#The Unfamous Dead

[stesierra]

I am not a short story writer. Everything I touch turns into a novel usually. But I did write a short story once! Here it is. YA fantasy I guess. Maybe someday I'll write a novel set in this world. Trigger warning: the MC is a ghost.

The Unfamous Dead

After I die, my house stands empty for three damn years. The iron memorial cross Mom put up outside topples at the end of year one. Year two, it’s nicked by a drunk. He’ll probably batter someone with it. Iron’s heavy.

Year three, the landlord brings a man and woman to tour. All three stare right through me, even when I start dancing. Dancing’s easy when gravity doesn’t affect you and you can’t hurt yourself. Being dead isn’t so bad. I tell myself that a lot, especially when I start thinking about how things could’ve been different. If I hadn’t been so eager to move out at the end of high school. If I’d agreed to stay in a dorm. If someone from our band had stayed the night and noticed the stroke that killed me, a week before classes started.

A stroke’s the last way I’d have chosen to die, if anyone had given me a choice. It’s fast, but it happens to people all the time. If you’re a young man, that’s weird, but no one will remember you for dying that way. You won’t even get an article in the newspaper.

A month after the tour, a family pulls up in a U-haul. The doors open to spill children and houseplants out onto the cracked driveway. There are two kids and two parents, the family traditional. They don’t have a dog. Too bad. If dogs can see ghosts, maybe it could’ve pointed me out to its folks. I’m never going to get famous haunting a bunch of idiots who can’t see me.

The boy is ten, the girl maybe six. His hair is puffy and black and in need of a trim. Hers is done up in cornrows. Their parents let them tear around the yard and ruin the dandelion field until everything’s out of the truck. Then their mom shepherds them inside with a hand on each kid’s shoulder.

The dad leads the way into the house and straight through me, calling back over his shoulder, “Honey, where did we pack the microwave?”

“It’s in the big box with the linens, remember?” The mother steps past me, but the kids stare with rounded eyes. The little girl’s thumb drops from her mouth, and her black eyes glisten alarmingly.

I’ve planned for years to scare the bejesus out of the first idiots to move into the house I haunt. I didn’t expect it to be kids, okay? I make a quick change of plans.

From behind the door of the coat closet, where I take shelter, I have a front row seat for the family’s first fight in their new home. The parents tell their daughter she’s got an overactive imagination and should act more like her brother. The daughter is outraged. The brother, who saw me too, says nothing.

“Scaring children now, David?” asks the angel beside me.

“Shut up,” I say, and press farther back into the closet. Great. She’s here again.

Maybe I should have mentioned before that there’s an angel hanging around here. She showed up a month after I died, bothering me about moving on, and she never left. She’s an odd, colorless creature, more felt than seen. She flickers dimly next me. “This will make you famous? Perhaps you ought to give in and pass on.”

I shake my head. I’m not having this conversation again. I’ve always yearned to be famous, and why should dying change that? But when she gets started, she goes on about me damaging the fabric of reality. She must be immortal, because no one with a time limit would waste years stalking a dead guy.

“Children see things the rest of the world cannot. It will be difficult for you to avoid them while they live here. But there is an easy solution—”

“No, seriously, shut up. I’m not leaving, and you’re not even a real angel, I’m pretty sure.”

“You’re the one who called me that,” the angel says.

“Shut up.” Like I said, she’s more felt than seen. When I met her, I named the parts I felt arms and legs and wings because not naming them made me feel even more nuts than just being a ghost already did. She’s got wings. What else could she be?

The upstairs doors clatter open and closed; the kids must be over their tantrums and picking out rooms. I press my insubstantial knees to my chest and wait for nightfall.

That night, the parents settle down with a six-pack and a couple of books. Maybe their cable’s not connected yet. The kids are nowhere to be seen. I creep up the stairs. The angel follows.

The little girl’s shoes are outside the first bedroom door. Down at the end of the hall, another door is shut. I pass through it. There’s not much to see inside. Mom and Dad dragged a bed in and put a sleeping bag down on it, under which the boy is now curled. Music books are piled on the floor next to a disassembled IKEA bookshelf, and a black electronic keyboard lurks in the corner behind the bed. The blinds on the windows are open, and the gibbous moon casts down light that washes the color from everything. Pale and ghostly, I fit right in.

I lean down over the bed. I can feel the angel at my back, watching. I whisper in the boy’s ear, “You know, piano’s for chumps. Forget piano. Guitar is where you want to be.”

The whites of his eyes are vivid against his dark skin. He sits up on the bed and pulls the shirt of his Spider-Man pajamas tight. He sticks out his lower lip and says, “My parents want me to learn piano.”

“You always do what your parents want you to do?”

He straightens then, gaze challenging. “They wouldn’t like me talking to a ghost.”

I take a seat over the bed, cross-legged in the air. The angel is behind me, but he doesn’t see her. “Well, you’re old enough to make your own decisions, aren’t you?” I stick out a hand. “David.”

He reaches out and brushes his fingers through mine. “I’m Anthony.”

***

Anthony is a breath of fresh air, sweeping out the staleness that’s clogged this dump for the last three years. At night, when we talk about bands and music and why piano’s for stiffs, he tells me he’s not afraid of ghosts. Hell yeah, he’s afraid of ghosts. I can tell. I was a ten-year-old boy once, too. I avoid his sister; she’s not any closer to pissing herself at the sight of me than he is, but she doesn’t try to hide it like her brother.a

The kid is a prodigy. He spends hours every day tapping out songs on his keyboard. He writes them himself. If he’d apply himself to a decent instrument — say, a guitar — he could make something out of his life. Black kid songwriter jams with the stars — can’t you see the headlines now? He could be famous. He could make me famous. A ghost that’s your best friend, that’s practically begging for a single, isn’t it? But Anthony doesn’t have a guitar, and no one ever got famous by having a piano solo written about them.

Anthony gives his eighth piano concert and turns thirteen before a brightly wrapped pear-shaped present with a long handle shows up under the Christmas tree. It’s acoustic. Cheap-ass grandparents. Up in his room after Christmas dinner, as he fingers the strings experimentally, I mutter, “It’s somewhere to start, at least.”

Anthony glances down at the guitar and babbles some shit about the model and make and how it cost five hundred dollars.

“Whatever. It doesn’t have a plug.”

The angel makes herself known then. Her face is set in a frown. “Do you persist in trying to make the child over into yourself? You are no better than his parents, who you complain are pushing him into music too young and denying him a childhood.”

I ignore her, like usual when Anthony’s around. He thinks I’m weird enough without me talking to people he can’t see.

Couldn’t see. Now, his head turns toward her. He sets the guitar gently down on the bed beside him. “I love the piano, and I only do as many concerts as I want. I’m thirteen, not a kid. What the hell are you? Why are you in my room?”

The angel vanishes.

Anthony clambers off the bed, staring at the empty spot where she was. “David, why was there an alien in my room? Where did it go? Why does it know you? Do you really complain about Mom and Dad?”

“An alien? She looked like an alien to you?”

“It didn’t look human, like you.”

“She didn’t look like an angel?”

“It sure didn’t look like any I’ve ever heard of.” He hesitates and picks up his new guitar to cradle against his chest. “That’s not what you really are, is it?”

I put my hands up. “Whoa. Of course not. I’m dead David, your buddy. Look, I’m going to go get that thing out of our house. Okay? I’ll go and do that.”

I don’t give him a chance to argue. I can move fast when I want to.

The angel is downstairs, standing with wings and arms folded, dourly watching Natasha play her video games. The girl doesn’t notice; she stopped seeing me years ago.

I stalk up to the angel. “What the hell was that?”

Her eyes are colorless and too large. “I told you, David. You are damaging reality by staying here.”

“Because he could see you? How is that damaging reality? You’re real, aren’t you? You’re really here, just like I am.”

“The Intangible and Tangible are separate realms, David. You damage that separation. If you hadn’t stayed, Anthony would have outgrown seeing the Intangible outside of dreams, just as his sister did.”

“If they’re so separate, why can he see me at all?”

“Humans filter what they see through their limited comprehension. They can comprehend ghosts more easily than other things. Creatures of greater power are beyond them. Due to your meddling, the boy may see me now, but he cannot see me as I truly am.”

“Can I?”

She doesn’t answer. On the other side of the room, Natasha punches out a virtual bad guy, and “K.O!” flashes bright across the screen.

The angel’s face has never held much expression, but now her still features seem secretive. I say, “I’m not doing anything to reality, am I? You’re hiding. Your people, whatever they are — which is not angels, by the way — are hiding, and I’m helping him see you!”

The angel turns towards the frost-painted front window. I can see through her to the boots and mittens in a pile by the front door. Her voice is as cold as her face. “You have your way, then, David Fundley. I hope that you come to realize you are ruining his life before it is too late. It is already too late for yours.”

With that last passive-aggressive comment, the angel is gone.

***

Two years pass. I rejoice in living — ha ha — in an angel-free space. Anthony thinks I’m a hero for driving the “alien” away. I bask in his admiration like a hideous lizard on a sunny rock. Sure, she left on her own, but he doesn’t need to know that. Anthony shoots up half a foot when puberty hits him hard, and he gets real quiet while his voice breaks. I tell him after school, as he clings to his piano and plays away his stresses, that at least he’s not a singer.

Three days after his fifteenth birthday, I try to convince him to take up singing.

“If you just play piano and guitar, you’ll never front a band,” I tell him.

Anthony keeps playing Rachmaninoff’s third concerto, his hands rippling across the keys like a crab caught skittering and tumbling in the surf. “I’m a concert soloist. I’m not going to have a band.”

“Well, not if you keep on the way you have been.”

He ignores me. I let him alone.

Downstairs, the windows are thrown open to the spring afternoon. His parents aren’t home; Anthony’s old enough for them to trust him with the house. A robin sings, its lilting voice slow and soothing compared to the pounding intensity of Rachmaninoff. Strange, there’s usually more than one of them. I step up to the window screen. A smell hits me, sour and sickly, like an old bag of lettuce rotting at the bottom of a refrigerator. I grimace. Has some kid been smearing dog shit on the siding? Has some animal crawled under the window and died?

I walk around the living room. The same death smog comes in all the windows. What is this? I turn back to the first window, and the shock of what I see hits me like another blood vessel bursting in my brain.

There’s a thing on the other side, staring at me and drooling. It’s winged, like the angel, but it has too many wings and too many eyes, eyes that pop from every gnarled knuckle. And believe me, with as many limbs as this crawling monstrosity has, it has a lot of knuckles.

“Oh shit!”

It leans its big, snouty face towards the window, then jumps up to cling to the side of the building with claws the length of my hand. For a moment, all I can see is its belly. Then it tears the screen off, and it is too big to fit through but it does.

I run. The house has never felt so much of a trap as it does now. I scream up the stairs, “Anthony! Get out the window! Run! Run run run run!”

The doors to the downstairs rooms are open. There’s no basement, no hidden crawlspace, nowhere to go but up. I hit the stairs and pray Anthony’s already thrown the fire ladder out the window and climbed to safety. I pray that someone has left a door closed upstairs and the monster can’t tear hinges off as easy as it can screens.

The monster stampedes up the steps behind me.

I reach the top of the stairs. All the doors stand open.

“David! In here!”

I don’t waste time despairing that Anthony is an idiot and couldn’t climb out a window to save his fucking life. I jump into his room, and just as the monster comes up the last of the steps, Anthony slams the door in its face.

“You were supposed to get out,” I snarl at him.

The monster scrabbles at the door, a sound like twenty dogs on a hardwood floor, and then the handle turns. The door flies open, and the monster lunges inside. Anthony meets it with an empty guitar case to the head, but the case bounces like rubber. Then the monster’s on me, claws sunk deep. Dying hurt worse, I tell myself as its furnace-breath sears my insubstantial face. Dying hurt more.

I’m lying.

For an eternity, there’s nothing but claws in my soul and rotten breath in my face and Anthony’s screams in my ears. Then, without warning, the monster releases me, and I shoot back out of its grasp like a greased eel.

I push myself up on the floor and find the monster’s head level with mine. I scramble away, but it doesn’t move. A shining sword is run through what passes for its spine. As I watch, the monster collapses into gooey black liquid that puddles across everything. A moment later, it dries up and flakes away, leaving nothing behind but a terrible smell of decay.

A translucent hand stretches out to pluck the sword from the floor. The angel is back.

I meet the angel downstairs after Anthony’s finished throwing up. Her sword is nowhere to be seen now. “I told you that staying could have terrible consequences, David,” she says.

I just nod. I want to ask what that was, but I know she won’t tell. “So. Was what Anthony saw there filtered through his own limited comprehension, or did he see the same sick thing I did?”

She cocks her head. “He saw a monster, yes.”

“It wanted to eat me.”

“For some creatures, a loose soul is a tender meal.”

“Would it have gone after the family after it chowed down on me?”

“Perhaps. The boy, most likely, because he could see it.”

Because he tried to defend me. I stare at the wall. “If I left now, would he outgrow seeing supernatural things?”

The angel’s eyes are eager. “With nothing to remind him, he would become normal. It would protect him.”

“Let me think about it.” I turn and walk away, and the angel doesn’t follow. I don’t need to think. I just need to be away from her.

It wasn’t Anthony seeing ghosts that brought the monster — the demon — down on this house. It was me. It’s always been me that brought strange things to this house: angels, demons. Acoustic guitars.

Anthony’s outside of his room, trying to sand the claw marks out of the door with his dad’s tools. I tell him I’m leaving.

“You can’t leave,” Anthony says.

“I have to.” I remember what grief felt like when I was alive and had a throat to clench, eyes to sting. “I’m not calling anything else like that down on you. Okay? But you have to promise me something.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“Promise me you’ll always remember. There are things in the world that are not normal, and they want to feed you the lie that they don’t exist. Pretend you can’t see them, but don’t forget. If you forget, you’ll be their sheep, like everyone else.”

“You could stay and watch my back.”

“No, I can’t. I’m dead. You have to go out and play piano concertos. I’m stuck to this building until I decide it’s time to leave. That’s now, I think.”

Letting go must be easy. It’s not an action, really. It’s stopping. Stopping the strain to cling to the world with my fingerprints, to retain the memory of a face, of hands.

I hate long goodbyes. I let go.

I’m nothing more than a shadow of mist when a last thought comes to me. “And if you ever get a chance to bust humanity out of its brain-washing, promise me you’ll take it! That would be awesome!”

I don’t know if he heard me — there wasn’t much me left to hear — but he waves a scribble-covered piece of paper. It might be a song about me, or a grocery list for all I know. I pretend it’s the former as I step into nothing, into all the potential afterlives in the universe, and wait to see what comes next.

@anonymousfoz

@moremysteriesthantragedies

@elizababie

@sm-writes-chaos

@bellascarousel

@palebdot

@Hyba

@da-na-hae

[asocialangel]

soulmate give away pt2 with characters like Reo and Chigiri? :)

My pleasure ! Thank you for asking, i hope you like it, lovelyyyyy

Ion think i'd do a part 3 cause i'm running out of ideas so bad aa

soulmate give away (pt 2)

What made the bllk boys realize you might be their soulmate. 

Do you believe in soulmates ? To be fair, sometimes, some signs can be considered as dead giveaways that you and he are meant to be. 

super shorts hc, gender neutral with reo, chigiri, sae, kunigami, bachira and nagi. fluffy ig ? part 1 includes: isagi, kurona, shidou, rin, kaiser and barou.

ꕥ

Reo: Makes you want to be a better person. For an unexplainable reason, just being around him makes you feel complete and makes you want to reach higher horizons. It’s like when you’re him you know your potential can be accomplished. 

Chigiri: Has watched the same underground, unknown, arthouse unfamous movie as you did. When you guys realized you quoted the same quote, you were really, really confused and couldn't believe it. How come you and him both knew about this movie with like 17 streams AND both happen to really like it ? You called it an invisible string. 

Sae: You have his lucky charm he lost when he was a teenager. So basically up until he was 15 he had this clover keychain that was his (secret) lucky charm. Until he lost it, randomly dropping it in the metro. You picked it up and it became YOUR lucky charm. When you met him, he recognized it instantly. Your destinies liked each other enough to bring you guys to meet again. 

Bachira: You feel the same things regardless of how far apart you are. He’ll be yawing in Brazil and so will you be in Madagascar. You sneeze in the shower, so will he on the field. Sad for no reason ? He’s probably currently watching a k-drama. Ain't that a compassionate soul for ya ?

Kunigami: There is electricity whenever you touch. Literally static electric shocks every time you guys brush against each other. If you let go for just one second, the next time you touch you’ll feel a spark again. 

Nagi: You guys get each other. As in you GET each other. Without a word, you know what the other one is thinking and without a word, act consequently. Even when you were classmates, even when you were just friends. It’s like you share the same mind. People started thinking you guys had made a secret code at this point. 

A/N: yayy i don't think i've ever answered an ask this fast !!! It's not that good but i was really surprised it got a bit of love~~ Isagi smut coming sooooon (my frist 'smut' nd it's not even that smutty kkkkk)

[seleneprince]

Hear me out

With the growing popularity of transmigration webtoons, I assume we've all read those ones about a random girl or fan reincarnating in the villainess' body and changing the original plot completely, and often finding out the villainess wasn't so bad and the MC was the real enemy all along.

I'm obsessed with that trope and I don't care how repetitive or predictable it gets sometimes, it fuels me. It gives me life. And since I recently started to re-read The Remarried Empress on webtoon (i'm following I Abdicate my Title as Empress now and the nostalgia hit me), I had an idea I can't stop thinking about. Well, two ideas:

A fierce fan of The Remarried Empress dying in an accident or falling into a coma, I don't care, and reincarnating in Rasha's body, right when's she found by Emperor Sovieshu on the trap. She's a BIG supporter of Navier and hates Sovieshu with passion, blaming him for everything. Her opinion on Rasha is the same as the average fans...until she experiences the girl's trauma and hardships herself, and realizes that there's more depth in the unfamous webtoon villainess than she thought. Despite her new identity and knowing most of the plot, she cannot bring herself to stay away from Navier and show her adoration for the Empress, acting like a fangirl whenever she sees her or hears about her. She helps push all the strings to guarantee Navier and Heinrey's love story to shail, because even though she wants her close, she wants Navier to have the happy life she deserves.

Or the original Rashta going back to the past after her death and, feeling terrible for what she did, vows to not commit the same mistakes again and decides to do her best to help Navier from the distance whenever the Emperor fucks up. She doesn't want to be empress, just have a cozy and secure life away from slavery, so she's resolved to make Navier stay and if she has to act as a marital therapist for them so be it. She knows her position is secured with her baby, so it's not like she needs the Emperor's affection on her, just his promise to look after her (plus she resents him a lot now, so the less she interacts with him, the better).

These ideas were born out of my new found realization that Rashta, while she works amazing as a pitiful villain, her character was deeply misunderstood and forever condemned to be mocked and attacked by everyone, both in the story and the fandom. She wasn't a saint, sure. She did bad things out of selfishness and purposedly went against Navier to steal her place, and I was satisfied with the ending she got. But most of the flaws that made her so annoying for the fans are actually reasonable within her character's past. Rashta was sold as a slave by her own father when she was a child, placed in a house with masters that abused her and treated her like trash simply for existing (Lotteshu even gave her a dead baby to let her believe it was the one she lost, how the fuck no one talks more about it?). Then, she escapes and the Emperor saves her, showering her in affection and riches and promising her a fairytale love story. She think she's safe, that she can finally be happy, but Lotteshu re appears and begins to blackmail her, and then turns out the Emperor doesn't love her but wants to the heir she can give him. Ergi is her only friend in court apparently, but he's manipulating her from the beginning and eventually betrays her. And Rashta wasn't purposedly rude to Navier at first, the girl was illiterate and knew nothing about etiquette, but she admired Navier and wanted to be close to her, but Navier assumed she was mocking her instead. And Sovieshy obviously never helped this situation.

I want to see a story where Rashta's traumatic past is properly explored instead of showing it as side information, and she gets the development she should have had. And what better way than with a reincarnation story? At least in my opinion

Anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk lmao

[elijah-loyal]

"little miss why so" is FUCKING DESTROYING MEE

like

"Why won't you let me follow in your footsteps as you trek into that underground world? What's the hold, that the big dark king of nothing has got on you, my girl?" is ALREADY heartbreaking enough.

BUT FOLLOWED UP WITH THIS?

"Why do you go down those stairs to that dark green cave where theres only, faces of the unfamous dead... full of people just pretending to be brave?"

IS BREAKING MEEE

[latibvles]

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY POETTTT

how about 'kissing the top of their head as you hold them' for june x benny 👀👀

A KISS TO THE TOP OF THEIR HEAD.

every time i write something from benny's point of view i need to do deep-breathing or something. cw for prison guards just generally fucking Sucking but it's more like benny thinking about how much they suck as opposed to explicit violence. they're special to me protect them at ALL COSTS!!!

—

Sleep doesn’t come easily in a place like this.

Benny often felt like a livewire right after flight, buzzing with nervous energy. Before, he had a pub to go to, other means of expelling that energy. Drinking or dancing or something — and then it goes away for a little. Here, it never subsides. Not with the cold of late-November piercing through the thin blanket bunched around his hips.

Ideally, he’d be warmer if he pulled it up to his chin, but he couldn’t stop tossing and turning, so on that front he’s still shit out of luck.

Really, what he wants is a whole lot simpler than that. A weight that was too infrequent on his chest for him to get used to, and yet he is. His fingers twitch in anticipation, he’s got half a mind to lean his head over the side and see if June’s just as restless as he is, sandwiched between him on the top bunk, Crank on the bottom one.

He doesn’t do that though. The logical part of his fraying mind knows it’s a bad idea. 

It’s not like what they have is much of a secret. Really, Benny doesn’t think it ever was, and that their COs kind of just turned a blind eye to it up until now. Benny could still fly right and June still knew how to use the bombsight so who gives a damn what they do in their free time? Here, not much was to be said either. Viv just gave him a long hard look one day once she started talking again and told him to be careful. Buck was the one reading the riot act and even if it pissed him off, he knew what they meant.

June never needed him to protect her before. Here, one slip and they could let the dog loose on her for something he did. And then he’ll get shot because he will, without a doubt in his mind, try to kill a guard with his bare hands.

The most he allows himself outside these walls is the feeling of her frigid hand curling around his wrist, like she’s reminding him that she is here, and alive, and not burning in a field somewhere with all their dead friends.

Benny shifts to one side, and when his arm starts going numb, rolls onto the other. An interminable back and forth until he feels the quiet thump of something hitting his back, barely, in the bunk below him.

He turns, it happens again, and then a third time. Thump. Thump.

He smiles to himself.

There’s shifting then, the sound of wood creaking beneath him and a body shifting — soft muttering, barely perceptible Polish curses that he doesn’t really understand but has become irreversibly fond of just because of the sound of her voice.

She pops up over the side of his bunk — messy-haired, curious-eyed, and Benny tries not to laugh into the silence. There’s movie scenes where women show up in their silk negligees to kiss jaded, gruff soldiers, soldiers, and then there’s Juney, who looks more like a curious mouse right now than a woman with underlying intentions.

“You alright?” She looks like she might scold him as she rests her chin on the edge of his bed. He nods slowly.

“Yeah. Can’t sleep.”

June reaches over, hand curling around his as she hums into the quiet, eyes downcast a moment in thought. Then she squeezes it and releases it, perking up in quick and abrupt mannerisms.

“Move over, s’cold.” Benny allows a chuckle to rumble through him as he moves over as much as he can in the bunk — which really isn’t much. He grunts when her foot smacks into his thigh and she mutters a little apology as she squirms, squeezing herself into the space until they find a position that works.

It just so happens to be that that position is half on top of him — leg thrown over his hips, her head a welcome and unfamiliar-but-longed-for weight on his chest. Her hair’s getting longer now, long enough to put in a small braid. She reaches for the sheet, pulls it over both of them as he wraps her arms around her. He feels less like he’s protecting her in his hold and more like a child holding onto their well-loved stuffed animal.

She’s braver than he’ll ever be. He kind of loves her for it.

“Now go to sleep.” She mumbles into his chest, and Benny grins a little to himself.

“You’re always orderin’ me around.” He can feel the curve of her smile even though she’s practically hiding in him.

“If you weren’t rolling around like a baby getting his wiggles out I wouldn’t have to.” Her voice is soft, muffled, and Benny tries to keep his laughter quiet, letting it be swallowed up by golden hair that he can’t see in this darkness. In the morning, if she stays, it’ll look as pretty as it always does and Benny can let himself think about mornings where they always wake up just like this, but in better places than a rickety bunk.

“You’re not mad about it though,” he counters, thumb tracing circles against her shoulder. He wants to touch her skin, watch her flush beneath his hands, and knowing that he can’t right now kind of kills him a little bit.

“Uh huh,” June mumbles, and it’s as much as he’s going to get in way of her conceding, so he smiles.

Benny tilts his head, searing a kiss to the top of her head in hopes that it conveys everything that he means and wants to say to her. There’s too much, even if she’s owed it, but if he starts right now he’ll never stop. He lingers there, lips pressed to the top of her head, feeling her fingers curl around his shirt collar and pulling it into a loose fist. One day they’ll be skin-to-skin like this every morning and the sun will light her hair up like gold. And he’ll marvel at it not because it’s gold, but because it’s June — maybe the restlessness is just him counting down until they get to that day.

Her breathing evens out, he mutters an ‘I love you’ into her hair. The way her fingers slowly curl around his shirt, he wonders if she heard it in her dreams.

[in-a-galaxy-far-far-a-gay]

Listening to Little Miss Why So and these lyrics are hitting me like a fucking truck

It’s such a beautiful song and you can feel the love the two have for each other

“And me wearing your clothes // Just to surprise you when you come home all tired // Of those wankers that you serve all night I love you don't say anything just 'thank you missy for being in my life, why are you sad?'”

“I'll make a hundred paper planes // To decorate our tiny room // I've even learned to cook //Just stop staring at the moon”

He keeps reaching out and he just can’t connect the way they used to and he doesn’t understand why and ughhh

“I don't know how to reach you when you get like this // I've been waiting for you to come home”

“What's that hold that the big dark king of nothing has got on you, my girl? // Why do you go down // Those stairs to that green dark cave? // Where there's only faces of the unfamous dead”

And you can hear her get more and more frustrated trying to explain

“You don't see daylight anymore // Something's sucking out your core and it's so boring // It's so boring it's so boring it's boring it's so boring it's so boring it's so boring it's so boring it's, so boring, et cetera // To see you tired all the time”

And then toward the end the two of them singing at the same time! He’s blaming himself for them growing apart and she’s still not able to explain and frustrated and neither of them can reach the other in a way that they’ll understand

Madeline: “Why so why so sad? // Stop asking why I'm sad, just know it's enough to know I'm sad”

Joey: “If I am good will you come back? // If I'm good will you come back?”

God and then the end. The song captures these enormous emotions and then narrows in on such a tiny moment that somehow just makes it so real and tangible

“Yeah, but why? Yeah, but why? Why? Why? // He says // Said. // Wish I'd said // 'Cause if I'd said then maybe you'd still be snuggled here in my bed. Watching Netflix. And now I can't // 'Cause you changed the password // When you left”

[ourpickwickclub]

B you must love this new song since it has a rock vibe and it’s an absolute takedown of Gavin revealing his manipulating ways and narcissistic personality. She even called him semi-psychotic!

I hate that she had to write it and all the trauma he caused her. Always loved Gwen back in the day, but didn’t follow her closely because the GR relationship gave such ICK. She was so much better than him and couldn’t see it.

So, to me, Blake was an absolute godsend. He could have an unfamous waiter and if he treated her this well, I would have loved him. But he is an amazingly talented, hot, safe, funny, lovely, partner to her and the kids. He opened worlds to them. He loves her deeply. I will always adore Blake for that part alone. To me, he can hunt all he wants. That never bothered me. He adores her and the kids and shows them all that he will never hurt her.

All that said, GR didn’t deserve a song. He will feed off of it and use it any way he can. He will blame shift even more now. Play victim. And use it. He has no redeeming qualities. He’s scum. He will always be scum and I bet he’s happy he left such deep scars on Gwen because they are still paying him with PR.

But I love love love that if she had to work from the start on this album, with the trauma that she minced no words.

I think this album is…. The garden is almost dead. Why? This song answers it. Then will go through Blake plowing it (I had to lol) and planting new seeds of love, her healing, growing tentatively, and then, through enough therapy and and work and love, blossoming into a gorgeous bouquet.

I am betting All Your Fault, is a song about Blake. Fingers crossed.

- B

[hayheadd]

EVIL SPIRIT PHONE!!! EVIL NEIL CICIEREGA

Death penalty

Poor unfamous loser gets on the bad side of a group of medically unqualified people and they kill them

No contact car

Guy is very quiet about the things he doesn't know because he doesn't know anything. He gets chased by a car with Robert Stack and Leonard Nimoy in it for not knowing enough. Guy begs for their car to not make contact with his own

Trunk woman

Dead woman is placed in car trunk, the car overtakes her consciousness. Trunk woman is nice to the elderly who are minding their business

Eyed man

The eyed man is an ordinary man with eyes who the singer is not remotely interested in. The eyed man stays outside

Ordinary events at maternity ward

A baby is delivered at a maternity ward and the crying track plays as a shed rises from the ashes, the maternity ward, however, does not experience supernatural or otherwise strange events

First normal

The singer does not have hands or feet. They are homeless, mostly because of their massive size which does not allow them to fit inside a room. They are mortal and die because they are too normal

Modern locals

A person who lives in modern house goes outside, they are gleeful and excited at the sight of neighbours

Tough & Rough woman

She don't need nobody. She's an aroace baddie with a surface. Although she has arms, she does not experience passion due to her schizoid personality disorder

As your mother I ambiguously allow it

Sure, honey, you may or may not sell my medicine on the street. Thank you for caring about my case of hair loss though. Your grandfather will not be visiting. Truth is, you've never had a grandfather. What are you talking about?

I waste my demise

Singer is a free individual with a full head of stunning luscious locks. They aim to achieve immortality through giving a negative amount of fucks about the inevitability of death

Ronald didn't

Ronald Reagan was never born

Grass stuff

A song about appreciating the gifts of nature. People with no money, no means and really normal dreams get to sleep well at night, knowing architects are not real

Roach line

The roaches do not cooperate and are individuals but somehow walk in a line

Picture by FranklinDRoosevelt82 and songs by me

[publicabsent]

🎵🎵 two songs !

songs associated with annette. / accepting.

--- little miss why so.

why so sad? why won't you let me follow in your footsteps as you trek into that underground world? what's that hold that the big dark king of nothing has got on you, my girl? why do you go down those stairs to that green dark cave? where there's only faces of the unfamous dead full of people just pretending to be brave ... you don't see daylight anymore something's sucking out your core

--- i know it's over.

it's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate it takes strength to be gentle & kind over, over, it's over, it's over ... oh, mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head

[missingspaceships]

♾️

"little miss why so" by the amazing devil which is. a sad time. but an excellent song

i'm obsessed with the imagery of "why do you go down those stairs to that green dark cave / where there's only faces of the unfamous dead / full of people just pretending to be brave" i can't even put my finger on what strikes me so much about "faces of the unfamous dead" but it feels so important

[faggottomcruise]

OK you know that gif of cassidy from the 2018 wrestlemania weekend vid? his laugh when hes standing back up is so fucking cute i’m in disbelief. the image of him in normal clothes, roughhousing with a guy is so wholesome and his laugh makes it even better i can’t stop watching this video????? like his little “shit. shit. ah, fuck” when it’s happening and then laughing afterwards. im soft

ok ur so valud but I lost my shit reading this bcuz

1 literally my brain has a major malfunction whenever I think abt that vid in any capacity like it's literally just aksjskfj 😍 it's So Sexy and makes my brain literally Melt

2 ZSJ just being referred to as "a guy" is INCREDIBLY funny

[kuramirocket]

Imagine having a songwriter accompany you through life — follow you from one country to the next — and sing of your trials and victories, your history. That’s what Jesus “Chuy” Negrete did for Mexican immigrants and their children.

Negrete is being remembered this weekend at the National Museum of Mexican Art. He died May 27 at the age of 72.

The treasured folk singer was dubbed “the Chicano Woody Guthrie,” and for decades the troubadour of Chicago’s barrios and the Chicano movement sang his heart out at protests and picket lines, festivals and Latino studies conferences nationwide.

People who met Negrete never forgot him. His guitar and harmonica were like extensions of his body. He was full of jokes and stories — in Spanish, English and Spanglish — all set to song. His specialty was the corrido, Mexican folk ballads he used to document the Chicano experience and highlight social and political causes.

Negrete frequently talked about the role of the corrido in the Mexican Revolution, how it functioned like a newspaper.

"They used this oral tradition to keep alive their history, and to make political commentary. It was their story, their history books. … The corrido then is to the Chicano — the Mexican American — what the blues is to the Black man" said Negrete.

Negrete’s lyrics were full of Mexican humor and frequently involved foibles around learning English. He poked fun at the powerful and always gave the little guy the last laugh. He could have crowds laughing hysterically, and at the same time deliver biting critiques of cultural imperialism, exploitation of farmworkers or the state of education for Latino youth.

In one of his songs, Negrete tells the story of how teachers changed Mexican students’ names:

If your name was Felipe? Phil! Humberto? Bert. Domingo? Sunday. If your name was Domingo Nieves — Ice Cream Sunday!

Later in the song, Negrete says the nun at “Our Lady of Perpetual Racism” school decides not to shorten his cousin Facundo’s name. “I think we’re going to have to call you Joe,” she says.

Wherever there was a protest, Chuy was there

Negrete lived the experience he sang about. He was born in Mexico. He spent his early years in Texas, where his parents were migrant workers. When he was seven, his family moved to South Chicago for work in the steel mills.

Labor issues — in particular farmworker issues — remained a motivation and theme in his music throughout his life.

“Wherever there was a protest, Chuy would be found there,” said Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who knew Negrete for decades. “Whether it was in the back of a pickup truck, in a parking lot. He would be there and he would play his heart out.”

Negrete was brilliantly spontaneous. If he was singing on a picket line, his lyrics would mention strikers right there walking the line. At the Fiesta del Sol, he’d incorporate the señoras making enchiladas into the song. If a kid toddled by, he’d work him in too.

“He would say, ‘Hey mocosito, how are we doing?’” remembered Garcia. “[He’d] play with the kid and then get back to the story that he was telling. He was just able to just pluck people out of their situation, bring them into the song and then go back to the larger storytelling. That was one of his gifts and he was so good and so comfortable at it.”

Negrete grew up hearing the classic Mexican music his dad played when he came home from work at Republic Steel. 

And by his early 20s, he was organizing other young people — including his three younger sisters — into theater and singing troupes that toured the country and highlighted Chicano culture and history.

One of Negrete’s presentations went through 500 years of Chicano history, starting in pre-Hispanic times and running through Mexican independence and the Mexican Revolution.

Using music to educate

Negrete viewed himself as a scholar and an educator. He lectured at universities across the country and was often invited by Latino student groups hungry to learn more about their history and culture.

He believed folk music was integral to political struggle.

“Music is one of the elements that is most utilized by our people,” Negrete told host Linda Fregoso in 1980 on a University of Texas at Austin radio program. “We listen to it, we sing our children to bed with it. Music is a very important element in our cultural world, in our folklore world. So … you utilize the element that is most utilized by the people. … You educate people, they educate themselves. You mix the political with the cultural.”

Negrete was a key part of the Chicano movement nationwide. He worked with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers and the national Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

Negrete’s family saw him straddle two worlds. “Important to a large population, inspiring to a large population — completely unknown to a larger Anglo society,” said Rita Rousseau, Negrete’s wife, who met him in 1988 at the National Museum of Mexican Art’s annual Day of the Dead show, where Negrete was crooning to the crowds looking at the art.

“He’s so beloved within his community and part of so many cultural touchstones and points in history in the United States,” said Negrete’s older son, Joaquin. “He’s the most famous unfamous person.”

Negrete loved to perform. As his health declined over the past few years — and then during the pandemic — he turned to his radio show, Radio Rebelde, which aired on Loyola University’s small station. He broadcast from his dining room table, and of course he wrote corridos about the coronavirus, memorializing essential workers who were disproportionately dying from COVID-19. (Negrete died of congestive heart failure.)

Chicago’s City Council is expected to honor Negrete with a resolution later this month. Negrete’s family is organizing a community celebration of Chuy Negrete this Sunday at the National Museum of Mexican Art. And they’ve been pulling together his many songs, which together document a half century of political struggle and cultural pride for Mexican Americans in Chicago and beyond.

[writersrealmbts]

Christmas: LIVE (for charity)

Description: You’re a middle-of-the-road youtuber, not super famous, but not unfamous. Golden Closet and V are much more famous, and they’ve agreed to meet up and do a charity live-stream with you! 

“For the Christmas requests would you be able to do a Youtuber au? Where like Tae or Kookie do a charity stream with Y/n? Sorry it came so late it 😭😭”

Warnings: Fluff and stuff

Posted: 12/22/2020

Tags: taekook x reader

2,159 words

A/N: For anonny, here’s your request! Hope you like it! and it didn’t come late!

You kept working on your streaming setup, preparing for your guests for the charity stream. You figured more people were coming for them than you, since you weren’t as big as them on YouTube.

First was V, from Tiger Vante: real name of Kim Taehyung. He did gaming streams with your other guest, and published music now and then that he had quite the following for. Thoughtful videos and compilations of photos, and videos of projects he worked on. He even had a fashion line and made videos about other fashion things, like his fashion through the week. Other fashions, reviewing music and such, as well as doing projects using antique equipment. He was doing a photo study with different old cameras as he was able to, and he posted a lot of inspirational videos.

Your second guest was Jungkook from Golden Closet productions. He did a lot of gaming, was technically a professional gamer, and he also did music and video production. He did everything: art, singing, dancing, gaming, photography, video production--and he was constantly experimenting with new things. But his gaming was the big ticket.

You were a smaller YouTube channel. You had a few covers, and you did a parody song a year or so ago that garnered some attention. You did reactions, and you did some gaming streams, though not as many as your guests. You did a lot of chill games, with other games interspersed. You also did some makeup stuff, mostly stage makeup stuff that you carried over from college. Cooking. You did cooking streams, and sometimes you failed, other times you were successful. But cooking streams were some of your favorites.

You’d started doing the videos as a sort of...accountability. Your therapist recommended it to help you feel like you were doing more, because despite working eight hour workdays five days a week, you still struggled feeling like you were getting anything done and you sometimes lost track of days. It had helped, you were able to keep better track of things and you’d tried new things because of it. And somehow your fanbase had grown to let you cut your hours at your office job and relax a little more.

But today’s stream was to raise money for kids in the hospital, which was why you had V and Jungkook coming. The three of you would be doing various activities together and doing challenges to raise more money.

You arranged the snacks as well as you could, and then put on your elf hat. You’d already raised two hundred dollars just by wearing an elf costume for the stream.

“Hello?”

You stood up and smiled. “Hello! Nice to meet you, I’m y/n.”

“I’m Taehyung when I’m offscreen, I’d be happy if you called me that. Offscreen anyway. Thanks for inviting me today! Oh, this is Jungkook!” V introduced the other gamer.

Jungkook sort of dipped his head, looking awkward.

You smiled at both of them. “Nice to meet both of you. Thanks for agreeing to do this with me. I know you probably have better things to do.”

“No way, this is for charity!”

“It’s a good cause,” Jungkook added, sort of looking at you strangely.

“Oh, the outfit. Someone donated 200 dollars if I would wear an elf costume for the stream. My choice for the costume, look okay?” You asked, reaching up to adjust the hat.

“It’s super cute,” Taehyung gushed, then looked over at the setup. “Ooh! Nice! That looks great! Can I set up over there?”

“Go ahead, do you need help bringing in equipment?”

Jungkook shook his head. “Our hyungs are here to help us set up and carry things. We’ll be ready to go in no time.”

“Great, I’ll just stand out of the way.” You backed up and they signalled their group to bring in their equipment.

Between the seven boys, all of the equipment was set up in no time and the three of you were settling down for the stream.

They wished you three a good stream and then scattered.

The three of you sat down, syncing and getting your own set ups going.

“So, we’re going to start, give it five minutes, and then we’ll start playing that game you suggested over chat?” You asked, making sure you had that linked and setting things up so that you wouldn’t have to worry about anything once you were actually streaming.

“Yeah, sounds good. That camera is filming all of us, and then we have our individual ones, right?” Jungkook nodded to the carefully mounted and angled camera.

You nodded, handing cords to both of them for the camera connection. “Took me a while to figure this set up out. Here.”

Taehyung eagerly took it and plugged it into his computer and then let you quickly set it up.

Jungkook had it set up before you finished with Tae.

“Alright, it’s almost time. Ready?”

“Yeah, so...who’s starting things?” Taehyung asked, looking at you.

“My idea, so I can open it if you prefer,” You offered, checking how you looked on camera and then sighing. You couldn’t do much about it now.

“Ok, now, do you have any extra fun holiday stuff?” Taehyung asked, flicking the bell on your hat.

“A santa hat and reindeer antlers headband, and various other more girly things for me to alternate with throughout the stream.” You gestured to a bag and got everything ready. “Set the stream to start on the hour?”

Jungkook nodded then grabbed the santa hat. “Solidarity.”

Taehyung happily put on the antlers headband. “So cute! Okay, now it feels even more festive. How long did it take you to make the background?”

“Oh, I spent a couple hours, no biggie. I did something similar last year for my christmas stream. I just spiced it up a bit this year. One minute.”

They pushed their chairs closer to yours, all three streams using the camera that got all three of you.

You watched the timer tick down, hoping that it was successful and that you raised a lot of money for the charity.

The first fifteen minutes were nothing too special, it was interesting playing with other people while they were in the room and Jungkook kept mumbling thanks for donations in between decimating you and Tae, and Taehyung had a constant conversation going--partially with you--while he played.

You gave everyone a brief update since you hadn’t streamed in a couple days and people were asking about your puppy. “He’s fine. He’ll be home soon.”

“What happened to your puppy?” Jungkook asked, not missing a beat and decimating you in the meantime.

“Nothing serious, he got hurt while we were walking in the woods. They removed his dewclaw on the one leg and stitched him up. He’s already almost ready to come home. I’ll have him home for Christmas. Thank you for your donation, bluegrey613!”

Jungkook glanced over. “Hey, we probably have some requests right now. Since you’re dead can you check the chats?”

“Sure. Let’s see...they want V to do aegyo.”

Taehyung quickly did some, just barely escaping death.

“We don’t have mistletoe, sorry, guys,” You told Jungkook’s chat. “Besides, I kind of doubt they’d want to--”

“Who needs mistletoe?” Taehyung asked, pausing the game.

Next thing you knew donation signals were popping up on all three screens as the boys planted kisses on either of your cheeks.

You stared at the screen, blinking rapidly and trying to recover as both of them went back to their game like nothing had happened.

You swallowed hard and tried to focus on the requests that were flying up your screen. “Um...thank you...agustD for donating...after that request. Um...hopeworld requests that we...all do cutesy poses? He’s offering 50.”

“Make it 100 and it’s a deal,” Taehyung responded, finally getting annihilated.

You scanned the comments, waiting for a response from the same and making faces as requested. “Ooh, while we’re waiting they want to know how we met. Tae, you should tell them that saga.”

“If they’re going to make us do something cutesy, then they better be offering more than a hundred,” Jungkook grumbled.

“So...we started talking online, played a couple of games together recently--offstream so that we could discuss the fundraiser, I think we all have some clips from that game that we’re compiling and that will be posted later,” Taehyung started explaining, checking you and Jungkook for affirmation. “Then we actually met in person today! That’s about it! It’s not much of a story, but it’s a good start, don’t you think?”

You exchanged a curious look with Jungkook after witnessing the wink Taehyung threw the camera. “Snack time?”

Jungkook nodded. “Before he calls himself a snack.”

Your nose scrunched up before you could stop it.

Taehyung laughed, booping your nose. “Not me. But she definitely is.”

You shook your head. “No snacks for you.”

“Hey, hopeworld agreed to 100. Pose,” Jungkook intervened as Taehyung started to fake pout.

All three of you managed to do some cutesy pose and hold it for a couple of seconds until the donation alert popped up with many names.

“Ah...okay...that was popular,” Taehyung said, looking a little stunned as more notifications rolled in.

“Blame Jungkook, he avoids it usually so it’s rare,” You informed him, smirked at Jungkook.

He shrugged. “If I didn’t hold back the world would fall to my cuteness.”

You snorted and turned back to the comments. “RM is requesting that you guys...and I lost it. Whoops.”

“Ooh, here’s one from JinJinJara, he wants us to make couple-y poses--like exaggerated couple pictures!” Taehyung chuckled. “Lets do it!”

“I don’t need to relive prom, thanks, I was fine missing it the first time,” you joked.

“It’s for charity,” Taehyung pouted.

You groaned and then complied.

Not that you were complaining internally about two hunky guys taking mock couple-photos. There was something nice about being held by someone stronger.

The rest of the stream passed by pretty quickly, doing requests from the boys channels since only four people were requesting on your stream--the same five. It was hard not to feel like it was out of pity, the longer the stream went the viewer count on yours went down, and went up on theirs. You double checked your stream but it was fine.

But it was for charity. You didn’t mind being less popular as long as you raised enough money to do some good.

“We should do this next year, and more often! Ooh, could we do a New Years stream?” Taehyung enthused toward the end. You guys had reached your goal while playing another game, and were trying to casually close the stream.

“We…can discuss it…later. Anyway, thank you everyone who was watching and who donated. The donation links for all three of our channels will be open until the 26th! Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas from Santa’s workshop!” Taehyung added brightly. “Remember to have all grandmas avoid reindeer crossing sites!”

“And be nice to the elves! They’re doing their best,” Jungkook added, cracking a smile as he flicked your hat.

You rolled your eyes and waved to the camera, then all three of you ended your streams.

“Man. That was intense,” Jungkook murmured.

“So, my five requesters, they’re the friends waiting outside, aren’t they?” You guessed, having done the math.

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Why would you think that?” Jungkook asked.

“Because you guys jumped at every request they gave, usually egging them on for more money, but you were more reserved with every other request given to us. That usually indicates a personal relationship.” You leaned back in your chair, taking off the hat and smoothing your hair.

Taehyung shrugged. “They were going to donate anyway. They just wanted to get their money’s worth. They were technically on all of our streams, but you’re better at reading comments and playing the game so requests on your channel got through better.”

You rolled your eyes. “Boys.”

“We did really well,” Jungkook said softly. “We make a good team. We just need to improve your playing on a couple games.”

You smiled. “Maybe. Alright. So, as far as new years goes, I’ve got a few games we can play while being in different places if that would work better. But also do it at a different time than when people would normally be partying because otherwise it would be a bust.”

“Okay!”

“Sounds good. Want to go grab some food with us? My treat?” Jungkook offered, smiling at you.

You pause, but then nod. “Sure. That sounds great. We can come back after to get your stuff if you like.”

“Sounds like a magical plan to me!” Taehyung grinned at you and then kissed your cheek again. “You really should have put some mistletoe in here. That would have made it extra festive. I’ll go tell hyungs the plan.”

You definitely weren’t blushing.

[cheapciara]

My Favourite Lyrics from The Amazing Devil songs

(updated to suit any new releases)

Love run

“Love Run (Intro):”

“Run, love run, love run, for all the things you’ve done. Run for all the things that drum, run for all those pages thumbed. Love run, love run, love run, for all the things you wished you’d done. Run for all you know that’s coming, run to show that love’s worth running to.”

“King:”

“You fumble through the dark, however wide and deep and far my dear. The waves made of fingers and the madness that lingers rips into the bark of our bones.”

“I’ll smile as I climb the stairs to the light that you keep burning there and our muscles that are waltzing and our shadows that are bold sing, "Come rip up the flesh of my fears.”

“I know your fingernails are the colour of rust and your veins are empty of dust. But our voices collide with each howl of the tide singing all hell and its fire waits for us.”

“The wind and its shackles, the old fishers tackles, the sea and its waters, every unwanted daughter, every moon in the sky, every promise and lie, all hell and its fire waits for us.”

“Pruning Shears:”

“Hanging off the chandeliers, their daughters are scoring with the auctioneers and the oldies at the back try their best to hack their way out with the gardener's pruning shears.”

“Roundabouts and washing lines, we do each other’s laundry in our hearts sometimes.”

“My entire life it's running away too fast watching everyone I've ever loved walk past, never really quite getting the knack of knowing no one will not ever come back for you.”

“Shower Day:”

“Would have stayed if you'd had asked but instead you just walk away.”

“You're the one who told me to never look back. You're the one who asked me if I'm feeling ok. I said I'm fine. It's just a sitting down in the shower day.”

“You're the one who told me to never look back. Well I'm looking back and looking back and looking back and looking back at you. So for Christ's sake just say something.”

“Elsa’s Song:”

“I can hear the cannons calling as though across a dream, and I can smell the smoke of hell in every stitch and seam. And like flowers, the bodies tumble around this muddied lot, I cannot hear them scream "Forget me not.””

“You will scream "I won’t forget you" but I’ll cover my cold ears. It cannot be a lie if no-one hears.”

“'Cause although you say good day to me, I know I don’t belong. And although you hold my hand and say "I love you," you are wrong because love does not exist here. In this garden, there’s no feeling and you say the words so often that I barely know the meaning.”

“You’ll strew some sage and lilies and roses where I rot. Of all the flowers you picked I knew you would forget forget-me-nots.”

“Pray:”

“My eyes are made of winter and these hands I hold are skin and bone.”

“Pray for me 'cause I won't pray for you.”

“If you knew all that I'd done, the words that shone are all but gone. The hearts I've broken, the minds I've woken, sweet nothings are screamed not spoken.”

“‘God made all man in his image’ Honey I'm no man, I'm what’s left when children go to war. Run from you, I'll run until I begin to understand what holy men really mean when they speak of sand and sons and seams and symphonies and sweat and sex and sin.”

“Little Miss Why So:”

“Why won't you let me follow in your footsteps as you trek into that underground world? What's that hold that the big dark king of nothing has got on you my girl? Why do you go down those stairs to that green dark cave where there's only faces of the unfamous dead?”

“Stop asking why I'm sad just know it's enough to know I'm sad.”

“New York Torch Song:”

“It starts off like a pinprick, a trick of the light oil slick then grows to the size of your hand. Turns you outside in cigar burns and scar skin ripping bone and nail and gland.”

“But your blood does not bleed red no more. It's whiter than the sun burns, bright with every hum.”

“Tear me up and burn me up and rip me up and leave your hand on the wall as you go.”

“Are you god or devil, ghost dishevelled, childhood friend or drunken revel? I cannot stop, I'm bleeding out for you.”

“Two Minutes:”

“It's like all the wallpaper inside my heart is slowly slowly peeling off and I'm showing all the stains and things they wrote on the wall before.”

“If you knew all that I'd done, the hearts I've broken, sweet nothings are screamed not spoken.”

“If there was one place I could be right now I'd be standing there between you and him, and I'll fight you both, fight you both for the rest of my life long days. But today we ripped it off, we showed the world that we exist. Never really liked the pattern that much on the wallpaper so anyway.”

“Not yet/Love Run:”

“Grab the stroud and we’ll roar to the clouds come and get us and the wind picks up and I’ll never let you down it’s time to fight don’t be yellow bellied. Hold the bar at Hurley's hurly burly's give 'em hell.”

“O let the world come at you, love, like distant toms a-drumming. Love, run! The song you know's begun. O let the earth a-tumble, love, and humble you withal keep running. It’s up to you now.”

“Love run, love run, for all the things we wished we’d done. Run from all you know that’s coming, run to show that love’s worth running to.”

“O let the land come at you, love, with all its sand and sin, a-singing. A song you once knew well's begun.”

The Horror and the Wild

“The Rockrose and the Thistle:”

“All the pins inside your fretted head and your muttered whens and hows. All your mother's weaves and your father's threads. Let me rob them of you now.

“I know the kindest thing is to never leave you alone.”

“The Horror and the Wild:”

“They thought us blind, we were just blinking.”

“Think of all the horrors that I promised you I’d bring. I promise you, they’ll sing of every time you passed your fingers through my hair and called me child. Witness me, old man, I am the Wild.”

“Fret not dear heart, let not them hear the mutterings of all your fears, the fluttering of all your wings.”

“Wild Blue Yonder:”

“Come and rip off my socks like you’re blasting the locks off of a bank vault.”

“Every stone you threw, I stood on to better see the view.”

“So hide under the covers. We don’t know what’s out there. Could be wolves. / Can’t you hear that scratching? / Could be all our demons, darling. / Could be ghosts or monsters or a robot vampire, I dunno.”

“Welly Boots:”

“What's it like, the children ask? It’s just like falling snow, I am above you.”

“I’ll be with you all along, as long as you are kind to those who are not strong and cannot find their scarlet welly boots.”

“It’s like I’ve gone off to the coast, left you behind just standing there.”

“If only you could hear my voice. But you are screaming far too loud to hear me swear.”

“Farewell Wanderlust:”

“You don’t know it yet, but I’m the cupid of things that you just didn’t get, that you struggled to say. I’m the saint of the paint that was left in the pot. I’m your angel ellipsis, your devil of dots. Every time that you fumble, I’m the laugh from the back. When you think about him, my wings start to flap. When you make a mistake, my feet lift from the floor and when you lie there awake every night, love, I soar.”

“I promise you I’ll be better, I promise you I’ll try. But like rubbing wine stains into rugs, it’s my curse, to try and make it right, but by trying make it worse. I’m the heartbreak that aches far too much to be shunned, all those letters unsent and that garden ungrown. I’m the captain of courage you’ve eternally lacked. I’m the Jesus of wishing to Christ he’ll come back.”

“So long to the person you begged me to be. She’s down, she’s dead. Instead what is left but this old satin dress and the mess that you left when you told me I wasn’t right in the head.”

“Come, devil, come, she sang, call out my name. Let’s take this outside 'cause we’re one and the same. Our gods have abandoned us, left us, instead take up arms, take my hand, let us waltz for the dead. I’m the face that stares back when the screen goes to black when your mum says you look healthy, but you know she means you got fat. I’m the tales that the guests will applaud and believe. I’m the child that you just didn’t have time to conceive.”

“I promise you I’m not broken, I promise you there’s more, more to come, more to reach for, more to hurl at the door. Goodbye to all my darkness, there’s nothing here but light. Adieu to all the faceless things that sleep with me at night. This here is not makeup, it’s a porcelain tomb and this here is not singing, I’m just screaming in tune.”

“(S)he’s down, (s)he’s dead, (s)he’s gone, (s)he’s lost, (s)he’s flown, (s)he’s fled. Now take a good long look at what you've all done to me.”

“Fair:”

“It’s what my heart just yearns to say. In ways that can’t be said. It’s what my rotting bones will sing. When the rest of me is dead. It’s what’s engraved upon my heart. In letters deeply worn. Today I somehow understand the reason I was born.”

“'Cause darling I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades.”

"Dear heart, it’s me, it's me. You don’t need to pretend to be someone you’re not. 'Cause it’s not like I’ve never heard you fart and snore. And for some godforsaken reason, I’m still here, love, like I’ve always been before,"

"Oh how, oh how unreasonable. How unreasonably in love I am with everything you do. I’ll spend my days so close to you 'cause if I’m stood here. Then I’m stood here. And I’ll stand here. I’ll stand here with you."

“That Unwanted Animal:”

“‘Be good to me,’ I whisper, and you say ‘What?’ and I say ‘Nothing dear.’”

“I’m the paper cut that kills you. I’m the priest that you ignored. I’m the touch you crave, I’m the plans that you made, but fuck all your plans I’m bored ‘And can’t you hear that scratching?’ I ask your eyes.”

“I’ve got knuckle burn from typing all these lines into your chest, and as the belt from your buckle is tightening I make shipwrecks out of my dress and the door below it splinters, and the creature creeps inside.”

“And we fall into each other, the scratching grows so loud because that unwanted animal wants nothing more than to get out. And I scream ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ but you, you’re blind, you bleat, you bear your claws.”

“Our screaming joins in unison, I cry out to the lord. 'Cause if we join our hands in prayer enough to God I imagine it all starts to sound like applause.”

“And those plates they smash like waves (Place your hand in mine), and on the wind it howls (How long can this last?). But that second wind is coming love, it’s coming for all we own and on the creature scratches, it doesn’t know how to get out.”

“Marbles:”

“You’re the thigh-high hemline I just can’t stop staring at.”

“Cause I will wait and hope. Your eyes aren’t rivers there to weep but a place for crows to rest their feet, and I will wait and hope and rest my head at night content knowing where my marbles went.”

“You’re not flawed darling, you’re just a little under-rehearsed.”

“And I'd sink to the floor, what’s the point anymore, and you, you’d reply with a glint in your eye (drink in your hand) saying ‘I don’t know, but I’m here, I’m all yours, dear heart don’t cry’ (‘I don’t know, but I’m here, oh dear god, dear heart don’t cry’).”

“I’ve loved you, for a hundred years. Certainly fucking feels like it.”

“And now, even though you’re mad and these memories won’t stay, that's okay. 'Cause now I get to meet you for the first time every single day.”

“Battle Cries:”

“Tell the truth to me, love, does my hair look as nice as it did when it once tangled up in your eyes?”

“'Cause these plates, they smash like waves. And the wine stains hide the tears.”

“Breathing you hear, don't mistake it for sighs. Don’t you realise? They’re just battle cries, dear.”

“And these lines aren’t wrinkles, dearheart. They’re just dollops of paint on a new work of art.”

“Walk away, I know that I’ve been through the wars. But that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause.”

“This isn’t a break up, dearheart, it’s a season finale.”

Ruin

“Secret Worlds:”

“If I have to be who I was, do I have to be who I am?”

“I look at those secret worlds you call eyes.”

“I will suffer silence for the strings you tune, and I’ll withstand what’s written for the writer in you.”

“The Calling:”

“Wе’re both unwanted daughters, but thеre’s more than water in these autumn hands.”

“I can’t wait to show you how much I know you can be.”

“Back then I wasn’t hopeful, but now my ink’s blood-red not black. And I’ll blink like ripping envelopes in the hopes that you’ll write back.”

“I’m between that just one more and drank too much again. And I promise you I’ll write ‘I love you’ with my fingers on your sleeping hand. And when that fox howls, I’ll howl with it. In its cries, I’ll find an end. And when I think I’m fine you’ll visit, and then you happen to me, you happen to me all over again.”

“Do you like my dress? It’s got pockets.”

“Oh, I look into the waters. Long ago that current caught us and we tried. I tried, I really fucking tried, but the rain kept coming down. I watch that woman drown.”

“Drinking Song for the Socially Anxious:”

“Cos though my jokes are my armour, and my kindness is my sword, the party swirls around me in a dress I can’t afford. And I do my best to breathe, but they’re stealing all the air.”

“As all my steps too far keep saying ‘this is who you are.’ I should go home. I’m not lonеly; I just like being on my own.”

“And I’ll sing silence, and ask my glass of wine for guidance.”

“Now I’m lying on a bed full of coats, trying desperately to cope, when you open up the door, say something stupid like ‘You’re lying on some coats.’ I say, 'I know, it’s just sometimes nice to feel what it’s like to be in someone else’s coat.’”

“‘Cause if God made us all in his image, then God’s a fucking nerd.”

“Gonna go home and tell my cat I’m not lonely if I’m with you.”

“In the back of a cab, like two puppets with no strings, we share a pair of headphones, ‘cause sometimes they’re the only things that keep our heads in place.”

“Blossoms”

“And for a time, there is timelessness, endless galore. To the dark, I said pour and forgot to say when. And the words that you wrote come back blacker than smoke.”

“I climb up the ladder. Had I taken more care, I might have seen all the rot in the rungs.”

“And I stare at the soldiers before me. All my blossoms that have waited to fall. And I walk, knowing every last one of them is painted in light, as I make myself acquainted with the saint of never getting it right.”

“My dress is on fire, and I hurl myself, I heal myself, I drag myself like a rug in the rain. And my saint, she is dancing, as every step I choose to take begins to set the world aflame.”

“And for the first time in all my life, I know I’m more than what I fear.”

“You do not get to hurt me just because I asked you once if you were alright.”

“Chords”

“Pick your chords well, loves, but sing your notes off-key. You can’t rehearse the chorus, but the verse is sweet. And if your voice begins to crack, if you ever feel alone, they might laugh because you’re leaving, but know we’ll sing your name when you come home.”

“Remember today, you’re enough.”

“We were the winter nights so you could be the morning snow.”

“Be good, be safe, be kind.”

“The Old Witch Sleep and the Good Man Grace”

“You are in the earth of me.”

“'You’re better than this!’ He says as a hand slaps my face as I stand, and say 'No, good man grace, I can’t do this! (You can). I can’t do this! (You can). I can’t do this! (You can). I can’t do this, you don’t understand!’”

“You’re not a coward cos you cower. You’re brave because they broke you. Yet broken, still, you breathe.

"My head’s not yours, it’s mine, and I’ll take my fucking time.”

“I’m not trapped with you, you see? You’re the one who’s trapped with me.”

“Cause I’ve been here so many times before. Don’t you think I look pretty curled up on this bathroom floor? But where you see weakness, I see wit. Sometimes I fall to pieces just to see what bits of me don’t fit.”

“Cause when I stand, oh, those folks will run, and tell the tales of what I’ve become. They’ll speak of me in whispered tones and say my name like it shakes their bones.”

“Cause we’ll dance together so close we’re sharing breath. But now I’m leading; doesn’t that just scare you to death?”

“Ruin”

“I will bring you ruin in everything I do. It’s never my intention, but it happens all the same. It starts with love and comfort, becomes a strength of will, but all that strength made rubble of those towers we built.”

“Wе didn’t talk. We made universes out of bitten lips and broken hands.”

“Inkpot Gods”

“These aren’t tears; it’s just the rain that wasn’t brave enough to fall. And what they hear isn’t laughter, after all; it’s just your voice learning for once to stand up tall.”

“And when the rain came down, I made a vow out to the gods: 'Please let her live just one more day, cos she is so much more than all her scars. And if she doesn’t have the will, but it seems the world does, I’ll stay because I will be the man my father never was.’”

“And what you hear is not silence; it’s just the trees waiting to hear what next you’ll hum. And what you see is not the dark; it’s just the gods upturning inkpots, cos they know what you’ll become. And to those gods, I will speak bluntly: 'We’ve an accord! If you ever touch or harm him, please rest assured that you might not fear a man, but to a woman, by the end, you’ll kneel and plea, cos I’m more than what my mum told me to be.”

“If I don’t make it back from where I’ve gone, just know I loved you all along.”

[a-ghost-duet]

words that make me feel things - part 1, Love Run.

• Into darkness and howling I’ll keep him from drowning / As our boat is untethered from the dock

• And the waves of our bodies and the smell of our follies / Rips into the bark of my bones

• I’ll smile as I climb the stairs (to the light) / To the light that you keep burning there (all hell)

• Sing / come rip up the flesh of my fears

• I know your fingernails are the colour of rust (come back) / And your veins are empty of dust (but our voices) / But our voices collide with each howl of the tide / Singing all hell and its fire waits for us

• you see this girl, she / Looks like she crawled out the lost and found / She pulls right up to my ear and says / Whatever you do don’t turn round

• Unfurl my wings / My fall makes no sound here

• We do each other's laundry in our hearts

[ ] Would have stayed if you'd had asked / But instead you just walk past

• You're the one who told me my hair looked better black / You're the one who told me to never look back / You're the one who asked me if I'm feeling ok

• I said I'm fine / It's just a sitting down in the shower day

• Know you should love him but it's such a pain

• And I can smell the smoke of hell / In every stitch and seam

• I cannot hear them scream / ‘Forget me not.’

• You will scream ‘I won’t forget you’ / But I’ll cover my cold ears / It cannot be a lie / If no-one hears

• And although you hold my hand and say / ‘I love you’, you are wrong /Because love does not exist here / In this garden there’s no feeling / And you say the words so often / That I barely know the meaning

• And then you’ll cry to our painted sky / ‘I loved him then, I love him still’

• And you’ll strew some sage and lilies / And roses where I rot / Of all the flowers you picked / I knew you would forget / Forget-me-nots

• My eyes are made of winter and these hands I hold are skin and bone

• Pray for me, I’ll run until I begin to understand / What holy men really mean when they speak of sin

• Sweet nothings are screamed not spoken

• God made all man in his image / Honey I’m I’m I’m no man / I’m what’s left when children go to war

• I cannot sleep when all you do is cry

• And why you cannot sleep for sighing /Why womanhood is more than crying

• The cracks you made I fill with mortar /A broken pot can still hold water

• Why so sad he says / And his eyes say don’t you know that its not all about you anyway

• Its daylight again and you look like I’ve failed you / Did you tell them about the time we met little miss / You’ll love the way I tell it / And I’ll yell it from the rooftops for you

• You’re going too fast / You’ll burn up soon

• Just stop staring at the moon / That’s why I put up fairy lights. Just to distract you.

• I don’t know how to reach you when you get like this / I’ve been waiting for you to come home

• Why won’t you let me follow in your footsteps as you trek into that underground world / What’s that hold that the big dark king of nothing has got on you my girl

• Why do you go down / Those stairs to that green dark cave / Where there’s only faces of the unfamous dead / Full of people just pretending to be brave

• You don’t see daylight anymore /Something’s sucking out your core and it’s so boring

• To see you tired all the time / Why won’t you just tell them all to fuck off love and be mine

• Why so sad / I’m here and I’m alive / Stop making up death wishes just take my life line / He says / Or at least that’s a cliche to represent what he meant / [swhat I meant]

• Why won’t you believe I love you if I’m not hurting you he says / Can’t you see that I’m enough for you but you don’t want me to be / Cos that means you’ll actually have to be content

• Why so why so sad / Stop asking why I’m sad just know its enough to know I’m sad

• But your blood does not bleed red no more / It’s whiter than the sun burns, its bright with every hum

• Oh watch the fire surprise surprise burn up and up into those skies

• Tear me up and burn me up and rip me up and leave your / Hand on the wall as you go

• Are you god or devil, ghost dishevelled / Childhood friend or drunken revel / I cannot stop I’m bleeding out for you / You angel heart you monster oh / Some godforsaken prosper / Your feathers and your paws / Your hell for leather applause / You dance on tables, endless labels / Are you cain cos i’m not abel / Your bastard lasting nightbus asking / What’s the everlasting fable

• It’s like all the wallpaper inside my heart / Is slowly slowly peeling off / And I’m showing / All the stains and things / They wrote on the wall before

• and I’ll stare at you / As you stare as you stare right back at the sky

• These hands are growing cold / They’re running out of things to hold

• But today we ripped it off, we ripped it off, we showed the world that we exist / Never really liked the pattern that much on the wallpaper so anyway

• I can hear the children calling as though across the bar

• If I’m good will you come back / If I’m good will you come back / If I’m good will you come back

• One fist holds a lighter the other your hand / The oh’s of your screams still echo in your dreams

• But I held your hand / As you shook in the middle of the night / Without waking you said / not yet not yet

• Sing me awake with a song about pirates / And I will try to harmonise / And sip the sunlight from your eyes

• I cannot find the words to keep you / It cannot be a lie if no one hears / Let the seabirds / Don’t turn 'round / He says

• Love, run! The song you know's begun

• Keep running. It’s up to you now / Up to you now love to

• Love run, love Run / For all the things we wished we’d done / Run from all you know that’s coming / Run to show that love’s worth running to

• Though some would harm you, none - not one - no none / Would raise to you a hand nor thumb / Not while by you I stand and hum

• All that matters / Is that you're here

• O let the land come at you, love / With all it's sand and sin, a-singing / A song you once knew well's begun / Run until your lungs are numb

• Now let the earth a-tumble, love / And humble you withal, keep running / It's not from what we run that drums / But what's to come, what’s to come

[americangodstalk]

Cultural background of the Technical Boy (novel)

For all of your pretty eyes, here’s what I ended up writing for the Wiki. If you think I forgot something (or if a mistake flew in there, it might be possible, I have so much to do I can’t possibly proofread everything) don’t hesitate to go correct it on the Wiki:

The technical boy is the god of the Internet and computers (at the turn of the millenium). As a result, he keeps using terms such as "spam", "hypertext", "virus", "synaptic" "reprogramming" or "delete" while often making cultural references or mentionning trivias. The cigarets he smokes are noted to smell like "burning electrical parts", "burning wires" and "overheating circuit boards". His body also seems to have something "electronical" to him: his eyes glow with the "green of antique computer monitor", and when wounded he bleeds "something that is not blood", there are "sputtering sparking noises" and the smell of "burning insulation wire". The technical boy's powers are tied to the Internet, he could only found Bilquis because she started using websites to find her clients. However it is also mentionned that he is powerless in areas without power or wireless range: in a "dead zone" he cannot make his children operate and starts forgetting things he knew by heart. His control of technology seems to extent to his limo, which visibly drives on its own (which might be a reference to how the United-States have been founding research and projects of self-driving cars in the 1980s and 1990s, though Bilquis compares it to Herbie the Love Bug, a franchise of comedy movies about a sentient Volkswagen racing Beetle).

Physically, he is a reflection of the stereotype of the "geek" as imagined in the 1990s, an overweight and acneic teenager. However his silky coat and black sunglasses are a reference to the movie Matrix, in which humanity has been enslaved by computers and is forced to live in a virtual cyberspace. Due to being a New God, he enjoys fast-food and synthetic things: he drinks Diet Cokes, and when taking drugs, he takes synthetized bufotenin. When burning himself with an apple-pie, he mentions a "lawsuit in waiting" against McDonald. This is probably a reference to the unfamous "McDonald's coffee case", a lawsuit against the fast-food franchise in 1994 due to an elderly woman burning herself to the third degree with a McDonald coffee - this lawsuit was then misunderstood by popular culture as an excessive lawsuit and the stereotype of entitled Americans putting everything and everyone on trials for minor offenses.

Among the cultural references the technical boy mentions, we can find:

Material Girl, by Madonna, which he sings and parodies when meeting Bilquis.

The Wizard of Oz movie, which he quotes to welcome the Old Gods at the Center of America.

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, which he tries (and fails) to recitate at Mr. Wednesday's funerals.