it's on a Perfume Genius album at all. [7]
Ryo Miyauchi: While dissonance in the music made the emotions difficult to coherently read on No Shape, "Describe" hits it raw and direct. The raging reverb of the guitars is aggressively physical, untouchable only because it's too hot on the surface to lay a hand, and the lyrics get straight to the point despite the details being shaped as a suggestive metaphor: "his love, it felt like ribbons -- can you find him for me," Hadreas yearns like he's trying to remember a dream. [8]
Olivia Rafferty: "Describe" arrests with the "hey, look at me" confidence of an oil slick on tarmac. It hits you and then just keeps rolling, shimmering murkily. We're offered sonic footholds, lapping up one after the other: slide guitar, wavering vocals, possible mandolins... but as soon as they appear they melt, and are hard to fully extricate. Even the lyrics are imagistic enough to never offer firm disclosure. It feels over before it ever really kicks in, fading out but lingering oddly like a whispered mirage. [7]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: I've never heard a song this exquisitely lost-feeling. In its first half, you can almost mistake its desolation for joy, its fuzzy wall of sound spreading out across the track like some kind of exultant beast. But once the waves of guitar fade out and the empty gets to creep in, "Describe" reveals its true self. It's the most heartbreaking thing, too void to even know its own sadness. [9]
[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]
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dustedmagazine · 4 years
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Zachary Cale — False Spring (All Hands Electric)
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False Spring by Zachary Cale
Zachary Cale has a guitar sound that is instantly recognizable, very warm and clear and lucid, surrounded by an amplifying echo but fundamentally unhazed by overtones. Whether acoustic or electric, his playing speaks to you plainly, directly and rather beautifully. His voice is more full of shadows, a bit of Dylan-ish creak in the long notes, a southern lilt in the way he speaks the words. You would never guess from listening that he lives in New York City. His music is resonant with folk, blues, country and Laurel Canyon pop, but a bit reticent; this is not music that shakes you by the throat and forces your attention, but rather creeps up sideways on you.
This is his first album since 2015’s Duskland, and it seems, on first listen, to be a bit quieter and more personal. Cale names his disc for a two-minute, lattice-picked instrumental, a sunny, bucolic ramble that’s pretty enough, but not especially memorable. If I had to pick a cut to represent this hour-long, 16-track recording, “False Spring” wouldn’t be it, but perhaps that’s an indicator of how laid back and un-in-your-face this album is.
For this album, Cale works with a relaxed and low-key band—Brent Cordero and Charles Burst of the indie rock band The Occasion on keyboards and drums respectively, James Preston on bass, the poet Jason Labbe on additional drums. Frequent collaborator Alfra Martini sings some harmonies and Dan Lead (who made an appearance on the last Vetiver album) adds lovely accents in pedal steel. The credits list what sounds like a rather large band including horns (Erik Elligers on saxophone and John Panos on flugelhorn), but the aesthetic is serene and unbusy. It’s mostly Cale in his natural element, unwinding slow, slouching melodies over a country rock backing that is remarkably free of gimmicks.
“By Starlight,” is perhaps the best of these ballads, with Cale reaching up towards the top of his range in a fragile, emotionally weighted melody and Martini shading in soft harmonies. Like most of the album’s tunes, it’s bittersweet, nodding to love and loss and the passage of time. The ending lyric floats away like a mirage, its vocal imperfections amplifying the feeling in it, as Cale croons, “Caught in a tailspin, spiraling down, by starlight, I can’t see your sad eyes, I know, sorrow walks on this earth.”
I like the drone and hum of “Careening,” the song on this album that sounds, uncharacteristically, like New Zealand lo-fi, especially David Kilgour. It’s a rocker in its way, with a steady, thumping beat and jangling, tangling guitars, and it has a dreaming, nodding chorus turns the phrase “All through the night,” into a mantra, full of weight and meaning.
The album is maybe longer than it needs to be, but it’s a good idea to stick it out, because some of the best material comes near the end. A pair of instrumentals “Black Dirt Drift” and “Seaside Downtime” carve out separate scenarios, the former morose and meditative with long swooning slides, the latter sprightly and euphoric, knocked upright by its rattling beat. “Amnesia Moon,” next to the last, stretches out in aching melancholy, then gets up to dance in wheeling, circling guitar licks; it has a wonderful guitar solo that lifts right out of its gentle melody, making a stance then stepping aside for the shy charms of the song. Are these songs really better than the first part of the album, or does it just take some time to accommodate its unhurried, unshowy appeal? Hard to say, but there’s good stuff here, even if it doesn’t make a fuss about capturing your attention.
Jennifer Kelly
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