#a secret wish

[cosmonautroger]

Propaganda, A Secret Wish, 1985

[mrmousetolliver]

A Secret Wish (1985) by Propaganda

[weaversweek]

27 "Duel" - Propaganda

Writers Susanne Freytag, Michael Mertens, Ralf Dörper & Claudia Brücken

"We can show every face, we can go in every direction."

Part of the UncoolTwo50 project, marking the best singles from 1977-99.

The sound of the apocalypse? The noise of the future?

Propaganda were artists, musicians, first and foremost. Michael Mertens played with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Ralf Dörper an electronic wizard. Claudia sang in local band The Toppolinos, and provided the voice for "Duel". They were signed to work with Paul Morley before he had invented Zang Tumb Tumm records.

It's a dark, brooding song. An argument between two lovers, who slowly wear each other down before making the decisive blow. Like all good songs, "Duel" asks the same questions in different ways. It circles back upon itself, never quite going where we expect it to go. It's literally a record of time: measure the seconds by the keyboard figure, measure the minutes by the rhyme scheme, the hours by the elephant clock chiming.

An entry point to a dark and unsettling world, the press at the time wittered on about mass culture and technology and beauty and desire and quoted Poe and Walter Benjamin at us. Propaganda reminded us - told us - that there is more to life than shiny disposable pop, that modern music can cut the mustard with that boring classical stuff.

"Duel" is a counterpoint to "Dr. Mabuse", which had been a modest hit the previous spring. Probably should have come out much sooner, but ZTT were a small label and chose to launch Frankie Goes to Hollywood around the world, and hence put Propaganda on the back burner for a year. The delay didn't help the group - album A Secret Wish was the two singles stretched thin.

The original lineup split because their original contract was so onerous they would never earn royalties; a similar fate befell Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Another group called Propaganda (Mertens remained, Freytag and Dörper contributed, most of the music by two blokes from Simple Minds and a session singer) released an album in 1990. I have a soft spot for the single "Heaven give me words", mostly because it's writer Howard Jones' great lost hit.

Other ZTT acts under consideration: The Art of Noise made the 100-song shortlist with "Close (to the edit)". Longlist spots for "Slave to the rhythm" from Grace Jones, "Two tribes" from Frankie, 808 State's "Cübik", and Tom Jones' "If I only knew".

[ther0sesared3ad]

The urge to learn every language and play every instrument and travel the world and live through every historical time period and be a writer and a poet and an actor and

[chloesimaginationthings]

New FNAF clown Jackie from secret of the Mimic!!

[donnahinkleystaceytroy]

[milktrician]

(what the. who threw a wife plot device in the middle of a peak lord meeting)

i thought about this bit at the end of the airplane extras the other day. bro why are you looking at your coworkers like that rn

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[pixelaves]

hey guys it’s me, your uncle who works at fairly oddparents. quick take these very real season 2 leaks before they find m

[eamour]

don’t ever feel bad for knowing about the law but not being able to properly use it to your advantage. don’t blame nor bash yourself for having forgotten the functioning of the law and how it operates.

when neville wanted to manifest a divorce with his first wife — who he had fallen out of love with — in order to be in a relationship with the woman who he actually had feelings for, he admitted that he had no clue on how to do it. yes, he was pretty much wondering about the how. how was he gonna approach her? what was he gonna tell her? in which way could his desire be realised? he was struggling mentally, and probably emotionally as well.

so, what did he do? he completely turned his back on the outer world and abandoned himself to the law. neville practiced to fall asleep to the assumption that he was already together with the woman of his dreams and exercised this repeatedly and consistently. he remained persistent with his claim until his deepest desire materialised itself into his physical reality for him to witness.

within one week of accepting his assumption to be true in a state akin to sleep, he was ready to perceive his manifestation with his own senses. his desire appeared in a way which he didn’t even think of or believed in!

neville did not intervene or interfere with the contents of his world without. all he did was to feel his wish fulfilled, live in the end and think from his desire. in his mind, he was already experiencing what he wanted and wished for. he had faith in the unseen and trusted his imagination. and most importantly, his circumstances did not matter to him! all because he was ready to see beyond his human body and finally free himself from the limitations of his senses.

it may be difficult to look at life from a lens that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you, but neville didn’t look at his life from his body's eyes either. he looked at his life from his mind's eyes. see, the law works nonetheless. it doesn’t stop applying to you because it’s you or because you didn’t imagine "well" or long enough. the law's ability to realise your desires depends entirely on the naturalness of your feeling in regards to your desire. it’s possible to bring anything to life. if there's an ability to desire, there’s an ability to imagine. and after all, imagination creates reality.

"never blame, only resolve." — neville goddard

with love, ella.

[flowersforfrancis]

[lucabyte]

"So what's the weirdest possible first (second) impression Loop could make on the party in postcanon?" "Yeah, that, probably."

+ Bonus

theyre just standing there in direct party order while this happens. normal tuesday.

[elizabugz]

[lilybug-02]

Dewi has made a new bug friend! What will he do next?! Who knows!

Bug Fact: Surprisingly, scorpions can actually break glass if they put enough force behind their strikes.

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Masterpost

[cubbihue]

I love Itty Bitties AU. I have a few questions. 1, did the magic cookies make Timmy basically Cosmo & Wanda's bio son? 2, why is Timmy a pixie? Is it because he used to be human? 3, I assume courts have a genetic aspect, based on the different sizes. So how does that work? Are some courts dominant or recessive? Can a child be a different court than their parent? Jorgen appears to be a specialty but Cosmo is Upper court? 4, what's a fun fact you haven't gotten to share yet but want to? :)

Fun Fact! Timmy has his mom's hair color!! It's slow growing, but after several decades, it'll be a nice pink just like hers! He has his dad's hairstyle, but it's not much different than before.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

Numbered Answers to Questions 1-3 below!!!

Yup!! On top of the Fairy DMV, the Fairy Food lets Timmy become linked to Cosmo and Wanda. He can technically be a Fagiggly Gland donor for his brother.

Also correct! Pixies have the lowest magic output compared to all the other Fairy Courts. It's the safest Court Timmy could be admitted to. Maybe when he's older, he can be fully transferred into the same Court as his parents.

Genetics? Who knows! Fairies haven't had to think about it for about 1000 years. What they do know is that Anti-Fairies are born from the shadows of Fairies, and that nobody's quite sure where Leisure Fairies comes from. Pixies and Fairies can cross-breed though, so maybe they have what's known as "recessive" or "dominate" traits. Although Pixies don't have Anti-Fairy counterpart so... 🤔 ...To be fair, Jorgen also has no idea how he's related to Cosmo.

[confusedlucifer]

what if Emmrich and Rook Ingellvar were invited to the Hezenkoss soirée as guests of honor-

(they/them for this Rook)

bonus:

yapper's delight corner: i think a lot about the conversation trans Rook can have with Emmrich and his line about (paraphrasing) "someone who found themself is very attractive" and i think Valdís would immediately challenge him on it and turn it into a question - has Emmrich found himself?

and so - the gown. i spent a while looking for the right one and settled on this one - (Cheney Chan 2023) because Emmrich loves flowers and i have no doubt he has looked at it (and other dresses) for years not having the courage to wear it by himself - until now, feeling assured by a partner who has found themselves enough to say fuck it to expected gender presentation and what his peers will think of him

also the gold jewelry was picked out by Emmrich for both of them, the ribcage a special gift to Valdís :>