#(rusty translation btw but I tried :'D)

[rainofthetwilight]

the urge to make an angst fic of arin and lloyd...talking abt their lost parents...hugging it out in the end...AUGHHH

[sadrien]

Ok so YES I love the long distance internet friends au but consider! Long distance wrong number au

honestly anon, thank you so much for this tonight. 

i took long distance and made it loooooong distance to the point where it probably doesn’t make sense, but ~~suspension of disbelief~~

texts between adrien and the mystery person (wow i wonder who) are in italics because theyre in french. also i didnt want to bother anyone so ‘numéro inconnu’ is from google translate so im sorry for….that

finally i tried to streamline how i do texts for this just because the way i do texts is usually a lot clunkier? so it looks more like wanna chat but isnt in like….the contact names are still what the other person would see? like when it says pretty boy thats ninos contact name for adrien and—

frick just tell me if its too confusing and tell me how to fix it im really tired

[on ao3 in case the read more is a butt and wont open]

2:51 PM unknown number: Did this work????? unknown number: a;slkdfjadj its me btw unknown number: I mean duh its me who else would it be unknown number: If you screenshot this conversation al I swear to go d Ill kill you

Adrien squints at his phone. Not only does he not know this number, but the text are in French. That’s…unusual. He thinks that it’s a lucky coincidence that his father is from France and insisted he learned the language before replying.

2:52 PM numéro inconnu: I think you might have the wrong number. numéro inconnu: Sorry if my French is bad I don’t speak it often and I write it even less

unknown number: Ohmogd unknown number: IM SOSO RRY  IDNT MEAN OT unknown number: AHHHHH I MUSTCE TYPED IT IN WRONG???????? unknown number: Im sorry IM osrry Im sorry Im s orry Im sorry!!!!!!!!!! ; ^ ;

It takes Adrien a minute to translate the texts with the typos. He’s not nearly as fluent as he thought he was. His dad will be thrilled about that. Maybe he needs to mention to Nathalie that starting Chinese has left him a little rusty with his French…

Not that this is going to be a thing. Because it’s not. He’s not going to keep texting some random stranger from— Wait a minute.

2:54 PM numéro inconnu: On the off chance of sounding really stalkery numéro inconnu: (I’m not sure if that’s the right word, I had to use Google Translate) numéro inconnu: Do you live in France?

Yup. That question is just as creepy as it sounded in his head. Adrien spins slowly in his chair as he waits for a response, completely disregarding the homework he needs to have done before he leaves for fencing.

2:57 PM unknown number: Ummm unknown number: I dont know if i should be telling you this random stranger I texted by accident unknown number: But seeing that its a big country unknown number: ANd idk how youd find me to like murder me or something unknown number: Yes. Im from France unknown number: Why??

3:01 PM numéro inconnu: It’s just that numéro inconnu: I live in the United States so… numéro inconnu: I’m trying to figure out how you got a wrong number that…wrong numéro inconnu: That sounded mean I’m sorry!!!!!!!

Adrien puts down his phone and groans. Scaring people off from literally an ocean away. He’s always known he’s not the greatest at socializing but this is some next level shit. He stares at his darkened phone screen for a minute before deciding that whoever he’s been texting is probably extremely weirded out and won’t be replying.

He’s strangely disappointed by that.

And while he could go back to doing physics work, he’s not going to. Because now he’s distracted and he doesn’t really want to be thinking about sound waves right now. Maybe in like fifteen minute, because sound waves are cool and add a whole new layer to music that he kind of loves, but not right this second.

The next time his chair spins past the desk, he grabs his phone and pulls up his conversation with Nino.

3:09 PM pretty boy: Have you ever been texted by someone who has the wrong number before?

duuuude: yup duuuude: it was weird af duuuude: didnt turn into a full convo cause they never responded

pretty boy: What did they send?

duuuude: a rad horse painting and the message ‘jen painted another horse’

pretty boy: Ok wow yeah that is kind of weird

duuuude: yeah i didnt respond duuuude: but then the next day they asked about florida?? and flooding??? and were like yo have you seen or called anyone and i was like oh shit i should probably respond because this seems important incase theyre looking for someone

pretty boy: Yeah that sounds like a smart move pretty boy: Did you ever hear back from them

duuuude: nah duuuude: unfortunate too i wouldve loved to see more horse drawings duuuude: anyway that was kinda a random question any reason why you ask?

pretty boy: I got a text from a wrong number pretty boy: From France

duuuude: what the fuck duuuude: bruh international texting fees duuuude: good thing youre rich my dude

pretty boy: Nah it’s ok it was all iMessage

duuuude: bless duuuude: so was it like duuuude: in french

pretty boy: Yup

duuuude: aw man you lucked out duuuude: is it like a full conversaiton??

pretty boy: Idk they haven’t responded in like 15 minutes pretty boy: It was nice while it lasted

duuuude: :/ rip

Adrien blinks in surprise when a notification from the unknown number pops up at the top of the screen. He clicks it immediately, not even reading any of the text before he does.

3:27 PM unknown number: I dont?????? KNow???????????? unknown number: My friend got a new phone and wrote her number on my arm but her writing is always kinda a mess and also I smudged the numbers because IM a mess and I unknown number: Somehow???? unknown number: PLUS I managed to add the us country code????

numéro inconnu: Well I’m pretty sure that’s just a 1 so that’s understandable

unknown number: And any other numbers I needed??? Hwo did I?? unknown number: I don t know how I did it D: unknown number: Ohmy god and I just realized you probably dont want a million texts from a total stranger in a language you barely speak?? unknown number: IM SO SORRY ILL STOP NOW unknown number: YOU SEEM REALLY NICE SORRY FOR WASTING YORU TIME unknown number: OK BYE

3:36 PM numéro inconnu: It’s fine! numéro inconnu: My dad is actually from Paris so I do know French numéro inconnu: I can’t really say I’m totally fluent in it but I spoke it a lot when I was little numéro inconnu: This is good practice! numéro inconnu: And you’re weren’t wasting my time at all, I promise

Good going, Agreste, he thinks to himself. Over enthusiastic and weird. He tries not to think about it too much and goes back to physics. Physics with its constant equations and complex numbers and waves and waves and waves and waves. It gets a little easier when he’s able to connect it to something he knows. He can hear frequency in his music and beats when he tries to tune instruments. He finds his fingers itching to spread across the black and white piano keys and lose themselves in the music.

By the time Nathalie is calling him for fencing, he’s mostly forgotten about the conversation he had with the stranger across the sea. Not entirely, it’s still in the back of his mind, but he’s moved past the disappointment of likely never speaking to them again. While he’s fencing, his mind has no room for those thoughts and he throws them away. He won’t be needing them again.

When Adrien checks his phone after practice for schedule updates from Nathalie or texts about the weekend from Nino, he finds a single text in French at the bottom of his pile of notifications.

He can’t stop himself from smiling as he opens it. He’s not exactly sure what time it is in France right now, he assumes it’s fairly late and doesn’t expect a response anytime soon, but he replies quickly anyway. His reply is short and simple, but he doesn’t know what else to say, so it’ll have to be enough for now.

Maybe this is a one time thing. Maybe it isn’t. He’d like it to be the latter, but right now, he’s just winging it.

4:02 PM unknown number: Well if youre really really sure… I mean I wouldnt be talking to you often obviously!!! But it might be cool to know more about America? Ive always wanted to visit and wow this probably is super weird and Im so sorry for that like this conversation hasnt been weird enough already ahahahhhhhhhhh but um. I just mean to say that if you wanted to maybe keep talking I wouldnt mind?

5:19 PM numéro inconnu: I’d love to keep talking if you want to! :)

[darnitallband-blog]

 IT NEVER ENDS!!! The Abbreviated Story of my Beloved Amp!

As many of you already know, I never wanted to be a guitar player...(yeah, yeah, poor me, boohoo). When I moved on from playing classical and marching music as a child and exploded into the death/black metal fanatic I became as a tween, I immediately understood that I wanted to the bass player in a legendary death metal band. It was the rock instrument that was calling me at the time.

Alright, never mind all that, I'm not getting into that part of the story right now, it will take too long and I have too much to do today, and you will find out why in a few minutes.

The point is, although all guitarists are known to be persnickety about their "tone", I believe myself to be an extreme case since I started playing guitar reluctantly. Well, I don't want to say reluctantly, let us just say, it wasn't the first choice on my list.

When we started this, Tara knew that she wanted to play bass, and at the time, she wasn't comfortable standing onstage as a two-piece (with me on drums). She felt that as a new musician, she would feel too exposed without a guitarist to hide behind. Again, a story for another post. Btw, I make no apologies for my style of writing...

So where was I? Ah, yes...the amp. So after realizing that there was no way we could make Darn It All work as a 3-piece, we knew that one of us had to play drums. Learning yet another instrument was not something Tara wanted to do, however, gun-to-the-head, she said, there was no f@#king way she was going to play guitar. So, seeing how I fancy myself as "Mr. Adaptable", I picked up the "axe" and made a go of it. Before we started Darn It All, I only had a casual relationship with the guitar as a songwriter, yet never in my life did I think it would become "my instrument".

If I had to play guitar, then I needed a sound and feel that I could get behind. To call me a snob would be too polite. I absolutely hated the sound of most guitar tones that I encountered in real life. I also didn't like the way the majority of guitars looked on my body or felt in my hands. Much like Tara, guitar would be the last rock instrument I would choose to pursue. Nothing against guitarists in general, the instrument just never seemed to resonate with me. Whatever, why am I making disclaimers?

Years ago, I had played in a band with a guitarist that had a Rivera 5512. A little combo valve amp with a big open sound and rich saturation. So I decided to get one of those. It literally caught fire after only a few plays. It took me months of scouring the "used gear" classifieds and trying out amp after amp until I was on verge ready to try and build my own.

Almost as a joke, I went to check out this old Peavey Heritage VTX amp. At the time, I didn't know that Peavey wasn't simply manufacturing cheap beginner amps but also made some seriously powerful high end amps with low sticker prices. The guy selling it had an acoustic guitar plugged into it and said he had to get rid of it because it was too loud. "Interesting..." I thought to myself..."It doesn't look very big". I had brought my own guitar with me and plugged it in.

It took me about 1.5 seconds until I said, "I'll take it"! I was quite a bit short on the price he was asking but the guy just let me take it home regardless and told me to pay him whenever I got the rest of the money. Amazing! Really swell guy. So I payed him the remainder a month later.

During that month, it was becoming more and more obvious that we needed to become a two-piece instead of a trio and we had already started experimenting a little with Tara on drums, but nothing was "gelling" as they say.

At the time, I also had started breaking a lot strings on the Fender Strat I had gotten quite inexpensively at a pawn shop in Mexico, so I thought I needed a backup guitar. So I dug up my late father's old hybrid guitar that he had assembled from a pile of orphan guitar parts. It was set up in B-standard from the old metal days and I was dreading having to do new set up for D-standard (the tuning we used in the 3-piece version of Darn It All).

Farsically, I plugged my father's old guitar in to the Peavey Heritage and the entire of my being was melted by the tone. The combination of the pickups, tuning and saturation on that tube amp was everything I ever wanted in a guitar tone. I didn't know it until I heard it and felt it. Maybe some of it was because I had played in B-standard most of my life and it just felt like home, or maybe it was feeling my father's guitar in my hands, but whatever it was, I instantly knew what Darn It All as a two-piece was going to sound like. It all hit me so abruptly in a flash of jagged inspiration. No effects, no pedals, just one great saturated tone and lots of creativity and heavy goofiness.

But Tara couldn't play drums yet, so I had to write a song that could teach her some of the basics on drums...so I wrote "Trixie Taught Me How To Be A Man" with my new guitar tone. Oddly enough, when I wrote the drum parts, I tried to put as much of Tara's personality into the drum parts as possible while making them easy to learn. Of course, I put some of my personality in their too, how could I not...alright, I gotta reel it in, I'm getting off track.

The point is this. Although the pins on foot switch cable for the Peavey Heritage stopped functioning the day I brought it home, the Peavey served us well all summer and autumn, however when we started to record, it self-destructed.

So we recorded with guitar simulators like I explained in the last blog post. Well, now people are offering us shows and we have some coming up that are booked and we needed an amp. Since the equipment and parts I would need to trouble shoot the amp and fix it (or send it to a tech if I wanted to take that route instead) would cost more than to find another used Heritage, I ordered another Heritage online with a 2 year warranty.

Now since we've been recording and haven't play any shows or rehearsed in nearly two-months, we are extremely rusty and anxious to rehearse again.

Yesterday, we received the amp...and lo and behold...it's a veritable pile of junk. Now remember, the seller said it was in "Good condition, fully functional with only minor surface wear and tear". What that translates to in reality is the following...

* The amp is so grimy and covered in filth and grease that I shutter to touch it.

* The power tubes do not match and are dead.

* There are major dents all over its face and the knobs do not turn properly

* The amp isn't getting any power and DOES NOT EVEN TURN ON!!!

So instead of jamming out today, we get to spend more time figuring out how to return this or get it in some sort of working condition with the warranty.

That's okay, our fans don't like us because we are well-rehearsed, shit, we can barely play our instruments to begin with. Although I could be wrong, it seems like you guys like us because we turn our tragedies into some sort of satirical entertainment, and turn our lack of "tightness" into comedy-fodder.

Thanks for checking in!

- Spickler