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stusbunker · 7 months ago

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Spotless: Mordent

Chapter Eighteen

Featuring: Dean Winchester/Reader, Dean/Bela

Other characters: Sam, Billie

Word Count: 2880ish

Warnings, etc: Mutual pining, this turned into more of a brother chapter than I originally intended, talk of tattoos and body mods, unbeta'd

Series Masterlist

Dean walked out of the studio with a cassette recording of their album, a CD and a thumb drive. He always asked for it to be playable in the impala and Ash always came through. The other options were for Bobby and Sam, respectively. Sam would send the files to everyone else. It was finished, set to be released while they were on tour, with the label’s stamp of approval and all. ‘Waysides and Regrets’ was thirteen songs packed with everything they could pour into them.

"Don’t call it a comeback,” Dean muttered to himself as he slipped into the driver’s seat and popped the cassette into the deck. The opening to Rupture ripped through the speakers and Dean cackled at hearing it like a civilian. He drummed along with Pam on the steering wheel as he turned out of the parking lot, saluting the guard at the gate as he went.

He listened to it all before going back home. Rupture bled into Pushing Through which mellowed out to the subdued Brothers Keeper. Then they cranked it back up with Route 666, which slid into the angsty Prophet and Loss that showcased just why Kevin was Cas’ replacement (musically at least). Beyond the Mat and Goodbye Stranger were two sides of the same coin, introspective but in different tones, soulful and combative respectively. Then there was the first single, Annie’s duet, Baby, which Dean unabashedly wrote about his car, but as if she were real and he could thank her and praise her for everything she meant to him. He sang out loud with every word of that song as he cruised faceless side streets letting the music wash over him.

Everybody Loves A Clown, Except Sam was supposed to be a joke track, but they got carried away with it and it actually was one of the funnest songs to play for Dean, and Kevin going full calliope for the chorus was totally worth it. Gods and Monsters was fueled by Dean’s inner rage and where his anger came from, also known as John Winchester and his own self worth issues. Missouri had a field day when he sent her those lyrics. Then there was Lee’s track which Dean helped merely tweak some lines, Give Me My Axe: An Executioner’s Song. It was even better with the windows down and the road disappearing beneath his tires. The final track was an anthem, not quite what the kids would call a banger, but celebratory enough to be the potential second single from the album. It’s about the weekend Dean finally came up for air, when Sam holed him up at Bobby’s cabin in Tahoe and they had his come-to-Jesus intervention thing. It’s about letting go and letting your people catch you, aptly named Weekend at Bobby’s. It turned out better than Dean could have hoped.

He turned into the canyon when the bonus tracks started, knowing the album was drawing to a close and wanting Sam to hear it before he got too emotional about it. The house was quiet when he walked in, the coffee still in the pot, but Sam’s rinsed-out smoothie blender upside down in the sink. Dean found Sam outside, despite the cooler air, going through his yoga routine.

Dean teased Sam about a lot of things, but it held little venom with the things that brought Sam well-being.

“Hey, mop-head, got the album when you’re ready,” Dean called from the doors off the kitchen.

Sam exhaled and smiled, eyes closed in concentration. Dean didn’t know how he did it, but he understood sometimes other senses just get in the way of an experience, almost like they try to crowd it or consume it because it’s not about them.

“Gimme like ten minutes,” Sam replied and shifted into mountain pose.

“Fair enough.”

Dean left the thumb drive on the counter and made his way into the living room. They had speakers in their jam room, but Dean hadn’t eaten and lunch was sounding better by the second. So he popped the CD into the stereo and paused it with one of the many remotes they’d accumulated through years of technological upgrades. Sam had an app on his phone for half of it, but Dean still favored physically punching buttons to get what he wanted done.

He made his way back into the kitchen and started pulling things out for BLTs. Sam had some tofu-bacon in the drawer and he fried that up too, and if a little of the real grease got on it, it was too bad for Sam. He grabbed a couple of bags of chips from the pantry and then some leftover fruit salad from the fridge to even them out. Life was about balance after all, and having a health nut for a brother and roommate Dean had learned to pick his battles.

“Hey, that smells amazing,” Sam broke through Dean’s little self-congratulation.

“Yeah, mine does, yours smells like a nursing home cafeteria—- You ready?” Dean asked, holding up the remote with one hand while popping a chip into his mouth with the other.

“Hit it,” Sam agreed, sitting at the counter as Dean slapped his sandwich down in front of him.

They ate and listened, commenting here and there. Sam helped Dean clean up the kitchen and they both gravitated to the couch to finish listening. Dean took out a bowl he kept in an end table and packed it, smoking casually as Sam took in each song, each transition.

It was one moment, but it was also a hundred others in the years before it. Brothers sitting in comfortable quiet as music spoke to them instead of one another. They were thirteen and nine and Dad had brought home a signed Lyle Lovett album for them to ingest. While neither of them were yet prone to country, it shifted their ideas of just what good music was. They were fifteen and eleven and done enough chores for a trip to Record Town in North Platte where they each got a tape apiece. Dean got Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains while he convinced Sam to get The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails instead of Tori Amos’ Under the Pink. They read every line of production details and lyrics on the pamphlets tucked into the plastic cases.

Sam came home to find Dean back for the weekend. It was early ‘98 and it felt like everything had turned horrifyingly pop focused. The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land was playing on the boombox Dean had dragged out of Sam’s room as his big brother cleaned the kitchen back to his standards and not Kate’s livable level of clutter. They were waiting to hear if they had a brother or a sister. The only thing said between them was Dean reassuring Sam that he put his Celine Dion CD back in its case.

They sat in Lee’s dorm room, stoned and drunk, watching as his roommate's computer uploaded their album. It felt like it would take forever, but it was also insane to think that people all over the world could listen to their music. It was full of possibility, but it was also just two brothers and their friends in their habitat, existing together.

“Dude— did you autotune me?!” Sam gaped, chuckling self consciously while listening to his line of the acoustic track of Brothers Keeper.

“Barely. Like nobody’s gonna notice, they’ll be too busy balling their eyes out,” Dean reassured.

“Yeah, like you, huh?”

“Shut up.”

Sam laughed, but let his embarrassment go; the nervous bastard always hated singing which was why he wasn’t as good at it.

The album reached its end and they started talking about ideas for the tour, things to write down and beg Charlie for like lighting designs or album specific imagery when they hop back into their older stuff. It was almost four when Dean finally got over to Bobby’s with the CD, but he didn't stay for another listen. He let Annie have her moment with Bobby gushing, as much as the geezer could or would gush.

On the way home, you called him squealing with excitement.

“You listen to it already?”

“No! I just got the files from Sam. I guess I shouldn’t have called until I heard it all, huh?”

Dean chuckled. “Maybe. Or maybe you’ll hate it and never want to talk to me again.”

“Ha-ha. But no, seriously, I’m so excited. I’m going to blast it as I meal prep. Do you want my review long hand or can I just call you back and talk your ear off?”

“Whatever you’re willing to give me,” Dean tried for playful.

“Dangerous, Winchester. Okay, well I have like ten more things I have to do now that we have a single. But I’ll be in touch.”

“Sounds good— and thanks.”

“No— thank you.”

Dean hung up and let the fear roll in. You were going to hear it all. Everything he had been through and everything you had helped him overcome. He only hoped you wouldn’t be upset by making a cameo on something so public. Or embarrassed by the way he still needed you.

Dean promised he’d be on his best behavior. Part of that was putting out fires for the band, to try and help make your job easier. So after the shake up from Kevin and Cas, he called Billie and apologized for his bandmates’ (both past and present) disrespect. She told him he could make it up to her. But there was no way Dean was going under the needle again, last time he even looked at one he almost threw up. But, it just so happened he knew someone who was in the market for some art.

Unfortunately, that meant Dean would have to tag along.

Billie’s studio was modern and bright, with different colored walls contrasting the silver accents, both mirrors and shelving. From the outside, Reaping Ink was a small sign on a battered street, but inside it felt like walking into an art gallery and not someplace that had hard sharps containers and enough first aid equipment to stock an ambulance on hand.

And the furniture was always so damn comfortable.

The last time Dean had been here was for a memorial tattoo for Jo that you got on your right shoulder. He nearly broke your hand holding it as he tried and failed not to watch your skin be pierced continuously. It was a beautiful tattoo, everything Billie did was masterful. It just wasn’t something Dean wanted to sit through again.

Luckily for everyone, Bela didn’t need Dean to hold her hand. But she did need him as in with Billie, who usually booked appointments six-to-eight months out.

“Hello, Dean,” Billie’s dark voice called once they walked in, she stood so still and so silently, he hadn’t even noticed her among the cacophony of color in the waiting area.

“Heya Billie, this is Bela,” Dean guided Bela with a hand on the small of her back, the way Billie’s dark eyes clocked the motion made Dean want to step back. Like a nun catching you standing too close to your crush in the hallway. Dean never went to Catholic school, but that feeling of getting caught, of doing wrong was universal.

“Pleasure,” Bela smiled at the artist, while Billie just nodded.

“I have a couple versions for you to pick from, I think I got the gist of what we talked about, but I wanted to be sure on sizing and layout. So come on back and we’ll get started,” Billie went straight into business mode. No whining about Cas’ impulsiveness or speculating on Dean and Bela’s relationship. At least verbally, her eyes held a very different story.

She had three different stencils already cropped and laid out for Bela to see as Bela rucked up her top and rolled down her leggings. It wasn’t a tramp stamp, she was insistent on that, but it was on the back of her right hip, something she could glance at or hold if she needed to. The way she talked about the position of the tattoo, made it seem just as important as the content or the coloring of it.

“Dean?” Bela’s voice drew Dean out of his thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“Can you take pictures with my phone? Before, during, and after?” Bela handed him her unlocked iphone and he turned it around to focus on her nearly bare back. He took a few shots and gave it back.

“You’ll want that to distract you, trust me,” Dean assured.

Bela rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

Dean went green. “As long as I don’t have to watch.”

“Really?!” Bela exclaimed and looked over to Billie for confirmation.

“Mmm-hmm, boys one of the worst I’ve seen around needles. No wonder he doesn’t even have his ears pierced.”

“I guess I never noticed—- wouldn’t have thought. Poor thing,” Bela sighed as she settled on her stomach on one of Billie’s many specialty beds.

“Can we not? I mean, I’m here ain't I?” Dean huffed and pulled out his own phone. You still hadn’t texted him what you thought about the album, but he also knew you were busy, so he didn’t want to rush you or look too desperate.

He felt Bela and Billie have a silent conversation as he pulled up his sudoku app, but ignored them as Billie got the stencil in place, only getting up to snap another picture. Then, they were off. Bela and Billie making small talk about the design, which Dean knew Bela had put a lot of thought into, especially since it would officially tarnish her good girl image. Even in this day and age, most of her fans were in their fifties. A tattoo could rattle the masses. But getting one with Dean seemed like a good compromise of their images.

He was rubbing off on her, so to speak. Well, he hadn’t done that literally since his talk with Sam, but you know.

They sat for an hour and a half and took a break, Dean went to get food and coffee, which he left in the lobby so as not to infringe on Billie’s strict rules. Dean took a couple more pictures and some stupid selfies for Bela to find later. The shop was closed to the public and since Billie’s latest playlist had started over, Dean asked if he could hook up to the bluetooth.

Billie looked at him appraisingly as it became clear that he was playing his own music during his girlfriend’s appointment.

“What?”

“You’re either looking for my approval or you’re buttering me up by letting me hear this first. Which is it?” Billie manhandled Bela back into position to get going on the shading.

“I don’t know, man. Both?”

Billie hummed, but didn’t reply.

Dean walked around the studio, looking at the different sets of flash and paintings that covered the walls. He flinched away from the spinning display of rods, tapers, disks, and rings for piercings and stretching. He felt like a waste of space, but mainly because he was never any good with boredom. Being idle in a place he was already uncomfortable, for a plethora of reasons, was akin to torture.

He remembered to breathe.

He checked his phone. He put that back into his pocket. He stole Bela’s phone for a few more pictures, trying not to look directly at her raised, red flesh.

“How’s it going?” Dean asked, after giving Bela her phone back, his album running its course around them.

“I’d say another twenty minutes and then I’ll bandage her up. You good?” Billie asked, surprisingly sincerely.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Just curious,” Dean muttered.

“Hey, Dean. I like the music,” Billie said, waiting for him to make eye contact.

“Thanks,” Dean nodded, trying not to let his blush show.

“When’s it coming out?” Bela asked, suddenly reminding Dean why he was there in the first place.

“End of April,” he said. “Single’ll be released week after my birthday.”

Bela paused and looked up at him, but Billie was the one to break the ice.

“Which is?”

“Uh, the 24th. Baby hits your airwaves on the 29th.”

“Is that Annie Hawkins on that track?” Billie asked.

“Yup,” Dean grinned.

“Damn, almost forgot about her. Nice pull,” Billie praised.

Dean chuckled, not explaining his connection. She’d find out eventually, if it even mattered. “Yeah, we got lucky with that one.”

Bela was inked up, wiped down and vacuum sealed over the following half hour. Dean paid for the work, plus a generous tip. And posed for a few promotional shots with Bela and Billie alike. Once everyone was satisfied that what they had would help all involved, Bela and Dean said their goodbyes and thank yous and headed out for a late dinner at Elizabeth’s.

“Do you want me to send these to you or to Y/N to latergram?” Bela asked as their drinks arrived.

“Just send ‘em to Trouble. She’ll know what to do with them better than me,” Dean ducked out of the responsibility, unaware he was planting another social media minefield for you to navigate by doing so.

Tagging:

@deans-spinster-witch

@mrswhozeewhatsis

@cosicas-cuquis

@fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like

@suckitands33

@ladysparkles78

@deans-baby-momma

@stoneyggirl2

@sassy-pelican

@leigh70

@globetrotter28

@winharry

@lastactiontricia

@rockhoochie

Chapter Nineteen: Pizzicato

#spotless series #dean/reader #dean/bela #slow burn #rockstar au #fake dating #dean x reader #dean winchester fanfiction

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twwings · 9 months ago

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Big Festivids Recs Post!

Last weekend was the big Festivids GoLive, which meant the release into the wild of 160 brand new small fandom vids (aka fanvids, edits, etc.) Right now the collection's anonymous, but tomorrow is vidder reveals, so I wanted to write up a recs post for some of my absolute favourites from this year's collection. If you know Yuletide, well, Festivids is like Yuletide, celebrating small/weird/underappreciated fandoms! It's an exchange fest, so people ask for the small fandom vids of their heart and, then, receive one.

Honestly the collection this year is SO high quality, you should really go and browse the works yourself in their entirety; there are so many vids that I absolutely loved that I didn't put on this recs list, because I was trying not to get carried away (and also trying to get it done). But just to get you started, here are a smattering of my favourites. I tried to represent a bunch of vid genres and source types here, but ultimately it's just my taste.

RECS RECS RECS!

Andor: Level Up

AHHHH this is a vid about Andor and fascism and collective action and One Way Out and it's so gorgeously done. Perfect song choice, perfect vid, makes me cry and I will rewatch it many times.

Andor: be ready and be brave

Focusing on Ferrix, its history, its people, and its revolution. Absolute chills. Also I'm SO happy whenever I get to watch a vid to a Mountain Goats song.

Mosquita y Mari: como siempre soñé

Such a sweet, soft, slow romance vid. I ACHED for these two. Like reading a 300k slowburn but in three and a half minutes.

Dropout TV: Nothing in my Head

The Dropout TV vid of my DREAAAAAMS! (largely Game Changer but with lots of stuff in there!)

Taskmaster UK: Blood in the Cut

UHHHH. IT'S AMAZING??? It's hot and raw and kinky and hardcore. the vidder has the delicate, precise touch of a bloody scalpel. Yes, this is a vid for Taskmaster, the UK show where comedians do silly tasks. Because yeah, it's that show, but it's also this show.

Slash/Back: Uja

This vidder KNOWS how to vid horror. The way this vid cuts the most terrible images to make them barely-there, more horrifying for being rough slaps against my consciousness . . . yikes. Amazing vidding, super cool and scary, while also maintaining the uplifting, kickass, hopeful tone you want from a collective-action horror movie.

Janelle Monae: I Like That

Glorious, joyful, sexy celebration of being a free-ass motherfucker.

Star Trek: Lower Decks: Hard Times

Boimler vid about how he's essentially a redshirt who is just slightly too sweet to actually die. Absolutely adorable and hilarious.

Woman King: Upside Down

Absolute BANGER of a vid, great cuts, great movement, great character arc and great Dahomey women being amazing.

Romeo + Juliet: Magnetic

We all agree Harold Perrineau is the best Mercutio, SO, with that in mind, here is a flawless celebration of the best Mercutio.

Knives Out/Glass Onion: 'Til You Hit a Nerve

Brilliant comparison vid putting Marta from the first film together with Helen and Andi from the second one, drawing out the similarities and dissimilarities in a visual feast and with a badass powerwalk. Nothing not to love!

David Cronenberg's Films: body

This one is phenomenal. It takes David Cronenberg's entire filmography and condenses it into a vid about all the sexualized body horror. It is deeply horny and deeply disturbing and deeply fascinated by every single finger going into a hole in a body that shouldn't be there. It's soft and tentative and it's very graphic and violent, all at once.

The Wheel of Time: Velodrome

Tower politics and circularity and being bound to one another in every good way and every bad way; what a beautiful vid. I love how this is about a place, and about how that place draws these people together over and over in their shared experience and love and trauma.

The Midnight Sky: The Laughing Heart

Absolutely gorgeous vid of the film to a spoken word + music rendition of Charles Bukowski's "The Laughing Heart" (there is a light somewhere). I have not seen this film but I found this vid deeply moving.

Moby Dick: Queequeg and I

There are four (FOUR!!!) Moby Dick vids at Festivids this year, and they are all amazing combinations of a huge smorgasboard of sources, I heartily recommend them all, but I'll specifically rec two. This one is Queequeg and Ishmael to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and it is the sweetest queerest thing ever. Queequeg and Ishmael get a happy ending shhhhh they do shhhhh yes this is how it happened they came out of the water they're fine

Moby Dick: a vulture feeds upon the heart forever

This vid is a fucking masterpiece. It is a huge archival multisource Moby Dick vid that weaves all these incredibly different visual together to make a coherent, tragic narrative. And like. The BOOK is not a coherent narrative! This is such gorgeous and amazing fanwork. Don't miss out on it.

Women's 100m Sprinting: Didn't Come to Play

This is GORGEOUS, I don't know anything about sprinting but I know I love these beautiful joyful powerful women running really fast and hugging each other and being amazing. The editing on this is so tight; the vid never stops for a second. Like a sprint?!?!?!

The Golem and the Jinni: סיפור הגולם

This is another book vid, but since this book doesn't have any adaptations, it's using entirely archival source and probably some documentaries and films to construct the story - or, really, construct the vibe of the book, construct the metaphors of the book, and the result is beautiful and powerful and meditative. It's about survival, and making life.

Jesus Christ Superstar: Hope on Fire

This is another umbrella vid, where the vidder is taking a bunch of different productions of the play and mashing them together. This vid focuses on Judas and Jesus/Judas, and it all feels so inevitable and tragic and real and cruel. I really loved it.

Jordan Peele's Films: Goodbye, Honey, You Call That Gone

This is such a wonderful mashup of Jordan Peele's three films, exploring all the parallels and differences and just the rich tapestry of his imagery.

猎罪图鉴 | Under the Skin: Put It On Me

I don't know this source but this was just so gorgeously put together; there's a focus on art and art objects, on hands moving and creating, that's just mesmerizing.

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aerodaltonimperial · 11 months ago

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✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

Tagged by @rosabellebelieve and oh girl. Ain't nobody ready for these stats LOL. Uh oh. Also, I've removed all collab fics for purposes of this, as it doesn't really seem fair since I only wrote, like, half of them lmao.

Words and Fics

268,626 words in 2023 (mother of god)

52 fics on AO3 (dear christ)

I'm not even counting Tumblr ficlets, oh god, don't make me

Top 5 Pairings

💚🖤Jack/Darby (24) (NUMBER ONE???? how tho)

🧡🖤Hook/Danhausen (23)

💚🧡Jack/Hook (5)

🔮🍑Julia/Anna (4)

🧡🎤Max Caster/Hook (3) & 🧡🍊Orange/Hook (3) (HAHAHAHAHA)

Top 5 by kudos

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) [Hookhausen]

man of lesser words [Hookhausen]

don't need a cure for love [Orange/Hook]

baby please (would you read my eulogy) [JungleCorpse]

you're the realest thing i've never had to fake [Hookhausen]

Top 5 by hits

baby please (would you read my eulogy) [JungleCorpse]

i found love where it wasn't supposed to be (right in front of me) [Hookhausen]

now you know how i feel [Hookhausen]

Weekend in Fresno: or, a Hook choose your own dating adventure [Hook/everyone]

threat level: euclid [HH, JC, SP]

Fandom Events in 2023

I made it to a wrestling show! Since they never go near me and my life is what it is, I really can't manage more than one a year, and I've got to be lucky to get that to work, but this was a big deal and I'm so happy that I could make it happen!

ALSO I MADE UP A FUCKING PAIRING AND GOT IT TO THE #1 FOR BOTH PARTIES INVOLVED you know what this counts as an event LMAOOOOO i'm thinking no one should actually have this power

Upcoming Projects

If I ever stop bemoaning my perceived lack of skill, I've got 2/3 of a fic that Vamp prompted dialogue for, largely me writing something fluffy and saccharine because she was trying to write smut and we were both trying to write out of our wheelhouses lol

Writing reflection

Well! 2023 was quite a year, honestly. I was going to be like OH HOLY SHIT about my word count but when I took our collabs, it dropped so fast, so that's good, I guess (???). I'm still so happy I discovered wrestling, because it's been easily 12 years since I had this amount of creativity for a single fandom. And this year I really stretched out and started writing new stuff within the wrestling fandom! That's exciting (depending what you followed me for, I suppose LOL).

But more than anything else, this year I looked at what I wanted to write and said, FUCK IT, I'M WRITING IT. And I started dropping horror shit I fully expected that no one would read, because I didn't think people came to fandom for spooky stuff??? And lo and behold, y'all really showed up for those fics! I'm forever grateful you saw me writing absolutely batshit horror and were like yes, Katy, we will also read this creepfest. So much love.

I also tried to write more smut, which I am not particularly adept at, and also some darker themes. I do try to write lighthearted things, haha, but my own mental state has been not stellar, and I think that tends to come out in my fics. And I started writing femslash, which this fandom needs so much more of! So. All in all, a real banger year for me in fandom. I'm pretty proud of a LOT of the fics I wrote this year.

And, obviously, 2023 would not be complete with me mentioning that Vamp and I produced an epic shit ton of words together, and MORE IMPORTANTLY had an absolute blast in doing so. What a whirlwind writing together has been!!! I think we've really gotten to this point of just great flow, and I'm super proud of how we work so well like we do. We DO HAVE SOMETHING ELSE COMING but we've been "planning" it since August and haven't written it yet, so HAHAHA. Anyway. Expect that in 2025, or something. ;)

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please do eat glass, I’ve heard it’s good for your gums.

Tagging: @whysamwhy123 @meeplanguage @fille-lioncelle and anyone else who wants to take a stab at this!

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lashton-is-my-drug · 1 year ago

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i was at the fonda (night 1) when luke referred to sierra as his wife. however, no wedding band. i'm sure someone else has mentioned that, but i haven't seen anyone else talking about it. this weekend's fashion display by luke in milan..sierra nowhere to be found. he does have a ring on his left hand, but it doesn't seem like a wedding band to me. and if it were, why didn't he have it on at the fonda? rhetorical question. anyhow, this is a very lengthy way to ask your take on it all, and do you think they are married or was it a planned "announcement"..which he didn't seem to make mention of night two?

OK, ready?

Luke saying “my wife Sierra” at his solo show at the Fonda in LA

Pardon the delay in my response, I wanted to wait a beat to see what happened after.

First, Luke was wearing his matching ring with Ash. Ash was wearing his the prior couple of days of events and with fans. Luke hasn’t ever worn a matching ring with her, which therefore there’s nothing to construe as a wedding ring for them. Ever. Luke and Ash have been wearing theirs ever since the band Twitch stream. Check out my various black onyx ring tags. Also, since Youngblood era (stars rings), Luke and Ash have worn various matching rings. They’re sneaky about it. Sometimes they both will wear it, sometimes only Luke, sometimes only Ash. Ash doesn’t wear any rings when drumming.

Released his album with Sony (known for using stunts and people’s personal lives as promotion. Example: all of the Spidermen and Mary Jane’s have “dated”). He’s also managed by Matt Emsell/Ben Evans, who have managed the boys all throughout Modest days.

No article or anything afterwards, which would typically happen with these things…. instead there’s a mystal pregnancy announcement to overshadow it. (Which don’t even get me started on THAT whole thing….)

Luke hasn’t mentioned it anywhere else or made a formal announcement. There was a big deal made about the engagement (along with the standard PR article in People, Ben earning his money) so if the marriage was real, wouldn’t there be one? Luke said some lovely words in his ig post but nothing about any marriage? HELLO?

I truly 100% don’t think they’ll ever get married. Luke and Ash remain devoted to one another. The time is ticking on the Lierra breakup. (Side note: Notice how Ash nor any of the other boys nor anyone on their team nor family members have acknowledged it either??)

Another side note that I find entertaining: I find it very reassuring that the fans actually don’t favor the duet (Older), which was supposed to be this beautiful love PR move between the stunt. Caramel is intensely much better of a song. The gays tend to do a much better job at it. (Hello Elton John and so many others.) Ash would never think of trying to overshadow Luke, like S tried to at London ONO.

Luke’s been flying solo to events ever since the guys were in Aussie. She wasn’t at Fashion Week either. (I’m including video clip proof he was solo.) [Theory: A couple fellow Lashies believe it was some sort of trade off that he had to say the marriage thing at his show so he could be sans Sierra at Fashion Week. Fashion is his. He wants to be himself whenever he can. One day Ash will be next to him though, cheering him on proudly.] Luke has been at events with bandmates, family members (his brother), or is solo ever since they were in Aussie at the end of Take Me Home Tour? Which we need to acknowledge how much Luke absolutely SLAYYYYYED at Fashion Week!! Multiple of different outfits! Get it!!

[Camera flashing warning]

Ash needed to be next to him. 🥺❤️

There’s just so many reasons it was a flat out lie.

Hey Siri, play “Lie to Me”. Actually, seriously, stream Lie To Me, it’s a banger. Writing credits of Luke and Ash, so, of course it is.

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justforbooks · 10 months ago

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In 1967 when Radio 1 was founded as a successor to the BBC Light Programme, one of its aims was to reach housewives – and to attract them, the station employed only male DJs (or “husband substitutes”, as they were known behind the scenes) for the first three years. It was only in 1970, bending with the times, that it took on its first female presenter, Anne (later Annie) Nightingale, a former journalist and television presenter with almost no radio experience.

The original male presenters have long since left the station, but Nightingale was still working for Radio 1 at the time of her death, aged 83, and had become its longest-serving broadcaster, most recently on air in December 2023. Known to fans as the Queen of Breaks – breakbeat was her specialist genre – she defied the station’s usual career trajectory (five years as a top-tier presenter, then off to weekends or Radio 2) by staying relevant. She introduced listeners to prog rock, punk, indie and dance music, and was unfeignedly passionate about them all. At 75, she told a dance magazine: “I listen to what 13-year-olds listen to because that’s the future. [I’ve] got to be ahead of the game all the time.”

As a dance music specialist from the late 1980s onward – playing “the biggest bass bangers”, as Radio 1’s website put it – Nightingale spent the second half of her career broadcasting to people too young to have known that she had been friends with the Beatles and Marc Bolan. But her age was immaterial because of her stature in the dance world. In 2001, she received Muzik magazine’s Caner of the Year prize in recognition of her late-night lifestyle – her favourite of all her awards, which also included an MBE in 2002 for services to broadcasting (advanced to CBE in 2020), and an honorary doctorate in journalism.

She was a highly knowledgable musical curator, and an expert at exploiting the intimacy of radio. Though Nightingale prioritised music over DJ patter, she recognised that a human voice was still an essential part of the mix; husky-toned and self-deprecating, she belied the station’s early fear that a female DJ would lack authority. According to the writer Irvine Welsh, who listened to her while growing up, her “cool, funky tones” stood out against “the flatulent sounds of loud, boring, thick and egotistical men strafing the airwaves”.

An only child, Nightingale was born in Osterley, west London, to Basil, who ran a wallpaper company, and Celia (nee Winter), a chiropodist. Educated at the independent Lady Eleanor Holles school in Hampton, she left before her A-levels. Overriding her parents’ request that she have “something to fall back on”, she enrolled on a journalism course at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster). Moving to Brighton after graduation, she married a Fleet Street journalist, Gordon Thomas, and had two children. After a short stint at the Brighton and Hove Gazette, she became the only woman in the newsroom at the Brighton Argus.

Along with reporting local news at the parish-council level, she was given a music column called Spin With Me, which gave her access to the biggest pop stars of the 60s. Her friendship with the Beatles later helped open doors at Radio 1 – the band’s publicist, Derek Taylor, persuaded the station controller to let her audition after her own requests were repeatedly refused.

At a Dusty Springfield gig in 1964, she met Vicki Wickham, producer of Ready Steady Go!, who hired her as co-presenter of a new pop show called That’s For Me. It lasted only a few months, but the exposure led to writing work at the Daily Express and Cosmopolitan, and radio appearances on Today and Woman’s Hour. It was the era of pirate stations such as Radio Caroline; she considered applying to Caroline but was put off by the idea of “living out at sea with a bunch of blokes”.

Finally installed at Radio 1 in 1970, she was hampered at first by a lack of technical knowhow – her first day was marked by eight seconds of dead airtime when she accidentally pressed the “off” switch in the middle of a record. Yet she quickly established herself, choosing her own playlist almost from the start. Her skill at persuading listeners that what she wanted to hear was what they wanted to hear led in 1978 to the job of presenting BBC Two’s “serious” rock programme, The Old Grey Whistle Test. It had failed to keep up with musical fashion, a problem she tackled by booking the most challenging artists she could get away with and braving the consequences. She was delighted to bag Public Image Ltd for a live appearance, though frontman John Lydon repaid her enthusiasm by admonishing her for being “so fucking patronising”.

Four years at Whistle Test were followed by a return to Radio 1’s highly popular Sunday afternoon request show for 12 years. When acid house gained traction in the late 80s, she credited it with changing her life; from that point, she played solely dance music on Radio 1, first in the influential Chill Out Zone slot, then on a longstanding programme that went out at 1am on Wednesdays. Her free time, she said, was consumed by listening to the thousands of demo tapes she received every week.

Despite her achievements, Nightingale claimed she lacked confidence until she was robbed in Havana, Cuba in 1996. The attack left her unable to walk for months, but made her “a stronger person”, she said.

Though she hated nostalgia, she did reflect that ageing had been isolating. The death of John Peel, her friend from the early days of Radio 1, provoked the unusually downbeat comment: “Now John’s gone there’s nobody I know in my age group who remotely likes this kind of thing. I don’t understand why. I’m driven by it.”

She published two volumes of autobiography, Chase the Fade (1982) and Wicked Speed (2000), and a 50th-anniversary volume, Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain’s First Female DJ, in 2020.

She is survived by her children, Alex and Lucy, from her first marriage, which ended in divorce. Her second marriage, to the actor Binky Baker in 1978, also ended in divorce.

🔔 Anne Avril Nightingale, broadcaster, born 1 April 1940; died 11 January 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #annie nightingale #in memoriam

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holybibly · 8 months ago

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Hello there! first i would like to say i absolutely LOVE pretty flushed😭 i canNOT get enough of it omg sidjxjcnsj

2) yeS I LOVE NSFW LINKS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE little bunny wants some of those🫣

3) would love to see all the filth and details even if that means it takes longer to answer because… ??? the details drive me completely INSANE (i’m seriously down bad for it)

4) OFC WE NEED A MASTERLIST😵‍💫

5) i love you and your works so much, all of them are bangers. and you can even work me up just from your answers?!!😭

hugs and kissesss,

bunny💜

Hi my adorable bunnies, I hope all is well with you, my love.

First of all, if the bunnies are being obedient, the first piece of work for the wolf pups of the Pretty Flushed Universe will probably be out this coming weekend. And I can't wait. God, you bunnies will be squeakin' and squirmin'.

Secondly, I'm not very good at writing anything short 🙈 so I'm glad you prefer more detailed answers.

I want to speak for my other active work. I'll release them when I'm ready. So be patient, bunnies. Inspiration is not something you have at the snap of a finger.

I will be using NSFW links when replying to the Unholy Hours, and this will also be included in the warnings, as not everyone may be comfortable with this.

The Unholy Hours are always open, tell me your secret desires, dear ones. Send me a private message if you are shy.

I am going to make a master list for the Unholy Clock and I will add it to the main master list. By the way, to make it easier for you to search, should I make separate search tags like #mommy hwa or #pretty flushed!au?

I love you too, bunny, you are all so sweet and kind to me, thank you.

#bunny questions #sugar and sin

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crawlershq · 2 years ago

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Day Threeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Happy Wednesday my baby bats!!! It's nearly the weekend, the sun is shining and it's getting warmer, which can only mean one thing- serotonin season is approaching us at full speed and I for one am so ready for it

(How cute is this gif?? T^T)

So song 1 from this week is still in production. We've had to backtrack and tighten up a different song to finally send that off for mastering, but it's an absolute banger, so it's completely worth it. We're literally moments away from sending it off as I'm typing this, so keep your fingers crossed for us please <3

As soon as we send this off, it'll be back to song 1. Today it'll be Holly's turn to blow us all away with their pipes, so go and get your popcorn ready!

(This will be me watching them in complete awe)

The current vibes in the studio are a little chaotic. Usually we get the zoomies pretty bad after about a week, however we're already sending our audio engineer and producer up the wall with our antics. If any of you have seen our instagram story, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about...

The sleepiest CRAWLER title still belongs to our little drummer boy Harry (three days without a nap, go me!!). The most tearful CRAWLER title however is placed solely in my name (I blame Holly's extensive knowledge on my trauma and then using that as ammo in their lyrics HAHAHA)

I also want to take a moment to thank you all for sending us more questions. I absolutely love seeing all your lovely messages and we love letting you guys in on what makes us who we are, so ask away!! ^-^

How are you all spending this gorgeous Wednesday afternoon? I hope your week so far has been full of love and laughter.

Until tomorrow my beautiful baby bats!!

#crawlers #crawlers band #crawlers in the studio #sea bunnies #zoomies

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steveandthesea · 5 months ago

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So this weekend I've been on a little trip across Germany.

Me and Ralph (that's my bike) set off from Hamburg at 11am on Friday, first stop: Berlin. By some grace of God this train was only 10 minutes late.

Made it to Berlin, just in time to miss my next train, so had to wait 45 minutes for the next next train which took me to...

Whatever this place is. There was a Harley Davidson shop next to the rails and it very much felt like being in a post-soviety country, which makes sense since, y'know, it is. But the trai to here was also maybe 5 mins late, which meant another hour of waiting for the little shuttle train to my final destination.

By this point I was exhausted, it was getting super humid, my phone battery was dying, I'd barely eaten all day, and still had a 10 min bike ride with all of my stuff PLUS a trip back out to the shop for food left to do.

Eventually I made it to the accommodation, just in time to get trapped by torrential rain and a heavy thunder storm. Which was kinda cool but not ideal when I needed to get out and find food.

Fuck Deutsche Bahn. They are only good at being an inconvenience.

Anyway the next day we went for a bike ride and that was nice and exhausting.

And then I went home and sat by the lake close to my accommodation, which would have been nice and tranquil if it wasn't for the rowdy drunks at the hotel bar and the pub DJ about 2 milea away blasting out pop bangers.

It was a stressful trip to get there, but I got to see my partner for the first time in weeks and also for the last time in even more weeks so that was especially nice.

Now I'm most of the way home and ready to sleep for a week.

G'night

#me #journal #travel #cycling #Germany

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oneunexpected · 1 year ago

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Hi, everybody! In case you missed it, I'm doing a chapter-by-chapter playlist for each book in the series in honor of @prophecyofgray's #TUC20 event. Sorry for getting this one out late, as I was gone this weekend and couldn't work on it.

Click here to check it out on Spotify, with my explanations for why I chose each song below! If you missed my playlist for Gregor the Overlander, check it out here.

1 - White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes - This is one of my favorite songs ever <3 It is a beautiful piece of music, but the lyrics are darker on a closer read — the kids are running through the snow wearing red scarves, and when one named Michael falls, he turns the snow “red as strawberries in the summertime;” some people take this to imply his head fell off a la the story of the “Red Ribbon Girl.” I don’t think it means Michael’s head fell off, personally. I think the narrator is just struck by how red his scarf is against the snow, or perhaps he is bleeding. But regardless, this is a song about loss of innocence that uses running through snow to convey that, and it’s often co-opted as a Christmas song (fuck pentatonix christmas music all my friends hate pentatonix christmas music). I felt it was a good fit for Gregor, who is the one who’s lost his innocence, and Boots, who is in this book Gregor’s Michael. And also just because this chapter also depicts an idyllic white winter scene where something more sinister is occurring if you look closer.

2 - Oblivion by Grimes - Elon be damned, she had some bangers back in the day. This song is sonically dark and the lyrics are creepy and the chorus is “see you on a dark night” on repeat, and in this chapter Gregor’s on the run through dark tunnels from those that swore to hunt him for all time. It’s a good marriage.

3 - Sabotage - Angry chapter. Angry song. Gregor’s mad at the roaches and the Underlanders, Ares is mad at Gregor, they’re both angry at the world. Favorite lyric for the chapter: “I can’t stand rocking when I’m in this place / Because I feel disgraced / Because you’re all in my face.”

4 - Dark Days by the Punch Brothers - Your first track stolen from the Hunger Games soundtrack for this playlist! “Sister hide your love away / From the evil we both know … Our love will see us through these dark, dark days / Sister, ‘til it lights our way back home” makes for a good song for this chapter, where Gregor reads the Prophecy of Bane, understands what’s at stake, and decides to stay in the Underland to see it all through.

5 - Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division - This is the first chapter we get to see the ideological schism that runs straight through the heart of Vikus and Solovet’s relationship. Vikus is maybe my favorite character in the series in terms of I Like Him and Solovet’s maybe my favorite character in terms of I Want To Put Her Under A Microscope, so of course I’m fixated on their interaction over the other things in this chapter. They’re tearing apart by trying to reconcile their own outlooks on the world with their love for someone so different from themselves; this song was a natural choice.

6 - Glory and Gore by Lorde - Every line in this song reminds me of the Regalians. This chapter, we meet the Fount cousins, and that fits well with the edginess of this song which was written about belligerent teenagers. It’s also the chapter where Gregor hits the total. The red liquid in the balls disturbs Gregor, but for the Underlanders, it’s for “roughing up their minds so [they’re] ready when the kill time comes.” One of my favorite lyrics in this song is “no one ‘round here’s good at keeping their eyes closed.” That’s true for Stellovet and her non-Howard siblings, who see Luxa’s vulnerability re: Henry and weaponize, and it’s true for the other Regalians, who immediately spread word about what Gregor accomplishes, even though he’s disgusted with it.

7 - Somewhere Only We Know by Keane - This song is so sweet and lovely. It’s a little on the nose, because Ares appears out of nowhere and takes Gregor somewhere only they know, but it’s also about letting people into your heart, which is a sentiment I like for the two of them beginning to act more like proper bonds. The song is also a little wistful about times past, which pairs with the part of the chapter where Luxa, Aurora and Ares reflect on positive memories of Henry.

8 - Blackbird by the Beatles - Okay, I really wanted to use this for Ch. 15, but I became married to the idea of using a different song for it, so I’ve shoehorned it in. I don’t think it fits with the chapter well sound-wise, so sorry in advance. But this song reminds me of Twitchtip, who tried so hard her whole life to find a place in gnawer society. In terms of sound, it fits better with the second half of the chapter, when the survivors of the first quest have dinner together.

9 - Monty Got a Raw Deal by R.E.M. - Everyone’s getting a raw deal in this chapter. Gregor has his first echolocation lesson and he sucks. A grieving Nerissa implies Henry was on the right track in joining with the gnawers but admits he bungled it badly. Gregor finds out he has to kill the Bane all on his own. “Heroes don’t come easy,” the song says, and the song is right. Raw deals all around.

10 - Atlas by Coldplay - Honestly, kind of a filler song. I didn’t get much out of this chapter besides exposition for the quest. The verses are about things people desire: security, wealth, adventure, but the chorus is just “I’ll carry your world.” That’s Gregor: carrying the Underland for the Regalians’ own interests.

11 - Sail by AWOLNATION - ha ha get it they’re on a boat Really though, I chose this song not only because they’re sailing and because it’s a banger, but because it’s the chapter Ares teaches Gregor how to kill a rat, and he really can’t imagine doing it. “Maybe I’m a different breed / Maybe I’m not listening” reminded me of that.

12 - Bloom by Radiohead - This song kinda freaks me out. I once listened to it for three hours straight while writing a midterm. I like the syncopation and I thought it might fit well with Gregor’s fragmented perception while he’s raging, and because it’s a trippy track, it fits well with his little dream sequence, too. Its lyrics are about the ocean, too, so I obviously had to use it.

13 - Invisible by U2 - Okay listen I didn’t want to have to use a U2 song so early here. I was anticipating only using one this playlist. But here we are. Anyways, this song is about people outgrowing family members who have hurt them or left them a bad legacy. Howard denounces Stellovet’s behavior, and Gregor realizes Luxa joined the trip to prove she’s not like Henry.

14 - Never Let Me Go by Florence + the Machine - Never Let Me Go is about the struggle of finding the will to keep on living. I interpret the lyrics to reflect suicidal ideation about drowning in the ocean, so be mindful of that if you wanted to read the lyrics and you’re sensitive to that, but the chorus is this choral arrangement of voices repeating “Never let me go, never let me go,” reflecting that the narrator subconsciously wants to keep living. Although clearly describing different situations, I decided I wanted to pair this with the whirlpool chapter. Twitchtip has nearly accepted her fate, embracing “the arms of the ocean,” as Florence puts it, but when Gregor goes back for her, she begs him not to let go. I think it’s an emblematic moment for a character who wants, more than anything, not to be alone.

15 - I’ll Be Home for Christmas as recorded by Bing Crosby - There’s a lot of good stuff in this chapter. Also, Pandora is eaten alive in the end, but we’re ignoring that for now. I chose this song because it’s the chapter where Gregor thinks about what a wreck his parents must be, and he wonders if Christmas has already passed. This song was originally written from the perspective of an American soldier fighting in Europe during World War II, who knows he won’t make it back for Christmas. It’s all very sad. This whole chapter is pretty sad. That’s all I got.

16 - 10 dEAThbREsT by Bon Iver - When I first began these playlists, I just had a giant list of songs that reminded me of the series. This was one I had but I anticipated using it in a later book, probably during combat, or during some tense moment between Gregor and Luxa. I love this song. It’s off-putting, it’s compelling, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, and I have no idea why the title is stylized like that because nothing Bon Iver did after their self-titled album makes much sense. Anyways, I had NO clue what to use for this chapter. No song I know captures how disturbing Pandora’s death is. But I ended up with this one, because the edginess captures Ares’ struggle and Gregor’s fear for him sufficiently. This chapter is also an important moment of bonding for Gregor and Luxa — he imagines taking her to the Overland for the first time — and for Luxa and Howard, who grieve together and finally start acting like family. I know the tone doesn't fit well with the emotion of the last few pages of this chapter, but I'm hoping the outro of this extended version suffices. The lyrics seem to deal with trying to fight the notion that you love someone. Or something. It’s all pretty esoteric. I think those can only be stretched so far to apply to Gregor and Luxa/Luxa and Howard, but I like the lyric “I’m un-orphaned in our northern lights” a lot for Luxa. She is slowly building relationships again after all she’s lost in her parents and Henry.

17 - Music for Prague 1968, Movement I: Introduction and Fanfare by Karel Husa - “oneunexpected would NEVER make me listen to a programmatic work written for symphonic band!” ENGH! Wrong! I saw this in concert when I was 17 and I was deeply, deeply disturbed, which is the point. This first movement starts sooooo eerie and then gets SCARY which is absolutely perfect for the party knowing they’re sailing directly into a trap and then for when the serpents wake up. Enjoy!

18 - Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation - We break with our programming of stolen Hunger Games soundtrack songs to bring you a song stolen from the Twilight soundtrack. This song is chilly and the narrator is someone who has nothing left to lose and is ready to fight. It’s another song I expected to use later in the series, maybe for when Gregor and Solovet’s relationship deteriorates, but I ended up using it here because when Gregor thinks Boots is dead, he doesn’t grieve immediately — he says he feels like ice has encircled his heart, and for the first time, is resolute that he will go kill the Bane.

19 - Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift and the Civil Wars - We break with our Twilight soundtrack programming to return to the Hunger Games. This is the chapter where Gregor and the others convince Howard to return with Mareth and Andromeda, but I chose it for the conversation Ares and Gregor have. Gregor gives one last chance for Ares to bail, and when he refuses, Gregor senses they’ll never have a conversation like that again. He remembers the moment they bonded in Regalia, which is what reminded me of this song. The lyrics go, “I remember tears streaming down your face when I said, ‘I’ll never let you go’ / When all those shadows almost killed your light / I remember you said, ‘Don’t leave me here alone’ / But all that’s dead and gone and passed tonight.” The circumstances of their bonding are similar to those first three lines, but all of that fades away as Gregor realizes they’re truly bonded now.

20 - Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd - Sad song for a sad chapter, as Gregor and Ares reluctantly leave Twitchtip behind. Ares admits to Gregor that he doesn’t think it’s right that he’s still alive when Henry, Luxa and Aurora are gone. I mostly chose this song for Ares’ grief. The verse of this song reminds me a lot of Henry, and how Ares must view Henry, especially regarding the line, “Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in the cage?”

21 - No Children by the Mountain Goats - YES! THE TUMBLR SONG FOR GOLDSHARD AND SNARE! “I HOPE YOU DIE! I HOPE WE BOTH DIE!”

22 - 13 (There Is a Light) by U2 - Okay I swear I didn’t want to use this song. As much as I love U2, I really don’t dig this song very much. It’s so long and meandering. But the lyrics are nice. The way I’ve been constructing these is I skim very quickly through the book and write a brief summary of each chapter and when that’s done, I assign songs to each. My note for this chapter was just “baby hitler conversation.” I ended up choosing this song for one of the verses, which goes, “I know the world is done / But you don’t have to be / I’ve got a question for the child in you before it leaves: / Are you tough enough to be kind? / Do you know your heart has its own mind? / Darkness gathers around the light / Hold on, hold on.” I really liked the fit there for Gregor in this chapter. Even after losing his baby sister, he doesn’t let the world harden him so much that he’s willing to kill a baby. He’s tough enough to be kind, he follows his heart, and he holds onto the light within himself. And that’s why he’s our protagonist.

23 - One Tree Hill by U2 - Last U2 song for this book I SWEAR. But this is a song I associate with Ripred sooooo strongly. It’s a song vaguely about the cost of protesting oppressive systems, and those who do so anyways, which is a good fit for our favorite old rat, but more than anything I chose it for the chorus, “He runs like a river runs to the sea.” Since this is also the chapter Gregor says goodbye to little Pearlpelt, I like the line, “I’ll see you again when the stars fall from the sky / And the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill,” which is probably about seeing someone again in the afterlife, but I think it also works in the context of Gregor and the Bane: the next times they meet, their whole worlds will have changed.

24 - Viva La Vida by Coldplay - Along with chapter 22, I struggled the most with giving a song to this chapter. I wasn’t sold on its usage here but it’s the best I could come up with. This is the one where Nerissa gets crowned, and I related her struggle to the line, “Oh, who would ever wanna be king,” and also the allusions to hearing voices and having some sort of prescience about your fate in the chorus. Also, this is the chapter where Ares and Gregor are thrown in the dungeon, which is a dramatic change in his treatment. Until this point, Gregor has been a messianic figure to the Regalians. As the song says, “One minute I held the key / Next the walls were closed on me.” Gregor’s experiencing a similar fall from grace.

25 - All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix - You can listen to any version of this song you’d like, whether that’s the Bob Dylan original or anything else you can find, but this is the most well-known version. My favorite is — you guessed it! — a U2 cover. The song depicts a conversation between two characters, a jester and a thief. The joker is looking for “someway out of here,” and is in general very cynical. The thief, on the other hand, says, “There are many among us who feel that life is just a joke / But you and I, we’ve been through that / And that is not our fate / So let us not talk falsely now / For the hour is getting late.” It reminds me a lot of Ares and Gregor’s conversation in the dungeon. Ares encourages Gregor to sell him out and save himself, but Gregor refuses. He settles instead on just telling the truth, which is ultimately what saves them.

26 - 42 by Coldplay - This song is moody and contemplative, which is a fine fit for the unraveling of the prophecy. It deals with the loss of loved ones, with its first verse going, “Those who are dead are not dead / They’re just living in my head.” This is the chapter where Gregor finally begins to grieve for Boots, only for him to find her alive, and there’s this great, energetic tonal shift in the song that leads to the repeated lines, “You thought you might be a ghost / You didn’t get to heaven but you made it close.” After finding Boots alive, Gregor is rejuvenated from the shell of himself — the ghost — he would have been otherwise.

27 - The Morning Fog by Kate Bush - A song about having a new lease on life after a close brush with death. It’s so upbeat, so cheerful, so Bootslike that I had to include it here. I love, love, love the lyrics, “D’you know what? / I love you better now.”

BONUS TRACK - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as performed by Frank Sinatra - I wanted to make this the song for Ch. 27 originally, but I wanted to give you an out if you didn’t want to listen to more Christmas music. It’s the first time Gregor’s family gets to have a proper Christmas, full of gifts and decorations and genuine happiness, since Gregor’s dad disappeared. But it’s also a little bit melancholy. They slip the lines “through the years we all will be together / If the fates allow” in very casually, but it makes my heart ache a little. It is especially poignant for Gregor’s family, who have almost lost each other time after time. But the last line, “And have yourself a merry little Christmas now” is a good reflection of how Gregor’s family gets to live in the moment and genuinely enjoy the holiday that year.

#tuc20 #gregor the overlander #underland chronicles #tuc20: pob #prophecy of bane

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doomedandstoned · 9 months ago

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DISASTROID Reveal Striking 4th Full-Length, ‘Garden Creatures’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Get ready for full-on galactic riffing, energetic rhythms, with moments of interstellar insanity. This is DISASTROID and their latest record, 'Garden Creatures' (2024) -- a swirling blend of colors drawn from a dynamic palette of psychedelic, grunge, desert, noise, and math rock influences.

This fourth full-length outing from the SFO band begins with the title track and is presented with rumbling force and jagged rhythms juxtaposed with clean, earnest singing and smooth melodic lines from frontman/guitarist Enver Koneya. At times the vocals soar like the pleas of some jerky cosmonaut thrust into the unknown vastness of outer space. Braden McGraw's drums thunder and churn like the roaring ocean. Travis Williams' bass is warm and pulsating.

Enver's guitar and Travis' bass trade barbs on "Stucco Nowhere," an ode to being stuck in a life of sameness and misery ("burning out within your head"). The singing builds to a crescendo, perhaps summoning sheer force of will to shake off the spell of mediocrity. There are some dreamy vocal harmonies that haunt overslept dreams, and finally a cry of frustration and despair to be set free from the shackles of it all.

"Mama says I need some help," laments Enver in "Figurative Object." The guitars chug with rocketing force, but often enter the realm of disorienting dissonance. This tendency towards the strange and uncanny continues in "Backwards Sleeping" and feels like a night of tossing and turning ("losing sleep for all that we have done"), complete with trippy guitar effects, rhythmic jolts, and ghostly droning.

"24" is fuzzy as all get-out, with screeching guitar hooks, unconventional rhythmic structure, and a misty hue of sadness in the vocals. Then "Hold Me Wrong" is like a fever dream, with a persistent bass groove, strumming and picking on the guitar, and exhausted pleas to "hold me tight, hold me right."

The penultimate song, "Light 'Em Up" is like a hallucination straight out of Blade Runner, with sounds and samples flying about us like fugitive visions. This is another where the bass is so integral to giving us a feeling of movement and cohesiveness in this shapeshifting world. The drumming here, as throughout the record, is stalwart and determined, whilst the riffmaking ranges from raucous to delirious. The record ends on a short banger, a riotous number "Jack Londonin'" with punk, noise, and math overtones.

Disastroid's Garden Creatures was recorded and produced by Billy Anderson and is releasing on Heavy Psych Sounds this weekend, February 23rd, on a spectacular variety of vinyl variants (get it here). Stick it on a playlist with The Melvins, Red Fang, Fatso Jetson, Kook, and Soundgarden.

Give ear...

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SOME BUZZ

San Francisco veterans Disastroid have been serving up sludgy, grunge-infused stoner rock for the better part of a decade now, refining a sound that weaves heavy riffs together with angular guitar lines, odd time signatures, and hazy walls of fuzz. As influenced by 90's noise rock as they are by modern psych, doom, and post-metal, Disastroid delivers thick, satisfying stoner rock stomp while also embracing layers of noise, tripped-out feedback, and unpredictable song structures.

The current lineup of singer/guitarist Enver Koneya, bassist Travis Williams, and drummer Braden McGraw coalesced in 2011. They’re united by a desire to make heavy music that's loose instead of mechanical, a motivation to explore methods that make them sound bigger and more varied than a traditional rock trio, and a shared affection for the Amphetamine Reptile back-catalog. Thematically, their songs steer clear of genre cliches, touching instead on scattered aspects of modern life: technology fatigue, immigration, nuclear deterrence, the monotony of work, the existential dread of aging. Despite the subject matter, Disastroid never take themselves too seriously, injecting their live shows with an infectious sense of humor and their songwriting with math-rock quirks.

Disastroid’s latest outing, Garden Creatures, is a record about the darkness in the hidden corners of suburban landscapes — sinister overgrown gardens, secret collections kept in basements, the crime just beneath the surface, the pervasive loneliness under a veneer of normalcy. Accordingly, it’s a dark and atmospheric record, trading the stripped-down approach of 2020’s Mortal Fools for a thicker, heavier, and more layered sound. Legendary producer Billy Anderson (Sleep, Melvins, Neurosis) builds mixes that range from dark and dreamy to a thick, sludgy crunch, slowly pulling the listener through a range of sounds and textures, making sure things stay interesting. Singer/guitarist Enver Koneya's vocals are soulful and sometimes haunting, drifting above Disastroid’s characteristically off-kilter, grunge-influenced riffs.

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#Disastroid #San Francisco #California #heavy rock #progressive metal #noise #math rock #Heavy Psych Sounds #D&S Reviews #Doomed and Stoned

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iantimony · 9 months ago

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midday tuesday

sort of getting a handle on the volume of work i have to do. ough. writing this tuesdaypost while i wait for the initial step of a simulation to finish running so i can see if what i'm doing is correct.

listening: listening to haken's fauna album again because i'm seeing them live soon (!!)

next listening (against my better judgement because you can probably figure out where i live based on it): local bar had some bands this past weekend, i missed the first group (dopplepopolis) unfortunately because i am chronically late to things that don't have consequences but allegedly they did a holst mars cover ?? which sounds fascinating and i'm so mad i missed it. the second group was alright (the lunar diamonds), pretty good stage presence and they clearly had a lot of fun but their original songs were a little forgettable to me, their cover of psycho killer WAS a banger. i'm very sad they don't have that put up on spotify. but the third group (please her). oohhhh baby. i fell a little bit in love with the lead singer, not gonna lie! i went and listened to their spotify and while some of it really doesn't hit the same as the live performance it's still very fun. she had a spray bottle full of water and was periodically spritzing the audience. at the very end she was like "welcome to church, you may be seated" and had us all sit/crouch on the floor to listen to her announcements about the band over a groovy backing track. their bassist is INSANELY good too. mans be slappin that thang. they listed their genre as "scorpion core" which i still do not understand but god bless 'em.

anyways. they have one album out right now (bandcamp / spotify) and it's worth giving a listen. favorite track: 12 @ the Party, followed closely by Fellas!. i will probably buy it next bandcamp friday.

the lunar diamonds only have one track up on spotify but it is one of their originals that i found toe-tappy: Treads

i'll have to give the band i missed a chance but it will likely not hit the same as if it were live. c'est la vie

finally, haven't finished the release radar for this week yet, but i do really love ethan bortnick. the way he meshes classical-inspired piano with the alt beats is just so fun. hide n seek

reading: next mdzs book came in from the library! truly nothing like the rush of getting the notification "your book is ready to take out" before the estimated date :3 so i'm a little ways into volume 2 now, we're in yi city, xue yang is soooo much more obviously desperate to get xiao xingchen fixed in the book than in the show. loser (affectionate)

watching: next verse same as the first. dungeonmeshi and kill la kill with boyf. the kelpie animations were really fun and also the kraken !! good shit. there are other posts that have explained this better but i love the way trigger is animating the backgrounds. as for klk, we're on ep15 now! i have forgotten sooo much of this show, nui harime showed up and i was like oh SHIT i forgot about her !! entirely!!! so it's been a really fun rewatch.

playing: ran dnd saturday and played dnd on monday! saturday dnd defeated the mdzs dancing fairy :b at some point i will probably design something that involves finding a haunted arm pointing in a direction to reuinite its body a la nie mingjue but we've got some very strong anti-undead characters in this party so that may not go over very well. monday dnd involved getting hunted by a spooky fey hyena and getting robbed by a goblin group. something something goblin microaggressions. still fun even though i was VERY sleepy by the end of it.

making: pottery that i FORGOT TO PHOTOGRAPH ... i was like "i'll take pics at open studio saturday" and then the kiln was running so, on one hand, yayyyy kiln! on the other, no pics for this tuesdaypost. so. more pics next week. i did make some hopefully-teacups for my bf, depending on how severe the shrinkage is, but these are the smallest items i've been able to make (0.5lb clay) and it's sooo much harder than i thought it would be. pics with ruler for shrinkage measuring purposes

you might catch in the first photo that the top cup has noticeably thicker walls than the others ... don't worry about it ......

eating: coconut fish and tomato bake thing that i added too much lime to by accident but still tasty... sheet pan tofu and brussel sprouts!!!! so this is an elite one, adding to the arsenal. literally just halve the sprouts and cube the tofu, drizzle w olive oil and salt and peppy, roast at 450 til its. done. whenever. while that's roasting make rice. the sauce is 1:1 ratio of tahini to hoisin sauce with minced garlic to taste. it is To Die For and SO easy. last night roommate made turkey meatballs with couscous and even though the couscous burned just a little bit it was still yummy!

misc: turns out ... if your body wants ~9 hours of sleep a night but you make it live off of 7 for weeks on end ....... eventually you will get sick LOL. probably partly alcohol ibs stuff but still. sunday was a total wash for me and i went to bed at 10pm and felt normal monday morning. so. i need to just be going to bed earlier (pain). work this week not as terrible at least. i am doing my shit that i need to be doing and it's going okay! which is good because i'm calling it an early week kinda for that concert hehe. oh valentines day! boyf got me a little leatherman multitool keychain and it's so cute and i love it, and i got him a bird scope phone holder so he can take bird photos easier!!!

#tuesdayposting #Spotify

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homosociallyyours · 2 years ago

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@blissoftheblue tagged me in this and I think maybe I got tagged in something similar the other day too? so I'm doing it now!

rule: tag 10 people you want to get to know better

relationship status: single and honestly not ready to mingle

favourite color: dark hot pink and multiple shades of green

song stuck in my head rn: colorado by renee rapp (i hope people are aware of her bc she's excellent)

last song I listened to: renegade by big red machine ft taylor swift ("if i would've known how sharp the pieces were you crumbled into, i might've let them lay" = a banger of a lyric)

three favourite foods: most varieties of cheese but especially clothbound cheddars and complex alpine style cheeses; rice; ripe stone fruit in the summer time

last thing I googled: "how i met your father season 3" bc i have binged most of the first 2 seasons and a) enjoyed it but b) it's doing the same sort of slow burn, connected storytelling that HIMYM did which concerns me in this age of cancelling shows on a whim

dream trip: can i level with you? the thought of going anywhere is so exhausting to me that i can hardly dream of a trip right now. BUT. let's pretend i get to take a magic pill that cures my fatigue for one month and makes me immune to catching or transmitting covid...my dream got long so it's under a cut lol.

I would love to hear from anyone who wants to share, but here are 10 people I'm tagging, no pressure to do this if you don't wanna! @disgruntledkittenface @dykesteddie @gayscantslicetomatoes @ikyoucrow @wabadabadaba @wannaremember @robthegoddess @edheldimmm @jadeoxfordrose @choface

MY TRIP: I would start by traveling home to GA and visiting my friend who lives south of atlanta for a few days. I would get us a hotel room and we'd go thrifting and just hang out together bc it's been to long and they're moving back to Germany soon and I'm kinda bummed about it. Then I'd head to North GA/TN to see my family for 2 weeks, again staying at a hotel bc THIS IS A DREAM TRIP and i do NOT wanna be in a house with 4.5 kids and 3 adults and not enough rooms! Also the kids and my dad will love to come swim at the hotel pool. I would spend a full weekend with my bff, crafting and going to waffle house and doing silly stuff. From there I'd spend a week in NYC, visiting friends and hopefully reconnecting with my bestie. We'd go do daytime karaoke in Koreatown and on some sort of food adventure elsewhere, and I'd have a gathering in prospect park where all my friends came to hang for a bit. THEN!!! in my final week! I would fly to Seattle/Tacoma and spend the week with my friends out there, doing nature stuff but also just chilling and drinking tea and playing games! For the final weekend I'd head up to Portland to see a couple friends there, and then back home.

#about me #food mention #literally spending 2-3 hours with a friend can knock me out for days #so it's hard to imagine going on a trip right now #but i did it joe #also maybe i lied about not being ready to mingle #bc truly if the LOML wandered into my backyard i think i would know them immediately and would mingle with them without a second thought

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laforzadelvoila · 1 year ago

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Loreen: how a legacy of warrior women helped the star win Eurovision

I get to sit down not once, but twice, with Loreen, all in the space of a week. Our time together has done my soul a lot of good, she’s definitely calmed me. The first thing you need to know about the Swedish pop star is that spirituality is everything to her. This also leads to the Libra quickly trying to guess every crew member’s star signs on set for her Rolling Stone UK digital cover shoot. We’re meant to delve into the enigma that is Loreen right at the end of a frankly delirious day on set (soundtracked nearly solely by FKA Twigs’ and Pa Salieu’s banger ‘honda’). But everything runs well over and a planned eight-hour day, quickly slips into 11 hours, and she’s pretty exhausted. Our interview is subsequently moved to the weekend to take place at her London hotel. And breathe.

Loreen, a name now so synonymous with Eurovision, never watched the singing event, or its Swedish feeder, Melodifestivalen as a child. She’s one of six kids, raised by a single mum. “I was just a weird kid. I preferred my own company,” she recalls. “I was raised in a big family. A lot of siblings, a lot of helping Mother out because she was alone, trying to make ends meet. We didn’t have much. We had three channels and I didn’t know anything about Melodifestivalen or Eurovision. I just knew at some point in my life, very late though, that I wanted to work with music. I was just trying to find my way wherever I went.” Loreen, 39, has now competed in the Swedish Eurovision selection process four times, making it through twice, and winning both years – pretty good going. Her determination means her name will forever appear in pop music history books.

Raised in a spiritual family, it continues to act as a key component to her personality and outlook on life. She loves nature, star signs, meditating and even has a house she can take herself away to on the remote Swedish island of Gotland. Her Moroccan roots and heritage, she says, provide for a very spiritual backdrop and are a massive influence here, too. “I know what suffering feels like. If you’ve been in pain, and allowed yourself to be in pain, or life has given you painful situations, at some point, when you see another person in pain? Ooof, I can feel that, and I know what you’re going through, I can imagine what you’re going through. That’s why you can’t stop from reacting.”

Her childhood wasn’t easy. Along with her five siblings she grew up “poor”, which led her to start questioning things at an early age. “Why is that happening? Why am I doing that, what is this all about? That’s where spiritually starts,” she says. “So in my house, these conversations happened. ‘Why don’t we have what they have? What’s the purpose of that? That’s unfair. Those people died over there. Why is it like that?’ Spirituality is about questioning your environment and understanding the bigger picture of things.”

Meeting the artist for a second time feels like a huge intake of fresh air. I arrive at Kings Cross, albeit 10 minutes late, and there’s a massive air of calm ready to greet me. Loreen is sitting in the lobby of The Standard London hotel drinking a slightly tepid cup of Earl Grey tea. This time she’s dressed down in an all-black ensemble and instantly recognises me when I arrive. After giving me a hug, she is desperate to know what we’re going to talk about. We settle on: everything.

The star has been vocal about her initial reluctance for a possible Eurovision return. So much so that she originally turned down the idea of using fiery pop anthem ‘Tattoo’ for Melodifestivalen after being sent a demo. How different things could have been. “I was afraid,” she admits. “That was just my initial reaction [when asked to return to Melodifestivalen], because everything went so fast for us. First there was a song, and I loved the song. There was no talking about Melfest. It was just a beautiful song and I wanted to release it.”

From all directions, she was firmly nudged into entering it, in what turned out to be her fourth whirl at Melodifestivalen. “Initially, I said, ‘No, no, no, no!’ I usually do that when I don’t know the purpose of why I’m doing something. Initially, I said no, because I needed time to figure things out. When I say time to figure things out, what I mean is, I need to understand why I do things.”

Everything that happens in Loreen’s life acts as a test, she believes. The prospect of a Eurovision return is a prime example. “What is the story? What can I give you guys? Is this meant for me to do? If you’re at a crossroad, are you going to go right? Or are you going to go left? You can’t really rush into that. That’s why I said no. I said no for a while. I just thought, ‘How do I navigate this?’”

As time passed, signs it was lining up to be a good call started to appear, pointing in her direction. “They were beautiful, beautiful signs. The first was the song, the second sign was the people that I trusted around me, they were so happy whenever I said, ‘Yes’. There were so many positive things happening. People were happy and curious. That’s why I said yes, basically.”

There is such a strong sense of purpose that ripples through everything Loreen does. When she competed in Azerbaijan back in 2012, a country marred by its questionable human rights record, she was the only entrant to meet local human rights activists. She told reporters: “Human rights are violated in Azerbaijan every day. One should not be silent about such things.” An Azerbaijan government spokesman responded critically, calling for the contest to not “be politicised”, and demanded the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) prevent such meetings. But Swedish diplomats stayed firmly on her side. They replied that the EBU, the Swedish broadcaster SVT and Loreen had not acted against the competition’s rules.

Loreen is publicly bisexual, coming out in a TV interview in 2017. Eurovision and the LGBTQ+ community have strong ties, too. Previous LGBTQ+ contestants and winners such as trans star Dana International, drag queen Conchita Wurst and Duncan Laurence have all found success in the competition. She loves her queer fans dearly, too. The ‘Euphoria’ singer told TV host Renée Nyberg at the time: “Many people are so focused on sex, on sexuality. Love is so much more. I usually say ‘Love is where you find it’”. When asked to clarify whether this meant she identifies as bisexual, Loreen said she “quite simply” was.

Unsurprisingly, she has LGBTQ+ fans messaging her all the time. “I absolutely love that. Queer or not queer, I don’t see that, I just see us as people with certain attributes. That’s why I say these are my people. We have the same mindset. The thing is, if somebody asked me, ‘What is freedom, what is feeling free?’, that is just doing exactly what you feel like, expressing yourself exactly the way you want to express yourself. Clothe yourself the way you want to clothe yourself, talk the way you want to talk. Don’t care about what other people think. This is true freedom.”

She goes on passionately: “This community, we know what freedom is about and what that feels like. If you compare it to another community where there are rules and regulations… where someone says, you need to talk like this and be like this, that’s a f**king jail! I cannot do that. For me, when somebody says, ‘You are weird’ to me, that’s [them saying] that I’m free.”

“The women from my mother’s mother’s side, these are real warriors. Historically, the women from my tribe, they’re called Berber.” She explains that this word comes from ‘Barbarian’, and adds: “They were called Barbarians by the Egyptians because they were so aggressive. The women were so aggressive. Isn’t that interesting?” She smiles: “The women from my tribe, they weren’t so interested in monogamy, but being in a relationship. Historically, they went out to the village in search of a man. ‘You’re coming with me,’ right? They did whatever they wanted to do. Then they said, ‘Ta ta,’ and they raised their children by themselves. This whole concept of husband and wife was never a concept. They used these women in war, because they were like, ‘Ahhhhhh!’”

This energy is “generational”, Loreen confirms, but that seemed obvious from the get-go, and especially reflective, she says, through her grandmother. “My great grandmother, my grandmother, all of these women, they had a life presented to them. They were told, ‘This is what your life is going to be like,’ by men, but instead, they were like, ‘F**k no!’ They fought for their freedom. My great grandmother, she loved her husband, he died in the war. They wanted her to marry someone else. So, what does the bitch do? She says, ‘F**k no’.”

Her grandmother took her two children away to a different city, dressed as a man “with a kaftan and everything” and they fled, alongside her housekeeper. “I have pictures of her at home, seriously! She left everything behind, dressed as a man, so that nobody would notice her. She had a cousin in the next city, opened up a store, still dressed as a man, till she got f**king old. She raised those two children by herself with some help from her cousins and never married again. I have a picture of her; she didn’t stop wearing male clothes, she did until she died. The kaftan, the hat, the gold tooth. That was hardcore from my grandma!”

The unravelling of these “huge” stories leads her to repeat my initial question back to me: “So how was it, raised by these women? It’s a lot of pressure!” she laughs. “They have a lot of expectations of me. Like, girl, you better step up your game, change something in the world. It’s crazy to see what women can do. Women are so much more powerful, stronger than men are. That’s why we can have babies and s**t like that, just saying!”

It’s not just the women in her family who provide inspiration, but “all women within the industry that stand their ground”, she tells me. “You can tell when women are standing their ground and not buying into that whole concept of what a woman’s supposed to be. I’m not saying that women aren’t supposed to be sexy. Grace Jones, for instance, she owns her sexuality. She can run around naked. She’s still doing it! There are so many, not even just in the industry. All women [inspire me] because they’re taking positions for the next generation, they’re balancing things up. It’s necessary and it’s inevitable. It’s going to happen. The shift is going to happen, and men will take a step back. The thing is, they’re longing for it, because they’re messing things up…”

Her Eurovision victory was Sweden’s seventh win, and means the nation will host the competition on the 50th anniversary of Abba’s 1974 win. Many fans are begging the group to make a triumphant return to the stage, but after Abba recently created the Voyage experience featuring avatars of themselves, surely that amounts to a deliberate act to make sure they’d never have to perform again? Loreen is convinced they will be at the event. If I were a bookmaker, I’d feel inclined to back her on this.

“They’re going to be there,” she insists. “Maybe not all of them, but they won’t miss it. I promise. How old are they? They all have their own lives. They haven’t really played together in a while. But I’m pretty sure that some of them will be there. Don’t tell them I told you!”

Before she returns to Eurovision again, there’s a giant 2023 in store for Loreen. With tickets for her ‘Tattoo’ tour selling out in literally seconds, it seems Loreen’s going absolutely nowhere. “I’ve been waiting for this tour for years,” she exclaims. “My fans are like, ‘Can you please come to England? Can you please come to Spain? Can you please come to France?’ and now I’m coming! Finally, I’m doing this, and with everything that’s happened with ‘Tattoo’ it’s just a perfect time. I’m longing for it. I’ve longed for it for many years. So it’s going to be nice. I’m a people’s person, I just want to connect.”

Connection is the key feeling again for Loreen. It all feeds back to her spirituality, which has been the dominant force in her life since she was a kid. I point out that there’s no better place for an artist to connect with all their fans than taking themselves on tour. “Yeah! because we gather,” she notes. “They’re there because they want to be there, and I’m there because I want to be there. It’s effortless.” Loreen is already full of ideas. She is, she reminds me, “a bloody creative” after all. “I’m working with the same team that I did ‘Tattoo’ with. It depends on the venues, but it’s going to be a visual performance, obviously.”

She’s heading straight to the studio after our interview. “I haven’t released that much music over the years,” but she promises that absolutely will change. “Now there’s a shift going on, there’s going to be a lot more releases, which is nice. This year and next year. My medium, she told me that!” A move to London is likely, too. “I think it’s actually going to happen. I’m pretty sure. Hello, London! I don’t know what it is, but it’s almost like the UK is a creative hub.” Her top picks of UK artists to work with? Labrinth and Burna Boy. Watch this space.

As our interview wraps, Loreen gives me a huge hug. She made a point of hugging the whole crew on our shoot day earlier in the week, too. It’s a warmth that exudes from her at every stage. “I know we’ll meet again soon,” she says before she departs. “I just know it will happen.”

• Source: Rolling Stone UK •

#eurovision #loreen #news #my post

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